Russell Dicker

100 Pictures

Back in July I introdroduced the 100 Picture Project. The idea being to document the experience of my travels by taking a picture of whatever I am looking at every 15 minutes. My longest and most demanding trip is flying home from Iaşi, Romania. This is a 25 hour trip, so taking a picture every 15 minutes would give me exactly 100 pictures.

Yesterday was my trip home. A delay leaving D.C. (they misloaded the cargo and we needed to go back to the gate) stretched the trip out, so I hit the 25 hour/100 picture estimate exactly on the nose and the results are now up at Flickr. I recommend viewing it as a slideshow.

How did it turn out? There are some interesting moments and a few beautiful ones, but honestly I think most of the shots are really stunningly boring. In other words, just like the trip. If you've ever done it, you know that traveling 25 hours straight is boring for long stretches at a time. On shorter trips I stare out the window more, but on the long ones, I read and watch videos. As a consequence a lot of the shots are of the American version of The Office, I watched the whole second season. I also wasn't able to stay awake for the whole time, so there are 11 placeholder slides during my three hour nap. All this adds to the boredom while watching the slides, but also makes the show more in line with the actual experience. For that, I am very pleased with the results.

Notes from the Road

A few notes/observations from my current travels:

• Business class on IAD to FRA had more trophy wives per square foot than the changing rooms of Louis Vitton on Rodeo drive. Seriously. I'm surprised some of the jewlery didn't count towards the carry-on luggage quota.
• Frankfurt Airport has the nicest and most competent security of any airport I've been to. They consistantly notice things in my luggage that they want to take a closer look at (this time it was my electric toothbrush), but are always very polite and efficient about it.
• On my Lufthansa flight to Vienna some of the passengers were being persnickity about their seating and refused to sit down. How did they deal with it? The plane just started to taxi. The simply didn't care. The flight attendant seemed to tell them, "These are your seats, you can take them or not, but we've closed the door and are leaving." They sat down in a hurry.
• Austrian, like many European airlines, names all their planes. Their Lauda 737-800 fleet are all named after famous musicians such as Miles Davis, Kurt Cobain, Frank Zappa, and George Harrison. An impressive and influential set there. And while he may not be consisdered as important to music as a Freddie Mercury, because they are Austrian, Falco gets a plane as well. Rock me Amadaus!
• I've always seen the stray dogs when I visit Iasi, but this time I've also seen wild horses.