Virgin Islands are a part of the Lesser Antilles, which form the border between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. They were originally named by Columbus, after a Catholic legend. The eastern islands form the British Virgin Islands and the western ones form the United States Virgin Islands (which used to belong to Denmark). [...]

Côte d’Ivoire is a country in West Africa, also known as Ivory Coast. As the name suggests it is a former colony of France and French remains the official language. Religion-wise it is quite heterogenous, with large populations practicing Christianity, Islam and their mixtures with local religions. In the past 15 years it has experienced [...]

Moldova is a small country in Eastern Europe, a former Soviet state. It is located near the Black Sea, but landlocked. Most of the people are of Moldovan ethnicity, Orthodox and speak Moldovan, though there is dispute whether they are a separate group from Romanians or not. Moldova is not known for much, except for [...]

Chad is a large landlocked country in Central Africa. It is one of the poorest and most corrupted countries of the world and most Westerners probably know nothing about it. As is common in Africa, it is home to over 200 ethnic groups and like many African countries, it unfortunately has a history of civil [...]

Eritrea is a small country in the Horn of Africa, a single-party republic (gulp). In 2010 it received the lowerst press freedom rating in the world. It has been in constant problems, including a 30-year war, with the neighbouring Ethiopia. Eritrea used to host a large population of elephants, but currently there are thought to [...]

Swaziland is a small, landlocked country almost entirely cocooned by South Africa. It was formerly a colony of the United Kingdom, now ruled by king Mswati III. The people are mostly Swazis who speak the Bantu language Swazi (also known as siSwati). Even compared to other African countries, the impact of AIDS in Swaziland has [...]

Ireland is one of the largest islands in the world. The northern tip of it belongs to the United Kingdom while the rest forms the Republic of Ireland. Besides English many Irish people also speak Irish, but it is no longer the main language. Ireland has a distinctive culture (much more than just beer, leprechauns [...]

Uzbekistan is a former Soviet state, now an independent Turkic state, a double-landlocked country (only surrounded by other landlocked countries) and the most populous country (over 27 million people) in Central Asia. The climate has significant temperature variation with summers being as warm as 40C (104F) and winters as cool as -23C (-9F). Numbers aside, [...]

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. I have some major life changes happening in the next weeks, so unfortunately posts will still be sparse until mid September or so, possibly even longer. Writing this blog has made me realize how little I remember of the geography lessons I had in school. Not only are [...]

Belgian cuisine is not particularly famous save for its chocolates, but one thing you can buy everywhere in Belgium (and the Netherlands) is French fries. Besides ketchup they are eaten with mayo, various mayo-based sauces and a psychedelic variety of other sauces people in most other countries would never think of eating with fries. There [...]