Not A Ballerina

Dreaming of a Berlin break

2008-07-07T04:19:00.003+03:00

Last week I caught up with a former student of mine who had decided that instead of migrating to Australia, she would return home and start up life again there. Now, Australia's a nice place, but since her home is Berlin, I could totally understand this. Being one of my very favourite cities, I reluctantly let her go ... because at least if she's living there, I have one more place to stay when I next get to Berlin.

A Berlin city break is something I just have to daydream about for now. I know the city is still changing, and last time I was there I saw the new Postdamer Platz area and still more building and renovating going on; and I visited the Jewish Museum for the first time, still one of the most memorable museums I've ever been to. I also got to show my mother the massive Brandenburg Gate - she'd seen my photos from reunification night in 1990 and remembered how enthusiastic I was. But there's still a bunch of places in Berlin that I have never got to see.

All this reminds me of life in Europe and all those chances to go on cheap short breaks that I really, really miss. When I lived in south-west Germany there were so many great places within easy weekend reach - here in Perth, it's a four or five hour flight to anywhere, and a much higher cost. Oh well, at least we have some statistically wonderful average number of sunshine hours here.

Full disclosure ... this post is sponsored by directline holidays.

Web pirouette: Comfort zones, crocodiles and cruises

2008-07-03T04:37:00.004+03:00

Oh dear. After Germany's loss to Spain in Euro 2008, I just couldn't come near this blog for a few days. I don't want to talk about it. But the good news is I was still writing all over the place. Here are some highlights:

Stepping outside your comfort zone is an absolutely key part of travelling for me - I was pretty pleased that Mike at Vagabondish suggested I write this article
Just to expand the myth that Australia is full of creepy animals, all of the time (and thus keep out a few tourists so we don't get overcrowded) I wrote up this story about a crocodile in a pub at Jaunted
Since I'm into learning languages, this odd hotel package where you could learn French in Germany caught my interest for HotelChatter
I started writing up the ins and outs of Perth for The Bloggers Guide
And I also started contributing to the Europe a la Carte Blog with this post about Cruising the Neckar
And finally (phew ... and this is just the highlights) I signed up for NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posting Month - for my Becoming A Fiction Writer blog, which means I aim to post there every day throughout July. Check up on me to see if I make it.

Euro 2008 - Go Deutschland!

2008-06-28T05:38:00.003+03:00

Did I not say, just a couple of weeks ago, that Germany would get to the Euro 2008 grand final? Well, technically speaking, I didn't, but that was the message behind my patriotic post. And look - Germany is in tomorrow night's Euro 2008 grand final!

Before I get distracted, let me explain this photograph. It's the closest Germany + soccer related picture I have in my own little archive, and it was taken during World Cup '06 when the Australia Socceroos were training at a soccer field in Öhringen, near where I was living. It was the middle of summer, but since German weather doesn't quite match up to Australia's, it was cold and overcast, and rain threatened the whole afternoon. But anyway, there it is, a German soccer field.

These fields are obviously good enough for training up champion players, so my fingers and toes will be crossed for the Germans to beat Spain. Nothing against Spain, but I just don't have quite enough loyalties to Spain to overcome my familial ties to Germany. That, and my husband would kill me if I didn't support Germany.

Busy working and writing: Need more chocolate

2008-06-24T04:55:00.003+03:00

Realising that I haven't posted here for a while - sorry - I jumped into my list of bookmarks in the Not A Ballerina folder, and found a few odd things that I recently decided I should write about here. I'm not sure what goes through my brain at times, but by looking at a collection of links like that, a psychologist could probably tell you.

The scary part is how often chocolate makes the list. For example, I bookmarked an article from The West titled Chocolate stops you being grumpy. Apparently Cambridge Uni researchers discovered a magical substance called tryptophan exists in chocolate - and chicken soup - that makes us feel good.

So perhaps if I ate more chocolate, I'd be blogging here even more often. But in fact I actually have been busy blogging (not eating chocolate) and preparing a couple of new projects. If you're feeling rejected by the lack of Ballerina posts, you can take a sneak preview at my new project Same Sky Magazine (but beware, it's just the beginning), or click over to The Bloggers Guide where I've been starting to spread the word on my hometown of Perth.

