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.
I love watching airports. Whether it’s planes moving around the ramps or cargo being loaded or the distant lights of incoming planes on approach to a runway, there’s so much to see. So many possibilities of people and places and machines. The aircraft in this picture had just arrived from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and was headed to Miami. Minutes later, a pallet carrying a massive BMW sedan would be loaded into the belly of the plane parked at the next gate, followed by the suitcases of the people sitting above.
The runways at the San Diego airport push right up against traffic lanes, sidewalks and buildings. This was taken from the sidewalk during busy evening approaches. I had…