The US Department of State warns of recurring political protests throughout Togo. They began in August 2017, with some turning violent, especially in the northern city of Sokodé. Both protesters and security force members have been injured, and some have been killed, during the demonstrations.
The Zimbabwean military staged a coup on Nov. 18, sending tanks and troops into the capital, Harare, where they took over government and media buildings and placed president Robert Mugabe and his allies into custody. The coup was peaceful and no one was killed, though the military was accused of abusing some arrested politicians. People demonstrated in favor of the military during the event.
Rebels in the Ukrainian region of Luhansk attacked Ukrainian soldiers with mortars and rifles on Nov. 24, killing five soldiers. Ukraine claims to have killed eight rebels in a counterattack.
A car bomb exploded in a market in the town of Tuz Khurmatu in northern Iraq on Nov. 21, killing at least 23 people and injuring 60 others. No group took responsibility for the attack, but Daesh (ISIL) was suspected.
Tuz Khurmatu was recently recovered from Kurdish control by the Iraqi Army. It had been controlled by Iraqi Kurdistan forces since they defeated Daesh in the region in 2014.
A suicide bomber struck a mosque full of worshipers in the town of Aubi, within the state of Adamawa in northeastern Nigeria, on Nov. 21, killing at least 50 people. As of press time, no group had claimed responsibility for the attack, but authorities believed that the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, which has been involved in an insurgency in Nigeria for eight years, was responsible.
Typhoon Damrey made landfall in Vietnam on Nov. 4, killing at least 106 people — with many still missing as of press time and assumed dead — and destroying at least 116,000 homes. Flooding occurred throughout the country, including in Da Nang, which was hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit that week.
One weather station recorded 67 inches of rain falling during the week that the typhoon was active over the country.
In the northern-Sinai town of Bir al-Abed, terrorists posing as Egyptian military attacked a mosque with bombs and guns on Nov. 24, killing more than 300 people and injuring at least 100 others. It was the deadliest single attack in Egypt in decades. The attackers also created roadblocks with burning cars and fired on ambulances making their way to the scene. It is believed that at least 30 attackers were involved in the incident.
A magnitude-7.3 earthquake struck a region of Iran near the border with Iraq on Nov. 13, killing more than 540 people, at least 530 in Iran alone, and injuring more than 8,000 others. It is estimated that more than 80,000 people were left without homes, with temperatures in the region dropping below freezing after the quake. More than 200 aftershocks occurred in the days following the quake.
Several years ago, while having lunch in Rome, my husband, Bucky Edgett, and I struck up a conversation with a Norwegian couple at the table next to us. They were from Aurskog, Norway. We exchanged contact information and kept in touch by email and Christmas cards.
In 2016, we booked a trip to Nashville, Tennessee, to see the solar eclipse in August 2017. Among the photos of participants, we saw that there was a couple from Aurskog.
When my wife, Kim, and I first started thinking about where to go in Europe in 2017, the idea of Bulgaria and Romania came to mind. After doing some research, we realized that there is so much to do in Bulgaria, it deserved to be our only destination for our trip, Sept. 1-17, 2017.