They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but the sea.
- Sir Francis Bacon.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

The Orient Express route!

Ah... those precious moments of clarity....

Looking up a couple of things in Thomas Pynchon's masterpiece Gravity's Rainbow I remembered a witty song appearing in one of the first chapters:

Nobody knows where it is on the map
Who'd ever think it could start such a flap?
Each Montenegran and Serbian too,
Waitin' for something, right outa the blue - oh honey!
Pack up my Gladstone 'n' brush off my suit,
And then light me up my big fat cigar -
If ya want my address, it's
That Orient Express
To the sanjak of Novi Pazar!

The idea of passing from the Middle East to the Balkan Issue in less than a month! And to trace the route of the Orient Express (even in an erratic way...) Alternating imperial luxury and balkan seediness, over a period of a couple of weeks! What an idea!

Now is the time for decisions! Leaving tomorrow for my first port of call!


PS I: A gladstone is the typical hinged leather suitcase (named after the Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone).


"What a way for a fashionable painter to travel, a Gladstone bag and an ulster"
- Dorian Gray.

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

PS II: My first port of call? A hint: Even old New York was once New Amsterdam...


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