I started this post on Thursday

If anyone would like to start placing bets about the details of the first time I get lost in a foreign country, I'll begin by saying that if I get lost and don't end up in a former Soviet bloc, surrounded by American expatriates a la Gary Shteyngart, I'll hang my head in shame.

On a more local note,

aren't they beautiful? Discounts are a relatively easy and often cheap way to make employees grateful, even if they generally look with contempt upon their workplace. I call them my travelling boots. Technically though, they're still in-the-box boots. Tomorrow will be a tramping day, to break them in.