the world is a book

my broken back and broken bank

2008-08-27T10:48:00.005+10:00

When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money. ~Susan Heller

I've done a draft pack; my back is going to snap under the weight. I've thought so carefully about everything I'm going to take but it seems to have all been for nought! Even with only my sleeping bag and parka stuffed into it, the backpack looked nearly full. And that's without shoes, toiletries and electronics!

In between staring dolefully at my backpack and trying to cobble together a rough idea of where we should go in the UK, I've been spending money like I'm giving out lollies. In the past three days I've spent more than $1,500.

First I went to DFO and bought all the little things I've been compiling on a list for ages - thongs for the shower, warm leggings, another pair of jeans, foam inserts to make my boots more comfortable etc etc - and although most of the things I bought were at reduced prices, it all added up. Unfortunately it'll all add up in the backpack, too.

Then I ordered an iPod. I searched for the best prices, but ended up paying $5 more than the cheapest price to get one from the Apple site, because they included engraving. (It'll be easier to keep track of the iPod with my name and email address etched on it.) And then, in a double whammy yesterday, I bought a camera and a mini laptop. And those two purchases alone were more than $1,000. But hopefully they'll be worth it!

The camera is a neat, light little Nikon - and it's purple! How delightful. It's not nearly so grand as my other camera - this one lacks the flip-out LCD screen, viewfinder, pop-up flash and a dozen complex features, and its optical zoom is only 5x not 12x - but it has 10 megapixels (compared to 5) and it weighs less than half what the older camera weighs. And it will fit into a pocket, which is a distinct advantage.

And the mini laptop is my new favourite toy. It's an Acer - I'd originally planned on buying the newest model Eee from Asus, but this one outstrips it with a 120GB hard drive compared to only 80GB in the Asus. It has 1GB of RAM, Windows XP, comes with a free 60-day trial of Windows Office, weighs about 1kg and it's only half the size of my normal laptop. Sweet!

But now I'm broke(ish) and have to figure out how to fit all these things into something I can carry. That's much, much easier said than done!

counting down

2008-08-24T12:32:00.007+10:00

Perpetual anticipation is good for the soul but it's bad for the heart. ~Stephen Joshua Sondheim

We hit the 30-days-to-go mark a few days ago; we're now officially in the time period where we can buy gear and claim the GST back on it at the airport. Yippee!

It's also significant because it's now less than a month until we fly out and there's still heaps to be done! We've been writing haphazard lists of things to do but the list keeps growing out one end even as we shorten it at the other.

Our number one priority was to find someone to live in the house while we're away to cover some of the rent, because our third housemate was moving out. That's now been sorted, so at least we'll only have to pay our own rent, not share someone else's as well.

But everything else has been slow and frustrating.

We've been gradually booking accommodation in various cities - Paris, Florence, London, NYC - but it takes us hours. We go through the entire list of hostels in the city, making a table of location, prices and extras, and then we read reviews from people who've stayed there. That can be amusing or infuriating, because one person can say "terrible location but very clean" and the very next person can say "right in the centre of it all but filthy bathrooms"! But on the whole if the comments show a distinct trend then we pay heed. We started off using a lot off different websites but found hostelworld.com to be the best.

Other people have proved very useful to us, too. When we were getting desperate to find a place (that was affordable) in NYC, I texted one of my friends who frequents the place to ask her advice. She recommended two places that we hadn't even come across, and we ended up booking one of those. It looks lovely and it wasn't too pricey.

It was the same for London; my sister told us she stayed in a hostel in Piccadilly Circus that was fairly dirty but very central and quite cheap. The website wouldn't let me see rates, so I checked out a dozen other hostels before returning to the website to find that it was working properly and the prices were decent. So we booked it. Much thanks to both those advisers!

leaving work

2008-08-15T17:50:00.000+10:00

To get away from one's working environment is, in a sense, to get away from one's self; and this is often the chief advantage of travel and change. ~Charles Horton Cooley

I love my job. I probably can't say that enough. And even when I work seven days straight starting before the sun is up, which goes against ALL my instincts, I still love it.