Web pirouette: Infinity pools, airships and weird people

2008-06-12T03:51:00.003+03:00

Today's the day: I'm going to make a concrete start on my second novel. I didn't do that sooner because I've been writing a tonne of other stuff, including:

discovering the Miho Museum in Shiga prefecture, Japan, and cursing the guidebook and acquaintances who never told me about it when I lived relatively nearby
wishing I was wealthy enough to try out the new Zeppelin that will fly over London soon
dreaming of visiting a new Mexican resort which promises the largest infinity pool in the Caribbean (it's only through writing at HotelChatter that I even heard of infinity pools but now I'm obsessed)
reminding myself why it's important to figure out boring stuff like travel insurance before you travel
reviewing the next victim in my travel book series: son-of-Paul, Louis Theroux toured the US meeting a bunch of weird people

How Australia's becoming that little bit more European

2008-06-11T05:15:00.003+03:00

When my (German) husband persuaded me that moving back to Australia was the right thing to do, he used a lot of arguments about the good weather, the friendly people,job opportunities and my family and friends being here. My counter-arguments (which obviously weren't quite as good) included not being able to travel around so much or so cheaply, missing out on culture and a lot of fascinating "old stuff", and missing his family and our friends in Europe.

He won, clearly, but recently I've been really excited to see Perth turning a little bit more European - in odd ways. I'm a firm believer of good (and bad) things coming in threes, so I wasn't surprised when in the space of just one weekend, I observed all of these three items being available in the shops:

Fruit tea. Not black tea that's flavoured with fruit (that's NOT fruit tea, as I have fervently mentioned to many waitresses who try to serve me that here in Perth). REAL fruit tea, of the kind that is abundant in Slovakia (where I first became addicted to it) and all over Europe. Now in my local Woolworth's they are finally selling 30-bag packs of Lipton's range of fruit teas. Delicious. I'm still waiting for the ultimate - cherry tea - which I loved to buy at the supermarket in Dlhe Diely, Bratislava ... are you listening, Woolies?
European pillows. You know, those funny over-sized square pillows? We have a bunch of pillowcases to fit them, from Germany's Ikea. Personally, I don't like to sleep using one, but my husband does, and this season they are suddenly all over the place. I bought some new pillowcases for our new European pillows at Spotlight and at the checkout the woman said to me, "You know these are European pillowcases, don't you?" - I guess some customers had been bringing them back in disgust since they didn't fit their Aussie pillows. Unfortunately I was obnoxious enough to answer, "Yes, it's OK, my husband is European."
Rotkohl. This dish made of red cabbage, imported directly from Germany, appeared on the shelves of our tiny independent supermarket. In fact, there are now four or five imported products from Germany on their shelves, some without translation as to how they should be used. I'm guessing we're one of the few customers who buy them, but I love that they exist.

European Championships brings back all the soccer memories

2008-06-09T16:25:00.002+03:00

The European Championships (that's soccer, or football as most people want me to call it) are on now - that'll be absolutely obvious if you're living in Europe, but might not quite be headline news in other parts of the world.

Here in Perth we're pretty frustrated that the games are broadcast in the wee hours of the morning, and don't think our bosses would understand if we skipped work to sleep in. What I'm surprised about is how interested I am - naturally my German other half is a big fan and that's an influence, but I'm also reminded of all my great soccer experiences at the last two World Cups.

The top picture is a bunch of South Koreans in Seoul watching the semi-final of the 2002 World Cup; I was there. Not at the game itself, but out in the centre of Seoul with half of its inhabitants. That was the beginning of my growing fondness for soccer.

When I lived in Germany during World Cup 2006, the fondness grew into a fever and I started watching all the games outdoors at "live viewing" (is that the strange English phrase the Germans coined to describe it - I can't quite remember). Unfortunately I watched the Italy - Australia game with some Italian friends and was the loser in a deal involving a T-shirt swap, so I had to walk around for the rest of the evening wearing this Italian jersey. I was so ashamed.

