Moscow to the End of the Line: My Travels Across the World

dear friends;

Welcome to my travel log. I imagine that I know many of you well. And to those I don't, hope you enjoy the pictures. For the next sixty weeks I will be slowly circumnavigating the world. And since Phileas Fogg, Dick Rutan, and Jeana Yeager have already accomplished the whole speed tour thing, I will have two lengthy layovers, first for eight weeks in Voronezh, Russia, and then for the next 52, in Beijing China. I intend to share with you brief glimpses of my life in each of these locations, intermittently accompanied by a digital photo record.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I should let everyone know that the title of this blog, "From Moscow to the End of the Line: My Journeys Across the World Island," is the IP of two different men, both eccentrics, and if only through their words, acquatinces of mine. The first, Venedict Yerfeyev, is the author of the book, Moscow-Petushki, an alcohol-fueled-bizarre-dystopian-adventure on a Moscow commuter train in the former CCCP. It is a book that I have failed many times at reading the whole way through. The second, Sir Halford John Mackinder, is Yerfeyev's antithesis. He was a member of His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, an ardent anti-Bolshevik, and a geostrageist whose ideas later influenced Nazi weltpolitik. From Halford, I borrow the term "World Island," and no small dose of Imperial entitlement.

Caveat emptor; before proceeding any further, I think it fair to warn any readers that this is not a diary of journeys. That I carry with my as a black box, to be unbound and examined only in event of extraordinary circumstances. This blog will be a continuing experiment in literary form, whose main purpose is to provide five minutes of droll distraction to those friends and relatives sitting in uncomfortable library chairs or plush offices back in the US of A.

If you would like a post-card, e-mail me at daniel.potts12@gmail.com. Please include your adress, your name, and a promissary note for a return shipment of Starbucks VIA Ready Brew instant coffee packs, upon delivery of said postcard.

best,

DR