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(Photo courtesy Pam Mandel, Nerd’s Eye View)

On Sundays, I unpack my bags and take a look at some of the fun, under $10, “of”the city items I picked up while stuck at the airport.

Last week, it was gee-gaws from McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas.

This week, I’ve got souvenirs sent in by fellow travelers.

Beth Whitman, of Wanderlust and Lipstick, found two shelves of regionally-made soups at the Made In Washington store at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA)

And my buddy Cheryl Smalley went shopping at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport (ORD):

Did you find some great souvenirs last time you were stuck at the airport?

If so, please snap a photo and send it along. It may end up on next week’s Souvenir Sunday.

Categories: Airport shops, Shopping, Souvenir Sunday
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Next weekend, February 6 and 7, 2010, visitors to the Düsseldorf International Airport will be entertained by skiers and snowboarders performing stunts and jumps on a 130-foot long ski slope set up right in the shopping arcade of the terminal.

Pretty impressive by itself, but if you’re heading to Düsseldorf to see the world’s first indoor ski jump at an airport, you may as well go visit the moon.

(The ‘Largest Moon on Earth’ – sculpture and photo by Wolfgang Volz)

A reproduction and exhibit of the solar system — including an 82-foot wide moon sculpture that is the largest moon sculpture in the world — is on display inside a 380-foot tall former gas container, in nearby Oberhausen.

The exhibit, Out of this World – Wonders of the Solar System, also includes impressive replicas of the sun and its planets and is open through December 30, 2010 as one of the projects of “Ruhr 2010”, a year-long series of art events and exhibits in Germany’s Rhine Ruhr area, near Düsseldorf.

Categories: Air Travel, Art, Environment, Events, Exhibits, Fun Stuff, Layover
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The opening ceremonies for the 2010 Winter Olympics are just around the corner, and final details are hurriedly being worked out and set in place in downtown Vancouver, up at Whistler and at various venues and attractions throughout the region.

It’s particularly exciting out at the airport.

Vancouver International Airport will be the first stop for more than 230,000 Olympics-bound athletes, officials, coaches, support teams and out-of-town visitors, and it is taking its role as the city’s front door very seriously.

Vancouver International Airport officials have been traveling to other Games to get a first-hand view of how airports handled the onslaught of athletes and spectators. And the airport prep team has gathered tips and advice from airport officials in Sydney, Salt Lake City, Athens and other cities that have hosted previous Olympics events.

Find out what Vancouver Airport learned about selling souvenirs, security, and how to handle the biggest Olympics travel day – the day after the closing ceremonies, when everyone tries to go home – in my column Vancouver Airport puts on its Games Face, on MSNBC.com.

Categories: Air Travel, Airport shops, Fun Stuff, Security, Sports
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Is this too much fun for an airport?

This past December, right before Christmas, Germany’s Düsseldorf International Airport (DUS) hosted a circus competition in the shopping arcade with contortionists,  jugglers and trapeze artists.

Now comes word that on February 6^th and 7^th, 2010, the airport shopping arcade will be the site of the world’s first airport indoor ski jump.

They’ll be trucking in a heap-o-snow and making a real ski jump.  Then, they’ll have snowboarders and ski stars perform all sorts of stunts.

They’ve even drafted former British Olympic ski jumper Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards to open the event.

Edwards was the somewhat inept skier who somehow made it to the 1988 Calgary Games.

And although he finished last in his events, he became a goofy, folk hero.

In addition to the ski jump demonstrations, the airport will be hosting a travel show and offering  sports demos, comedy and musical performances, and free airport flights and tours.

Can’t wait to see what they come up with next!

Categories: Entertainment, Events, Festivals, Fun Stuff, Sports
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If you happen to be traveling to or through Tucson International Airport (TUS) anytime soon, make sure to build in some extra time to see the art.

Work by more than 40 regional artists is scattered throughout the airport and there are three galleries that display temporary exhibits.

Two new exhibits recently opened.

(Diana Creighton, Manipulate, oil on canvas, 36″ x 48″, 2008)

In the airport’s Center Gallery, Diana Creighton’s whimsical oil paintings from her Animal World Series are on exhibit through March 31.  Many of these paintings feature anthropomorphic animals and humans just going about everyday business.

(Anne Simmons-Myers, Fountain, 17″ x 22″, 2009)

The second new exhibit (on display next to the Security B checkpoint through May 31, 2010) is work by Anne Simmons-Myers.  The landscape photographs of Japan and Sri Lanka are from her series Prior Vision.

An expert in ‘alternative processes,’ the 19th and early 20th century methods of making photographs, Simmons-Myers combines the old with the new by abrading, over painting and burnishing straight digital photographs.

Look here for more information about the current exhibits on display at Tucson International Airport.  And if you see some great art at an airport, let us know so we can tell others.

Categories: Art
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