Archive sections: ‘From an Expat’
This weekend I got a bit of a surprise and although to say that I was “gobsmacked” might be a bit of an overstatement, I was certainly taken aback.
Douglas Adams, the author of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy“, (HHGTTG or H2G2 to aficionados), may be famous for his answer to “the great question of … Life, the Universe and Everything … “, (that is: “forty-two”), but his quirky sense of humour also resulted in a number of interesting “one liners”. One of [...]
Almost two weeks ago, we marked my fifteen years here in Kyrgyzstan. Today, Saturday August 7th, we mark the tenth anniversary of the opening of our hotel, The Silk Road Lodge, here in Bishkek. Birthdays and Anniversaries are taken very seriously here in Kyrgyzstan. People like to take every opportunity for holding a celebration. When [...]
In the far off days of my youth, getting letters was something that happened quite rarely … it was quite an event. “Snail mail” was the only option open to us, (apart from the telephone, but we only got a telephone late on), and it took a couple of days for letters to arrive – [...]
During the week I cam across a news item headed: “Initiative group translates famous Kyrgyz movies into English“. According to the article, a group of Kyrgyz citizens living abroad have put together a plan for a Festival of Kyrgyz films, and in preparation for this have already translated several films into English, such as: Gennadiy [...]
I have always been attracted by linguistic quirks, conundrums and puns, such as: What’s the longest word in the English language? James Joyce’s spelling for the word “fish” as “ghoti” … What word rhymes with “orange”? Which European capital sounds like multiplying? What is the longest word in English which doesn’t contain a vowel? What [...]
The Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, (HIPC), operated by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, (IMF), was established in 1966 to offer debt relief and low interest loans to countries that qualified for the programme so that they could reduce their external debt to sustainable levels. It was felt that no poor country [...]
Michael J. Fox encountered a number of dilemmas as Marty McFly in the 1985 Stephen Spielberg film, “Back to the Future”. One of those dilemmas gave the film it’s title – having been thrust 50 years into the past, how was Fox/McFly to return home? The film was a great success: it was the highest [...]
Tuesday, this week, was a big day for me. Well, not exactly a big day, but a “red letter day”, an anniversary. My fifteenth anniversary.
It’s amazing what you come across when surfing the internet. I was caught by surprise one day this week when I cam across a blog entry that a simple question. Lake Issyk Kul in North Eastern Kyrgyzstan is the world’s second largest mountain lake and stands at an altitude of 1600 meters above sea level. [...]
