Travel Stats

Travel Stats

for John Hudson 2009

Since 2009 is almost over, and seeing how the only interesting thing I seem to do is travel, I thought I would sum up my travel stats for 2009. Incidentally, I just rolled over 156k on my car, and while that sounds like a lot, my driving has significantly slowed in the last 6 months due to my very slow work schedule.

Days on the Road/Traveling =

- 119 ± 10 days (it’s difficult to add up all the weekend trips, etc)

- roughly 1/3^rd of the year either away from home or on the road

Miles driven = 18,000 ± 50mi

- Roughly 50 miles per day if broken down that way

Oil Changes

- 6

- $277 spent on oil changes

Flying Stats:

- 40,845 miles flown

- 100 hours in flight

- 55 total flight segments

- Prague to Atlanta = longest flight at 10 hrs, 4,832 miles

- Average flight = 743 mi, 1:49 hrs

- 37 different airports

- 18 different airlines

- 13 countries flown through

Countries visited = 11

States visited

- Georgia

- South Carolina

- Florida

- Pennsylvania

- Maryland

- Virginia

- Washington D.C.

- West Virginia

- Indiana

- Illinois

- New York

- Michigan

- Texas

- North Carolina

- Ohio

- Kentucky

- Tennessee

- New Jersey

- Delaware

Sears Tower

Sears Tower
Originally uploaded by John Hudson Photo

Sears Tower

Sears Tower
Originally uploaded by John Hudson Photo

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

NOTE: To view the full picture, click on it and it will expand.

The travel from Egypt to Venice was long and tiring.

I sat next to this girl on the 3.5 hr flight from Hurghada to Venice. Keep in mind this is 2am-6am. She watched Marley and Me. And seriously laughed THE ENTIRE TIME. Like a constant never ending laughing and sniggering. I could not sleep. Plus I was cold (?). To make matters worse, like a complete idiot, instead of just swallowing the sleeping pill like a normal person, I bit into it while it was in my mouth. It was extremely bitter, and made my mouth numb! So that was a huge mistake. Eventually I got some earplugs and tried to sleep, but I think the entire plane was awake. I mean, its 2am people, try to sleep.

Once I finally got to Venice I took a 3 hr nap. I can't remember what I did after that, but eventually I got some dinner, and went to bed early.

Today was work in the morning, which was more of a pain than it needed to be, but I guess that's not too bad considering all of the other cafes were very easy. This one is extremely small, so it worked out alright anyway.

I spent the better part of the day wandering around Venice. I feel like I know where I'm going in Venice well enough that I can just explore without getting too lost. It's not hard to find my way back to the hotel when I need to get there. I walked a little more slowly this time, stopped in a few churches, and a few art galleries as well. I took a few photos, which if they turn out any good, I will share.

I met a guy from New Zealand tonight while taking some photos, and we had a nice little conversation about photography and traveling. I meet quite a few photographers while traveling and we always manage to have nerdy conversations about the things that nobody else wants to talk with us about. It's refreshing.

The nice thing about Italy is that you can have food that you might normally have, even if it's unhealthy, because hey baby, it's Italian food. So i've had pizza, lasagna, and various other kinds of pasta. None of it has been anything special though, and very overpriced. Venice is not a cheap city. Plus the Euro is totally killing the Dollar :(

Tomorrow I will fly to Prague, where I will photograph one more cafe, and then meet up with Kat. I am very much looking forward to having someone to hang out with and explore with. This will probably be the last blog post, but I may post a few more pictures if I have time to get to them.

Here are a few from Venice:

I am sitting in the Vienna airport on Tuesday morning.

I will pick up when I entered Hurghada.

I began to lose my patience with Egypt when I arrived in Hurghada. After I got my bags, I looked around for an ATM like I usually do, to get cash for a taxi. Finding no ATM, I walked out what I thought was the exit into the main terminal, only to find that it basically dumped me out into what was a construction site/parking lot...apparently the entire airport is under some kind of "renovations". So, I tried to go back inside, but once you leave an airport here, they just will not let you back in, even though you JUST came through the door.

They told me if I wanted an ATM or a "bank", I had to go into the departures terminal. The problem is, in Egypt, only people with physical tickets can go into the terminal, or basically into the airport at all. The security people just could not figure out why I wanted into the airport, and the fact that I had just arrived here seemed to do nothing.

It is times like these where I just feel like America stands out from the crowd, at least from a logical and reasonablity standpoint. There was NO atm available to arriving passengers from what I could see, clearly a huge flaw with this airport. But no, I could not get back into the airport to get money. Simply amazing.

I ended up having a taxi driver just drive me to an ATM where I got cash, and then went onto the hotel. Just getting this to happen took plenty of gesturing, and arguing, and negotiating on price. I have found that it is really impossible to get a fair cab ride in this country unless you have another native speaker there who will just tell them what price you are willing to pay. They really prey on people coming out of the airport terminal.

Things improved once I got to the Marriott Resort in Hurghada.

I liked this resort even more, probably because it seemed much less crowded, and a little more private. I have been going to bed earlier than usual just to get more sleep.

Again, a nice, relaxing breakfast the next day, and then a very quick cheap cab ride to the HRC. The staff at the HRC was fantastic, very prepared and very friendly. They basically just got out of the way and let me do my thing, and it went very smoothly.

Again, I did some looking into scuba diving/snorkling, but in the end decided it wasn't really worth it. I just can't justify spending close to $100 for maybe a half hr of scuba diving. I'll get more for my money in mexico or on a cruise.