So as the remaining workdays days dwindle away I have mixed feelings about leaving. On the one hand, I can't really travel the world and be in the newsroom at the same time, so I have to leave. But on the other hand, I have no pressing desire to be gone from work - unlike my travel buddy, who dislikes her job with an oscillating mix of hatred and apathy.

But for a while there my supreme feeling was one of enormous fear that my leave application would be rejected. I had cleared my 11 weeks off - six of annual leave and five of leave without pay - with my immediate boss right at the beginning of the year when I decided I was going, and then shortly before booking my plane tickets I had asked my manager for his approval.

He said the policy was generally not to allow leave without pay, but given that I had only recently been given a permanent position, it would be silly to let me quit if I didn't get the leave. So he said he would stick his neck out for me and ask HIS boss for my leave. He did, which was good of him, and then he told me I had been granted that leave, and I should have put in my application then and there.

I didn't, however, which means that last week I realised that I still needed to fill out the forms and send them off to human resources. I filled them out in a sleepy stupor, which meant I mucked up the dates so that the forms said I was getting back a week before I even left. When our admin lady pointed that out I corrected it on the sheet, so the dates were messy scribbles.

The next thing I knew was that my manager was asking me if he had misunderstood the dates, because it was his recollection that I had only wanted two weeks of leave without pay. I said no, it had always been five weeks, and he said that he must have forgotten. So then I was in terror of being refused the leave. I thought I would have to quit and then reapply for a job when I got back - hardly ideal! I stressed about it for most of that day, and was convinced that he was on the phone to his boss, changing the plans... which was no doubt paranoid.

But my fear doubled when I got an email from human resources asking me to clarify my dates of leave without pay. I emailed back and gave the dates, petrified that this meant I wouldn't be granted the leave. But suddenly it occurred to me that the lady had actually said she 'couldn't make out the dates' - and that probably wasn't a euphemism for 'couldn't believe her eyes', but rather a truthful opinion on the state of my handwriting. She literally couldn't figure out the scribbled numbers.

This realisation put my heart a little more at ease, but as the days crept by and I didn't receive conformation of my leave, I began to grow worried again. When I discovered that I was in the 'leave diary' I became highly anxious. I had already written my proposed leave dates into the roster request diary, and when the new rosterer asked me I emailed him the dates, too.
I asked my immediate boss if he thought there was some delay or reason I might not have heard back, and he said no, I should just assume that I had been given the leave.

I would still like some concrete proof that they won't expect me back after six weeks and fire me if I don't show up, but I suppose I shall have to rely on everyone's word. So all is (probably) well!

pre-travel invincibility

2008-07-31T22:19:00.006+10:00

There is no moment of delight in any pilgrimage like the beginning of it. ~Charles Dudley Warner

There must be a medical name for what I'm feeling. Surely it's a syndrome; I can't be the only one who experiences this.

Nothing can touch me! No rejection, no criticism, no danger can reach me. I am invincible!

Yesterday I offended one of my good friends. Naturally I felt guilty, but I should also have been worried about the ramifications, given that he's a key ally and it behooves me to keep him on my side.

But I didn't give a hoot!

Not because I don't care about him - I do, very much, and we've since made up, for your information - but because I simply didn't care about the consequences.

This sort of thing has been happening all over my life at the moment; things that would normally be worrying the undercurrents of my subconscious simply aren't there.

They've been replaced by a slowly blossoming sense of upcoming adventure, of freedom and exploration and stories to gather and own and retell.

Something similar happened before I went overseas for three months when I was 17. I was school captain and the school principal had nominated me for an important award. But I told him I wouldn't complete an application for it.

The obedient, eager-to-please, ambitious 17-year-old Vivien would never have done such a thing, but the soon-to-be-unshackled, adventure-hungry Vivien didn't care about that.

And before my parents took me overseas for three months when I was 11, it was the same story. I said something cheeky to my year six teacher, who commented, "Vivien's just getting more and more excited as her trip gets closer".

One of the 'mean girls' in the class said, "So are we". She was joking, but young as I was, I had a sudden moment of clarity and realised that even if she had said the most unkind thing she could think of, she could never have dented my self-assurance at that time.

There must be something about the imminent prospect of travel that gives one a sense of immunity from the ordinary horrors of daily life.