Now I'm anxious to see how Germany fares in the European Championships. My loyalties aren't really divided at all; I've got a Swiss student in my class at the moment but he admits openly enough that they've got no chance. My Czech students have left. That leaves me with pretty much no other reason to support any team other than Germany, so go for it, boys!

Same sky: Multicultural business English

2008-05-29T17:08:00.002+03:00

(Kassi, Patrick, Andrés, Andrés, Frank, me, Angelica, Luis, William and Jang)

It's been a while since I mentioned my classes of English learners, but I've got to tell you, walking in to teach them is often better than traveling! (Plus, I get paid for it, rather than the other way round).

Right now I'm teaching the Business English class which means we often get into interesting cultural differences conversations - although the basic principles of business themselves sure don't vary much - everybody just wants to make money! Of course, I'm trying to brainwash them into being less materialistic ...

This photo's from a recent BBQ at a lovely park in Perth - I never knew about it but my students showed me. (Yeah, I only grew up here). At the time we had a heavy Colombian influence in the class (4 of them in picture, and 3 in the class named Andrés) but we were also learning the business ways of Taiwan (very entrepreneurial), the Czech Republic, South Korea and Brazil. As I always say: I hope they're learning even half as much from me as I am from them.

Web pirouette: Jet lag, pool paving and Hello Kitty

2008-05-27T12:04:00.002+03:00

I may not have been blogging profusely at any of my sites but it's all been for a good cause, because this morning I watched a final version of my novel roll off my printer. Despite my literary preoccupation I've still put out some interesting posts this week - at least, I think they're interesting, you can decide for yourself:

6 Real Tips to Beat Jet Lag: in which I don't proclaim to be the master of beating jet lag (I am definitely not), but at least divulge what works for me without any weird magical cure-alls
Cool Paving Impresses: in which I am almost flabbergasted that such a thing exists - the paving around the pool at the Dubai Raffles is somehow cooled so you never get burnt feet on a hot day. Wonder if they could do that for beach sand, too.
Hello Japan: in which I'm not at all surprised to learn that Hello Kitty is now an official tourism ambassador in Japan, although she's not going to advertise in Australia any time soon - she's target the Chinese market.
Fast Food Chains Bombard Cusco: in which I lament, long and loud, that nasty global fast food franchises are about to take over the Peruvian town which is the tourist's gateway to Machu Picchu.
Tony Horwitz's Long, Strange Voyage: in which my book review series continues ... I've got a nice pile of new books on the corner of my desk to get through for this, it's such a pleasure!

7 travel blogs I read regularly: A quirky collection

2008-05-26T12:27:00.000+03:00

Since I belatedly came to understand about RSS (and if you're even slower than me, this is the easy way to keep in touch with what your favourite blogs are publishing without having to go and check them - new entries come to you), I've been better able to follow a bunch of interesting blogs related to travel. When I looked at them today, I realised it's quite an eclectic mix, and thought you might be interested to see a few of my favourite regular reads:

Nerd's Eye View: Pam's blog is a great example of a travel blog that continues even when you're not travelling. I'm not so sure about the recent ukulele post but there's lots of good stuff. Plus when Pam's "about" page says "I speak passable yet twangy German, love to eat dessert, and am trying to decide if I should dye my gray hair", then I figure we are actually long lost soulmates.
A Wayward Journey: I'm all for getting children involved with travelling early - I was lucky that my parents did it with me - and this is an extreme but pretty inspiring example: this family of four is just about to set off on a cycling trip from Alaska to Argentina. They've already done big expeditions before so it sounds like they'll make it - and I'm looking forward to following the journey. In a similar vein, I've just started reading Pilgrims' Progress which is an eight-child family about to travel overland from Singapore to London.
Then my love of Japan kicks in - I guess after living there for two years I'm naturally drawn to blogs exploring similar experiences. My favourite, not just for the stories but because it also looks gorgeous, is The Loulogue, tales from a Dutch girl teaching in Japan. And although updates are fairly few and far between, the posts from Gaijin Smash, written by a guy who's ended up marrying a Japanese woman and staying far longer than expected are really insightful.
And finally, there are a few blogs belonging to my various blogging colleagues (those who write for the same sites) that I follow out of sheer curiosity: Nomadic Matt's Travel Blog and Nora's Life Happens - the latter is especially interesting lately, after Nora got involved providing aid to Burma from the Thai border ... and then her boyfriend got Dengue fever - I'm sending healthy thoughts!