I did try to take advantage of the great weather here though. I spent a decent amount of time swimming in the Red Sead close to the beach of the resort. I suspected, and later check of wikipedia confirmed it, that the saline content of the Red Sea is very high. I realized this when swimming...it took literally no effort to float or swim. You could literally just float in the middle of the ocean, without trying to tread water. It was a strange feeling, but it made swimming very easy. I swam all around this small island next to the beach, and didn't get tired at all. I borrowed a diving mask and did some minor snorkeling, which was kind of fun and made up for not doing the real thing. The water in the red sea was refreshingly cooler than the pool at Sharm had been, and the pool at Hurghada was much colder toot thankfully.

That's basically how I spent my time in Hurghada. The next day shoot went well again. And I spent more time swimming in the ocean and the pool. I got slightly sunburned, but it was worth it.

I got maybe an hr of sleep before leaving about 11pm for the airport in Hurghada.

Once again, I must make note of the absolutely incredible amount of security in Hurghada, and all of Egypt. I think I went through no less than 4, maybe 5 metal detectors on the way to my gate. One initally when entering the airport, which also requires a check of the passport, and the PHYSICAL TICKET to the dozens of security officers. Even then I felt lucky that I got through somehow. Then again, going through customs ON THE WAY OUT OF THE COUNTRY! Amazing. More metal detectors, more x ray machines. This country is either very worried about security, or they just enjoy employing a lot of random people to stand around. I swear, there were probably 4 or 5 guards doing the job of one guard everywhere you look. About 5 guys simply standing at the entrance to the airport where passports are scanned. The funny thing, is that they don't make you feel safer. I feel as though if I get to leave the airport, they'll be doing me some kind of favor. Like I'll be lucky they let me through. It's amazing the parody between the airport and it's treatment of people, and a resort and it's treatment.

I have found that international airports tend to have awful customer service, very rude and confusing employees, etc. The internatinal hotels are the exact opposite, and so much better than their US counterparts in all respects that it borders on laughable. I am treated like royalty in every hotel, no matter how prestigious or small. You have to experience it to know what I'm talking about. Porters running to take your bags, hauling over 100lbs worth of luggage all over the hotel. The room service employees are extremely gracious. The front desk staff is incredibly polite. It's a pleasure to stay in most hotels internationally, whereas in my experience, the travel through the airports is a huge pain and a hassle. And whereas in the US, you at least get the idea that there is some kind of a point to all this, that they are actually trying to make sure that they prevent crime or terrorism, in other airports around the world, the security gives me the impression that their sole goal and aim is to infuriate passengers. I feel that I have done a fair amoudnt of traveling, and asking to see my "ticket" before I have checked in is maddening. Dear Egypt, the rest of the world is on E-tickets now. WE DON"T GET PHYSICAL TICKETS THANKS.

Anyway, I'm loving the free wifi here at VIE. My short flight to Venice leaves soon, and will have to take quite a nap when I get there. Maybe I"ll take some pictures on Venice?


I have been posting a lot of random pictures to facebook with my iphone, you can see them here

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2063615&id=141300035&l=c1ac1fdc9f

I know I haven't been providing any pictures for you guys, but here's a great picture of the Sharm airport, and the surrounding area. It was very rocky and mountainous all around where I was, but not right by the water obviously. It's interesting to see how it is basically desert and rocky wilderness, except right next to the water where the resorts are. This is probably not far from where the Children of Israel were wandering in the desert for 40 years...unless I'm wrong :-/

http://www.airliners.net/photo//1497998/L/&sid=7c02854a4a210b4063220953864de65a

I have a few days to catch up on. I apologize for that.

After my last post, I went back the next day to finish up at the Sharm HRC.

We only had a few things to do, all of which involved taking various things, 2 guitars and one jacket, off of the high walls which they were on. 2 guys did this for me with a large ladder. At the end of the shoot, they were back on the ladder about 15 feet up putting a large jacket in a frame back on the wall. I heard a large crash and looked over to see a pile of ladder, people, and memorabilia. I'm not sure what happened, but they came crashing down, breaking the memo, and some other parts of the restaurant in the process. One guy broke his foot somehow. All in all it made a very interesting morning there.

When I got back to the hotel, the same taxi driver from my first day was there waiting, the one who drove me around forever and had no idea where he was going. Apparently he is at the hotel often, but when he saw me he started asking where his money was that I didn't pay him yesterday. I had a nice little 15 minute "chat'' with him explaining that when you don't deliver on the service you promised, you don't get paid. The funny thing was that he wanted 2.5 KD, when the fare should have been 1.5 KD, for a 15 minute taxi ride. Amazing. Eventually though I felt sorry for him, so I paid him 1KD. FYI, 1.5 KD is about $5.20, and 2.5 KD is about $8.75

Later that day I went back to the HRC to get some night shots and eat dinner with Elias the GM. Low and behold, there was this same taxi driver again, who apparently had a friend at the hotel. But, since I'm a nice guy, I told him that I would let him take me there for 1.5, and especially since he should know where it was by this time. He took me there and there was no problem after that.

I did some night photos, and then had some dinner with the GM, which was nice of him. He is Lebanese, and we had an interesting discussion about Kuwait and it's strict Muslim law. Almost everything is illegal in that country.

The next day was pretty slow. I took my time leaving the hotel, and checked in with literally NO problems for my flight on Wataniya Airways to Cairo. Because of Ramadan, the terminal was very empty, and very quiet, which was fantastic. I also had free wifi, which was great as well.

