August 2011
4 posts
Country No. 33 - Canada
I have just returned from a family wedding in Canada’s Saint Adolphe D’Howard - a beautiful lakeside settlement located 100km north of Montreal in the Laurentian Mountains.
“Glad you’re finally visiting a proper country not a two-bit tax haven” remarked my Aussie pal Rhys while @oldspeechwriter thought I should be able to count Quebec as country 34 quoting Charles de Gaulle’s famous ‘Vive le...
Montreal is an hour away and impressively we get there in less time than it takes to cross London. My first impression – if I’m honest – is of a slight pervading French naffness: they seem to have imported the culture wholesale. We see a lot of soul patches, white boys with dreadlocks, women who are twenty but dress fifty. And the clown-density is above my comfort level. Reminding myself this...
April 2011
5 posts
Country No.32 - Monaco
Having been to Gibraltar, Liechtenstein and most recently the Vatican, it was only logical to check out – Monaco. Originally I was planning to bag the other famous microstate – Malta, but at the time of booking things looked a bit volatile with Libyan fighter jets defecting there and boatloads of people seeking refuge. The only thing people are seeking refuge from in Monaco is paying taxes.
A...
No really, you used my photo for what?!!
For a little while, I havent had much to blog about. My photos have been used plenty but in a very predictable way. @Zhogger’s cute laptop was popular and cropped up in a few places, as did various other pics from govcamp but nowt to write home about.
But today I did a little detective work, working backwards from this picture being popular on Flickr, I spotted it on this expat site and...
February 2011
6 posts
31 countries by age 31
Even though I completed my challenge to visit thirty countries by age thirty, I still want to carry on bagging new countries where I can. So I couldn’t resist going to a new country for my 31st birthday. I can now say I have visited 31 countries by age 31.
For those people who don’t believe that The Holy See aka The Vatican in Rome, Italy, is a separate country I say “Talk to...
More random captioning...
Bokete the korean website is fast becoming my favourite user of my Creative Commons pictures, I just can fathom what they mean. Perhaps Google Translate is to blame?
December 2010
1 post
September 2010
6 posts
Rollergirls
Hair Cutting Fun is clearly a popular site - I got tons of traffic when they posted my pic of a bunch of Scouse girls out shopping in matching tracksuits and rollers. It’s not strange that they used this pic but it does amuse me that the peripherals, feet and now hair are attracting interest on the niche blogs. Makes me think I should take some photos of hands and then see what...
Foot fetishists vs Brand Awareness
One of the things I like about using twitter @treepixie is that you mention a brand in passing and if they are good at their jobs they pop up and comment back like @moleskine or @overheardatmoo or occasionally give you a freebie like @luckyvoice .I suppose it then makes sense that these hipster brands will also notice if you post photos of their products on Flickr too, right? Nothing weird in...
August 2010
6 posts
Adventures in Creative Commons
As I haven’t been able to visit any new countries or Kingdoms for a while I think I’m going to broaden the scope of this blog for a little while. Recently I have discovered ways to track down some of my Flickr images that are being used under CC license and the results are frankly surprising - I’ll post a few and you’ll see what I mean…
December 2009
3 posts
J’accuse.
Shame on you. Shame on all of you reading this travel blog. Here I was defaming Amsterdam all over the shop and not one of you put me straight. Don’t try to imply I got the wrong end of the stick,I clearly remember you saying that Amsterdam was a collection of seedy streets and dingy canals peppered with prostitutes and marauding Brits who make the cast of Trisha look classy by comparison. And...
Last post before I turn 30 (in 0.5 minutes)
Because everything on the interwebs lasts forever I have decided not to write anything that could make me want to throat punch myself in 10 years’ time.
Just wanted to have my Academy Award style Paltrow-esque moment and thank everyone for either putting up with me or accompanying me on my travels. So thanks Laura for suggesting the idea, Sam for making me actually go ahead with it, Karen,...
November 2009
2 posts
September 2009
9 posts
Mexico – Country 29
San Diego seems like it would be a great place to live – well laid out, clean, city/beach combo, kind of hip without being grimy. It’s basically part of the same urban sprawl that Tijuana is – when you look on a map it’s almost like they are East & West Berlin or North and South London. They are divided by a huge scary guarded chain link fence that runs for about sixty miles.
We stayed in...
Error 404
My damn computer keeps eating my blog posts - service will resume shortly, thanks for your patience.
LA – part 1
We bounced down at a smoggy LAX at local time 5pm, landing alongside flights from Sydney and Japan. Once we got through the usual snarly jobsworth passport dudes, we saw the full extent of the chaos. The whole baggage carousel area was one big conga of frazzled people queuing to escape. We knew it didn’t auger well for the traffic situation outside. When we got to the customs bit we could see what...
Driving
I’ve written before about how poorly suited I am for California. I’m not rich, thin, tan, I can’t speak Spanish, I don’t do shorts and I find too many choices overwhelming. And of course I don’t drive. These are the reasons I haven’t bothered to visit before. They are similar to my fickle reasons for not visiting Amsterdam “Don’t do weed or canal...
Notes
A few people asked me why I didn’t really write about Lake Constance other than to scare my family with tales of how I almost drowned. I suppose it’s for the same reason I’m having trouble writing about this trip - it’s quite intense when there’s only two of you.
I had an absolutely wonderful time in Germany - I must actually go to Tripadvisor sometime to post a...
August 2009
5 posts
All Chiefs and No Indians - No. 28 - Liechtenstein...
Q: What’s the difference between Sealand or The Principality of Hutt River and Liechtenstein?
A: Presumably Princes Maximilian and Alois didn’t colour in their own coat of arms with felt tips but otherwise not as much as you’d think.
Friends who work at my own Department will be interested to know that there are more registered businesses than citizens in Liechtenstein. Though...
Dark Water
In Constance we stayed in a place called Litzelstetten. It had a beautiful and secluded public ‘strandbad’ a public bathing area.
There are hundreds of these around the lake but this one was quieter and had gently sloping grassy verges and a kiosk selling cheap bockwurst and weiß beer. We loved it there. The strandbad also had a concreted walkway leading into the water and a floating pontoon...
July 2009
2 posts
Countries that don't count
Totting up on my fingers I reckon by my birthday in December, if all goes well, I will have been in 16 countries in a year, only 10 of them new.
Part of the deal about having a relaxing summer holiday with my bloke was that I don’t turn it into 80 days around the World. We had already agreed it would a train trip - very much needed after my horrendous carbon footprint. I suppose I...
June 2009
14 posts
