Chicago has to be one of the world’s best sightseeing cities, and yesterday we saw it all. Well, we didn’t see it all, of course, and in fact only scratched the surface, but probably did as much as one could possibly do in a single day. It was chilly; even […]
This year I am in England for some difficult family reasons, but it is nonetheless delightful to be here over Christmas. Other than the wild snow and ice of a couple of days ago, the weather has been superb, and the countryside is gorgeous. Staying with friends in their Victorian […]
Well, it has been an interesting week; a collapse of a substantial UK-based charter carrier Globespan, the on/off drama of the British Airways cabin-staff strike, the looming possibility of baggage handlers on strike in the UK and the general malaise of the airline industry has made interesting reading and thinking. […]
All travel must come to an end, and it is now over a week since I returned from my journey from Odessa to Tbilisi and Baku. I have missed posting, and have not done so for a couple of reasons; firstly, of course, is the requirement to work when one […]
What a remarkable trip. A journey like this, while simple today, would have been almost impossible only twenty years ago when this part of the world was an integral part of the Soviet Union. To travel within the USSR required a degree of planning and cooperation that left most tourists […]
Twenty-four hours in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku really isn’t enough, but as the morning dawned grey and drizzly, and with the whole of the city to see and a day in which to do it, I ignored the elements and waited for Aydin. Aydin co-owns, among other enterprises, a […]
I made it, and I think I’m going to like Baku, the interesting capital of Azerbaijan,once I get it figured out. Arriving at the Heydar Aliev International airport in Baku is a really interesting experience. The terminal is wonderful, with no expense spared, the immigration lines efficient and quite friendly, […]
In the end, it was a bit of an anticlimax, as we slid slowly and very neatly into the small port of Poti. Small the port maybe, but it is a hive of activity, with a miscellany of the world’s tramp steamers here loading and unloading a cornucopia of loads. […]
Well, this morning I received a note from my contact at the ferry company in Odessa: From: VLADLEN [mailto:wave_vyt@mail.ru]Sent: Mon 11/23/2009 1:34 AMTo: Max JohnsonSubject: Re: Help! DEAR MR.MAX, THE SITUATION WITH M/V “GREIFSWALD”: 1/.DELAY BECAUSE OF THE WEATHER;2/.DELAY BECAUSE OF THE BULGARIAN FERRY “GEROI ODESSA”. 2/.THE TIME OF THE […]