The flight was about 2 hrs on a brand new A320. The seats on this plane were quite large, probably 18.5 in width, and the pitch had to be about 35". It was really a good coach product. As usual, most international flights, especially one of over 2 hrs, will serve lunch, which they did. I had some kind of chicken with rice, and it had a very indian taste to it, but it was good.

Cairo was absolutely nuts. A mad house. I changed some money, bought a visa, collected my bags, and then fended off the taxi drivers. Egypt is somewhat infamous for it's aggressive Taxi drivers, which is totally true from what i've experienced so far.

I had a few hrs to kill in Cairo airport, which I did by reading a book in the almost deserted domestic terminal for Egypt Air.

I got to Sharm El Sheikh easily and took a taxi to the hotel, etc. I stayed at the Marriott Resort, which is nice enough, especially for the outrageously low rate I got here. Sharm El Sheikh, which you can google on your own, is on the tip of the Sinai peninsula. It is somewhat odd to realize that I am about 20 minutes from Mt. Sinai, where the 10 commandments were delivered.

In the morning I got up and had a pretty good breakfast that was free. I then walked across the main road to the other Marriott Property, which was the "beach" side. I walked down this small path running the length of the beach. It was probably a mile walk to the HRC, but seeing as its about 100 degrees, I was drenched when I got to the HRC. The photo shoot went smoothly, and walked back to my hotel afterwards.

The scuba diving in Sharm is supposed to be some of the greatest in the world. Lots of good reefs and shipwrecks. I had hopes of doing some scuba diving here, but the more I looked into it, the options for someone without a license were limited. About the best I could find was $50 for about 30 minutes of "instruction" at about 20 feet maximum depth.

I will try my luck in Hurghada with the scuba diving instead.

The rest of my day was spent basically swimming in the pool and relaxing. The weather is really perfect here, and if it weren't so far away from America, this would be a pretty nice vacation spot.

Today, I went back to the HRC to finish up a few small items. This time I took a cab there for about $2, and wore shorts and flip flops because of the heat.

Soon I will be packed and will leave to go to the airport, where later this evening I will take the very short flight to Hurghada.

I will be there a few days before flying to Venice.

I am more or less halfway done with the trip at this point as well.

I will make a new blog soon. Egypt.

If you are at all curious about what Kuwait or Bahrain look like, here are a few links to a photographer I found on Flickr. She is based in the middle east, but has traveled all over. Her photography is really, really good, the kind that I could just look at forever. These sets will give you a good idea of what these areas look like.

Kuwait - http://www.flickr.com/photos/-lucie-/sets/72157603873263271/

Bahrain - http://www.flickr.com/photos/-lucie-/sets/72157619099943070/

Monday was a pretty leisurely day for me. I had a big breakfast, which is pretty western from what I can see. There is some different meat, fruit, and breads, but there are still various cereals, scrambled eggs, sausage, toast, etc.

I enjoyed the pool again for a little while. The water is about 85 degrees, but it felt much cooler than the air temp.

Eventually I went to the airport and checked in for my flight. I was lucky that the excess baggage charge was only about $40 as opposed to in Europe where it can top $120! My checked luggage weighs in at around 41-42 kg, and the usual allowance is only 20kg. :-/

I waited in the airport for quite a while. My Gulf Air flight to Kuwait was delayed almost 1.5 hrs (not sure why).

They gave us some kind of bread roll with some kind of tasteless yellow spread on it. They also had some kind of "milk" in a white bottle, that tasted more like sour yogurt. It was pretty gross.

The arrival process in Kuwait is pretty confusing, much more so than your average international airport. Eventually I figured out where to go to get a visa, and waited for quite a while in a line. The hotel that I am staying at was going to send a driver to pick me up. I figured since my flight was supposed to land quite a while earlier that he would be gone. I came out of the luggage area almost 3 hrs after i was originally supposed to show up, but there he was waiting. I was surprised but very relieved that I wouldn't have to find and pay for another taxi.

My hotel here is pretty average. Kuwait seems like a very large city, right next to the Persian gulf, and also right in the middle of the desert. It is extremely hot, and extremely sunny, always. I have yet to see a cloud in the sky, but it's not pure blue sky sunlight that we are used to. It's more like hazy, gray blue. I think there is a lot of dust pollution or something. It's hard to explain, but even buildings that aren't very far away look very distant and hazy. There are a lot of very large skyscrapers being built here. Clearly Kuwait has some serious cash. Apparently the citizens don't have to pay for electricity, or water. Supposedly most employers give their employees 4 weeks of vacation a year, and also provide a round trip plane ticket to use as well!

Today was interesting. As in Bahrain, Ramadan is going on here still, so the cafe isn't open during the day, giving me a lot of time to spread out the work-flow. I was planning on being there sometime around 8:30ish. I had breakfast at the hotel again, and then had the hotel call me a cab. To make a long story short, the cab driver was an idiot, and had no idea where I needed to go. He proceeded to basically drive around for almost 1.5 hrs. He called people, he asked people in cars, we even stopped so he could ask people on the street. Eventually we found it, and of course, I informed him I wouldn't be paying for the ride since it took so long. he wasn't happy about that, but hey, learn where things are! It's a Hard Rock Cafe...it stands out. And, it had been there for 5 years, so it's not like it was brand new. Maybe he just moved to the city or something, but either way, it was ridiculous.

But once I got to the cafe, the people were nice, at least there was one guy there who spoke enough English that we could converse.

