I recently lucked into a quick trip to Rome with my girlfriend. While she was at work, I spent the day photobombing the place.

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MEDELLÍN — Today, the usual chill of Bogotá is a memory while I soak up the eternal spring warmth of Medellín, Colombia’s second city. All around me ferns, palms and old hardwoods compete to see which can pop in a green burst against the impossibly blue sky and soaring mountains cradling this city. After the grey grime of Bogotá, it’s like I’ve forgotten what colors are.

My first impressions of Medellín are that it’s spotlessly clean, populated by beautiful, laid-back people. It’s a far cry from the high, cold capital where white collar workers with panicked, strained expressions pack the buses as they rush to work at 6 a.m. Medellín is a serious temptation as the place to live in Colombia. Read More

STANDING A FEW miles above the Earth’s surface, I stared down at the glaciers and ridges of New Zealand’s Southern Alps and gulped. My legs were dangling out of an airplane, and in a few seconds, it would be time for me to jump.

I suffer from what the French call l’appel du vide, or “the call of the void.” (The closest English equivalent might be “death wish.”) It’s an urge, when you reach the edge of a high drop, to throw yourself into the great beyond. It has called to me at the edges of cliffs, on the observation deck of the Empire State Building and even at the top of stepladders when I’ve been changing light bulbs. It’s a feeling that starts in the pit of my stomach—and it has engendered in me a profound terror of heights.

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