Unexpected returns

August 17, 2019August 17, 2019 Tigerotor77W#thatwanakatree, Air New Zealand, Auckland International Airport, Blue Pools, Boeing 777, Cape Jackson, Cardrona Distillery, Grandview Mountain, Hapuka estuary, Isthmus Peak, Lake Wanaka, Makarora River, Matukituki River, Milky Way, Mount Aspiring National Park, Mount Cook National Park, Mt. Iron, Polaris Business, Roaring Billy Waterfall, Rob Roy Glacier, Roys Peak, South Island, Sunrise, Sunset, United Airlines, Wanaka, waterfall1 Comment

On the second of my two trysts with New Zealand, one enclave in particular attracted my attention, despite the weather being uncooperative both days of my stay. This year, when I should be galavanting around Europe to take in all I can before I commit myself to the insane asylum of localizing a manufacturing line to Charleston, I admitted defeat to there being too many unvisited places in Europe and booked a flight to New Zealand instead. I landed scrutinizing a rain shower and double rainbows to the north, but Auckland airport — and my luggage — remained, incredibly, dry.

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Splashes of color

May 1, 2019 Tigerotor77W#thatwanakatree, Air New Zealand, Airbus A350, Airbus A380, Aoraki, Arrowtown, Camp Stream trail, Hooker Lake, Hooker Valley Track, iceberg, Isthmus Peak, Lake Pukaki, Lake Tekapo, Lake Wanaka, Mount Cook, Mount Cook National Park, Mt. Sibbald, Sealy Tarns, Singapore Airlines, Snow, South Island, Southern Alps, Sunrise, Sunset, Tasman Glacier, Tasman Lake, Te Araroa Trail, Tekapo, WanakaLeave a comment

If my first post about New Zealand gave the impression that the entire two weeks was colorless, I have some contrasting news: they were not. When I flew toward my layover airport of Singapore en route to Auckland, we floated among azure skies. Even if grey marshmallows occasionally interrupted my view once on the ground, the peacefulness of streaking above the clouds didn’t end with the bump of landing in New Zealand.

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Counting down my sunrises

January 28, 2019 Tigerotor77WAllgäu, Allgäuer Alpen, Hochfrottspitze, Mädelegabel, Riedberger Horn, Sunset, Trettachspitze1 Comment

I’ve long preferred sunrise to sunset, and being a morning person never had to force myself to reconcile the difficulties in waking up and stepping outside before the first light strikes the horizon with the beauty and stillness that embrace the early riser. But waking up early, even in the middle of winter when the shadows are at their longest, doesn’t come easily, and sunsets sometimes offer the more attractive solution, especially when the ski lifts stop humming and the pistes are empty but for the snow groomers. The Riedberger Horn brims with activity during the day, but during either twilight a beautiful silence descends on its slopes.

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Not sure I’m ready to leave

December 31, 2018 Tigerotor77WFurka Pass, Furkapass, Furkastraße, Grimsel Pass, Matterhorn, photography, Riffelsee, Sunrise, Sunset, ZermattLeave a comment

After the August trip, I wasn’t sure I would make it to Zermatt another time this year. I had plans for a few weekends in September already, and the weather wasn’t pleasant the others. October was going to busy as it was, then I had another trip in November that I was sure would take me up to the first snows. But the weather one weekend looked promising, and I thought I might be able to get away. So flee I did — and I probably don’t even need to mention to where.

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Impossible not to stare

June 16, 2018 Tigerotor77WBorðoy, buttercup road, Eiði, Elduvík, Giant and the Witch, Gjógv, helipad, Hvannasund, Kallur lighthouse, Kalsoy, Kópakonan, Kunoy, lighthouse, Mikladalur, Mykines, Nólsoy, Nes, Norðdepil, Oyggjarvegur, Pollurin, Risin og Kellingin, Saksun, Seal Woman, seals, Skaelingur, Skælingsfjall, Snow, Sunset, Tórshavn, tidal lagoon, Trøllanes, Tvøroyra Kirkja, Tvøroyri, Viðoy, wind farm, winterLeave a comment

The weather forecast for my first full day in the Faroes was supposed to be pleasant, so not much encouragement was needed to get me out the door and on the road. The roadmap produced by the Faroe Islands tourist board is really quite good and includes a “buttercup” icon that represents scenic spots or roads. I picked one that climbed above Tórshavn, coming across a wind farm after a few minutes of driving. It only took opening the car door to see why this form of electricity production is so pervasive in the Faroes — it’s never not windy!