Apparently Kuwait is even stricter about Ramadan. Even though I am a visitor, and not Muslim, it would still be illegal if I was to drink, or eat anything in public. So they gave me a bottle of water, but told me not to drink it in front of the windows in case someone looked inside and saw me. I thought that was hilarious and insane, but I didn't want to get thrown in jail, so I didn't do it in front of the windows....but what a ridiculous rule. And of course, since its Ramadan, nothing is open until about 6pm. Thankfully there is always room service.

I am in Bahrain.

Everything went well getting here. I slept only about an hr on the flight to London. I got a few hrs of sleep from London to Bahrain. I slept like a rock last night though.

This morning I had a very nice breakfast at the hotel, and took my time with the first cafe I had to shoot. The people have all been very nice so far. Because Ramadan is going on here right now, the cafe is closed during the day, so that made it nice and easy to photograph. Except everything is closed during the day, but oh well. It's over 100 degrees here and pretty humid as well. The only thing I might do outside today is swim in the pool.

Tomorrow I will fly to Kuwait.

Here's a picture from my hotel room:

Middle East/Europe Trip

I am leaving today at 5pm for a 2.5 week trip to the Middle East/Europe. The purpose of this trip is to photograph Hard Rock Cafe's in each city. I will be traveling to the countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Egypt, Italy, and Czech Republic.

At the end of the trip, Katherine will be flying out to Prague to join me for a few days.


Here is a list of my itinerary over the course of the trip:

Depart: Friday 8/28 – 5:00pm
Saturday 8/29 arrive Bahrain
Sunday 8/30: Shoot Bahrain Café
Monday 8/31: AM Bahrain Cafe / travel to Kuwait
Tuesday 9/1: Kuwait Cafe
Wednesday 9/2: Kuwait Café
Thursday 9/3: Travel - Kuwait to Sharm El Sheikh
Friday 9/4: Sharm El Sheikh Cafe
Saturday 9/5: Sharm El Sheikh Cafe AM - travel to Hurghada
Sunday 9/6: Shoot - Hurghada
Monday 9/7: Hurghada
Tues 9/8: Travel - Hurghada to Venice (leave 1:45am)
Weds 9/9: Venice
Thursday 9/10: Venice AM - Venice to Prague
Friday 9/11: Prague Cafe
Saturday 9/12: Prague with Katherine
Sunday 9/13: Prague with Katherine
Monday 9/14: Prague to Columbus, OH

I will do my best to provide updates every few days as my internet access allows.

It is supposed to be quite hot in Bahrain and Kuwait, so that will be interesting to experience.

I'll post a new blog when I get to Bahrain.

- John

Middle East

Well, in a few weeks I will be heading off for a trip to the Middle East. I will be going to Bahrain, Kuwait, and Egypt, with a stop in Venice on the way back home.

I will post more details as it gets closer.

25

Click on the links below for pictures of my europe trip.

Driving to DC this weekend for Andrea's birthday celebration.

Flying to Richmond and Durham next week for work.

Pbase photos - http://www.pbase.com/johnhudson/johns_trip_to_europe

Flickr photos - http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnhudsonphoto/sets/72157616146560114/

For now, here are some statistics about my trip. I think we all love some good stats every once in a while right? Right.

John's Europe trip:

- 24 days
- 8 cities
- 230,266 steps walked, 108 miles walked, 6180 calories burned!
- daily average of 10,456 steps, 5 miles, and 281 calories burned from walking.
- over 10,000 photos taken, averaging over 400 per day
- 15 flights on 10 airlines, totaling 12,851 miles on 7 different types of aircraft
- 5 books read, 2867 pages, an average of about 120 pgs per day (although I usually read each book in about a day and a half while traveling)

Another interesting link is my flightmemory page, which you can see here. I do love keeping track of these kinds of statistics. While my page is not that impressive in the grand scheme of things, its shaping up nicely.



Some final thoughts on the europe trip:

I will get a lot of the "how was europe" questions. I would prefer specific questions so I can give specific answers. Instead of saying how was Europe, ask me what were the taxis like in Germany, or something like that.

Europe is a great place to visit. Lots of interesting things to see and do. Tons of history. Overwhelming really. That being said I am glad I live in America. Europe is not somewhere I would want to live for any extended amount of time. It is too crowded, busy, loud, complicated, and generally just a pain to deal with long term.

Since I will probably get asked what my favorite places were, here they are in order, although its hard to make a list like this, and I really enjoyed every place I was.

1. Venice
2. Cologne
3. Rome
4. Barcelona
5. Madrid.
6. Malta
7. Mallorca
8. Bucharest

Don't ask me why the list is the way it is, it was a gut reaction.

I will do my best to get some photos edited and placed on the internet in a manner that is easy to navigate. Check back in a few days for that. Thank you for following this blog and for the comments as I was traveling. It was nice to know that people were keeping up with me as I was traveling.

I think despite the various setbacks that inevitably occured along the way, things went fairly well overall. I accomplished almost everything we set out to do for work, and was able to see a lot of interesting things and take some fairly decent photos for myself along the way. All in all a successful trip.

I'm home now, but I will be making one last europe related post soon giving a summary of some things, and giving links to more pictures, etc. Look for that soon.

last day

Last night I went to a small little tapas restaurant and had a small dinner of a spanish omelet and toasted bread with tomatoes. It was delicious.

This morning I did the last Hard Rock of this trip. It was a pretty large one, but everything went pretty smoothly and we finished on time.

