Tag: focus

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DisIntegration Experiences: 5

I convey my journey in countries and societies, based on my perspective and only my own experiences. I encourage you to contribute, ask questions and offer your own views. This platform is not complete without your contribution. Posting extracts from my upcoming book.

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Sites were full of colorful online reviews about the Paris, their airport plus their service and attitude:  "You cannot have a world class airport with third world transport to the city center”  “One simply grits one's teeth",  “Zero out of ten impressed”, “Wondering if terminal 2D could be the worst airport terminal in Europe". "Crowded, dirty, terrible shops, no catering, and the only lounge is airside, meaning that you have to leave the (admittedly poor) lounge one hour before the flight departs “This terminal requires immediate demolition!" "Certainly unlikely to bother visiting Paris again as not worth the unpleasant experience of the airport"

Knowing now what I know about the hideous shit I would dip my fingers into during the next ten years after my arrival to Charles de Gaulle airport – I just hope I would have had some sense and taken the next plane out of the country right there and then. Hell, I wish those canister throwers would have reached the airport and chased me to Germany, or anywhere else for that matter!

Photo by Skyler Smith
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DisIntegration Experiences: 3

I convey my journey in countries and societies, based on my perspective and only my own experiences. I encourage you to contribute, ask questions and offer your own views. This platform is not complete without your contribution. Posting extracts from my upcoming book.

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PROLOGUE (THE FOREIGNER)

With hindsight it was pretty far from the best moment to arrive at the main airport in France that Friday night in November 2005.

It was pouring with rain, and by Saturday 4th, the ninth of unrest and protest, there had been 259 arrests, a dozen men and women had been injured and more than 2,141 vehicles burnt. The suburbs of Paris were ablaze and the fever had spread uncontrollably to Lyon, Strasbourg and Rouen - political mismanagement fueling the rage of the most impoverished of France's citizens. Cars had been torched and buildings smashed. Riot police moved in, firing rubber bullets and tear gas. Fighting escalated. The rioters grew in number to 400. The Sunday before word spread that a tear-gas canister of the kind used by the police had been thrown on to the doorstep of the Bilal mosque up in northern Paris...

 

Photo by Norbu Gyachung
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DisIntegration Experiences: 2

In the coming weeks I am posting extracts from my upcoming book. It's is about my experiences trying to integrate into different societies.

I convey my journey in countries and societies, based on my perspective and only my own experiences. I communicate my trials and errors of integration to you – without any filters. Welcome enquiring minds and those who want answers. I encourage you to contribute, ask questions and offer your own views. This platform is not complete without your contribution.

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Experiences on Integration: 1

Welcome back to Red Breast’s blog after a long break!! It’s been hot here in Portugal lately – I hope the rest of you are enjoying a more cool summer somewhere out there, even if I doubt it.

News. I am working on a new project - a book. In the coming weeks I will posting extracts here … So stay TUNED!  This book is about my experiences trying to integrate into different societies.

This not an embassy-approved manual of vaccinations needed, nor a best-practices guide of how to hob-knob at a local cocktail party. It lays bare the psychology of being a stranger in a foreign society. All is based on personal observations and experiences without referencing solely previous works, neither statistics nor research.

Who might this be for? For anybody who is interested in understanding what lies beneath the stereotypes of encountering and living in new societies.

I hope this no-nonsense account will give you more perspective of the true values, interests, preferences, strengths and weaknesses of living abroad than a regular travel book. Because the best truth, is what happened.

I lived my first 25 years in Finland, before moving first to The Netherlands, then to the UK and France now Portugal.

Back soon ...

 

Photo by Alex Paganelli

 

 

 

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Journalists Packaging it All For You – Meet the Press

The world is in chaos, but luckily the all-knowing, wise, reliable, transparent reporter is here to hold your hand.

You don’t even have to think for yourself – they will do it for you. And give you

  • The way you should approach the issue
  • The underlying problems
  • What the solution is

Ain’t that nice.

But hang on…do you think Brexit is working? You can’t mean that surely. And what about Trump?! Get a grip on yourself. You don’t mean to tell me that guy has some point in something he is uttering.

Don’t you dare … you must surely be

  • Combative
  • A Nationalist
  • A Populist
  • Confrontational
  • Anti-EU
  • Anti-Establishment

 

Photo by Elijah O'Donell