Chelsea Gallerista

I popped out of the subway at Syntagma to a warm welcome Read my complete Spot Challenge chronicle T oday I headed for Athens, my penultimate stop in the Spot Challenge. A 9am Easyjet flight means I had my butt on the 6.10am airport bus at Roma Termini. This was a bargain flight: just 60 Euro or $US75.77. On the way to the airport I spotted ... at least three Damien Hirst Spot billboards! Am I the only one who saw them? Unfortunately, my compact Canon S100 wasn't fast enough to capture them for posterity as we whizzed by; my less compact Sony DSX-HX9V would have grabbed it in a flash. This was my first ever visit to Greece. The Gagosian Athens gallery was right around the corner from the subway interchange at Syntagma Square, the scene of ongoing skirmishes between students and police. I popped out of the subway to face a phalanx of riot shields. A few people - and a lot of teens wagging school - were milling around in the square. I got the feeling some e

I nearly dropped my camera when I saw this. Do they really think a "NEW!" starburst will  attract American tourists? Hang on, it works for toasters and hamburger helper!  In case you weren't sure you've landed in Italy, there are plenty of clues right at the airport .. Read my complete Spot Challenge chronicle It's a long, long, long hike to the Easyjet gate lounge at Geneva Airport. As it was such a short flight (1 hour), I made the mistake of thinking of it as a domestic flight in the USA, where you can arrive an hour before take off. I've smugly sat in the gate lounge charging my phone or laptop while everyone else rushes to shuffle along the gangway to their pre-assigned seat. I've even waited for the eleventh-hour "Passenger Lynette Chiang, please come to the gate lounge, your flight is now boarding ..." before calmly packing up my things and strolling to the door like I own the place ... The wonderful patina of old R

Spot planking at The Gagosian Geneva - thanks to Johan for being such a great sport (even if we got funny looks from some visitors)  Read my complete Spot Challenge chronicle Paris in the morning, Geneva for lunch, Rome for afternoon tea.  The last time I achieved anything like this was in Japan, where the Shinkansen bullet trains let you eat breakfast in Tokyo, lunch with a friend in Nagoya and dive into a bowl of Ippudo noodles in Fukuoka at the other end of the country. All helped by having a folding bike that I could hop on and off to grab the sights ahead of plodding tourists. On this trip I was a plodding tourist wearing skates to make it to the gallery on time.  My CouchSurfing host in Paris, Patrick, got me up at the crack of dawn and onto the TGV bullet train at Gar du Lyon for the 3 hour trip to Geneva. I was sure there would be wi-fi – this is Paris and Geneva, right?  “Sadly no,” said my seatmate, an investment trader on his way to Geneva. He

High lunge for Paris - 5 down, 6 to go! Read my complete Spot Challenge chronicle After knocking off the two galleries in London, the next logical stop was Paris, a couple of hours away by Eurostar, the undersea train that goes through the "Chunnel." My one-way Eurostar fare from London to Paris was $US160, purchased in advance using the RailEurope.com site. Now a lot of travel bloggers tell you to avoid this site like the plague - it's the default portal for anyone booking over the web who happens to have their butt on America, and apparently "charges more." They suggest you use the local sites - although you're subject to the whim of exchange rate conversions and deciphering foreign language sites ("just use your intuition," said one blogger blithely). Well, the French woman sitting beside me in the Eurostar waiting lounge was amazed, telling me her ticket cost something like 150 Euro - Vs my 106, so I felt for once in my life I ma