Mostar, Beauty Among the Ruins

After leaving Sarajevo and our misadventures in the Bosnian highland villages, we arrived in Mostar. Our arrival was a little rocky, we got lost finding our hostel and were underwhelmed by the communist style buildings all around us. In fact, our hostel was located in what appeared to be a old and mostly abandoned apartment complex.

Bombed out building in Mostar

Sarajevo has healed many of its scars. Mostar has not. At least towards the city edges, the rubble of war is still very raw. Burned out buildings and bullet holes were highly visible as we walked from our hostel to the old town. But in the end, the war ruins that we passed just made the big reveal all the more shocking, because Mostar is gorgeous.

Today's Photo: The Nile in Cairo

The Nile in Cairo

November in Review

A Trip Down Blog Memory Lane??

Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving. I can't believe November is already over. Crazy. But at least it means I can skip a day of blogging for a cheap clip show post. Its time for another Trip Down Blog Memory Lane (still trying to make the photo seem relevent).

 (Also if you missed October's Month in Review, you can check it out here)

L'appel du Vide Highlights

 This month I did several Photo Essays about a variety of topics. A few, such as one covering the McPherson Square Occupy DC camp, and another with images painted on the Palestine Wall in Bethlehem covered current political topics. Others were more fun, such as my photos of Fall in DC, Pictures from the Egyptian Spice Market in Istanbul and pictures from my visit to Philadelphia's Magic Garden.

Another current issue I covered this month was the post about the issues surrounding Landmines in Cambodia.

In November, I also did a short series on managing your money during travel. The first post dealt with tracking your spending while the second gave tips for minimizing trip costs. This month I also gave travel advice on filing complaints when travel service companies don't live up to your expectations.

Blog Updates
As you may have noticed, the big change this month is that I am no longer just another generic blogger URL. I now have my own domain name: http://www.travelingliz.org/!

In the words of the caped crusader: Same Bat Time, Same Bat Information, New Bat Location.

I also have a new feature: "Reader Questions" where I answer your questions about travel and share some of my own experiences. This month's question was about safety concerns when visiting Peru.

Guest Posts
This month, I had guest posts at two other fellow female traveler blogs:

• Over at A Dangerous Business, I wrote about my time volunteering in rural Belize : Don't Stop Belizing: Volunteering in Rural Belize
• Twenty-Something Travel ran s post I wrote about my solo cruise down the Nile in January 2010: A Nile Cruise Through Time

You can always check out all my guest posts here.

 Featured

Several of my posts were featured on other blogs this month:

• The Planet D listed my post about spending Friday night in Jerusalem, Sabbath in the City, as a Highlight in their Saturday Travel Roundup.
• Suzy Guese mentioned my post about travel gone wrong in Prague, My Day of No, in her Suzy Stumbles over Travel (Nov 7) segment.
• Suzy Guese also mentioned my post about the Security Wall in Palestine, Oh Little Town of Bethlehem: Photos of the Palestine Wall, in her Suzy Stumbles over Travel (Nov 22) segment.
• Michelle Cusolito featured my series of posts about money management while traveling on her blog's Travel Tuesday Segment.

Other Travel Blogs
Here are the posts I enjoyed reading this month from other Travel Blogs:

• Angie at "Angie Away" wrote a great post about her experience with the Running of the Bulls. I've been to Spain, but not for this festival so it was cool to hear a first hand account.
•  Katie at "Katie Going Global" wrote a really interesting article about mistakes she has made while traveling.  I don't know why, but I never get tired hearing about other people's travel misadventures. I feel they always end up making a better story.
• Stephanie over at "20 Something Travel" shared some pictures of street art from her trip to Bogota, Colombia. As I've mentioned before, I think street art is a really interesting window into a place's culture and political views.
• Ray at "Man on the Lam" wrote a hilarious post called The Agony and the Air Con about his bus trip from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh. I've done my share of crazy transportation while traveling, so this was easy to relate to.