Why Brits have no idea where they're going ...

2008-05-16T17:13:00.003+03:00

Scary stuff. I know that I'm lucky enough to have travelled to lots of different countries and that I'm insanely interested in different countries, their location, their culture, their people ... and other people have, well, other interests. But the stats I just read from a Laterooms.com survey are really scary. It was a survey of British people about their geographical knowledge of Europe, and some of the most frightening results include the following:

45% couldn't identify Switzerland on a map
19% didn't realise Britain is part of the European Union
11% didn't have a clue that Iceland was part of Europe (most thought it was in North America)
62% don't even bother to check a map after they book a holiday to somewhere in Europe
And the winner of the worst known destination is Lithuania, because 81% of people failed to find it on a map.

I have a little bit of sympathy for the Lithuania error: I remember when I was on my way there I kept reciting "Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania" so I could remember how they fitted in from north to south. But almost half couldn't even figure out where Switzerland was ... and a fifth don't know they're in the EU? Call me a travel snob or a geography know-it-all or whatever, but I think it's pretty shocking.

For the record, I definitely don't want to pick on the Brits, because I've seen similarly scary surveys of other nationalities, but really ... they do live in Europe so it wouldn't hurt to have a quick glance at a map now and again.

Web pirouette: Pizzas, French fries and getting fit

2008-05-10T13:05:00.003+03:00

It's been a few weeks since I last pirouetted you through a selection of my recent work around the web, but as usual, I haven't been slacking off! As well as blogging I've also been making a big effort to spend time revising my novel, so the letters on my keyboard are rapidly fading (really). Here's a sample of recent blogs and articles:

At Vagabondish, I discovered that recreating illegal border crossings is a great tour idea, talked about the different bizarre situations you'll find if you get sick in a foreign country, discussed how proud I was when I ordered a pizza in Japanese and confessed my love for playing word games while traveling.
Meanwhile at Jaunted, I discovered a brand new museum in Belgium that's all about chips (or ~~French~~ Belgian fries) and I've been excited about the build-up to Eurovision 2008 this coming week.
On the HotelChatter site, the story that most impressed me was the Westin hotel chain installing Wii Fitness systems into their hotel gyms (we even longingly looked at a Wii today at the shops!).
My rants at Travel-Rants have been about plans to make immigration in the US less stressful and about the overwhelming enthusiasm of the tourist board in Iceland.
At Kathika, I've been busy getting the world to speak Australian English and reading another Frances Mayes book.

Same sky: Eating grapes in Japan

2008-04-30T12:27:00.003+03:00

Over at the Nerd's Eye View blog, Pam's got an interesting post up about etiquette for travellers - and a very funny story about some Japanese visitors to her company in Austria, who were quite confused when all the employees started greeting each other with the word "Mahlzeit". Literally it means "meal time", and they commonly used it where I lived in southern Germany too, especially as a greeting in the middle of the day. The Japanese visitors in Pam's story heard this as "Mozart", which they thought was quite appropriate since they were in Salzburg, but more than a little strange!

Pam's current contest is about cultural misunderstandings, and I've had my fair share of them. My stomach will never forget the problem of counting in Slovakia, for example, where they hold up different fingers to me when counting, and I kept winding up with three hot dogs when I thought I'd ordered two.

Perhaps one of the funniest cultural clashes I remember was a really simple situation - probably because these are the times when you least expect some cultural clanger to happen. When I was living in Japan, the parents of one of my good friends invited me around to their house for dinner. It was a great meal of traditional Japanese foods, and then we all settled back to watch the video the parents had taken on their recent cruise in Europe. While we watched, there was a plate of grapes to nibble on for dessert.

After an hour or so of footage of the cruise ship, short trips ashore and more footage of the ship, my friend's mother switched the light back on and started to clean up. When she got to the plate of grapes in front of me - now nearly empty - she paused. She looked at me, looked around on top of the table, and even looked under the table. I had no idea what she was doing.

