Third consecutive Sunday spent up in the air on my way somewhere — in this case, like two Sundays ago, Moscow. This shot was taken on the final approach in to Domodedovo airport. Probably I break a few composition rules here but hey, that’s what rules are for, right?
Not my take-off, obviously — but we were next in line to head into this rather worrying sky. Mind you, I shouldn’t have been anywhere near being able to take this shot. I had to sit through a five-hour flight delay today on my way home from an enjoyable few days in Dubrovnik. But these things happen for a reason.
She’s certainly going for it as if it might be. Like us, this lady was in the departure lounge of Fiumicino airport, but, I suspect, leaving her home country rather than returning to it.
Well, the ceiling of the terminal building anyway. The plane’s a model, in case you were wondering. Back home after four enjoyable days in Russia.
Perhaps I have been overdoing the travelling this year and all in all feel inclined to downshift a notch or two, but I still have three trips abroad to make in the rest of 2013, including this one. Here we sit — about 20 of us — on our terribly small and cute little plane waiting for take-off, watching these flunkies do whatever it is they do to confirm we are ready to fly. The shot was taken from out of the window visible in the reflection on the engine, above the ‘I’ between the ‘R’ and the ‘T’.
Find pleasures in airports where one can. I like people-watching (follow this blog and that’s obvious), I like the way you can get strange juxtapositions in the rush and multiple destinations of airport travellers. This was taken in Istanbul airport, waiting for my second flight.
I quite like Albania, for three reasons: 1) I did go there just for a day once (day trip from Corfu) and had a thoroughly good day, surrounded by nice people 2) they have one of the world’s coolest flags 3) the memory of a very nice…. ah, but that’s another story.
Denmark sneaks itself onto the blog again, courtesy of overflying it then changing planes in Copenhagen, on my way to Norway for a week and a half’s work. I love this, proof that nature can create beauty at so many different scales. It looks like a flower, don’t you think? I also think the single little cloud in the bay is a nice touch.
A couple of minutes’ searching on Google Maps suggests this is the ‘island’ of Æbelø, just north of the city of Odense on the north coast of Fyn (and on that island is also located Nyborg, which has also featured on the blog if you recall). It must be low tide here — I would bet this area looked quite different a few hours later.
Oh yeah, it’s day 650: and every 50 days I update the ‘Best of the Rest’ page. Only two new ones this time — I must be getting pickier. (Or less good at photography.)
The title of this post is used with a mild sense of irony. Because of the role this airport wants to play — a bridge between Europe and East Asia/Australia as well as a destination in its own right — many of the flights seem to land and leave here between midnight and 3am, to fit in with flight schedules to and from countries that have stricter controls on when planes can come in and out. As a result, Abu Dhabi airport was as busy at 1am as anywhere I’ve ever been. I didn’t deliberately get a shot of these two, but was taking something of the decorative pillar in the center of Terminal 1 — as many other people were doing to pass the time — as she turned around. Cropping did the rest, it’s a bit out-of-focus but never mind, I quite like this shot.
And so, thanks to a three-hour stopover, another country, the United Arab Emirates, technically makes it onto the blog, though I don’t consider I visited the place. However, I think this shot is a little more representative than the dull one, technically of Singapore, that I got on the stopover during my flight out just over four months ago. This shot also becomes the earliest on any of the 641 days so far, and one of only four taken before 6am.
Over the last 10 days Fiji has delivered some damn fine landscapes and seascapes, and here, as a final parting shot, it delivers a pretty fine cloudscape too. Taken from flight VA154, Nadi to Sydney. The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.
A bit cliched to take this view of one of the world’s great cityscapes as one flies into it for the weekend: but I like the way the sun has caught the CBD, particularly those few buildings just past Darling Harbor.
Being 42 