Saturday reflections

It's surprising to me that it's only been two weeks since I took this picture—it feels like forever ago.

This is from the hot Sunday when I got lost in Oxford and at one point found myself in a tunnel underneath the Rewley swing bridge. It was kind of creepy actually, but the reflections were nice.

Oxford

I did not think I would make it here. I'm not entirely sure I have.

It was hot and muggy (not New York hot, but hot) and I managed to get lost not once, but twice, and ended up walking more than I should have trying to find my way back to my hotel, and now I'm in that state of nerve-jangling jet lagged tiredness where I have to keep reminding myself where I am. But the photo evidence (a bridge on Castle Mill Stream) suggests that it is really Oxford and I'm really here.

Saturday reflections

Moving on—finally!—to Melbourne, here's a double-header of reflections, in the river and the botanical gardens.

Saturday reflections

Punts under Magdalen Bridge.

Random things I saw at Magdalen College

 

Magdalen Bridge

The bridge sits at the top of the High Street, so I've crossed it many times, usually stopping to look at the punts on the Cherwell below. But from the footpath you can see the bridge from below and watch the punts as they go through the arches.

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.

El Ferdan closeup

Looking through the span of the El Ferdan bridge on the Sinai side.

A change in the weather

It had clouded over, and by the time we got to the Friendship Bridge, it was drizzling a little. That gave an eerie, ghostly look to the water and the other ships (this is looking back at our faithful tugboat and number two ship in the convoy.)

The Friendship Bridge

The Egyptian-Japanese Friendship Bridge (also called the Mubarak Peace Bridge) opened in 2001. It links Africa and Asia across the canal.

Corinth Canal

This was the last stop on our Classical Greece tour, before heading to Piraeus and boarding our ship, and unlike the other sites we visited during the past three days, it can be covered quickly.

The Isthmus of Corinth separates the Peloponnese from the Greek mainland; this four-mile long canal links the Aegean and Ionian Seas through the isthmus. It opened in 1893, but was never used as much as expected. It's too narrow, and prone to landslides from those steep rock walls. It's mostly a tourist attraction now, though that does amuse me because you have to stand on a highway overpass to see into it, and though it is an impressive sight, it's hard to spend more than five minutes there.

More from the Botanic Garden

 

Farewell to Minnesota

This is the bridge over the Mississippi River a few blocks from my hotel. I walked over it on Friday afternoon, and it was hot, and there was no shelter from the sun. I quickly wished that I had a hat—or that I had remembered to put on sunscreen.

It's going to be over a hundred degrees here today, so I am getting out of town in the nick of time.

Urban poetry

I will clearly never catch up on my backlog of photos until I am no longer in grad school. I must accept this.

Here's a photo that is less than a month old, of the legacy Bay Bridge in San Francisco.

Speaking of the Golden Gate Bridge

I saw this bridge on a daily basis when I was young. I've driven across it countless times, sailed under it, and walked across it more than once. It often shows up in my dreams. And yet, I had never noticed the Art Deco details on the towers before.

Obviously, when I was a kid I wouldn't have known what Art Deco was, but the adult me never noticed either until I looked at these pictures.

Urban poetry

A look at two bridges—the new span of the San Francisco Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate—taken through the sunroof of my friends' car.

My body is finally back on Eastern Daylight Time; I know what time it is, more or less, but I am still not entirely clear what day it is.

View from Fort Tryon Park

I'm going to try to catch up on some old pictures before school starts again. The skies here may look wintry, but this picture looking up the Hudson from Fort Tryon Park was taken on a rather mild day in October.

Sunday bird blogging

Another look at Spuyten Duyvil Creek and the Henry Hudson Bridge, this time with a mallard.

Urban poetry

The 59th Street Bridge, taken from the East River this afternoon. 

And after a ferry ride and a walk around the Upper East Side and lunch at an actual restaurant, I'm definitely feelin' groovy.

Urban poetry

Leaving Vancouver on the Rocky Mountaineer.