by Ian Cochrane | Mar 3, 2018 | Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe, Oceania, Utopia
Blogging these days is not like it once was… a fickle, little-read beast at best. And it’s hard to believe that just five years back I chose to take a dip in the blogosphere, a late starter, a wandering writer through the once-was maze of WordPress and...
by Ian Cochrane | Jun 15, 2015 | Europe
In the crowded hotel lobby, my daypack zipper sounds conspicuously loud. I poke a hand inside: a woollen vest, an apple and a light rain jacket – nothing more. I rummage about. Still nothing. Everyone looks when I tip the contents out. A single euro coin rolls across...
by Ian Cochrane | Feb 8, 2015 | Americas, Europe
There’s a raspy laugh, parted purple lips, a toothy gap and shining silver orb perched on a pierced tongue. “French? Me?” Mascaraed eyes shine from an impossibly pallid face. “Like… God no.” There’s a slight lisp, the word...
by Ian Cochrane | Apr 28, 2014 | Europe
From Berlin I’ve flown to Paris late winter, driving north for two hours and overnighting in the hamlet of Behen, a classic French Chateau with stately entry paved for WW2 German tanks, towers and walls from 15th and 18th centuries, the stables once bombed by...
by Ian Cochrane | Feb 16, 2014 | Europe
Four metre waves batter our ferry on the fiercest piece of water in the world. We’re 100km west of the Norwegian mainland and this is the Maelstrom, first mentioned by the Greeks 3000 years ago and immortalised in the iconic writings of Edgar Allen Poe and Jules...
by Ian Cochrane | Jan 19, 2014 | Europe
Outside the station I squint in late summer sun, a grand entrance clad in grey Finnish granite and guarded by lamp-holding titans: stern-faced stone men far too serious to be the animated rap stars of railway advertising campaigns. At their feet, there’s a kid...