I did a some walking around the city (over 8 miles!). I went to the largest city park in Madrid called Parque del Buen Retiro. It was a very cool park, large, very peaceful, lots of paths and greenery. I had a good time walking around and relaxing. The weather was about 65 and sunny, just perfect.


Tonight I went to a restaurant and had Veal. It was pretty decent.

Tomorrow I am flying back to New York at around 11:30am, 6:30am EST. Can't wait to get back home!

I will put up links as soon as I can to the edited photos when I get around to them.

John

Well Mallorca (pronounced May-your-cuh) went pretty quickly. It was not the easiest shoot I've had, but we got it finished with no problems that I am aware of.

Today I got up at 5am and flew to Madrid on Spanair again. When I arrived, one of my bags was missing. For once it was probably a good thing that I had such an early flight, as they should be able to bring it to my hotel later today when it arrives on a later flight.

Madrid seems like a huge city, similar to Barcelona so far. We'll see how much exploring and sightseeing I end up doing...at this point, I'm ready to be home. One more day of work, and then I"ll be leaving Thursday morning.

Today I got up about 6, and left for the airport at 7am.

I was able to check in without any hassle (or fees) whatsoever, and I was almost shocked that it went so smoothly.

I had breakfast at the airport, and our flight was the definition of routine and hassle free. It was pretty refreshing to not have any delays, etc. We took off quickly and powerfully in our Spanair MD-87 and enjoyed a very quick flight down to Palma de Mallorca. The island is actually pretty big, with a huge mountain range on the north side of the island. The population of the island is about 800,000 I think, which makes it about twice as populous as Malta.

Once I got to my hotel, I laid down and was able to take a nice long nap. I dont think I needed one, but somehow it just happened.

My room is very nice, which is also refreshing for once.

I walked around a little bit, went down to the HRC to see where it was, etc. This island seems like a nice place. Very mediterranean obviously. The weather was fantastic today.

Unfortunately, after several weeks of traveling through europe, the novelty has worn off, and I am no longer impressed with everything that is "different" than it is in America. At this point I am ready to be home.

So work tomorrow, travel tuesday, work wednesday, fly home thursday. Almost done

barcelona

I am getting behind on my blogging....

Thursday was spent traveling...it was a very long and somewhat frustrating day.
I flew from Malta to Rome on Alitalia, and then had about a 4 hr layover in Rome. Then I flew from Rome to Barcelona on Clickair. There were delays, etc, but it all worked out in the end.

Friday I worked in the morning, and walked around for a few hrs in the afternoon. I basically spent some time on Las Ramblas and down by the waterfront.



Today I finished up work, and then decided to do something that I have wanted to do for a while. I found out that I could rent a scooter for 25 euro...not bad at all. So, I did. And it was amazing. I spent 5 or 6 hours, drove all over, saw a lot of very interesting things, and felt like I was a native of Barcelona.

Tomorrow I am flying to Mallorca early in the morning. Mallorca is a large island off the coast of Spain. Its a very popular vacation destination apparently.

day 2 of malta

Today began early for me at 5am. I was able to get ready very quickly and get a taxi at 5:45 to get me to the HRC at 6am to meet "Ludvig" who I was working with today. He was friendly and helpful as most of the people I have met on this trip have been.

I was extremely thankful that we were not only shooting memo that was at eye level, but that the glass cases could be removed, as well as the memo actually could be taken off the wall! This would make things MUCH easier. With 10 items to shoot, I don't know if we would have finished it all in time otherwise.

We moved quickly despite my batteries for my flashes running out of juice. Ludvig was awesome though and went to the store to get me some extras. They also kept me supplied with plenty of coffee, easily the best i've had in Europe so far. Europe claims to drink a lot of coffee, but i have yet to see any evidence that they have ever even seen a real mug. They usually drink from doll sized teacups, sipping on bitter coffe. It's strange.

Anyway we managed to move quickly through a lot of different things, 4 guitars, some shoes, etc. I can't seem to care at all that I am holding a guitar from a famous musician worth thousands of dollars. They really just look like regular dusty old guitars.

We finished just in time to open the restaurant. I ate some lunch there and then came back to my hotel and worked for a while on some things. I went for a walk on the "beach" in the afternoon to scout potential photo spots for later that night. The beach is very strange, I want to say it is volcanic rock, but I'm not sure. Either way its incredibly sharp and very difficult to walk on, full of jagged holes and sharp points. The weather was nicer today, a little warmer and less windy.

I headed back to the beach around sunset for some pictures if possible. I found a spot i thought would work, and tried to get down there as best I could. The surf and slippery rocks kept me from getting very far, but I tried out a few pictures from that location. The waves were unpredictable, and a few times they splashed me pretty decently. Within a few minutes, I saw a wave coming that seemed larger than the others, and at the last minute I grabbed the camera so it wouldn't get wet, but my legs and feet got pretty good and soaked.

I moved around a few times to various parts of the beach to get some different perspectives. Taking these kind of photos is difficult for many reasons, but one of them is that unless you already have your location completely planned out, its hard to know how it will turn out. The other difficult part is that you can't control the elements. Some days you'll get lucky, others you won't.

Here's a few that I got tonight.



Tomorrow I fly to Barcelona.

John

the last few days

I need to get caught up from the past few days.

Monday I headed out early to get to the laundromat with my suitcase full of dirty clothes. It ended up being easier and more painless than I had expected. It still cost about $15 though. After that was finished, I packed and ate a very quick lunch before heading off to the airport. In hindsight, I probably should have tried to do something other than go to the airport so early. My flight wasn't supposed to leave until 7:30, but checkout was at 12. I just didn't want to leave my bags at the hotel and try to wander around some more. I won't lie, at this point I am starting to get sick of walking, and of sight seeing in general.