Eventually, she asked me where the grape skins were. The grape skins? I'd eaten them, of course, although I had noticed they were a bit tougher and chewier than the grapes back home. She explained that I should have peeled the grapes before eating them. Now that was something I'd never thought of. Luckily, we all laughed about it, but I was always wary of Japanese grapes after that.

Action in the land of travel blogging

2008-04-29T03:04:00.002+03:00

All good things come in threes, right? (Perhaps bad things do too, but let's be optimistic). That's probably why there were three exciting bits of news in my travel blogging world this week:

SFO Media, which publishes both Jaunted and HotelChatter, making it my major online employer, has been bought by CondeNet who, among a million other things, are part of the company which publish the gorgeous Condé Nast Traveler magazine. Not sure what that'll mean for the future of us bloggers, yet, but so far, nothing bad. It might even be great!
One of my newer gigs, you might recall, is writing weekly for Travel-Rants in the UK, and this site just won a Travolution Award for being the best UK Travel Consumer blog.
And didn't you know ... Vagabondish got bought out by the Travel Channel ... except it was on 1 April =) No, the real #3 is that this week, for the very first time, someone in my "real world" actually referred to me as a blogger, and understood that I get paid real money for it that pays the mortgage. Having a job that nobody except my family really understands can get frustrating at times, so it was a real treat!

Same sky: Roman the Roman, or is he Bratislavan?

2008-04-19T12:55:00.003+03:00

Remember my write-up on St Martin's Cathedral for the Nerd's Eye View micro travel writers' workshop? The very kind Angela Nickerson has now posted some helpful feedback on everyone's pieces and it was a useful exercise for all involved I think - thanks Angela and Pam!

Angela pointed out something which I often overlook these days - assumptions that readers make, and a lack of shared knowledge. Referring to a man I met in Bratislava, I wrote that "this cathedral is Roman’s cathedral" ... because to me, obviously Roman is a man's name. But perhaps five years ago, that wouldn't have been the first connotation for me, especially when discussing old buildings in Europe, and as Angela rightly pointed out, readers could be confused by this.

It opens up an interesting can of worms for me, a can containing a million misunderstandings that can arise because of different cultural bases and different experiences. Even between native speakers of English, there can be all kinds of misunderstandings; I still have trouble remembering that if my American stepfather says he "lucked out", then that's a good thing - Australians use it in the opposite way. Perhaps this means we have to read our writing with the "eyes of the world", trying to imagine how those from different backgrounds will understand something. That's a lifelong task in itself, but for me, interesting food for thought.

Web pirouette: Diseases, driving, and a new venture

2008-04-15T05:41:00.004+03:00

How can a blogger get any work done with this pretty little girl is at your feet, asking for attention? Somehow I have still managed to get my usual weekly quota of posts out:

At Jaunted, I wrote up the story of the guide book writer who got a nice amount of publicity for his new book by getting the story going that he had written a guide without visiting the country - now he's claiming his story was taken out of context, but I think that with an April 22 release date for his book, he probably encouraged the wrong context ...
On the Vagabondish site I had a very interesting time researching the 10 Nastiest Travel Diseases (and the other dozen or so that didn't make the shortlist). Strangely, my biggest travel disease of chocolate addiction didn't feature in the research.
At Travel-Rants I discussed the possibilities for a driving holiday all the way around the world, if that Bering Strait tunnel ever became reality.

I've also been taking my first baby steps into slightly-more-professional blogging for myself - rather than for other sites - by learning how to set up a Wordpress blog on my own domain. I've transferred my old Blogspot fiction blog to a new site, becomingafictionwriter.com, and although it's still got a few kinks that need ironing out, you're welcome to have a look around. Recent posts include a discussion of Australian online booksellers like Fishpond and some good news about the first chapter of my novel. Leave me a comment there so I know you've dropped by.

Bratislava's St Martin's Cathedral: A Nerd's Eye View challenge

2008-04-14T05:06:00.003+03:00

Monday morning seems like a good time for a challenge, and here's one I found at the Nerd's Eye View blog: to tell a building's story in less than 200 words. Here's my attempt.