I call it PTIS - pre-travel invincibility syndrome. I've had the tests, and it looks like I've got it bad.

naples stinks

2008-05-18T21:42:00.012+10:00

Why we've changed our minds about staying in Naples:

Fed-up Italians barricade streets with uncollected rubbish (ABC)

So that means we can't base ourselves out of Naples - in other words, another change of plan.

However... A man protesting at the rubbish collection crisis in Naples has tipped what's reckoned to be half a million coloured balls down Rome's famous Spanish Steps... So there's some beauty to be had.

avoiding drunken Aussies

2008-04-26T22:40:00.003+10:00

Do you think it's so snobbish, to want to see something besides one's fellow citizens abroad? ~Sinclair Lewis

My carefully colour-coded calendar had one massive flaw. That was, quite simply, that the dates we'd chosen to go to Germany coincided perfectly with Oktoberfest. While many Australians would have punched the air with glee upon discovering this, I was full of gloom.

I moped into Erin's bedroom to inform her that everything was in crisis; Oktoberfest meant drunken Australians wandering from beer tents to urinals, drunken Australians lining up in vomiting queues to get into the castles we wanted to see, and drunken Australians making lewd gestures in the background of our stylish tourist photos. There was no way I wanted to see lovely, lovely Munich ruined like that.

The only solution was to reverse the direction of our Europe leg and go to Italy first. So instead of catching Eurail from Paris to Berlin (and every disco I go in), we would fly from Paris to Naples, and from there we would make our way north until we reached Germany. I returned to my calendar and recoloured all the dates, and found to my immense relief that that itinerary would bring us into Munich two days after Oktoberfest ended. Phew!

But of course that wasn't the end of the story. We then spent days trying to figure out if it was still worth buying Eurail tickets, given that the new itinerary cut out several long train trips. We tried to find out how much point-to-point tickets would cost and thus had a prolonged and vicious fight with the Italian rail website. I think it won. And we still don't know if we should buy Eurail passes or not. Colour-coding can't solve that one.

the itinerary, or: how I learned to stop worrying and love colour-coding

2008-04-25T23:03:00.007+10:00

Finland, Finland, Finland / It's the country for me: / You're so near to Russia / So far from Japan, / Quite a long way from Cairo, / Lots of miles from Vietnam. ~Monty Python, The Finland Song

Of course we're not going to Finland any more. Whoever heard of such a silly-sounding place, anyway? But we are still going to Tokyo. What can I say.

The change in itinerary began when I was laughed at by strangers at a friend's party. The reason they laughed was because I told them our travel plan, and they immediately guessed we were booking through Flight Centre. And it seemed we may have been oh-so-nicely duped into supporting FinAir, with whom Flight Centre apparently have a deal.

The well-meaning strangers suggested I go to STA Travel instead. So we did. Or at least, we tried, but they were closed, so we went somewhere else instead, and they told us we'd missed out on the FinAir flights anyway, so the next best we could do was a Qantas/British Airways ticket.

Then Erin rang a billion places to get the best quote on that ticket, and we discovered that strangers at parties can be rather useful, because STA did indeed have the best deal. We pencilled in dates and paid a deposit to hold the seats.

And then we got down to some serious itinerary planning.

Erin had been sketching dates on a printed out calendar, but soon, what with things being erased and rewritten a dozen times, it was doing my head in. So I composed another one on my laptop, complete with colour-coding for each country and the times of each flight or Eurail trip.

This was how I discovered we'd made a major mistake in our planning. But more on that later.

from one who knows

2008-03-22T13:33:00.010+10:00

Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen. ~Benjamin Disraeli

So my eldest sister has been staying with me, and because she's a seasoned traveller, I've bombarded her with all sorts of questions. She brought with her digital photos of places she's been, and looking at them was a startling experience. She was showing me photos of towns in Germany, and I suddenly had this undeniable sense of recognition.
"I've been there!" I cried, pointing to the laptop screen.
"That's Nuremburg, that's Rothenburg," she said, flicking through them.

It was such an uncanny feeling. I could clearly remember travelling with my host family to towns in the vicinity of Munich, but I couldn't recall their names. Now, seeing them in photos, I was taken back there so clearly that I could remember what was in the shop windows, how the wind felt. It was funny to think that I'd planned to see those towns on this trip and had no idea I'd already been there!

