Oooh I got some old shoes on....

I think that there is a Paulo Nutini song to the effect that he has some new shoes on and he feels revitalised by the new shoes. I don't know the lyrics of the song by heart at all, but they are to the effect that life has been tough and drudgerous for him in recent times, and a new pair of shoes make him feel better. These new shoes make him feel as if life is looking up for him.

Well I didn't feel like that at all, as I put my old shoes on earlier this evening. I put my favourite shoes on this evening and headed on foot to a destination place in central Edinburgh. These shoes are shabby, unkempt falling apart. But dead comfortable. As I skipped along the pavement, below the tenemant in which I live. The shoes felt great. Life felt good. I have some newer models which are very similar, but I've only had them for a couple of months, so they are not properly run in as yet.

I'd had a funny day. I work from home, so I can sometimes go a full day without talking to anyone, if I am on a task which does not require interaction with others (Maybe that is why I blog). There were some minor bureacratic annoyances this morning (I'm going to a conference and then a quasi marketing trip later in the week, so I had to book a few hotels etc.). That took longer than it should have, but then I was off with some other stuff. Sometimes when I work from home, I feel that progress is slow and painstaking. This afternoon I didn't.

It had been raining on and off all afternoon. I finished what I was doing at about 1900. And it looked gorgeous outside. I couldn't resist a walk through the gorgeous streets and parks of Edinburgh, where I live to this destination, which is a cafe that I know. The cafe is called Negociants, and it's a bit of an institution. The url is http://www.negociants.co.uk/home.htm if you're interested. It's not a great website, but it's a fabulous place.

I only go there occasionally now. But I used to do so more. It used to be quite unique in that there was a cafe upstairs and a nightclub (in the evening) downstairs. And punters could happily flit from upstairs to downstairs, at will. Unfortunately, it's not like that any more. The upstairs and downstairs remain, but there is a monetary charge to go from one to another.

I think that sometimes in life, you just get a lift. People use the cliche "Stopping to smell the roses"; and although it's a cliche, I know what they mean. The rain this afternoon gave the early evening a fresh feel. The buds and leaves on the tree give a bright, green shine. I was walking (almost skipping) down the road to Negociants, talking to a good friend on my mobile 'phone.

When I was a schoolboy, we lived about a mile from where I am normally based now. And quickly my route joined the route that I had been my cycle route to school all those years ago. You can follow my route if you're really bored.

http://www.multimap.com/maps/?qs=Woodburn+Terrace%2C+Edinburgh&countryCode=GB#map=55.92969,-3.195051632&bd=useful_information&loc=GB:55.92708:-3.20398:17Woodburn%20Terrace,%20EdinburghWoodburn%20Terrace,%20City%20of%20Edinburgh,%20Edinburgh,%20Midlothian,%20Scotland,%20EH10%204

I walked down the tree lined street of Woodburn Terrace, onto Canaan Lane with it's high forbidding walls protecting the Astley Ainsley from my glancing gaze. Great views of an electricity substation as you get to the end of Canaan Lane. Then you're onto wide open streets of Whitehouse Lane. Really large houses on the street, although I think that a lot of them are owned now by large organisations, like the church of Scotland.

Then, soon my route departed from the route that I took on my bike as a schoolboy. I walked past the back entrance to my school and on. This part of the world is very familiar to me. I went to school here for six years. Of all the locations in the world it must be more familiar to me than almost any external ladnscape.

A little further down the hill and you see a really fabulous vista (a great word until Microsoft wrecked it). As I turned around the corner onto the meadows path (url below again) which runs along - more-or-less - parallel to Warrender Park Terrace, you can see Arthur's Seat as you look east.

http://www.multimap.com/maps/?qs=Woodburn+Terrace%2C+Edinburgh&countryCode=GB#map=55.93947,-3.197371732&bd=useful_information&loc=GB:55.93947:-3.19737:17Warrender%20Park%20TerraceWarrender%20Park%20Terrace,%20City%20of%20Edinburgh,%20Edinburgh,%20Midlothian,%20Scotland,%20EH9%201

I think Edinburgh is "three dimensional" in a way that many cities are not. I love London, but everything is more level. You get more gradual inclines and much of the parkland could have been built on (if it hadn't been protected like the Royal Parks). Edinburgh is not like that. The original Edinburgh, the Royal mile was built on a Crag-and-Tail formation formed as the glacier was forced apart, by what is now the Castle Rock. You can't easily build yuppy flats up volcanic magma.

That makes Edinburgh an exciting place to travel around, whether you are on foot, bike, bus or even a pogo-stick. They say that Edinburgh is built on seven hills (Castle Rock, Calton Hill, Craiglockart Hill, Blackford Hill, Braid Hill, Corstorphine Hill and Arthurs seat(?)), and that does make it unusual in terms of the views that you get, as you go about your normal business.

Arthur's seat stood resplendant as I ambled through the meadows. Up middle meadow walk and quickly onto Lothian Street, where Negociants is. I sat outside in the mildly chilly evening sipping my beer and admired the view (including the McEwan hall where Edinburgh University students graduate), and watched the world go by.

I don't know what happened this evening. Maybe it's just my hormones. Maybe it's because I sometimes lack mental balance. But something gave me an enormous sense of wellbeing this evening, as the sun cast some of it's final rays over Edinburgh for today.

To paraphrase Paulo Nutini:

"Oooh I got some old shoes on and everything is smiling,

it's so inviting..............."

