Category Archive for: ‘Writing’

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  Blowing Out the Airline Miles

  I cleared the pipes on my airline miles accounts Thursday and Friday, booking an around-the-world ticket mostly in business class. Except, you know, the single longest flight, which happens to be fourteen hours. Ugh. Normal coach airfares for round-the-world trips are pretty hideous, far more …

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• One. Billion. Dollars.

  Just as the year changed, Debbie Cook sent an email to 12,000 people that rocked their world. It was a letter to active Scientologists. Debbie was the head of the largest public-facing Scientology church in the world (in Clearwater Florida) for 17 years. In the …

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• 12/25 Quiet Christmas, With Bells

  Bridges crossed: 0. Maybe because I heard it a lot in Liverpool, I can only think of the John Lennon song: “So this is Christmas.” (I also heard more than one’s fair share of “Wonderful Christmastime,” but as Scalzi points out, at least it doesn’t …

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• 12/24 Paris by Accident, Venice by Intent

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  Bridges crossed: 1 (Guglie across the Cannaegio canal) Travel-wise (and obviously excluding the death of my mother-in-law), everything was going entirely too well, right? Well, all that was about to change. Today, I’d wind up in France by accident. I woke up at 3:30 to …

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• 12/23 Two Errands

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  Friday is my last real day in Liverpool, and I decided to go back to explore the pedestrian area. I have two goals in mind: I want to hit a local health food store and lay in some supplies of gluten-free items in case I …

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• 12/22 Magical Mystery Tour

  For Thursday, I’d booked a tour: the Magical Mystery Tour. I walked over early enough that I could do something else: I decided to take a ride on the ferris wheel. It’s 60 meters high, and I do believe I could actually see to Wales. …

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• 12/21 Downtime

  The weather today was utterly miserable, and that did not encourage me to go out. I was tired from the day before, still jet lagged, and I just wasn’t feeling all that great, so I spent a lot of the day resting up. I did …

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• On the Run: The Tour

  Tuesday’s the big day. I tuck my concert ticket into my passport in my neck travel wallet and head down to breakfast. I’m starving, and I woke up at 4 a.m., which my iPad insisted (it still thinking it was on continental Europe time) was …

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• Greetings from Paris

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  No, I wasn’t supposed to visit France this trip, but sometimes one winds up in the wrong country by chance. Long story, which I shall tell later. I have done the CDG airport death march, and this is my third airport today. One left (one …

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• Above Us Only Sky

  Liverpool’s airport is John Lennon International, and it has a cool motto: “Above us only sky.” It’s not a huge airport, and KLM’s withdrawal will probably hurt a lot (though obviously if KLM were making money on the routes, they’d continue going there, so I …

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