Naples. A missed train. Three hours to kill. I left my bag at the luggage drop and walked up toward the Quartieri. Narrow alleys, laundry strung between balconies like festival banners when there is no festival, the smell of espresso brawling with fried street food. Then down toward the water, down to Santa Lucia. An old man was sitting on his doorstep with a fishing net across his lap. He gestured for me to sit down, with that warmth of ours where any stranger is just a cous

My phone rang. It was a friend. He asked if I had five minutes to grab a coffee. We met at the corner coffee shop, one of those places you walk into expecting a quick turnaround. We were standing at the counter. The air smelled of freshly ground coffee; cups clinked against saucers, the espresso machine hissed out steam behind him, and bright morning light sliced through the front window. In those five minutes, he told me he was leaving. Moving across the world. For good. I r

Norway is high mountains and deep fjords. It is plains and coastal landscapes, islands and islets. It is lush fields and gentle heaths. It is dark winter days and bright summer nights. It is both salty and sweet, dried fish and fermented trout, mutton stew and cured lamb ribs. But Norway is, above all, people. Norwegians are people from Northern Norway, Central Norway, Southern Norway—and people from all the other regions. Norwegians have also immigrated from Afghanistan, P

There are men who spend what feels like forever inside one inch of sky. I met one of them. He was restoring the ceiling of an old church in a nearby town. The church was no longer used for worship, and they were turning it into a music hall. He worked lying on a scaffold, with his face only forty centimetres from the plaster. A very fine brush. A magnifying glass. A lamp that was too hot. He knew that blue better than anyone else. He knew it came from a stone brought from Afg