I dash over the level crossing, hoping to make it to the other side before the warning lights start to signal that a train is approaching, arriving breathless at the platform in time to see my air-conditioned train glide into the station.

Aron Senay is looking to dominate. He sells a lifestyle, not just handbags. The carefully designed handbags and accessories, largely targeted at female customers, craft a personality. The visual advertising of his brand Negesti indicates as much.

If there is one thing a ferengi likes to do on a holiday: it’s to browse the local market looking for souvenirs to wow their friends with back at home. Often, holiday-makers are taken to tourist-friendly markets selling local handicrafts and are left to browse for an hour or so before the bus picks them up.

Ethiopia is booming in many areas, none more so than in its embrace of the humble grain of durum wheat. Nestled in between traditional eateries, stores and banks on the main roads or hidden in tiny side streets, the Italian Restaurants provide an added dimension to the culinary delights of the city of Addis Ababa.

Many roads have led me to Ethiopia. I have always wanted to experience the Africa you see on documentaries - the wide open plains, the sand of the vast Sahara, the mighty Kilimanjaro, elephants and wildebeest and traditional tribespeople.

The National Theater hosted a book release by wildlife photographer and filmmaker Aziz Ahmed.

The evening began three and a half hours late as organizers scrambled to get the hall ready and begin the competition. Attendants milled around the entrance in those hours, patiently waiting for the pageant to begin.

“Single, married, busy or lazy,” reads an advertisement posted inside the compound of Bole Arabssa Condominium. With the huge number of ads posted here and there, it is very unlikely for a person to notice a particular ad. But this one stands out, the color, size and layout demands attention.

Stormy clouds, unpredictable rain and hail, road traffic getting increasingly worse, horrid queues for taxis, muddy roads that hardly ever consider pedestrians, the stifling air of Addis Ababa can feel much worse during kiremt months.

“'Out Of The Past' was the name of the store, and its products consisted of memories: what was prosaic and even vulgar to one generation had been transmuted by the mere passing of years to a status at once magical and also camp.” These are the opening lines to Gil Pender’s novel in Woody Allen’s Midnight to Paris.