So I went to the airport, which was chaos. I eventually settled down with a book to wait out the long hrs until my flight started checking in. To make a long story short, everything in Italy is more difficult than it should be, and this was no exception with the checking in process. Lets just say something that should have taken 5 minutes ended up taking more than an hr.

But in the end it was worked out and I finally got to my plane and we boarded on time. We sat for a while though before pilot came on and said that apparently someone had checked in for the flight and checked some luggage, but then had not shown up at the gate or boarded the plane. Naturally that is a very suspicious security threat, and so they took all our luggage off the plane, and made everyone get off and identify which bags were theirs. This delayed us by about 2 hrs.

So I didn't get into Malta until about midnight. I took a cab to my hotel, which is quite nice actually. I got about 4-5 hrs of sleep I guess.

Today I got up, had some breakfast which was included in the room price thankfully, and took a cab to the Malta Bar that I was photographing. Thankfully, everything went smoothly due to its small size.

Tomorrow though will be a challenge as we have a lot of items to photograph and a short amount of time. I plan to start at 6am so that we have plenty of time to get everything done.

I haven't seem much of Malta, just what I have seen from my hotel and from the road. It seems to be a typical Mediterranean island. Hilly, rocky coastline, some interesting scenery, kind of strange city, old in some parts, ugly in some, somewhat unique style of architecture throughout. I'm not sure which it seems more like, Italy, Greece, Africa, etc. It is kind of in the middle of everything.

Supposedly they speak english here, but I have yet to meet anyone who speaks it well enough to have much of a conversation. Still, its an improvement.

this is the view from my room during the day:
here is the view at night:


I think I have been out of town every St. Patrick's day for the last few years. At this point I am officially sick of traveling and everything that goes along with it. I am not trying to complain, nobody wants to read that. I don't want people to get the wrong impression. This trip is a unique opportunity and that is why I am doing it. But it is by no means a vacation. Never underestimate how difficult it can be to travel constantly for weeks on end, with 100+ lbs of luggage, from city to city, in airports and taxis constantly, always a different hotel room, and always by yourself. It gets old quickly no matter how many interesting things you may see along the way. This would be an awful life if you had to do it all the time, and many people do. I am looking forward to going back home to my wife and my own bed, etc. The next time I come to europe, I hope that I can do it on my own time, with people I care about, and actually spend time enjoying things instead of rushing around. But of course I came here for work, which is what I am doing. I have to remind myself that sometimes. It always seems strange to me though that people sometimes express that they think I am lucky or that they wish they could have my job. I am indeed lucky, but not because of a trip like this.

first full day in rome

Today went pretty well. I ate my free breakfast, took a cab to the HRC. The staff was friendly and helpful, things went smoothly, and we accomplished what I wanted to. I took a few hrs to do some work, and eventually headed out to see a tiny bit more of Rome.

I walked a few blocks to the Parthenon, which is huge, and pretty interesting. I read that it is more or less the most well-preserved building of its age in the world. I believe it. It is totally surrounded by the city, but it stands out. Its incredibly unique looking. The interior is amazing as well. I will post pictures soon, but if you don't know what I"m talking about, google it.

I then decided that I needed to do laundry desperately, so I attempted to find a laundromat. It was no easy task. Just getting someone to understand what I was looking for was hard enough. I walked for what seemed like hrs but finally found it on a very shady looking street. If I do 2 loads it will cost me about 28 euro! Ridiculous. Its about $10 just to wash and dry one load. Amazing.

I walked down to the Colosseum again for hopefully a good night shot. It didn't go as well as I had planned, but hey, you can't get lucky every time.

I then had my last dinner in Italy for a while. Since I hadn't paid for food yet today, I splurged a little bit and got baked Sole in bread crumbs with butter and lemon, and roasted potatoes. It was quite good.

Once I do my laundry tomorrow, I will check out of my hotel at noon and head over to the airport, where I will sit for many hrs, and then fly on Air Malta to Malta. I am not sure what to expect of this tiny mediterranean island. I hope things go smoothly though, as we have 10 items of memorabilia to shoot, and no extra days! So I hope they are prepared.

Also I am very tired. I am walking an average of about 15,000 steps per day.

-John

When in Rome...

Yes, I am in Rome. I got up at 3am, took the boat to the airport, and was here by 8:30am. Napped until noon, and then explored the ancient ruins of the forum and the Colosseum for a while. So far it seems very interesting. I do enjoy ancient ruins. Work tomorrow, and I really hope things go smoothly. I also need to do some laundry very badly, so hopefully I can find somewhere around here to do that. Sorry for the short post, but I just don't have the energy for anything more. Pictures will be put up if I can get some time later.

John

Day 3

Today was the day they were supposed to be ready to go, so I headed over early after breakfast. They were in the same basic state of chaos as the day before.

So, I did some of the areas that were available, and decided to work on the memorabilia for the rest of the time. It proved to be difficult and frustrating. Much of it was very close to walls, which means I can't get a light stand and umbrella in between the wall and the memo. That leaves me with few options. I can try to use something to reflect light onto the subject, or bounce light off the ceiling or another wall onto the subject. But, because the memo is encased in a large plastic/glass case, any light source that flashes in front of it will be reflected off its surface. Needless to say, it took me all day to achieve results I wasn't even that satisfied with.

