All posts filed under: Travel

Post #8: BART

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Welcome to the eighth post of the Great Writing Challenge of 2012. Five days a week for six months, I will be given a topic to write about. The stipulation: it must be 250 words (or more), and positive in tone. If you would like to suggest topics for me to write about, please email me at TheRebeccaProject [at] gmail [dot] com. BART trains are cool. They look like portals from the future, prepared to take you back with them. Even the horns sound digital. Harrison Ford caught one in Blade Runner. Or maybe I just made that up. But he totally would have. Each day, I ride the futuristic cars to work and back. BART is my preferred form of public transport, and mostly an enjoyable experience. The system is known for its large, comfy seats, and has a completely different feel from the hard plastic seats on trains in New York and London. I am a creature of habit and each day, I make a beeline for my preferred seat: the reverse-riding left …

Post #6: Packing Light

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Welcome to the sixth post of the Great Writing Challenge of 2012. Five days a week for six months, I will be given a topic to write about. The stipulation: it must be 250 words (or more), and positive in tone. If you would like to suggest topics for me to write about, please email me at TheRebeccaProject [at] gmail [dot] com. On Twitter this afternoon, I heard all my favorite bloggers discuss what they are packing for Alt Summit in Sat Lake City. Truth is, I’m super jealous. Maybe I should add Alt Summit to my Life List? I’m sure Maggie Mason would approve. I love hearing about what people deem important to pack. To some, it’s mundane and they want to head straight for the photos, but I think there’s a real art to packing light. Maggie Mason sometimes posts about what she packs for a trip away, and it’s amazing how she can fit everything into an overnight bag (see HERE and HERE. This woman knows how to pack). So whilst I …

I heart SF

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San Francisco is unique, and so breathtakingly beautiful. Sometimes I forget to stop long enough to take notice. Thankfully, someone captured it for me, and edited it into an easily-watched 4m56s. [Source] I heart my city. One of my favourite part of the city has always been the fog. It seems to crawl in over the hills and down the valleys like fingers. It’s a living organism. At 33 seconds in, check out the exact view I get each morning as I step outside my front door.

Thoughts on Travel

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This article was first published in the summer edition of ‘At The End Of The Day’, my organization’s in-house magazine. *** In the late 18th Century, a Frenchman by the name of Xavier de Maistre pioneered what became known as ‘room travel’. Instead of packing up sixteen trunks, commandeering two stewards and journeying on trains and sailing vessels to new worlds, de Maistre donned his blue and pink pajamas and set about exploring his room. In ‘Journey Around My Bedroom’, he participated in grand old adventures, starting with his couch. What we glean from his writings is that while we all can’t be brave explorers like Cook and Magellan, we can all look at our own surroundings with a different eye, taking the time to notice what we have already seen. It’s less about where in the world we are heading as the mindset with which we travel. It’s an interesting way to look at travel, particularly as many of us take a vacation this time of year. There is no one-solution-fits-all when it comes …

Oh Happy Day!

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The uber talented Jordan of one of my FAVOURITE blogs, Oh Happy Day, is doing something unheard of to celebrate her celebration of her five year blogging anniversary. She’s generously donating a trip to Paris to be won by one of her lucky readers. WHOA! A trip to PARIS? Count me in! [Source: Oh Happy Day] You win a stay at a boutique hotel called Mama Shelter, and be personally shown around Paris by Jordan herself. Anyhoo, she also recently relaunched her site, and I am loving the simplicity of the design. So get on over there and win yourself a dream holiday! What have you got to lose? Enter here, and may I wish you all the best of luck.

The Seattle Wrap Up

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One of the loveliest parts of my long weekend to Seattle was taking some time out for myself and wandering around the city early on Sunday before the wedding. Very few places were open so early — a far cry from the way I used to travel, starting out at around 2pm. I wandered down to ‘Pike’ (Pike’s Place Market) and watched all the vendors set up as the rain fell. I feel a real affinity with people who don’t bother about the rain and umbrellas, and these were my people. It was Mothers’ Day, and slowly, middle-aged men with little tykes perched on their shoulders or holding the miniature hands of their offspring (sometimes both), descended upon the market to pick their favourite tulips for their mums/wives. Much discussion was had about colour and taste (“What color do you think Mom would like, Maddison?”), with few tantrums. There were some amazing tulip hybrids, and am loving the tulip/daffodil and the tulip/peony combinations. I couldn’t get enough of their colour, their perkiness, their beauty: I …