There were plenty of things I missed while I was on vacation, here are some I didn’t:
- Driving – A nice drive down a long and winding country highway is still a treat, but, in general, driving sucks. A well designed subway system is a beautiful thing. I ended up preferring the London Underground to the Paris Metro. But the subway + walking solution beats the hell out of the stress, expense, and hazards of driving (and the eternal problem of inadequate parking).
- Continuous internet access – When you’re paying two pounds an hour, and a new and interesting world is right outside your window, the aimless surfing goes way down the list of things worth your time or money. I think I checked my email three times in a week and a half. Being off the grid left me more time for sight seeing, human interaction not mediated by TCP/IP, and reading.
- Cell phones – I don’t spend a lot of time on my phone, but I always have it with me. I’m always accessible. To be fair, the person whom I most often talk to on the phone is my wife. So, traveling with her eliminated the need for electronic communication. But, as much as I rely on the phone during my day-to-day life, I was rather surprised how little I needed it as a tourist. In fact, all of my very few communications back to the states during the trip were accomplished via email and post cards.
I will no doubt fall back into my usual patterns, but one of the advantages of travel is that it has the potential to shake me out of them and forces me to reconsider them.
Okay, enough long-winded, pseudo-philosophical observations. We took 662 pictures on the trip. Not all of them are worth the hard drive space, but many are. Gina and I shared a camera, so it’s often hard to tell who shot what. But, in general, the better photos are hers and the crappier ones are mine. I transferred them all from the camera last night and uploaded a small batch (25, I think) to my flickr account under the vacation2007 tag. I’ll be adding more in the days ahead, as promised. These aren’t necessarily the best of the bunch; I just chose a few at random. I try to always tag Gina’s pix ginaphoto, since she doesn’t have her own account. But I’m horribly inconsistent about it.