Seeing her photos was also useful in order to convince me that other places were worth visiting - Rome, for example. I was happy to see Rome but didn't expect it to be pretty. The photos convinced me. And I became more determined than ever to see Mont St Michel.

My sister also passed on to us a comprehensive list of things she'd taken, and some were things that hadn't occurred to us - thongs for the showers, sealable bags for things that might leak etc. So all in all, she's a font of knowledge!

old friends

2008-03-19T14:51:00.006+10:00

Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom. ~Thomas Fuller

I think one of the very best reasons to travel is to visit the people we have loved. And there are two of those included in my itinerary: Anne-Marie (Amy) and Alison.

Amy is a very dear friend from many, many years ago. She was my exchange sister, so she came to live with me for a few months in late high school, and then I went to live with her in Germany for a few months. We're quite different - Amy's scientific and competitive - but have many similarities in likes, tastes, and senses of fun and humour.

Amy now lives and studies in Munich, which to my mind is one of the loveliest cities in the world, in one of the most beautiful areas of the world - Bavaria. I emailed her weeks ago to tell her I was coming to see her (she was delighted, but said it was "unfair" because SHE'd planned to come visit ME last year but had to cancel) and she offered to put us up when we were in town. So seeing her and her partner Jan is high on my to-do list.

Then there's Alison, who's probably my main reason for wanting to go to the US. I met Alison in my third year in Brisbane when she came over for a few weeks in her summer break. She liked Australia so much she came back for a semester, and I've rarely met such a kindred spirit. Alison is more rebellious and independent than me, but we see eye-to-eye on a surprising number of political and social issues.

Alison now lives and studies in Boston, which I've never visited, but it's conveniently close to New York. For a while it seemed I might not be able to see her after all, because Erin and I will be in the US over Thanksgiving and Alison thought she might go back home (down south) for that. But now it looks like she might be close by, so hopefully we'll be able to catch up, and if she said if she's still in Boston then we an stay with her.

I'm so excited about seeing those two again! And I'm so thankful for the internet, which makes communication so easy!

passported

2008-03-15T21:15:00.001+10:00

My passport arrived. When I went to collect it the Post Office was closed (it's a conspiracy, I swear) but other than that there were no further dramas.

And our Dylan tickets arrived! These are the first physical tickets we've received for anything at all.

I'm hiding both these precious documents in my underwear drawer. I'm sure Dylan could make an entire skit out of that.

dylan mania

2008-03-12T11:23:00.000+10:00

I can't swim. I can't drive, either. I was going to learn to drive but then I thought, well, what if I crash into a lake? ~Dylan Moran

He's the most cantankerous (and beautiful) stand-up comedian gracing today's stages and television screens.

And we're going to see him!

A while ago I subscribed to this website called Ents24, which is a British entertainment site that sends you alerts of the shows you're interested in. It kept telling me the Boosh were adding more tour dates but we already had tickets so it wasn't that useful. Then it told me Bill Bailey and Eddie Izzard were touring, but they were doing shows too early in the year. But then yesterday morning I got an email telling me DM was doing a show - and it was when we were going to be in the UK!

The tickets weren't on sale but I knew that Ents24 could put them up without any notice. So I left a garbled, frantic message on Erin's mobile and did a double-check of the show's location - Newcastle upon Tyne - which happens to be my eldest sister's home-away-from-home in the UK. And it's perfect, because we were planning to head north from London anyway, and this gives us a few days to make our way up to Newcastle on our way to Edinburgh.

When we got home we decided to check the website just in case tickets were on sale - and there they were! They'd only just opened because it was shortly after 9:00am in Britain. So we booked two on the spot, and got brilliant seats - at the back of the front block. Fabulous! It was the most sweetly impulsive, easy and convenient thing we've booked so far. If only our plane tickets could be that simple!

passporting

2008-02-18T16:13:00.014+10:00

To enter Europe, you must have a valid passport with a photograph of yourself in which you look like you are being booked on charges of soliciting sheep. ~Dave Barry

I submitted my application for a new passport today, and what a rigmarole THAT was! Who would have thought that it would take two weeks, innumerable trips to Toowong and a bleeding heel to actually get a passport?

