Bryson brings his unique brand of humour to travel writing as he shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet and heads for Europe.  Travelling with Stephen Katz--also his wonderful sidekick inA Walk in the Woods--he wanders from Hammerfest in the far north, to Istanbul on the cusp of Asia.  As he makes his way round this incredibly varied continent, he retraces his travels as a student twenty years before with caustic hilarity.From the Trade Paperback edition. Review “Bryson is first and foremost a storyteller - and a supremely comic and original one at that.” -Winnipeg Free PressFrom the Trade Paperback edition. From the Inside Flap Bryson brings his unique brand of humour to travel writing as he shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet and heads for Europe.  Travelling with Stephen Katz--also his wonderful sidekick inA Walk in the Woods--he wanders from Hammerfest in the far north, to Istanbul on the cusp of Asia.  As he makes his way round this incredibly varied continent, he retraces his travels as a student twenty years before with caustic hilarity.From the Trade Paperback edition. About the Author Bill Bryson, born in Iowa in 1951, settled in England in 1977 and lived for many years with his English wife and four children in North Yorkshire. He recently moved back to the U.S. His other books areThe Lost Continent, Notes from a Small Islandand A Walk in the Woods, as well as two acclaimed books about the English language,Mother Tongue andMade in America.From the Trade Paperback edition. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter OneTo the NorthIn winter, Hammerfest is a thirty-hour ride by bus from Oslo, though why anyone would want to go there in winter is a question worth considering. It is on the edge of the world, the northernmost town in Europe, as far from London as London is from Tunis, a place of dark and brutal winters, where the sun sinks into the Arctic Ocean in November and does not rise again for ten weeks.I wanted to see the Northern Lights. Also, I had long harbored a half-formed urge to experience what life was like in such a remote and forbidding place. Sitting at home in England with a glass of whiskey and a book of maps, this had seemed a capital idea. But now as I picked my way through the gray late December slush of Oslo, I was beginning to have my doubts.Things had not started well. I had overslept at the hotel, missing breakfast, and had to leap into my clothes. I couldn't find a cab and had to drag my ludicrously overweight bag eight blocks through slush to the central bus station. I had had huge difficulty persuading the staff at the Kreditkassen Bank on Karl Johansgate to cash sufficient travelers' checks to pay the extortionate 1,200-kroner bus fare - they simply could not be made to grasp that the William McGuire Bryson on my passport and the Bill Bryson on my travelers' checks were both me - and now here I was arriving at the station two minutes before departure, breathless and steaming from the endless uphill exertion that is my life, and the girl at the ticket counter was telling me that she had no record of my reservation."This isn't happening," I said. "I'm still at home in England enjoying Christmas. Pass me a drop more port, will you, darling?" Actually, I said: "There must be some mistake. Please look again."The girl studied the passenger manifest. "No, Mr. Bryson, your name is not here."But I could see it, even upside down. "There it is, second from the bottom.""No," the girl decided, "that says Bernt Bjørnson. That's a Norwegian name.""It doesn't say Bernt Bjørnson. It says Bill Bryson. Look at the loop of the y, the two l's. Miss, please."But she wouldn't have it."If I miss this bus when does the next one go?""Next week at the same time."Oh, splendid."Miss, believe me, it says Bill Bryson.""No, it doesn't.""M