The start of an ongoing series of observing the U.S. Presidential elections from abroad. Today, a survey of the political mood from across the world so far. Next, a piece on the Obama factor in his father’s native Kenya.

Throughout our travels, we have sought to get a sense of where people stand on political issues, and in particular, whether they have any thoughts about the candidates in the U.S. primary race for president. The topic usually follows a relatively predictable script in which people first deride Bush and express their sincerest hopes that whoever follows him will demonstrate a little more competence and international goodwill.

The general non-American opinion on this year’s primary candidates is not very nuanced, due to a lack of substantive information in most smaller foreign newspapers, but it is hard to blame them, especially considering there were about 15 candidates in total when the Democrats and Republicans began the race for the nomination.

Occasionally, we come across a political buff that has taken an interest in the race and has lots of questions, but in a primary season that is so exaggeratedly lengthy, most of the world just doesn’t have the time or energy to constantly keep up. On the whole, it can be safely said that the Republican Party does not have a very good reputation outside of the U.S., and the vast majority of the people we meet seem to be looking to the Democrats to undo what many see as an overly aggressive eight years of U.S. policy.
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Walking the streets of Sofia, Bulgaria, we chanced upon one of the worlds top chess tournaments and took a peek in. Headlining the tournament, two Bulgarians go head to head. Here, former world chess champion Veselin Topalov (left) on his way to stump his fellow national, Ivan Cheparinov. Make your move in today’s photo gallery.

Walk the streets and take a tour of downtown Sofia, Bulgaria. See it in today’s photo gallery.

Five thousand miles east of the planet’s commercial capital New York City, in yesteryear’s global capital of Istanbul, Turkey, pirate music vendors freely peddle CDs packed with hundreds of MP3s to customers at rock bottom prices without a care in the world.

They are not preoccupied with the thought of being busted by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and the local police force certainly does not have the time, in Europe’s largest city, to deal with petty pirate vendors. Istanbul is a city famous for its bazaars filled with knock-off goods, and the music and movies sold here are no exception.

One of the interesting perspectives we’ve gained from our whirlwind trip around the globe is a broad survey of the pirated goods available in each of the countries that we’ve visited. Read the rest of this entry »

BELGRADE, SERBIA – Just out of curiosity, we went to a political rally for the ultra-conservative party in Serbia today. The national parties are campaigning for support before upcoming elections, and the main issue is still the dispute over Kosovo. See today’s photos here.

BELGRADE, SERBIA - With our local hosts, we took to the streets of Belgrade to see what the city looks and feels like. We rambled through churches and parks, past the great Danube River, and got caught up for a moment at, of all places, the U.S. Embassy. Walk the streets with us in today’s gallery…

ISTANBUL, TURKEY - Halfway around the world, and four months on the road, there are two constants we’ve learned: One, sightseeing is fine and dandy, but it’s the people that make the place. And two, the dirty clothes sniff test that we thought had been well tested in college, well… let’s just say that we’ve lowered the bar slightly.

Symbolically, more through luck of the calendar than outright planning, the night train from outside of Venice, Italy, to Zagreb, Croatia, crossed over more than just another nation’s boundaries. Somewhere shortly after midnight on April 30th, we straddled a point where four months of travel was behind us, and with another four months ahead of us to go we left the world of the familiar and headed into the unknown.

Getting off the train at five that morning, Cyrillic letters and a whole new set of experiences came into light with the rising sun.

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Map it
With all these destinations, a map would be useful wouldn’t it? It’s a major feature we’ve been lacking and now we’re ready to go live with it. Swing on over to bostonglobe.longjaunt.com/map/. Going forward you’ll be able to see where we’ve been, where we are, and where our general itinerary is going to bring us. Click on the pin of any one of the 42 destinations we’ve been to so far and you’ll see all of the photo galleries from our visit there.

See it all
Or if you want to explore by date, click on over to bostonglobe.longjaunt.com/photos/2008/ where you’ll get a chance to peek into every intimately documented day of the trip since we started on January 1st.

