Bob Gaulke’s description of his travels in Salvador (a region of Brazil), in The Nervous Tourist (Future Tense Books), evokes the age of imperialism. His background and education afford him the opportunity to make a decent living teaching English, but he is very much an outsider, trying to negotiate his enthusiasm and wariness of culture, politics and local customs. It is the allure of Brazilian music that tempts Gaulke overseas, but he is not a post-colonial tourist. He involves himself with the residents of Brazil through friendship, English classes and interviews with young people about their love/hate relationship with America. There are some classic repressed-Westerner- abroad moments, such as when Gaulke learns to love the sunga (a tiny local swimsuit), to navigate the magic realism of the bus system and to party Salvador-style during Carnaval. This is a modest chapbook, but it contains insightful, engaging and funny writing about the eye-opening experience of travel.