A word on the Zen of Journaling from Rick Steves

Yeah I don't know who this guy is, but I read this, and through the slush, it's nice and kind of true.

The Zen of Journaling

I love to journal while on the road. I'm writing a short essay on the value of journaling. This is my first draft. I'd enjoy any suggestions on how to make this shorter, yet more effective in inspiring travelers to put pen to paper in a journal:

Travel can make you a poet. Travel can be spiritual. By venturing far from home and looking back, you can better understand home. Traveling challenges truths you assumed were self-evident and God-given. It rearranges your cultural furniture. By traveling, you learn about yourself.

But without capturing your thoughts on paper, the lessons of travel are like shooting stars you just missed...and butterflies you thought you saw.

Your journey is a facet of your broader life. Journaling thoughtfully relates your travel experiences to your life in general. It brings meaning to eurekas that might otherwise have eluded you. Collecting intimate details on the road and then distilling them into your travel journal sharpens your ability to observe and builds a souvenir you'll cherish for a lifetime.

Enjoy the physical act of putting pen to paper in order to capture then organize the thoughts and experiences that wash ashore with each day of your trip.

If your life is a canvas, travels bring new color. And journaling is like a painter standing back every once in a while to both understand and enjoy the art as it unfolds.

The discipline of journaling as you go is critical. Capturing feelings and intimate details is like enjoying a good espresso — it's only right when still hot and steamy.

My wish for you: happy travels and — with the help of your journal — both meaningful experiences and vivid memories.

Perhaps we should do something like this?

An interrail adventure - crazy guys dance in front of a range of European sites to some especially thrilling music:



See another good one here

See the video that inspired them here

In fact, the Interrail honchos themselves designed a game called Raildance Express (publicised by this website) largely influenced by the first video in this post which was a sort of competition - to challenge Interrailers to dance in front of as many sites as they could with as many people as they could (other interrailers) to win a prize. Check out the guy who won, gangsta or what? (I especially like his puma tattoo..) Rather marvelously, his name is Rash. I guess it's Rashid or something, but whatever. Rash is better. He's from Australia. He probably has too much fun already, why couldn't we win the pass he got?

A spanner in the works, a kick in the teeth

I was going to include an image of a spanner for visual interest then decided that that wouldn't be visually interesting, as it is a spanner, after all. A monkey wrench, now that would have been good, but never mind. Just a minor and largely inconsequential update. We attempted to book hostels today using www.hostelbookers.com, but found out that they only take Visa or Mastercard, even through this third party website. We managed to book four in the end using www.hostelworld.com, and we've decided to book them all on hostelworld, as it seems pretty good, giving you conveniently placed links to (the mafia!)... no, pdfs for each destination you travel to. Pretty nice. We're planning to print them all out before we go as it also includes a summary of your hostel booking.

In fact, we were sort of freaked out when we started using this other site, as it hadn't really occurred to us that other sites would have different reviews of the hostels we'd already chosen. We read about theft, which scared us, but then we reasoned that the reviewers had probably been irresponsible or not used the facilities on offer to secure their items. When checking up on the ratings for St Christopher's at the Winston hotel in Amsterdam, we read about colonies of mice "living" in someone's bed, which made Mojo anxious. Meanwhile I sat there with imaginings of a horrified backpacker unfurling a duvet only to discover a family of mice sat down around a teensy television with their dinner, or packing the family car with tiny mousey luggage for a trip to Slovenia. Anyhow, we heard that most Amsterdam hostels had mouse complaints. I thought that we could put our bags up out of the reach of mice. I don't know how far mice can reach, really, but enough of a way off the floor to pose a challenge to the mice, like a proportional Everest with the spiritual achievement of reaching the bags equivalent to the attainment of mousey Nirvana.



I wholeheartedly apologise for the erratic nature of my train of thought, and for writing it down. We also were concerned about reviews implying smoke-saturated, toxic smells and air throughout the hostel, but then we read somewhere else that as of sometime like July 08 a smoking ban will affect Amsterdam, meaning that hostels will not stink, essentially.

Anyway I'm booking the other hostels on one of my parent's cards (as I'm having to borrow the money for the trip from them anyway) and our hostel fears are assuaged, for now.

Meg

The Point of No Return

Click the picture for a full size version.

Meg here. Personally, the point of no return for this trip was the moment Mojo walked into Starbucks and put this route plan down in front of me. Don't get me wrong; beforehand I was pretty much up for the trip, but as soon as I saw the vivid colours and whimsical fonts I was drawn in and hooked - like a junkie, or a moth to a flame. I suppose both of those scenarios end rather unpleasantly. Perhaps I should liken the plan, less ominously, to a board game. A thrilling board game to satisfy my inner child. While I'm on the topic - am I mistaken or was the scotty dog clearly the best piece to command in Monopoly? I mean who wants to be the BOOT? or the WHEELBARROW? I just spoke to Mojo - she used to want to be the dog, but has now lost her mind and wants to be the top hat or the boot. I digress. So long story short, fascinated, I agreed to go to Europe. I'm distracted as Mojo is blowing bubbles at me and I had to have a break from typing to clap at them to try to destroy them. We have agreed to blow bubbles at people in Europe to confuse and scare them.

We're looking at the STA travel leaflet, an interrail pass is now £305. Not that bad, but the leaflet is - it makes interrailing look like the most boring venture available in the wacky world of other mental crazy travel options like... tram, and.. donkey travel. Tram and Donkey interlink by way of meerkat taxi. We're planning on booking our uber-super passes this week before we go back to Uni. We also want to book all of the hostels (we have a line-up) and whatever else we can book, on our own on . We're booking passes with a lovely soul called Matt or something from STI travel. He was trying to impress us with his expertise and air of experience and suggested that we shouldn't pre-book anything. However, we had already decided that we know what we want to do, where we want to go and what we want to see; and I know that people can just hang around in a place for ages because they enjoy it, and miss out on other things. And though a month seems like a long time, it isn't! We have high expectations for this trip, and myriad aims and aspirations to fulfil (see our previous post). OK I've written enough - time to go. Hasta la vista, ciao, bye.

Meg x

Maiden Blog

That's a play on words, see we are both maidens blogging, and this is the first i.e. maiden post in our blog. Clever, non?

So, Meg and I will be pursuing adventure and excitement across the continental continent for an entire month. So far we have decided the route, checked all the train connections, picked out our hostels, and made a list of things to do (not including any actual sightseeing, which we will of course be doing almost every day).

Travel To Do List

* Tell strangers silly lies about our lives/beliefs
* Wear some crazy arty sunglasses and take weird possibly myspace-worthy photos
* When in Rome, say "When in Rome" a lot.
* Drink lots of coffee in little cafes or in sun-drenched squares
* Take travel speakers and enjoy impromptu sing/dance-along sessions together
* Somehow persuade local Italian boys to drive us around on their mopeds
* Go to an opera and dress up for it
* Take pictures of all the gorgeous architecture, and some beautiful backstreets too
* Visit some art galleries and museums, find some famous things to brag about seeing
* Go window shopping in expensive shops
* Lounge in the sun listening to jazz
* Sit around in trendy coffee shops reading intimidating literature e.g. Kafka, Chekov, Proust
* Wear floaty flimsy dresses in a tragically chic movie star way

So, that is our vision for the trip. I hope you enjoyed this little starter blog,

Mojo