Spendthrift Shoestring

Unpacking: A New Regime

Historically, I've been terrible at unpacking after work trips. I typically remove what I immediately need from my knapsack (sorry, trying to integrate!—backpack) and leave the rest to fester: receipts, ticket stubs, notebooks, guidebooks, pens, in-flight magazines, newspapers, foreign currency, and my digital camera, for days and days on end. The one exception to this habit of neglect has been my propensity to deal quickly with dirty clothes, in particular after the arrival of the North American Bedbug Epidemic (NABE) of the last several years.

Dirty laundry excepted, my pattern has been without much variation to allow other things to languish. That many of these objects I need to have organized and on hand in order to do my post-trip work hasn't seemed to push me to change course.

No longer. After my last two trips I declared war against my own laziness and literally removed every single thing from my bag. Everything, I decided, should be put in its place: passport in its cubbyhole, receipts in their own unorganized pile, notebooks and other materials in a neat stack for easy reference, newspapers and magazines in another pile for quick review, toiletries in the bathroom, dirty clothes and duffel bag immediately into the washing machine.

There have been two immediate benefits to this no-brainer of a change in habit. First, I've been able to plow through the job of writing about my travels far more efficiently than previously. Secondly, I've been able to reduce clutter immediately.

Now to that unorganized pile of receipts...

Mljet Chapel Interior

I've been meaning to do something with this image for months now. It's of the interior of Sv. Marije, a sixteenth-century chapel on Mljet. We stopped by in early July to take a look at the chapel only to discover it shuttered. I was curious about the interior and peered in through the keyhole, at which point I had the possibly bright idea to document that particular perspective. Technically, this image might not be up to much, but I find it appealing and mysterious.

Hackney Sunset

Tonight's sunset from my flat's west-facing window.

Mljet

It's rare that I leave a place and immediately want to return. Mljet is haunting me this week. I can't stop thinking of the light, the water, and the stone houses. Could I live there?

Sv Marija (St Mary) island.

Early evening, Sv Marija island.

Stairs from rental flat, Sobra.

Yeah, seriously. Saplunara.

Chairs, Okuklje.

Hackney Innovation

I love how the resident of this council flat has created her own garden. She's not the only one in the neighborhood utilizing common space for a garden, either. There's a fellow living in an estate across the street growing rows of vegetables.

Hackney Still Life

Better Orwell than Orwellian.

Say Thank You

This is the third post in a quite irregular series in which I provide unsolicited advice to my fellow travel bloggers.

Here it is: When someone responds to your request for advice, thank them.

The social media-driven universe we travel bloggers are currently inhabiting is pretty great. We scribble a question into Twitter and magically—or automagically, as this friend has it—we receive an answer. Where should I spend my afternoon on the Upper East Side while waiting for an appointment? What is the best Vietnamese restaurant in Oklahoma City? Which Croatian island will be quiet in August?

We risk a few dozen characters and the brain trust that is our social network comes back with useable answers. It's amazing. And yes, sometimes the answers that come back are not helpful. On occasion they're misreadings of our original queries, or even creepy and weird. But by and large they're coming from real people who we've already vetted on the strength of their knowledge, influence, or connectedness.

So say thank you. Don't demand answers. Don't follow up breathlessly with additional questions before taking time to demonstrate your appreciation. At the risk of hippieing out, you are responsible for shaping and nurturing your own online community. Don't blow it.

This is simple, easy, uncontroversial stuff. Say thank you.

An Epic Fail in the Eurovision Prediction Stakes

In late February, freshly returned from a few nights in Oslo, I predicted that Stella Mwangi would win Eurovision.

Last night, in the first semi-final of the competition, she failed even to qualify for the final. In a field of 19 songs, "Haba haba" wasn't among the top ten. Meanwhile, the Swiss song, which I judged to be irredeemably terrible—and from a country with an abysmal recent Eurovision history, to boot—went through.

So yeah. Terrible prediction, apparently. Late Saturday the semi-final votes will be revealed and it will be interesting to see how close Mwangi came to qualifying.

Tel Aviv: Graffiti, Politics, Eggplants

Snowball and Squealer?

Everyone loves to play under the table, right?

A statement against the Israeli government's practice of deporting the children of foreign workers in Israel illegally.

A verbal eggplant?

What You Didn't See Doesn't Matter

This is part two in an occasional series of Unsolicited Pieces of Advice for my fellow travel bloggers.

What you didn't see doesn't matter. Stop feeling like crap because you didn't see X and Y on your recent trip to Z city. Seriously. Stop it.

Any fellow travel writer who judges you for not seeing a particular museum or eating at a particular food stall is dumb. This is not to say that you shouldn't thank people for providing you with tips, of course—more on that, perhaps, in a future Unsolicited Piece of Advice—but stop worrying about what other travel writers and other people think. Just do your thing and write about it in a compelling manner. Or enjoy yourself and take notes and don't publish anything at all.

One of my favorite travel companions hates going to any destination that requires major effort to visit, only to find that she doesn't have enough cash on hand to partake in the iconic local activities. I get that, but even here I think that whatever happens is going to be interesting and worthwhile. $500 whalewatching excursions can piss off. 

Great writing is great writing. The best travel writing—even narrowly-defined "service" writing—often isn't really about activities. Remember this, and stop fretting over whether or not you've ticked off every last item on the must-do list.

Here it is, again. What you didn't see doesn't matter.