I did a night exterior, which should be halfway decent, but not perfect, because the area is extremely high traffic. After I had done this, there was still a small amount of light in the sky, and I decided to see if I could get anything interesting. I hit San Marco piazza, and then ran to the Rialto Bridge.

It was worth the effort. This is what being a photographer is ALL about people. Its not having the most expensive camera or the fanciest lenses, its about being in the right place at the right time, and knowing how to take advantage of it.
the composition on the above photo is awful, but I didn't have time to fix it. Plus I just liked the lights and the colors. I may re-do this tonight.

I will post more pictures as I can edit them, but the bulk of the photos won't be touched until I get home. I simply have far too many to even try to edit.





I am leaving extremely early (3:30am) tomorrow for the airport, so final thoughts on Venice:

Even though it is one of the most touristy places I have ever been to, everything is unique and interesting. In my opinion, there is almost no way you can miss out on the excitement and ambiance that is Venice (unless you go to Burger King or something). Every restaurant is run by Italians (well most of them), and every restaurant is actually in Venice, making it inherently interesting. The draw for me is the experience. Not necessarily seeing as many churches as possible in 24 hrs, or eating at the worlds best small out of the way pizza shop. I enjoyed seeing how life was lived in Venice. The city is entirely pedestrian or boat. All supplies and goods are brought into the city by small boats, and carted around by men with hand trucks and carts. The city runs on physical labor, much the way it probably did a thousand years ago. The lack of any kind of cars is also very refreshing. At night it gets very quiet, and the piazzas echo with your footsteps. It is almost reverent, especially in a courtyard with a church. People walk in small groups and speak in hushed tones as they make their way through narrow passageways lit by small lamps in restaurant windows. As I mentioned to someone, it feels almost "fake" somehow, yet it isn't, and that is why it is so unique. You can't find this kind of place anywhere else in the world. I have enjoyed wandering this city for the past few days.

I make my way to Rome tomorrow.

John

I added a few pictures to the post below. A few more can be seen at my pbase site.

I am working slowly on getting some more pictures up, but I can't justify sitting in my hotel room on the computer when I am in Venice!

The city of lights

On Wednesday I started out the day with the free breakfast at my hotel. According to wikitravel, my hotel is one of the nicer/pricier in the city. I'm sure it was picked for its proximity to the HRC, but it is pretty nice so far. The rooms are very small, but the rest of the hotel is nice. The breakfast had lots of food to choose from.

I went over to meet more of the HRC staff. When I got there, it was crazy. Men were working all over the place, people were working on their laptops, etc. To make a long story short, not only were they in the middle of trying to get things ready for their opening in a few weeks, they had no idea that I was coming, or that there was even a photoshoot scheduled. Translation: somebody somewhere screwed up big time, and it wasn't me.

So, I told them to try to have things ready on Thursday, and I would be back then.

I then headed back to my room and changed clothes, grabbed my camera, and headed out. I visited the Piazza San Marco, which is the plaza of Saint Mark. It is one of the more famous/popular places in venice, and there were a lot of people milling around. The weather was fantastic. High 50s, lots of sun. I didn't wear a coat. I wandered around and took an elevator to the top of the Campanile di San Marco, or the belltower (interestingly it was re-built in 1912 after collapsing. The original was around 1,000 years old). The views from up here were incredible. The pictures should tell some of the story.

I then proceeded to wander through the streets for a while, slowly making my way towards the Rialto bridge, probably the most famous bridge in Venice. The streets range from very narrow to almost impossible to squeeze through. I literally found an alley where I worried about my shoulders fitting through it, I kid you not. Its a good thing I went through head first, because if I had tried to go through sideways, there is no way I would have fit through.

Venice is full of shops of all kinds: clothing stores, very high fashion stores, candy shops, bakeries, coffee shops, pizza everywhere, lots of murano glass shops, and everything in between. The gondolas are everywhere, and their gondoliers (sp?) are constantly trying you to go on a ride. Who goes on a gondola by themself??

The most interesting things to me are the canals, the way the city winds around and has so many small passageways, of course the architecture, and the history of the island. It is extremely photogenic, I took over 500 pictures.

The nice thing about Italy is that I no longer need an excuse to eat pizza. Its Italian food! So I got some for lunch. It was pretty good. I have a theory about food in foreign countries, but I don't think the world is ready to hear it just yet. I also got some "gellato" which is supposed to be special, but from what I can tell is just regular ice cream. It was good though.

So I wandered for most of the day, took over 500 pictures, walked over 20,000 steps.

At dusk I went to one of the 3 main bridges over the grand canal to photograph one of the more famous views of venice. There were a few other photographers there and we talked about nerdy things. I am pleased with the results.



I then ate dinner along the grand canal. I had spaghetti. It seems to me that the atmosphere in Venice is what you are really there to experience more than anything. The atmosphere around the grand canal is very unique in my opinion.

That concludes my first full day in venice. I will post pictures as I can get to them. I will try to get thursday's blog up at some point too. It was much less exciting however.

john

Cologne Day 3

Please click on the photos if you want to view them.

I should have updated the blog last night, but I was too busy catching up with the rest of the world. Oh well.

Yesterday we photographed various items of memorabilia at the hard rock. Guitars, clothing, etc. It is a lot of work, and a huge pain. I have all kinds of flashes and tripods and gear, and its all fragile. And of course, I have to use tables and chairs and ladders to get to high places, so needless to say, its not fun and it gets old. But, everything went very well from my perspective, so I felt pretty good about everything.

