After driving over 3800 miles across five states and two time zones, it feels good to be home. It had been almost a decade since last time I drove a car along the busy streets of Los Angeles, but it was just as chaotic as I remembered.
I’m currently in the small town of Kanab, Utah. Tonight is the presidential election and Obama squares off against Romney. The state of Utah is pro-Romney as expected, and there was much about it on the local radio.
Tonight the annual Halloween parade was planned to roam through Greenwich Village in New York as usual, but it has been cancelled due to the emergency situation in wake of hurricane Sandy. It’s the first time in 39 years that the parade gets cancelled. I guess somewhere Jack Skellington cries out in agony.
The city of Vienna is closely associated with Mozart. When he was six, Mozart played his first royal concert at Schönbrunn palace in the presence of Austria’s ruler, Maria Theresa and the royal family in 1762. The Orangerie on the palace grounds was also the place of his musical duel with the arch nemesis Salieri (which the latter won).
When the kids of the movie Eurotrip arrived in Bratislava, they frightfully whispered “Dear sweet mother of god, we’re in eastern Europe”. Well, I’m in Bratislava today and for the record, it’s nothing like the that scene. No angry dogs, severed hands or dodgy characters.
I’ve earlier mentioned some people in the travel industry, such as Anthony Bourdain, Megan McCormick and Michael Palin. Their faces are well known from television series where they travel around the world. I’ve also written about a few authors in the Travel book section.
The hurricane Isaac is about to hit the US Gulf Coast. New Orleans is preparing for the worst, since tomorrow is the seventh anniversary of hurricane Katrina which devastated the city and caused the death of 1800 people.
I spent the weekend in Oslo. Before arriving, I wondered if I would notice any changes due to the terrorist attack last summer and the ongoing trial. I noticed banners saying “The city remembers” already at the central station, and the site where the bombing took place felt like a silent beacon.
I am currently sitting in a room in Sultanahmet, the old part of Istanbul. The Bosporus strait is within sight and the air is filled with the competing sounds of hungry seagulls and shouting minarets.
Being a movie buff, I tend to visit movie locations when I travel. As I got back from Marseille, where I followed in the footsteps of French Connection, I thought of putting together a list with some of my favorite visits during the years.