Your Journey
Which brings us to another point - we haven’t been doing that great a job in putting the you in our tagline: “Our trip. Your journey.” Even though we just broke 1,000,000 pages served up to viewers like you, we all agree, there are many areas of the blog with room for improvement. We’d really like to hear what you’ve liked about the trip so far, what you think can be improved upon, and what you’d like to see added to it. See that comment field on the bottom of the blog page (right here) – please use it.

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There’s a common saying out here on the road: “Where are we again?” Since leaving the Western Hemisphere, we’ve been to 11 different countries and countless places in between. We have a hard time keeping up ourselves, so just in case you’ve missed it, here are some of our more notable days and articles on the jaunt so far since leaving New York for the second time:

	Belgrade Serbia | Belgrade, Serbia - 05/07 With our local hosts, we took to the streets of Belgrade to see what the city looks and feels like. We rambled through churches and parks, past the great Danube River, and got caught up for a moment at, of all places, the U.S. Embassy.
	Magical Split | Split, Croatia - 05/03 Wandering the streets of Split there was plenty to feast our eyes on, from the ancient marble buildings to the local cultural events to the picturesque waterfront.
	Dawn to dusk in Rome | Rome, Italy - 04/21 Today we got out on the street before the sun was up to see Rome from dawn to dusk. It was a whirlwind tour that took us to many of Rome's famous sights before the crowds showed up, which was well worth the lack of sleep.
	Exploring Berlin | Berlin, Germany - 04/16 With such a storied past, Berlin makes for a interesting city to explore.
	Dutch country living | Amsterdam, Netherlands - 04/08 Tired of city life, we decided to take our bikes and head out of the city to check out some of the more rural villages of the Waterlands region, north of town.
	Stuck in Tsavo East | Tsavo East, Kenya - 04/01 With no big cat sightings on our two previous safaris, we decide to splurge and try for one last jaunt into the wilderness - and get stuck in the mud deep in lion territory.
	The streets of Mombasa | Mombasa, Kenya - 03/30 Situated along Kenya's Indian Ocean seaboard, Mombasa's prime location and calm waters made this island a much coveted city.
	The icons of London | London, England - 03/24 We make a quick, but packed, tour of London, catching the Tower Bridge, Regent Street, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and the London Eye.

How David Hasselhoff brought down the Berlin Wall | Berlin, Germany - Brian Rogers
Since our stay in Germany, we’ve caught on that David Hasselhoff comes up a lot for Germans. Rumor has it that he’s “big,” as they say, in Germany. “It happens every time I have visitors here,” revealed Ayla Kiran, our host in Berlin. “One of the first things they ask is ‘Is he really a star here?’ ” Denials or explanations must then be made to put the whole story into context, and, if all goes well, put it behind them.

“Taking” photos | Mombasa, Kenya - Alicia Conway
While poised to take a photo of a street scene, a teenager with what must have been an entire bag of chips on his shoulder shouted at me. “It’s not fair, sister. It is not fair. This is not London. You are not on safari. These are not animals to be photographing.” With that, he rounded the corner and was gone, most likely without any concept of what he had left in his wake.

The people we meet: Benard Langat | Nairobi, Kenya – Mike Kurtz
It’s the people that we meet that make a place; for us, the face of Kenya will always be that of Benard Langat’s. A long distance runner, hoping to make it onto the international scene, Benard graciously found time in the middle of his busy training schedule to show us around Nairobi.

SARAJEVO, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA - After just a tease of Sarajevo, we took off on a night train to Belgrade, the capital of the former Yugoslavia and the currently independent nation of Serbia. A relaxing trip turned into a wild ride when we were paid a visit by a very energetic Bosnian. Check out all the action in today’s gallery…

SARAJEVO, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA - With only 24 hours to get from Split on Adriatic coast to Belgrade we sadly had to breeze through the beautiful (and once war torn) country of Bosnia and Herzegovina in one day. Check out the day’s photos here…