I’d like to think I had it coming. As I was boarding the shuttle bus from the plane to the terminal at JNB, expecting to transfer to my flight to Atlanta, I said to my colleague, “I would love it if there was some issue and I ended up going someplace other than Atlanta.”
A year in photos. With this post, I am relaunching my site after about a year away. In that time, there were many developments, many destinations and many photos. This shot comes from the incredible, bird-shaped Satolas TGV station at the Lyon Saint Exupery Airport, in Lyon, France. Designed by Santiago Calatrava, this building is the nexus between land and sky, plane, car and train. Going forward, there will be much more. A year away from blogging, and a growing archive of stories and pictures, leads me to a year of posting. I’ve come full circle. And with it, day one of 365. A year in photos.
From seat 18A, en route to Paris’ CDG Terminal 2.
The empty gate area at A66, about 9:30pm.
Walking just the distance of a few gates in Detroit’s McNamara Terminal, our global connectivity laid bare. Cleveland, Seoul, Amsterdam, Sault Sainte Marie. A few steps but a window to the world. It never stops seeming cool to me. And as a global health practitioner, in the coolness are challenges.
From the chaos of weather and delayed flights, a surprise trip to Paris. And necessary, if I was to arrive in Nice today. Thousands of people streaming in from almost 100 countries has made space in Cannes a hot commodity. So when my flight from JFK was delayed and I missed my connection to Nice, I went from Amsterdam to Paris for yet another leg onward. 26 hours of travel and 5 airports later, the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity begins tomorrow and it looks to be great.
By noon, the gears of travel finally begin to grind. I head to the airport, but with a brief stop at the FedEx terminal to retrieve the new camera lens that had arrived this morning. With an uncharacteristic smoothness in my travel plans, I arrive at gate C8. I think – maybe – that I might even have brought everything I intended. It hasn’t happened yet in eight years, but without any glaring packing errors, I consider the possibility.
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.