Bill Murray's Blog, page 161
January 19, 2012
Winter in Finland - 2
My wife Mirja and I have a cabin on her family's land in the Northern Savonia region of Eastern Finland. We visited for Christmas. Here's a little about our trip, part 2.
2
Oh my, are we full. We hit our little town of Varkaus at 5:30 in the afternoon, not so fresh from the U.S. and firmly in darkness. Up at the farmhouse there were plates and plates of Christmas food, rossoli, ham and sinappi, Finnish mustard.
Pirrika (a kind of potato bread staple) and egg butter. Karelian stew (the pan gravy...
January 18, 2012
Helsinki - Wednesday HDR
I don't know, I just thought Vatican was a pretty funny name for a café bar nightclub. This was three bracketed handheld shots with a Nikon D-700, combined in Photomatix & finished in CS5 with Nik tools.
There are 352 more HDRs here at EarthPhotos.com.
Winter in Finland - 1
My wife Mirja and I have a cabin on her family's land in the Northern Savonia region of Eastern Finland. We visited for Christmas. Here are a few thoughts, in six parts.
1
There's an expansive view across the lake from the cabin, and more lights on the far shore every time we visit. It's just about the ideal temperature for winter, hovering a little below zero Celsius, with just an ankle-high cover of snow.
Mirja's father Risto is a tree farmer. He has outfitted the old farmhouse up on the...
January 17, 2012
Common Sense and Whiskey, the Book - Madagascar, Chapter Ten
Here is Chapter Ten of Common Sense and Whiskey, the book. We're publishing each chapter here on the blog (Track down previous chapters here). You can order the entire book at Amazon.com, at BN.com, or direct from EarthPhotos Publishing. Here's the Kindle version (just $6.99). Click these photos to make them bigger. More photos and additional commentary are available at A Common Sense and Whiskey Companion. And here's the Madagascar Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.
10 MADAGASCAR
Weeks-long...
Evidence There Will Be Spring
Under the title, Goodbye darkness - sun rises at Utsjoki, the broadcaster YLE writes, "Polar night is drawing to a close in the Finnish far north. The sun rose above the horizon in Utsjoki for about an hour on Tuesday, from 11:57am to 12:47pm." Utsjoki is Finland's northernmost town, up on the Norwegian border about 60 kilometers from the Arctic Sea.
Here's what the midday twilight looked like when we visited Lapland last month:
January 16, 2012
The Week Ahead
Some original travel writing this week, about two very different places: Tomorrow we'll publish chapter ten of Common Sense and Whiskey, The Book (Amazon) (Kindle) (BN). Chapter ten is from Madagascar, one of your more exotic places on the planet. Then Wednesday we'll start a few short takes on our Christmas trip up to Finland and the Arctic Circle. They'll come daily in short, serial form, over the following several days. Hope you enjoy them.
Meanwhile, follow along with my friend...
January 14, 2012
About Out of the Way Places
Here are two engaging, very different city profiles:
Riga, from More Intelligent Life
- "Did you know ... the Duchy of Courland, now part of Latvia, once held Tobago as a colony?"
- "Wander through (the old town) on a winter night and you're lost in a fairy tale ... Wander through it on a Friday evening in summer, on the other hand, and you may find yourself lost in a British stag party. Ryanair has much to answer for."
and Nizhny Novgorod, from The Daily Beast
- "One of Russia's...
Now THAT'S Austerity
In an article about the pain of yesterday's rating downgrade, the New York Times reports that, "In Paris, for example, a sparkling light show that illuminated the Eiffel Tower for 10 minutes every hour after dark has been cut to 5 minutes."
January 13, 2012
Madagascar - Next Week Here on CS&W
Whoops. While promoting the book Common Sense and Whiskey (Amazon) (Kindle) (BN) these last couple of months, I've been remiss in posting the book's chapters here on the blog. Next week we'll pick up where we left off with Chapter 10, Madagascar.