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Just a few more days…

January 5, 2018 Tigerotor77WÈze-Village, Baie des Anges, Cimiez, clownfish, Colline du Château, Cours Saleya, cuttlefish, Hexa Grace, Karuna Girl, MAMAC, Matthieu Ricard, Monaco, Musée d'Archéologie, Musée d'Art Modern et d'Art Contemporain, Musée Matisse, Musée Océanographique de Monaco, Nice, pétanque, Promenade des Anglais, SunsetLeave a comment

After experiencing Verdon earlier in the year, I thought a long road trip through l’Hexagone would be a good test of whether my rusting French was loitering in the background or if it could be restored to its former sheen simply through daily usage. To my luck, Germany decided this year to observe both the last day of October and the first of November, so I took bridge days on both sides and rolled up my sleeves in preparation for practicing my first foreign language again. Only… like my London photos, I never got around to planning any such road trip, so a couple weeks before I was due to leave I started looking at how else I might get in a dose of French before the calendar flipped to 2018. It turns out flying to Nice on Swiss was cheaper booked on Lufthansa’s website than on Swiss’ own (for the same booking class, even), so I ended up with a road trip through Germanic countries into the German-speaking region of another. But a short flight over cloudy Alps later, I was where I could practice French at long last.

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A Summer without the Alps

December 30, 2017 Tigerotor77WAir Canada Maple Leaf Lounge, Andre Fougeron, Atlantic Civilisation, Big Ben, Blavatnik Building viewing level, Bridget Riley, British Library, British Museum, Buckingham Palace, Burj el Murr, Cabinet War Rooms, Changing of the Guard, Churchill War Rooms, From Surface to Surface, Greenwich, Hampstead Heath, Heathrow Terminal 2, Joseph Bueys, K6, Lightning with Stag in its Glare, London, London cityscape, London Heathrow, London views, Lufthansa, Map room, Mark Rothko, Marwan Rechmaoui, Millennium Bridge, New London Architecture, Pinarello London, Red telephone box, Rosetta Stone, Royal Observatory, Singapore Airlines lounge, St. James' Park, St. Paul's Cathedral, Sunset, Susumu Koshimizu, Tate Modern, The Mall, The Shard, Westminster Abbey2 Comments

If a holiday falls on a Tuesday or Thursday in Germany, or at least in Bavaria, there is a tendency to use the day between the holiday and the previous or following weekend as a “bridge” day in order to create a four-day weekend with just one vacation day. Normally, such a weekend is spent in the Allgäu, storming summits and chasing contrails. This year seemed wetter and most weekends were busier than normal, so a good number of trips fell over those deceptively-short weekends. On one such weekend, maybe the warmest one this year, I ended up in England instead of the Allgäu.

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Assessing Privilege

May 14, 2017 Tigerotor77W777-300ER, 787-9, A340, Air New Zealand, Auckland International Airport, Fullers Ferries, Mount Maunganui, Onetangi Beach, Stonyridge Vineyard, Sunrise, Sunset, Swiss International Airlines, Swiss Lounge Zurich, Tauranga, Waiheke Island, Whisky Club 28/10, Zurich International Airport2 Comments

Being behind on blog posts affords the benefit of having more time to contemplate my experiences but adds the risk of forgetting nuances. Blowing the dust off a three-month old trip and the thousand photos that accompanied it is a bit of an endeavor, but this post starts another month and a half before that. In January, I had a business trip to China that began with me watching the sun rise from business class, a perk of work travel while on a German contract.

The trip was short and didn’t leave much free time to ponder. The last time we saw blue skies was just before we descended into the industrious smog, but on our last day rains the previous evening washed away enough particulate to allow the sun to poke through just after sunrise.

Less than two months afterward, I would watch a sunrise coming into the same airport (albeit from “poky” economy class), this time, though, en route to a destination where the forecast predicted no smog but rather enveloping fog.

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