To most visitors to Bratislava, this is simply St Martin’s Cathedral, an attractive Romanesque church with Gothic and Baroque twists added over the centuries. Now on the edge of the Old Town, it was in the center before the Russians destroyed the Jewish section and built an ugly bridge through the middle, separating the cathedral from the hill leading to Bratislava Castle.

To me, this cathedral is Roman’s cathedral. An academic friend-of-a-friend with a passion for entertaining tourists with tales of bygone Bratislava, on the day I first met Roman he told me about the New Year bells. He said that during communist days when churches and cathedrals were technically off limits, a university friend of his appointed himself responsible for winding the clock of St Martin’s each day, to ensure it chimed every hour as expected.

One December, this friend took a skiing holiday and asked Roman to wind the clock. Half of Bratislava was out in the Old Town waiting for the midnight bells to chime in the New Year. Roman tried to wind the clock as midnight approached. Something broke. The bells chimed ten minutes earlier, and Bratislava entered the New Year ahead of time.

Newsflash: Travel writers can write about music, too!

2008-04-10T14:58:00.002+03:00

This blog might usually be about travel writing, but now and again I head to a market that's not about hoping a jet to exotica or rambling a disused backpackers' trail. Recently I've been able to earn a crust writing in a completely different area - music.

I have an odd kind of relationship to music. Mostly, it's lyrics that excite me - after all, as my husband always tells me, I'm a "words girl". But in the right mood, I can listen to anything: heavy metal, German hip-hop, opera (you know that bit from the movie Philadelphia ... gets me every time), and I'm steadily building a real addiction to jazz.

In any case, a new website that needed writers to build start-up content intrigued me, and I've done some work over at JamsBio, a site with the interesting concept of combining sales of music (via iTunes or Amazon) with first person memories related to individual songs. You can read a bunch of my music memories here. It was a lot of fun, and nice to write about something different for a change.

Web pirouette: Cemeteries and supermarkets

2008-04-06T16:33:00.002+03:00

What I've been talking about lately:

Visiting cemeteries and supermarkets on your travels
Remembering to smell, touch and listen when you travel
The probability that the fantastic idea of tunnelling under the Bering Strait is on the backburner again
Cats who want bottled water, which they won't be getting at Scandic Hotels anymore
Advice I don't always follow, about staying fit while travelling
Another plug for one of my all-time favourite travel books, Bill Bryson's tales of Australia
The neverending saga of my first novel, which now has a better first chapter
Our cats. I talk about them, they distract me while I'm trying to work, I talk about them some more.

South of Mandurah: Cape Bouvard Winery and the thrombolites

2008-04-04T16:05:00.003+03:00

My home state of Western Australia really has a lot of hidden attractions to offer. This week my father took us to a small winery just south of his property, which itself is almost 20km south of the growing city of Mandurah. I'd been there once years and years ago, but I was surprised at just how impressed I was by the area. And there are two reasons for that.

One: the Cape Bouvard Winery. It's a fair way from the main wine growing regions of WA, but the buildings are quaint, the setting peaceful, the wine tasty and the food - just take a look at my delicious Cajun prawn salad!

Two: The thrombolites of Lake Clifton, a short stroll from the winery. Windy as hell when you walk out to see them, but fascinating, and the science behind these guys is that they're one of the earliest life forms on the planet. They are protected as part of the Yalgorup National Park and by pure good luck, we arrived at the best time of the year to see them (in March or April).

Same sky: Telling porky pies

2008-04-03T16:24:00.002+03:00

Another quick entry for my list of "how amazing" intercultural translations ... in the Business English class I'm teaching, I suggested telling white lies as a possible strategy to use when negotiating. (Of course, that's the textbook's idea, not mine). I asked the class if anybody knew what a "white lie" was.

Berna, a Turkish student, looked at me for a minute, then answered, "In Turkish we tell pink lies. Maybe they're the same?"

Turns out they are, in fact, the same thing. We English speakers tell boring old white lies, but the Turkish jazz it up a bit with some pretty pink. Isn't that neat?

