Barcelona, Undaunted
Matt Goulding | Roads & Kingdoms
“2017 has been a summer of discontent in the Catalan capital. The steadily-simmering anger and frustration surrounding Barcelona’s booming tourism industry finally boiled over in the early days of July, as groups of young malcontents aimed random acts of violence and vandalism towards outsiders. Locals in Barceloneta staged beachside protests, unspooling floating signs in the Mediterranean as a reminder to visitors and officials alike that this is their neighborhood, too. Travelers at El Prat airport have staggered through three-hour security lines, the result of a protracted strike from weary employees rundown from ever-increasing numbers that require their vigilance. Turismofobia, long a minor ailment in Spain, grew into a full-blown disease.”
* * *
Life in Little Pyongyang
David Josef Volodzko | Roads & Kingdoms
“In the summer of 1955, the bombed-out ruins of Pyongyang were still smoldering when groups of North Koreans began slipping south through the borderlands. They crept onto trains and rode through tunnels and mountain passes, clinging to the roofs of passenger cars to avoid inspection agents, leaping off before train station security could spot them, then making their way through burning forests and desolate villages gutted by U.S. air strikes to the banks of the icy Tumen or Anbok rivers, where they crossed at night to evade military patrols or sniper guards.