I got my photo taken the other day when I booked our car hire and travel insurance. That was a bit of an experience, too. I went to Rabbit Photos, simply because it's the first shop that appears at the top of the escalators at the Toowong shopping tower. They took the photo - well, several - and I had to choose one. Naturally, I chose the one that didn't look quite so much like it belonged on a postmortem record, because if you look like your passport photo then you're too ill to travel.
It was only after I had waited the 20 minutes, paid my $12 and left the shop that I realised the photos weren't in focus. So I took them to the Post Office shop at the top of the tower and asked the staff to check if it would still be okay. The lady made disparaging remarks about the quality of Rabbit Photos and asked someone else for a second opinion. They eventually agreed it was passable.

So then I had to get a guarantor and I decided to burden my good friend Chris. But that didn't go smoothly either, because when I asked him if he could do it, one of my other friends overheard and got a little miffed that I hadn't asked her instead! Oops.

I'd booked a passport appointment at the Post Office for yesterday morning, but then completely forgotten about it. So I had to call up, apologise and reschedule for 10:00am today. This morning I left the house with plenty of time to get to Toowong, only to drive three-quarters of the way there before realising that I'd left the forms and photos at home! So I did a u-turn and came all the way home to get them. I raced inside, trying to dodge an ecstatic Pippin, grabbed the necessaries and fled out the door. In my hurry, I misjudged the bottom step and grazed my heel quite badly on the concrete. I had to sit down - in the rain - holding my throbbing foot, before hobbling back inside to wash off the blood and stick on half a dozen bandaids.

So when I finally reached the Post Office I was 20 minutes late and limping. I stood in line, only to reach the desk and be told that I had to show various forms of ID, including my old passport. Which was under my bed. So I drove all the way home again and hopped up the steps to meet an increasingly confused dog. I dug out my old passport and drove the now well-worn road back to the Post Office.
Only to have them hesitate over my unfocussed photo! I couldn't believe it. Luckily, the woman who had originally approved it was there and she pushed it through. By this stage I was so resigned to unfortunate events that I was stunned when the lady asked me to pay, signaling that I was actually going to receive my passport! I won't get it for a week or two - or a month, if my troubles this morning were any indication of its fortunes - but at least it's on its way. I'm holding my breath hoping they don't knock back that photo...

the exhausting expo

2008-02-18T14:24:00.012+10:00

The time to enjoy a European trip is about three weeks after unpacking. ~George Ade, Forty Modern Fables

And so, the travel expo.

We decided to 'practice' using public transport in preparation for the trip, so we drove to the Toowong railway station to catch a train to the convention centre.

And it turns out I am in dire need of such practice.

I couldn't figure out how to use the automated ticket machine (I think it was broken). Then I didn't know which ticket to ask for at the booth. And at the station in the city I couldn't figure out which platform we were supposed to go to next.

After the expo we decided to get a bus back to Toowong. But for the life of me I couldn't figure out which line we were meant to catch, and the timetable seemed to be just a useless pile of obscure place names. Then when Erin figured it out and the bus finally arrived, it turned out I hadn't got the right ticket for the train AND the bus, so I had to buy another one.

This does not bode well!

However we made to the expo, which was the point of the trip, although I doubt it was terribly useful.

We collected stacks of possibly relevant brochures, many of which contained pages of tiny numbers and dollar symbols next to pictures of all sorts of cars. Erin sat with these spread in front of her, using her phone as a calculator, trying to figure out which would be the better deal. I don't think she reached a conclusion.

I never want to look at another car hire brochure in my life, but it seems public transport isn't the answer, either. I suppose I shall just have to learn to teleport.

viva europa

2008-02-09T16:12:00.004+10:00

To understand Europe, you have to be a genius - or French. ~Madeleine Albright

Well I'm not French, and calling me a genius would be really stretching the truth, so it's not my fault I couldn't understand half of what the travel agent said.

Her name's Jillian and she's really rather fabulous. She's just had her teeth 'done' and she loves stationary. She tried to give us a mini-mini stickytape holder. We politely declined.

Erin and I have decided to shrink our European holiday. We've cut out Scandinavia (except a stop-over in Helsinki) and eastern Europe. We're going to focus on what I call 'conservative Europe' - Germany, France, Italy etc.