Web pirouette: Globe-trotting and saving money

2008-03-23T08:33:00.004+02:00

Sorry gang, I'm still alive. And still writing, just not at the Ballerina. And still dreaming about more travels. From planning tips for a round-the-world trip to a fun article playing around with possible round-the-world itineraries, no corner of the globe has been left untouched this month.

In my own country, a new tree-top walk in Illawarra caught my attention and with March beginning, I naturally spared a thought for my favourite time in Japan, cherry blossom season. Further on the Japanese line but strangely enough in Mexico, I also reported on a Mexican-Japanese fusion restaurant which sounded really tasty.

I've just started doing some work for a British blog called Travel-Rants - with apologies to the Americans, it's nice to earn in a more stable currency - and one of my first posts was about the huge A380s starting regular service to Europe. And just to prove that I'm not entirely one-sided in my writing, I'm also doing some posts for a finance blog and here's one example: how to save money on your water bills. Just call me Ms Versatile.

Web pirouette: Link love and readers-in-residence

2008-02-26T00:53:00.005+02:00

Isn't the internet a fascinating thing? In the last week or so I've had several articles up at Vagabondish, including How To Travel Independently For the First Time and Really Slow Travel: Walking Your Way Around the World. I love it when other sites decide these articles are worth linking to: for example, Go Green Travel Green highlighted my slow travel piece, and the independent travel one got picked up (and half translated) by a Spanish site, Diario del viajero, as well as one of my favourite travel sites, Gadling. And still at Vagabondish, the dark tourism series came to an end with The Great Dark Tourism Round-Up: Awards Time.

Elsewhere in the world of internet travel writing, I thoroughly enjoyed writing up a piece about a Reader-in-Residence, coming to the Andaz Hotel in London in April. Sure, it's an expensive hotel, but if you've got the cash, you can have the Reader tell you a bedtime story or recommend some new books for you. At Jaunted I've been wondering if the Blarney Stone's a fake and I'm starting up coverage on Eurovision 2008, my favourite song contest.

Web pirouette: Eat an Anzac biscuit before Doomsday

2008-02-15T03:35:00.004+02:00

See this scene? Two cats eating? That means they are not jumping on to my notebook, chasing my typing fingers or trying to catch the cursor on the screen. When they're eating is about the only time I can get a decent amount of writing done these days. Somehow, despite these two black, furry distractions, I've managed to get a few articles done recently.

In the dark tourism series at Vagabondish - it finishes up next week - I've had to deal with a really delicate topic with Suicide Tourism: Landmark Deaths and Traveling to Die. In comparison, writing about Doomsday Tourism: Seeing It Before You Can't was a breeze.

Feeling peckish one day, I wrote up my favourite Anzac Biscuit Alternative Recipes and also had my mouth water when Glimpse published my piece on Edible Art: A Traditional Buddhist Meal.

Shortly after I'd joined the cats in the kitchen and eaten my fill, I got a yearning for a relaxing holiday after publishing Travel Facts for Rottnest Island. And I had an interesting time exploring the notion of fences that guide or interrupt our travel with The Traveling Fence: Over or Around, published at Been-Seen.

Web pirouette: Hurricanes, hitchhiking and having fun with cats

2008-02-08T00:36:00.000+02:00

I'm still daydreaming about getting to Europe in 5 hours. Maybe the developers will hear my plea and commercialise these hypersonic planes faster, perhaps by July so I can hop over to Italy for my friend Meredith's birthday. Anyone out there listening?

Probably not, so for the rest of you, here are some highlights of my writing week:

My dark tourism feature has been continuing at Vagabondish. This week I've covered Disaster Tourism: How Soon Is Too Soon After a Natural Disaster? and Poverty Tourism: Exploring the Slums of India, Brazil and South Africa. It might all sound a tad on the depressing side, but for me, it's one of the most interesting series I've written, so check it out.
I've just started doing some work for Been-Seen and the first article they've published is We Travel Together: Organized Hitchhiking Around the World. I had such trouble remembering each time I typed it that hitchhiking has a double H in the middle ...
Our afternoon on the sail training ship Leeuwin deserved another write-up.
On a completely different note: the two new black-and-white additions to our household have given me the inspiration to write in other areas, and that's where 5 Free Toys For Your Kittens came from.