Tripping Part I - "The World Is A Book..Those Who Do Not Travel Read Only One Page" - St Augustine

And what a book! I don't even imagine I'm half way through.

Traveling is the sort of experience you must have in your lifetime or you haven't really lived! That's traveling, not holidaying. The nervous lump in your stomach disappears as soon as you hit your first destination, even before while still on the plane, and excitement then takes over. Landing at Heathrow for the first time was exciting enough for me (I know, little things...), that's how pumped I was. The sight of a black cab outside the airport or 'the bill' walking around had me squealing with excitement. The best moments was those spent actually standing in front of those amazing places, buildings, parks and structures that you have seen for so long on the telly or in travel books.

Walking along Whitehall in London was one of those moments, passing number 10 Downing street and looking to my left too see the majestic Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. All the 'suits' walking around the place on their lunch breaks were doing so with their heads down! You felt like yelling out 'look at that beautiful sight behind you, how can you just pass it without a glance?!". To them though, that is work and they see it every day, nothing special. The same thing happened at Buckingham Palace during the changing of the guard believe it or not. Londoners walking past this spectacle without flinching.

The quieter (word used fairly lightly) areas of London are just magic. My favorite would have to be Notting Hill. No not because of Hugh Grant! Because roaming the markets at night with traders trying to sell you fruit, veg and fluro pink stockings is awesome, my new favorite bakery on Portobello Road makes THE best cupcakes, a free standing flower shop stall is right on the corner and the flowers still manage to look freshly picked at 5pm, and the whole town in general is just kittens and cuteness wrapped in fairy floss!

Being a huge reader/watcher of anything Jane Austen, Bath was a special place for me and it didn't disappoint. Walking through the small city you feel like you've been transported back in time, all that's missing is a chaise and horse drawns. The Pump Room is so magnificent, you could be in your best kit and still feel almost completely inadequate standing there waiting to be seated, and the Roman Baths are a slice of, well, Roman history plonked in the middle of the English countryside.
Words can't describe the English countryside but I'll try: breathtaking, beautiful, inspiring, lush, quaint, remote, free, and of course GREEN. The Lake District looks like the work of art on the front of a tin of derwent pencils, complete with hilly views, babbling brooks and a sprinkling of sheep.

Walking around medieval towns like Oxford, Stratford-upon-Avon and York is like walking around in a fairy tale. Everywhere you turn you see ruins of abbeys, Tutor houses - often leaning, and cobblestoned lanes. And, as far as York goes, one of the best cream cake shops in England. And snaps for the accents!







What I am trying to say here is you just need to make sure you savor every moment, even the seemingly dull ones, to really experience travel (that's TRAVEL not holiday!).

"A Journey Of A Thousand Miles Must Begin With A Single Step" - Lao Tzu

...and then one foot in front of the other. This is my prac guide of dos and do nots when traveling. If you're the backpacking type you can pretty much ignore most of this as no planning is needed!

Do
Please do a little extra homework on your flights even if you have a travel agent looking after it for you. Better yet, just book it yourself. I booked through an agent who quoted me for a flight which I found cheaper online - same flight. The difference was just under $100 and I got the agent to match it. HA.

Get foreign currency BEFORE YOU LEAVE. The exchange rate at the airports are shocking, I know from experience (Amex at Heathrow exchanged 10 aussie bucks for little over 3 pound. But I needed water badly...). If you're more of a plastic person there are debit cards out there where you can fix a currency to the card, and credit cards that do not charge currency conversion fees. Even better, take both.

Pack light (I never thought I would say that in my life). Seriously, unless you plan to safari around the Savannah or go trekking in Nepal, you don't need all that crapola - the multitude of hair products, the stilettos (just in case), the 3 pairs of jeans (the good smart pair, the casual pair, and the 'round the house' pair), or the 3 different coloured beanies to go with different outfits. There are funny little things called shops in other countries; they sell goods, you give them money, you keep goods. Really it saves on baggage weight to do all this once you hit your destination.
As you might have guessed, I did pack all of the above, but I have now seen the light (and no I was actually never over the luggage weight, the travel fairies were on my side).

Keep your seat UNreclined during mealtimes in the plane. Please. Don't make me 'accidently' knee the back of your seat again.

Learn a little bit of foreign lingo when visiting a non-english speaking country - the locals will love you for trying. And yes they are laughing at you, not with you, but who cares :)

Bring a good book. Think again if you're thinking of bringing Shantaram or similar with 1000+ pages - while it is a fantastic, beautiful, genius read, you may as well be putting a brick in your carry on (maybe I should put this in the don'ts?).