And of course a month in the UK. We've also somehow added a few days in Tokyo and a week in the US (Erin will go to Canada instead).

The last-minute addition of the US terrifies me a little, not because of the cost (it's only about $100 more to make a stop-over in New York) but because Jillian pointed out that I'll be away for 11 weeks. And I'll only have about six weeks of leave saved up!

So this could get interesting. I don't know how possible it will be for me to take any more time off work. I hadn't realised I'd be away for so long because I'd just been thinking of each month as having four weeks. I'd thought I'd be away for nine weeks, maximum! Ah well, we'll see.

But anyway, Jillian talked us through flight options, car hire and travel insurance. It's starting to feel a little more concrete - and the cost is starting to hit home! Erin has been busy creating budget spreadsheets. I lack the head to do that, so I've just starting writing lists. Lists of what I have to pay for, buy, prepare, and how much it'll all cost. It's a little daunting.

But so exciting!

elbow grease

2008-01-27T17:35:00.002+10:00

Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work. ~Peter F. Drucker

In the past week, I've been to the doctor, vet, specialist and insurance company. This coming week I'll go back to the doctor, to a different specialist, the dentist, a tax expert and a mechanic. And all in an effort to get things prepared for a trip that's still nine months away!

This must be what a pregnancy feels like - a helluva lot of effort for something that's gradually taking shape but won't actually arrive for ages. And when it does arrive, it'll cause terror, agony and chaos.

Hm, remind me again why I'm doing this?

But at least I'm getting things out of the road early. The animals are vaccinated and re-registered and I've found homes for them while I'm away. My parents have agreed to take Pip and Mo - though getting them down to NSW is going to be a logistical nightmare - and my second sister and brother-in-law have agreed to look after Sophie the fish.

I'm also getting vaccinated - in increments - and getting my health up to scratch. I'll have to give up my bi-weekly boxing sessions because it's too expensive when I'm trying to save. I pay as much for boxing every week as I do for rent, when I could just take advantage of the free gym classes.

And I'm preparing for the worst by upgrading my car insurance. If this year is anything like last year (please no, Lord!) then it'll come in handy. The last thing I'll need is having to fork out huge amounts of cash to fix my crazy car just before I leave...

Hopefully once this wave of neccesary chaos is over then I can start to enjoy the planning process!

booking the boosh

2008-01-23T18:14:00.002+10:00

I think that travel comes from some deep urge to see the world, like the urge that brings up a worm in an Irish bog to see the moon when it is full. ~Lord Dunsany

The madness has begun.

Last night Erin and I sat in our living room for hours, trying to book our tickets to a live show of The Mighty Boosh.

We rang Optus twice. We rang the UK four times. We're now on first-name terms with two blokes in the Boosh ticket office: Paul and Matt.

AND WE HAVE BOOSH TICKETS!!

We don't have visas, passports or plane tickets, but we have our keys to the Boosh. And that's all that matters.

the companion

2008-01-17T13:08:00.002+10:00

I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them. ~Mark Twain

My travelling companion, in her own words, is a "cantankerous Australian with a dirty vocabulary".

She also happens to be one of my good friends, and, most conveniently for planning purposes, my housemate.

Erin is the catalyst for this trip. Once she brought home those European travel brochures, there was no hope for me.

a new page

2008-01-14T11:28:00.000+10:00

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page. ~St. Augustine

And so! I have decided to travel again.

I've seen quite a bit of the globe already, but mostly through the efforts and finances of other people: as a child or teenager, my parents took me across the US, Canada, most of Europe, Turkey, and all of Australia except the NT and WA. When I was about 14, I went on tour to New Zealand with an orchestra, and when I was 17, I returned to Germany for three months - on my own for the first time - thanks to a student ambassador grant from the Government.

Since then I haven't ventured far from my adopted city, Brisbane. But now I'm in the 24 Club, and that's the perfect time to take off. I've considered it several times in the last few years, but never with any real conviction -- partly from a sense of apathy ("I've seen it all, and it's bloody cold"), partly because I couldn't be bothered to save the money, and partly because I've had no-one to go with.

Until now.