I didn't do anything extremely exciting yesterday. I walked around the cathedral some more, but the lift to the top was closed, so I couldn't go up there. I went back to the hard rock for a night shot, which I think should turn out alright despite some rain that threatened to interfere with me.

here is a photo I took on my way back to the hotel:


I stopped at a very german looking restaurant and had a delicious meal of curly kale with potatoes, a sausage with mustard, and some apple pie.

here is what the inside of the restaurant looked like:

This morning I slept in due to staying up late last night, and the fact that my flight left in the afternoon. I ended up sleeping till 10, and since it was raining, did not do any more sightseeing. by the time I had some food and packed it was time to leave for the airport.

I spent most of the time in the airport reading a book. My flight on TUIfly to Venice was nice and short, and flying over the Italian alps was very cool to see.

Once in Venice, I took a water taxi to the island. It took almost an hr because it was so slow and we made a few extra stops on our way around the island.

After checking into my hotel I found some food and met the people at the hrc, which is only a few hundred feet from my hotel. I am looking forward to exploring this extremely unique city.

Pictures will be taken tomorrow i hope.

John

Day 2 of Cologne

EDIT: I added a bunch of new pictures, but for some reason its cutting them off, so click on the picture to see the full image.

I Spent the morning working at the HRC. The people there are great, just like Bucharest, for which I am very thankful. With 2 good shoots so far, I don't know how much longer this will last, but I hope the rest are half this helpful.

Spent a lot of time talking with one of the girls I was working with about life in europe, politics, america, germany, history, culture, etc. It was encouraging to hear more positive things about the US and Americans, as well as the state of the minds in Europe. Sometimes I think that America is the only sane nation left, but its good to hear that many of the people I have met are just as rational as we are, and want most of the same things we do. And the differences in our cultures are what makes the world an interesting place.

On my way back to the hotel I stopped at a small restaurant called Pfaffen Brauerei to get some lunch and get out of the rain. I had a meal that included sausage, and some kind of potatoes with fried onions I think..either way it was delicious.

I decided to take a guided tour bus around the city for 10 euro. It lasted about 1.5 hrs and was a good way to see a lot of the city and get some history at the same time. I took a lot of pictures, some of which I will post if I can, but most of which I will try to put online somewhere else. Cologne is a very interesting city with a unique history and place in Germany. The old city, which is where I am staying and visiting, is my favorite part of the city. I am having a blast walking all over and exploring.

here is the Cologne Cathedral
another church near my hotel
inside of the cathedral
candles in the church
a famous square near the HRC
more of the inside of the cathedral
more of the inside of the church
looking up at the front of the cathedral
a famous building designed by architect Renzo Piano
the outside of my hotel
the inside of the hotel

I went to another bridge over the Rhein to get some more photos from another perspective of the Cologne Cathedral and some other churches along the western side of the river. Here is one that I shot tonight:
On the way back to the hotel I stopped at another restaurant called Rheinland Koln, and had a meal of blood sausage, mashed potatoes with onions, and homemade apple sauce. Naturally, it was outstanding.

I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to get a bad meal here. I am enjoying Germany a lot so far. It has friendly people, beautiful scenery and architecture, tons of history, shopping for the wife, and amazing food. It is a country that I would have no problem visiting again sometime.

I will attempt to post more pictures of my travels around Cologne, but I am finding I have less and less time to edit photos. I will try to put some more up tomorrow.

John

Koln

I wanted to get that out of the way first. That is the kind of image I was hoping to be able to capture at some point, and I am pretty pleased with the result. The cathedral is the Cologne Cathedral, quite famous and easily the most dominant presence on the skyline of Cologne. There's a secret to getting this scene to look the way I wanted it to ;-) I won't divulge that, but the fun part is that this picture is totally unedited, except to merge two images into one to make it wider.

Today started off with me waking up at 3am and not being able to go back to sleep. My taxi came at 5am and we got to the airport quickly. It was a different airport this time, Banaesa Airport. An older, smaller airport, it was surprisingly very close to the larger international airport. Checking in was total madness. The terminal was tiny, old, and full of people. It took me a while to figure out what I was supposed to be doing. When I finally did check in, I found out that this airline (Blue Air) had a limit of 1 checked bag per person, weight not to exceed 20kg. Well I had 2 bags, whose combined weight was about 38kg. So, I paid the fee of 6 euro per extra kg, plus a fee for an extra bag, amounting to about $150. Amazing.

Boarding was accomplished by bussing everyone about 100 yards to the plane, where we piled on. We had some incredible turbulence on the short flight to Sibiu, where we stopped to get more passengers (I guess?). I slept most of the way to Cologne.

Got into Cologne, got my luggage, took a taxi to my hotel, and took about a 2 hr nap because I was so tired.

Woke up, grabbed my camera, and headed out to check out the location of the HRC and maybe meet some of the staff. On the way I would check out what Cologne looked like. I spent some time in the Cathedral. It was very cool. Huge. I took a lot of pictures.

I wandered through the streets until I found the HRC. There are tons of restaurants, shops, small narrow cobblestoned streets, etc. I find it all fascinating.

I ate a very late lunch at a small restaurant along the river (The Rhein). I had marinated porksteak. It was pretty good.

Eventually I went back to my hotel and got my tripod and headed across the bridge to attempt the shot I posted above. I had to wait quite a while in the cold, but I think it was worth it.

That's pretty much it for today. If you don't see as many pictures as you think you should, check back because I add more sometimes. I also updated photos and captions to my last post about Bucharest.

- John