Buy an Oyster card in London. Paper 'buy per ride' tickets are rips and alot of the machines at tube stations don't give change.

Don't
Over pack. Enough said on that.

Give your camera to anyone who asks if you want a photo taken, unless of course you think you can out-run them.

Go anywhere without a good map. You are not Bourke or Wills.

When traveling within some countries, don't buy a train ticket and expect first class means you will get a seat - sometimes it's first in best dressed! But traveling in the aisle of a train isn't so bad if you have a comfy bag to sit on.

Finally don't be too organised with your travel plans. One of the best things about traveling is the spontaneity, freedom and surprises. You want to be flexible, especially if you like a place well enough to stay longer.


Stay safe and happy travels!!

What A Difference A Wave Makes

Oh the good old days (mind you I'm somewhere between generation X and Z).

When a bag of mixed lollies was 10 cents, no one wore helmets when on their bikes, cricket was played in the middle of the road, and automobile drivers' gave a wave of recognition when another demonstrated road courtesey. Even the lift of a forefinger from the steering wheel would be a common sight.

These days it's a lift of the wrong finger off the steering wheel, maybe even a prolonged toot of the horn and a profanity yelled out the window. If you're lucky, you might even be tailgated and followed home. While this is definately not representative of all drivers on Aussie roads, it sadly seems to be accepted by some as part of the driving experience these days.

Here are some of my all time favourites I have witnessed in my under 10 years of driving:

• The 'lurker' who cooly drives into the park you have been waiting for for the last 4 minutes with the indicator on.
  
• The 'tailgator' who insists you drive 10km faster by driving so close you can see up their nose, so he can then turn off the freeway exit 5 seconds quicker. Of course they always then get the red light when they do turn off - this is road karma.
  
• The 'driving miss daisy' at the other end of the spectrum who thinks they are driving on a gravel road when the speed sign clearly shows 80.
  
• The 'blocker' driving next to you who will speed up to ensure you can't move over into their lane. Probably the same 'blockers' who stop on the 'keep clear' section on the roads so traffic exiting a car park or street cannot move. Genius.
  

Of course there are the majority of drivers who don't do the above, the ones who don't let the above drivers bother them and keep their cool - I like to think I am one of these cool drivers, despite the occasional rants (which I keep to myself and don't verbalise out the window) about the 'plonker' who just cut me off, took my park, etc.

The 'wavers' sadly are few and far between these days. I got a wave today which is the first I have seen in months. Traffic was crawling and in front of me was a 'keep clear' sign painted on the road. I stopped to let the oncoming driver who wanted to turn in front of me go ahead, giving him a little flick of my hand to signal this; he waved, I waved back, he turned into the street, and waved again! Two waves! He didn't even have to wave, the sign did tell me to 'keep clear'. His simple little action put a smile on my face and prompted me to keep showing the same old fashion courtesy to fellow road users, even the lurkers, tailgaters, and blockers - they'll get their road karma.

Who said we are living in the road rage age! oh, that's right, me.

Busy Somethings

Such is life, a quick succession of busy nothings, some of which we will have no doubt forgotten about when the next day starts. We (or some of us) sometimes live our day on a continuous loop, we get up, go to work, power through the day and tick off our to do's, go home, eat, go to bed, and again it starts.

But what about all the seemingly insignificant little happenings about us? What may seem a quick succession of busy nothings are generally busy somethings if you stop and smell the roses. And when you realise that and take notice, days tend to seem less mundane and more human, more entertaining, more exciting, and less robotic.

Today for instance I felt a little silly when I saw a sight I drive past every morning traveling on the freeway - the city scape (albeit in the distance). Every morning this beautiful sight was right in front of my face but I have been too busy cursing the bloke who just moved in front of me without indicating, or complaining about the 'road work' signs and lack of road works going on (more on that later).

I really only started to appreciate the busy somethings when I was traveling recently. As Henry Miller put it, "one’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things."
With the freedom and time to do anything or go anywhere you slow down and take notice. Time is always precious, but when traveling it's not limited. At home if you work a 40 hour week time is extra precious and certainly limited as you only have two days of freedom and for this reason some of us don't use up the weekend as well as we could, preferring to sleep in or do nothing because we have been working hard all week. And in the meantime missing busy somethings!

I don't want to look at my weekends like that, preferring to use every second to spend time with friends, got to and see new places - particularly in my own city!

Think about your day, how many busy somethings did you miss out on?