abroad

National Geographic Talk Abroad SIM/1070 International SIM Card
$79.00
I bought this sim card because it seemed like a good concept and as a National Geographic Society member, I trusted that they had done their homework before putting their name on a product of this sort. Unlike some other reviewers, I read the description and was aware of the call-back feature. In practice, it worked well enough in the UK, but in the Netherlands, it could only receive calls. When I tried to make a call, I received a message: "you are forbidden to make this call." And no callback. I ended up buying a Dutch sim card for 10 euros and it worked fine.
On my return to the US, I went back to the Amazon website and got permission to return the card, hoping to get a partial refund (I obviously did not expect a full refund, since the card worked fine in the UK). I sent it back and now, 2 months later, have not received a refund, nor has the card been returned to me. You would think that if the company felt I was not entitle to a refund, they would at least have the decency to return the card to me, since it must have had at least $30 of credit on it.
The bottom line is that in most situations you are much better off buying local sim cards abroad. Apparently the attractive idea of using a single sim card throughout much of the world is difficult to implement, and in any event this company cannot be trusted to deal honestly with its customers.

Abroad: British Literary Traveling between the Wars
$34.99
Paul Fussell is universally famous for his extensive studies on the cultural impact of the Twentieth Century Wars. In this 1980 book instead he dedicates his attention to a topic that appears as a serene hiatus between massacres: British travel literature of the 20's-30's. Fussell has no shame in affirming that the books published in this period are the best travelogues ever written, since from the 1930's on "travel" degenerated into "tourism".
The reason of the escape from England of the young literate, witty people of the WWI generation, is identified on one hand in the loathing, disgust and angst due to the terrible experiences of those that had fought in the trenches and on the other of those that bore the meagre economical war situation and restriction of liberty at home. This imperative pulsion to fuge Fussell identifies in the phrase "I Hate it Here", which recurs often as the leitmotif of his work. What writers wanted to flee was England, home, the bad weather, the poverty, so the South and in particular the sunny Mediterranean was elected as a putative home for the body and soul. However travel in the Nineteenth Century was becoming more difficult due the introduction of some limitations, like the passport in the 20s, that posed a practical and psychological problem, forcing people to realize their age, aspect and economical status together with the passing of time due to the photographs always at hand. The "passport nuissance" was accompanied by the formal identifications of many before unrecognized and unmapped frontiers, that caused other problems and reasons for reflexion.
In a long chapter, which reads almost as a bitter moral essay, the Author decribes the evolution from the Nineteenth Century exploration, to travel and to modern tourism, and the influence of this passage on travel books. In this section Fussel's nostalgia of the past is palpable and somehow displeasing, because as all travel narrative addicts know, good books have been written also after the '30's. Following the analysis of the psychological conditions of the travel writers are the practical considerations of the cheapness and sexual freedom of living abroad, that must not be forgotten. Homosexuality, pederasty, irregular unions were a major drive to living abroad.
The following chapters are devoted to the indepth rereading of the Authors Fussell thinks the most influent of the period: the never forgotten and much cried over Robert Byron (this chapter owes much to Christopher Sykes' essay on Byron in "Four Studies in Loyalty"), the cultivated, perverse and irrequietous Norman Douglas, the sun-lover and place seeking and preposition plethoric D.H. Lawrence, the moral anomaly-searcher Evelyn Waugh. Ample excerpta are quoted and commentated to explain each Author's peculiarity and importance.
The conclusive remarks are on the structure and the literary value of travel books, diction which is preferred over "travelogues" or "travel logs". Actually Fussell points out how travel books were the only acceptable way at those times of getting essays (that had passed out of fashion as literary forms) published, together with a mixed bag of poetry, impressions, adventures and anedotes. Essays were not articles in the modern sense of the word, because they had a moral or opinionated connotation. In the travel literature of this period they are joined together with memoirs, comic novels, quest, picaresque and pastoral romance and served to an eagre "exotica" seeking public.
This book is truely a treasure trove. More that deserving to be read and enjoyed, I would say, it must be studied. Anyone loving British travel narrative must have it in his library. Analyzing such a wealth of material from that age it draws out the ideas that join together these Authors and explaining them to full degree consents us to enjoy with greater insight these marvelous works.
One small notation however I must make. British travel literature of the 20s-30s has the characteristic of researching esthetic accomplishment and often this reaches exquisite climaxes. Today we still read some of these books for their sheer beauty. Never in his extensive critique Fussell draws our attention to this not secondary aspect.
Enjoy above all!

India Abroad
$32.00
Covers most of the news from india and all over the world, events, and lots more! Perfect for indians staying in united states!

Innocents Abroad [VHS]
$19.98
The acting in this rather elderly made-for-tv movie is good, not great, being some of the earlier work of stars Craig Wasson, David Ogden Stiers, and Brooke Adams, and some of the special effects aren't very special, but the spirit of fun and the exotic locales are true to Twain's book. I have enjoyed it immensely - several times.