Morning finds me at Ataturk International Airport, international departures terminal, at 7 am, sipping bitter, grainy Turkish coffee while waiting for Olympic Airlines to open and start admitting travelers. I have an hour and so take my time watching the people here. The security is intense — screening of person and baggage at the entrance […]
My third day without a cell phone. It’s becoming liberating. Breeds independence and self-sufficiency. I’ve been relying on technology for too long. Of course it’s not exactly one of those calm symbiotic relationships like the ramora and the shark — ramora, right? — it’s more like a ball and chain that you have to drag […]
I return to Saturday, to Andolu Kavagi, because I must take a step back to explain the genesis of yesterday’s expedition — it was shaped at the insistence of a Turkish woman I met on Kavagi. I was sitting in a café just shy of the top of the hill, having surveyed the fortress and […]
There can’t be more than five or six flights leaving Kiev at any given time. The airport can’t possibly sustain it.