Saturday reflections

This one has been sitting in the folder for a while—the no longer used El Ferdan Railway bridge in the Suez Canal.

Penguin went a-courtin'

If you look closely at this gentoo in Mikkelsen Harbor you can see that he's carrying one of the very important courtship pebbles in his beak.

Whale bones

There were whale bones all over the beach at Mikkelson Harbor, along with the ruins of a wooden boat.

Back in Antarctica

Looking down on the landing site in Mikkelsen Harbor. This picture gives a sense of scale that I wasn't always able to capture—how small I sometimes felt, with the mountains and glaciers just looming above us.

Sunday bird blogging

A pair of kelp geese on the shore in Puerto Williams, before we set sail for South Georgia.

Saturday reflections

I've been taking a lot of buses again, something I got out of the habit of doing during the pandemic. But with school and tutoring on the Upper East Side, and my knee no longer up to walking as many miles as I used to, it's either buses or Uber, and buses are a lot cheaper.

A view from above

I love seeing mountains from the air, and the Andes always seem particularly photogenic. This was taken on the flight between Rio and Santiago.

The umbrellas of Copacabana

Urban poetry

Christmas Day in Rio. The highway along Copacabana Beach was closed to cars, but busy with bikes and scooters.

And almost every single person was on their phone while they were biking or scooting along. I've never seen that anywhere else; lots of New Yorkers are glued to their phones while they walk, but I've never seen anyone looking at their phone while they're biking. It definitely wouldn't be great for your life expectancy here.

I sold my car not long ago, and while I occasionally miss the idea of it, I really do not miss the stress of driving in Manhattan, where two eyes and a few mirrors aren't nearly enough to keep track of all of the chaos around you.

Cascatinha Taunay

This waterfall is in Tijuca National Park, an urban park in the mountains in and around Rio. It's named for Nícolas-Antoine Taunay, a French artist who built his house on the edge of the waterfall.

More tropical foliage

I do love the colossal leaves in the tropics; I remember seeing some in Costa Rica that were taller than I am. And there was bamboo everywhere.

Jardim Botânico

The botanical gardens were part of my Christmas Eve tour in Rio. They were closing early for the holiday, so our visit was a blur of orchids, bamboo and a lot of tropical foliage.

Another phone picture

This was taken from the couch in my stateroom, in Antarctica obviously.

We were somewhere in the vicinity of either Neko Harbor or Paradise Bay. I probably got up off my ass at some point and went out on the balcony to get a better picture, but I love this reminder of the sheer magic of that trip.

Sunday bird blogging

I'm catching up on odds and ends now that the semester over, and hoping to bring some order to the mess before the summer's travels begin. So here's a white ibis in Miami in January.

Saturday reflections

Cars in a parking lot sporting some amazing reflections.

I took this picture about six months ago—I remember that I was cutting through the parking lot on my way somewhere in a tremendous hurry, though I no longer remember where I was exactly or where I was going. But obviously I had to stop and take this picture.

Anyway, it promptly got buried in the hundreds of photos on my phone related to school and our group chats, and I found it today when I was trying to clean some of the junk out.

Cristo Redentor

Even on a sunny day, with blue skies and puffy clouds, I wouldn't have been that impressed by the statue. It's colossal, of course; those outstretched arms are 28 meters across—almost 100 feet. But you lose the scale seeing it up close. If I'd had to guess how tall it was I would have said maybe fifty feet, but it's twice that. You really get a much better sense of the drama of it from a distance, or in the many photographs taken from the air.

There's a tiny chapel inside the pedestal, which was packed with people trying to get out of the rain, and I sat there for a while. I much preferred the painting there to the statue outside.

More views from Corcovado

I really wasn't expecting how beautiful all of the mountains in and around the city of Rio are. Even on a rainy day.

Rainy day

It's been raining all week here, reminding me of that last day sightseeing in Rio in the rain.

This is the view from Corcovado, the mountain with the statue of Christ the Redeemer. This panorama of the tiny boats and the city in the foreground, and the mountains fading away in the mist, was actually much more impressive than the actual statue we climbed the mountain to see.

Sunday bird blogging

Four kings in Fortuna Bay.

Sunday bird blogging

A giant petrel on the beach with some seals at Fortuna Bay.

One more week of crazy prep, and the semester will be finished. There may not be a program next year, unfortunately. We won't know if our funding has been cut until July, but since there's nothing I can do about it, I'm just going to keep my head down, grade my tests, assemble my books of student writing, and try not to think about it.

Saturday reflections

The Upper East Side reflected in a car on East 68th Street, taken on my way to the bus stop after class today.