Love from London: Tensions between Britons and Russians continue

by Iva Skoch on

Let’s face it. the relations between Britons and Russian have always been complicated to say the least. Olga Freer’s new book is apparently not helping.

Freer, the 23-year-old Russian author, who lives in London, has published a book called The UK for Beginners. Among other things, she describes Britons as a bunch of people who scratch their bottoms in public, don’t iron their clothes and are obsessed with television shows about buying and selling houses.

In an article entitled: From Russia with bile – you British are drunken oafs, the Sunday Times called the book the latest outbreak of Russian hostility. Freer apparently declares the Buckingham Palace “uninteresting”, British women fat yet confident enough to wear short skirts, and the conversations generally shallow. In Russia, even taxi drivers apparently talk about literature; in the UK here all people talk about is football.

It is the last point that particularly struck me. Isn’t it a little sad that all those educated (or at least well-read) people can hope to achieve in Russia is driving a cab?

Ode to world traveling: In Kentucky, it’s called traipsin’

by Jamie Rhein on

While I was growing up, my uncle Lige was traipsin the world. In one year, he traveled to five continents. In between his travels, he’d swing by our house for a quick visit bringing my brother and me coins, paper money and small souviners from the places he’d been. He grew up in a tiny town in southeastern Kentucky and traipsed out of the mountains right after high school.

Lige was the type who saw the entire world as home, although he kept his belongings in his apartment in Manhattan. The first time we visited him in Greenwich Village was my first experience seeing a place quite different from where I lived in neat boundaries USA. I loved it. Standing with him in the front car of a subway so I could watch the tracks as we sped underground, I got a taste for traipsin myself.

Three summers ago, my husband, kids and I went to hang out at the beach with my brother on Fire Island, an island near Manhattan, for a couple of days. He was renting a house part-time in The Pines, a place my uncle had loved. While we were there, I thought about my uncle’s influence. Without him, I might never have taken that first trip to Europe–or joined the Peace Corps. My kids might not be growing up to be the traipsin type themselves.

When I talked with my mother earlier today, she told me today was my uncle’s birthday (February 22–George Washington’s birthday). It seemed fitting to pay a tribute to the person who is most responsible for putting that first suitcase in my hand and for the fullness of my passport pages.

**Unfortunately, my uncle was killed several years ago, ironically, the day after Lincoln’s birthday, while he was traveling in Mexico. Uncle Lige would be pleased that I haven’t broken my stride. The book Welcome to Fire Island chronicles the development of gay culture in Cherry Grove and The Pines. My uncle is on the cover.

The Frankenguide: Make your own DIY guidebook

by Justin Glow on

Whenever I travel somewhere new, instead of dropping $30 on the newest Lonely Planet Wherever and lugging it around in my already-small pack, I’ll create what I call a “Frankenguide”: a mishmash, do-it-yourself collection of torn-out pages from an official guidebook, printed websites, Wikitravel guides, pages from history books, and anything else that might come in useful when I’m on the road. Bind it together with some staples or paper clips, toss it into a Zip-Lock bag, and off I go. It might not look pretty, but it gets the job done and is infinitely customizable. Here’s how you can make your own:

First start with the official guidebook. I usually go with Lonely Planet just because, but any guidebook will do — choose your favorite brand. But instead of buying a new one, I’ll opt for an older, dated model which costs a fraction of the price. The sections I pull out of the book for my Frankenguide are the timeless bits of information: historical backgrounds, landmark descriptions, stuff like that. All of the information that has an expiration date — hotel and hostel reviews, restaurant listings, and so on — stays in the Lonely Planet. Instead, I get this information from a variety of places that have less of a chance of being outdated. This means I don’t bring along Lonely Planet’s list of restaurants in San Francisco, for example, because I could easily hop on Yelp with my laptop (or the nearest Internet cafe) and figure it out as I go. Further, the guy working the newspaper stand is probably going to have a good idea of where to get the cheapest, best-tasting Dungeness crab in the area. Ask the locals.

Next I’ll go to WikiTravel and look up my destination. More often than not, there’s some extra information in the guide that I don’t really need. So instead of printing the entire thing and wasting countless sheets of paper, I’ll open up a new Word document (or whatever) and copy and paste the bits that I can use. This also allows me to format the text to suit my needs, and add pictures or maps as necessary. You can also load a book template into Word so that you can maximize the space used on each sheet of paper. Print in two columns, front and back, and fold the pages in half, book-style. Pound in a few staples, and you’ve got yourself a decent little home-made guidebook.

The rest depends on your trip, and only limited by your imagination. If your trip to San Francisco is centered around exploring the hippie culture in Haight-Ashbury, for instance, fire up Google and find articles, websites, landmark descriptions, maps, and other information that will guide you. This neighborhood guide from the Chronicle would be perfect to include, for example. Throw in some conversion charts and a list of common phrases if you’re traveling internationally.

Your final product should end up being much cheaper and lighter than a new guidebook. Further, it’ll be completely relevant, and void of any unnecessary information. Now have at it!

The image above is the remains of Lonely Planet: South India after I pillaged its pages. Click to enlarge.

Apparently, writers are homebodies

by Iva Skoch on

This could be a big problem for me: “Many authors are homebodies deeply connected to where they live. After all, it’s where they work,” after seeing this line, I just had to open the full article in NY Times. If, in fact, most good writers are homebodies, I better start looking for a new job.

As it turns out, they are not really homebodies. (Thank you, Mark Twain! Thanks Hemingway!) Most of them are just really connected to their homes. I can live with that. I am also connected to my home(s), although I couldn’t tell you right now where my real home actually is. I can see this could potentically be a whole set of problems.

Anyway, read this article by Pamela Redmond Satran if you want to check out how a few of the world’s greatest writers lived. For me, I love getting a little inspiration from seeing where and how great authors worked. I wrote about the Mark Twain house in Hartford, CT on gadling before. Satran also recommends checking out the Dickens house in London, Edith Wharton’s house in Lenox, Mass., Eugene O’Neill’s house in San Francisco, Kipling’s in Brattleboro, VT and, of course, Hemingway’s in Key West.

A view from the air: A book that tells what you’re seeing while you’re flying

by Jamie Rhein on

Years ago I flew with a group of high school students from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Los Angeles for a seven hour field trip to Disneyland. None of the students had flown before. Math, geography and reading were tied into the trip’s purpose. For geography we studied maps of the three states we would fly over and I pointed out the landmarks we would see, and how to tell a city’s size by the colored space it takes up on the map. (These were special ed students)

As we flew, the students followed the land’s patterns looking for significant landmarks. On this particular flight, the pilot was chatty, pointing out details along the way so that helped. Flying in and out of Albuquerque, Phoenix and Los Angeles was a way to see in 3-D what the maps showed. As lesson plans went, this one was a winner.

There’s a book, America From the Air: A Guide to the Landscape Along Your Route that would have been a perfect companion for this jaunt. The book, co-authored by Daniel Mathews and James. S. Jackson, takes a close look at 14 flight patterns across the United States. The book is designed so you can follow your travels as you look out the window of an airplane. Landmarks, topography and specific details of the locations that one passes are featured. Plus, there’s a CD-ROM that goes with it.

The book sounds terrific to me, particularly since it also explains the relationship between the land and the people who inhabit it. Why this location? Why these crops here? There is a mixed bag of reviews, however, at Amazon.com. Folks who expected a coffee table book where the photographs carry the ride were somewhat disappointed. People who liked the analysis of the relationship between topography, land, its uses and human culture were impressed. I think what a great idea. [via Columbus Dispatch]