• Escalator - Centre Pompidou, Paris, France

    Because the Slacking Universe Needs a Center

    I am selflessly volunteering. It starts with some kind of twitch, I think, and from what I can gather, most of you are afflicted with some form of this thing, too: After going some while without being on a plane across an ocean, without having another stamp in the passport, without the struggle of a strange language in a strange land, without the gastrointestinal chaos that inevitably comes from cuisine found just the other side of one’s sphere of microbial familiarity, the twitch metastasizes.

    June 18, 2005
  • Duo Concerto - Krakow, Poland

    The Man Who Stopped the Sun

    The massive, grey odes to Communist architecture are everywhere. The central train station, dark, depressing and dirty, is gargantuan, like its own underground Gotham City. It’s a labrynth of snack shops, clothing stores, internet cafes. While the blocky buildings give Warsaw a distinct historical style, modernity is moving quickly to catch up.

    July 28, 2004
  • Balcony - Poznan, Poland

    My big, fat Polish dinner

    It was a good introduction. I arrived in Poznan, Poland, by train from Berlin and after a day of travel originating at 3 am in Istanbul, Turkey, I needed food. Polish “milk bars” define no-frills eating, as if your high school cafeteria was redesigned without all that fancy decor.

    July 26, 2004
  • Time Travel - Blue Mosque, Istanbul, Turkey

    Not Istanbul, It’s Constantinople

    With apologies to They Might Be Giants, I’ve been spoiled by Morocco. Again. In Istanbul, I was hoping for, and indeed expecting, a city teetering on the edge of two worlds. Straddling Europe and Asia, on the edge of the Middle East (Turkey’s neighbor to the east is Iraq), I expected crazy.

    July 25, 2004
  • Bus Station Towers - Izmir, Turkey

    Ride on, Cowboy.

    It’s awful. Really. So impossible looking is this, well, thing, that seeing it in person has served to shatter the mythical tales of its triumphant use.The legendary Trojan Horse is probably the most ridiculous looking thing I have ever seen.

    July 23, 2004

  • Genuine Fake Watches

    I am no fan of organized bus tours, led by the half-interested guide,with too-brief stops at too few places. So in the face of a thousand brochures for package tour operators, I set out on my own on regular bus service to Selcuk. Stashing my backpack at the bus depot, I set out to walk the 3 km back to my intended destination: Ephesus.

    July 18, 2004

  • The Dictator Next Door

    The first bombs fell about 10 pm. Their arrival was no surprise — journalists left the city two days prior. Residents gathered in Cold War-era shelters as the air raid sirens wailed and radio reports warned of the need for gas masks. The state-run television station blinked out. Explosions erupted around the city and the lights went black.

    July 5, 2004
  • Church and Castle - Lake Bled, Slovenia

    Club Bled

    Set on an emerald blue lake, surrounded by the gentle mountains that mark the beginning of the Julian Alps, Bled has been a tourist favourite for decades. About a hundred decades, in fact, as the resort town of 5000 people is celebrating its thousandth year.

    July 1, 2004
  • Centromerkur - Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Ciao and Ciao

    My visit to Italy lasts less than five hours. The lines long, the hostels full, the breakfast expensive (but still exquisitely delicious), I’m out of Venice in under 45 minutes, moving eastward again to Trieste, where a bus takes me across the border to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. Its beauty is classic.

    June 29, 2004
  • Crane at Sunset - Alicante, Spain

    Next.

    In Barcelona, things turned ugly. Well, ugly if you happen to be my liver. My big bottle of Smirnoff Vodka, in my bag since the Moroccan duty-free extravaganza, took one for the team. In a single night. The team, of course, comprising myself and Samy.

    June 19, 2004
  • Station - Algeciras, Spain

    Back to the Future

    Morocco has been officially rocked. Aboard the ferry to Spain, I spent my last Dirhams on insanely cheap Smirnoff and candy bars. It was quite a way to go out.

    June 10, 2004
  • Fleet - Essaouira, Morocco

    By the Sea

    Set against the crashing waves of the Atlantic, the walled city of Essaouira is a fascinating look at a fishing and hashish (need there be more?), but we arrive just ahead of the international jazz festival.

    May 31, 2004

  • A Change of Plans

    I was in the line to visit the ship’s Moroccan immigration officers when I noticed the guy in the line beside me. He looked, well, Moroccan. And in his hand was a Canadian passport. After reading wild tales of hucksters and scam artists, I was keen to know if the ship’s currency exchange rate was decent.

    May 24, 2004
  • Palace - Seville, Spain

    One Last Thing

    Plans coalesced on the beach in Lagos. Ready for a larger leap between cultures, I intended to cross the Strait of Gibraltar to spend about one week in Morocco. My guidebook had a seven day itinerary that sounded, like most other week-long guidebook itineraries of places I’ve never visited, to be a reasonable balance of perspective and breadth.

    May 24, 2004

  • A Satori in Pictures

    A light drizzle coats the back of the camera hanging around my neck. Released from the steel gray sky, the tiny drops aggregate on the plastic as I stand lingering, idling amidst the ebb and flow of travelers. A stiff, cold breeze abruptly enters the mix and the reaction is instantaneous amongst the crowd: scarves get wrapped tighter and jackets get zipped up higher and gloves are pulled more snug.

    February 12, 2001