Sam

by brokenrecordbaby

This weekend I met up with Sam, an American fella I met on my Italy travels 2 and a half years ago. He was in London visiting his sister who recently moved here and I was super excited to see him again. I vividly remember telling him that I was positive we would meet again when we had our heart wrenching farewell in Rome’s main train station. And I was right!

Seeing Sam didn’t just get me remembering my month in Italy again but it got me super excited for my upcoming trip….you’re always going to have to go home and leave behind a place but you get to make friends for life. It sounds super cheesy but my effortless reunification with Sam proved that.

If I didn’t have a ginormous trip planned in 9 weeks time I would have just hopped on a plane to Michigan with Sam. We talked about his uni life all night: his job at the student newspaper which has a daily 17,000 print (my uni didn’t even have a newspaper), his campus the size of London (slight exaggeration), the sports teams which rule the school and all the ridiculous frats and sororities. I wanna play beer pong, take shots off a ski and wake up at 6 in the morning to get drunk because that’s how the football team knows you are 100% behind them. But just for a month. Because it’s just ridiculous. And if that girl gets to dress up like a Corona I want to be a Bombay Sapphire.

Sorority chick dressed up as a Corona bottle

Advertisement

Pic of the Day

by brokenrecordbaby

My sister’s Egypt pic.

Travel planning will slow down considerably the next 10 days as I’m going to Hamburg for xmas but then I’ll really get my ass into gear!

Pic of the Day

by brokenrecordbaby

Temple in Chiang Mai, Thailand from Canvas of Light

I am currently working on a list of publications that will publish your travel writing. Hopefully it will be up soon and I plan to keep adding to it.

My Notebook

by brokenrecordbaby

Along with this blog I have just started a fresh notebook just for my trip. It’s for travel story ideas, travel writing tips, notes, thoughts. I’ll give you a bit of an insight everyday what I’ve been jotting down. So far, travel writer David Miller (editor of Matador Notebooks and one of my travel writing “teachers”) has been very prominent in my notebook as he has loads of travel writing guides on Matador.

I nearly jotted down everything from this article which names 30 Skills for Writers. It talks about properly using quotes, not making fallacious arguments (this article forced me to look up fallacious. It’s a sexy sounding word meaning “a mistaken belief based on unsound argument”), constructing multi-level descriptions and scenes. The best thing about it, is that it links to other articles Miller (and others) wrote about being a better travel writer. I couldn’t stop taking notes…it took me from one great, useful article to the next.

Playlist

by brokenrecordbaby

I always need the music on. This is what I’m listening to while I am planning away:

Brookyln’s Twin Shadow

Kings of Leon’s new album. I’ve been forcing myself to get really into it. Hasn’t happened just yet

Tame Impala whom I discovered from Rough Trade’s Album of the Year list

Wolf Parade (they aren’t on Spotify so I’ve had to whack the old itunes out)

Surfer Blood. I won’t surf in Australia but I can still listen to surf songs. The shark on their cover is a bit daunting though. I don’t approve.

The Itinerary

by brokenrecordbaby

March 6th: London – Tokyo

March 17th: Tokyo – Brisbane via Sydney

May 2nd: Sydney – Bangkok

July 5th: Bangkok – London

I might have to leave Australia earlier now as I don’t know that I can afford it for 6 weeks. I guess I’ll figure that out once I’m there? I need to check with my travel agent the exact procedure of changing flights around. Appaz it’s free.

Eleven and Half Weeks…

by brokenrecordbaby

After having been sick in bed for a week not being able to earn dollar I am getting a wee bit antsy about my upcoming trip. Will I have enough time to make enough money? Will I have time to plan the trip? Educate myself about the places I am going to? What are those places anyway? So, I checked my calendar and was relieved to see that I have nearly 3 more months as opposed to the expected 2 and a half (hey, that is a huuuuuuuge difference) I am on antibiotics (suuuuurprise) and am just about healthy enough to sit upright and use my brain a little though it is still full of white noise and thick, gooey yellow flem. I need to start planning this baby and my blog will be a reflection of that ‘cos after all…the trip starts as soon as you book.

My picture of inspiration today: Cambodia, National Geographic