Bill Murray's Blog, page 142

Just Passing Through

12 March 2013, London Heathrow to Istanbul Ataturk: Looks like we’ll run due southeast this morning, generally above Luxembourg, Stuttgart and Munich. Then we’ll cross the Alps between Innsbruck and Salzburg - the Tyrol - approaching the Balkans over Zagreb, then Belgrade, then just north of Sofia (“Bulgaristan” where we’re headed) and into Istanbul.

Before Europe was “united,” as recently as the early 90’s, only half of this route would have been over friendly territory. The line came down...

I'm Just Saying

BA’s 777 business class configuration is a scream in both the comedic and Edvard Munch senses. Jamming eight across in business means an outlandish scheme that somebody may have sold as brilliant, but that is not. It yielded a sort of cattle pen inside which we rode over from ATL to London.

Road Trip: Turkey and Ukraine

Taksim Square and the view to the Sea of Marmara, Istanbul, Turkey.

We're climbing aboard British Airways tomorrow. Next batch of posts from one of the world's great cities, Istanbul. Later on next week we'll talk with you from Kyiv, where, as I write this, it looks darned cold.

Photos will go in the Turkey and Ukraine galleries at EarthPhotos.com.

Cheers for now!

Photo Quiz #175 - Where in the World?

A fountain in a pretty urban park, main street and Independence Square. Can you name this European capital? The country? A good weekend to

all from CS&W

and EarthPhotos.com.

And

the answer is ............................................ it's Minsk, capital of Belarus.

See more photos in the Belarus Gallery at Earthphotos.com.

And take all the CS&W photo quizzes.

Finding Rapa Nui

We'll be off at the end of the week on a trip that will take us to Istanbul and Kyiv, so we'll close the book for now on Easter Island. Here's just a portion of an article, more of which will show up later in a much longer form.

Oral tradition has it that Rapa Nui’s first colonizers arrived in two ships, one led by Hotu Matu’a, the other by Ava Reipua, either Hotu Matu’a’s wife or sister, probably in double canoes, although petroglyphs like the one at Orango are the only evidence.

The little...

Photo Quiz #175 - Where in the World?

This is a national capital. Can

you guess the country? The name of the city? And a good weekend to you from CS&W

and EarthPhotos.com.

And

the answer is ............................................ this is the capital of Oman, Muscat. See more photos in the Oman Gallery, and about a thousand photos of cities around the world in the Cities Gallery at Earthphotos.com.

And take all the CS&W photo quizzes.

No, You May Not Visit Turkmenistan

We're hitting the road again soon, for Turkey and Ukraine, and there is just enough time for a quick fly-in fly-out to somewhere else, so we made a bid to visit our first "'Stan."

We'll arrive at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul late in the evening, and Turkish Airlines' flight schedule works out great. It would allow us to keep pushing east. Just a brief layover in the raved-about new Turkish lounge, and off we'd go to Ashgabat.

Alas, it was not to be.

The Turkmen government requires a letter...

Wednesday HDRs from Peru

Here's Miraflores Beach in Lima, Peru:

It's not all that beautiful, really, and this time of year it's almost always overcast. Zoom in on the shoreline down there though, and you get abstract art:

More HDRs here. Here's one more HDR while we're here, an empty city street in the San Isidro district of Lima:

Processed in Photomatix and Photoshop.

Photo Quiz #174 - Where in the World?

Top: Infamous palace built by this country's former leader, whose gruesome demise was broadcast to the world. Bottom: The delightful mountainous region of the same country. Can

you guess the country? Its capital city? A good weekend to

all from CS&W

and EarthPhotos.com.

And

the answer is ............................................ Romania.

Nicolae Caeucescu, palace owner, was shot dead trying to escape the capital, Bucharest, on Christmas Day 1989. The city in the bottom photo is...

Voyages of Discovery, Polynesia Edition

Here's a little weekend reading, an excerpt from a coming article on Easter Island:

Conjuring up the downfall of the civilization can drive you mad. Puzzling out the timeline of Rapa Nui’s colonization can cause fits. Then there’s the whole moai thing, the conundrum of their abandonment.

Thankfully, imagining how the settlers got here is a beautiful thing, thanks to the work of the Polynesian Voyaging Society and a canoe called Hōkūle‘a, the inspired project of an artist and historian ele...