(Incidently, not sure if you like the photo. I wasn't sure about 'photos when I first came to blogging, but I'm thinking that a few might be cool. This was taken a little while ago in a cafe next to Negociants on Home Street, when I was out with some friends.)

A road trip south

There is something exciting about picking up a hire car. I'm not quite sure what it is. I had been talking with friends about taking a road trip south for some time. And the group had kind of grown. So we booked a six seater vehicle. My reasoning for heading south was that I come from the UK, you're never quite sure how much sunshine that you might get; and I felt like doing at least some hanging out in the sun; just in case we experience a sun free summer in the UK.

It was my job to pick up the hire car the day before we departed. So I felt a frisson of excitement as I headed down into Alexandria, on the DC Metro to pick up the vehicle. My excitement was tinged with nervousness; I was nervous because my navigation is never great at the best of times, and to some extent I've got spoiled by satellite navigation. It was a beautiful sunny day. As I picked up the car, my navigational strategy was simple. Drive back towards DC, keeping the Potomac river on my right. Then cross the river and - to some extent at least - hope for the best.

In many ways, the road layout worked to my advantage. The bridge opened out onto 16th street. I was staying between 16th and 14th. So all I had to do was follow 16th street until things looked familiar. Success, I got home.

After a great day with another local person and a great night out with her, some friends I know from the UK (living near DC) and a fellow traveller, it was time to head south.

The road trip commenced the next day. Weather bright and inviting. I had to pick someone up, who was staying a little way north in DC. Then we were meeting the four others, who were getting a bus down from New York. I was again feeling a bit nervous about driving an unfamiliar vehicle, in a unfamiliar town on the other side of the road (from that which I am used to). But I found her house without too much trouble and together we managed to make our way to the Martin Luther King library in central DC.

The other four arrived on their bus that was on time. So it's time for some introductions. You know Benedict Alexander, already. Then we had a young Dutch lady, let's call her Nanouk Vink. I think that you've met Nora Ponteland already (albeit briefly). Nora was joining us with her good mate Petulia Tait. Finally there was an American fellow that we'd met in New York. In reality, he's generally known by a nickname, so let's call him Jive.

There is something that is just great fun about travelling in a minibus. I tried to think of a better word tham fun. Something that better captures the delight. A word that describes the joy of travelling together with a bunch of fun people. And I thought about it for a while; I've stuck with fun it was fun. With a group of people that you know well there is lots of potential for fun and good humour; with the exciting expectation of warm weather and good fun to come at the end of the road trip.

We had some way to go. DC to Orlando. We were travelling overnight, through the states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and then into Florida, a road distance of about eight hundred and fifty miles. I was kind of in and out of sleep as the night gradually passed. But our driver seemed to be able to keep driving all night.


Finally, night turned into day and we arrived in Orlando. We had our breakfast and found our way to the hotel complex. The hotel had a swimming pool and jacuzzi and was really quite luxurious. It was strange for me after either staying in youth hostels or on people's couches for the weeks preceding it. Also, when I was growing up our family holidays involved caravanning in scotland so this place was different and totally new experience for me.

When we got to Orlando we did things that you might expect holiday-makers to do out there. We went around an art gallery, we went to NASA, we went to universal studios for the day; and we spent a lot of time hanging around the pool enjoying the weather and having a drink. All of which was fabulous. My next stop was Seattle, where there is an entirely different climate.

I love staying in Youth Hostels. But when you stay with the residents of a town (as I did in DC) is easier to unxderstand life from the perspective of a local person. I really hadn't planned to stay with a local resident, it had just happened by chance (see my previous blog 'The Serendipity of Travel'). But I was so glad to be staying in the place I was.

I have quite a lot of experience of sharing houses (Earlier in my career I lived and worked in Bristol and then London in the UK, where property is relatively expensive, so I often lodged or shared houses.). But in my experience, and in the UK these houses are normally composed of people in their twenties and thities. The great thing about the house in which I was staying was that the housemates were so diverse in terms of their ages, interests and backgrounds. It was a very stimulating place to live. Whenever people were in, the conversation was great.

I suppose that an alternative way to experience what I did in DC, would be to use the website http://www.couchsurfing.org/ . I've never used this for travelling so far, but I am intrigued by the notion. Hopefully I can try it sometimes. In principal I think that the website can put you in touch with people in various parts of the world who would be happy to host you for a few days. I want to try it out some day.

When you stay in youth hostels there are often many posters and leaflets advertising attractions in the town in which you are staying. There are often (at least in the USA) even organised trips of one sort or another, starting in the youth hostel . But what is more difficult to do is to get a feeling for what local the local inhabitants of your town are doing. And - again please forgive me for stating the obvious - the best way to do that is to actually be amongst the local inhabitants.

Like many people in DC, many of the people who lived in the same house as me were involved in politics in one way or another. And they were the sort of people who attended political events. One of them is the director of a grass-roots political movement, aimed at redefining the American flag, and renewing democracy in the process. During the week or so that I lived in that house the residents were attending various political meetings of one sort or another.

They asked me if I wanted to come along to a meeting in the National Press Club in DC, which was organised by Citizens in Charge Foundation and entitled "Government Reform at the Hands of the People: A Citizen's Forum". I was intrigued and certainly wanted to join them, if only just to see the National Press Club.

I attended the first session which was a series of presentations by a series of eminent polical commentators and campaigners from across the political spectrum, including the veteran former senator, Mike Gravel. Some of the people in my house clearly new the former senator well and I was duly introduced to him. Mike Gravel has had a wide range of jobs from being a taxi driver in New York City to a United States Senator and during his time as Senator went to court (Gravel vs U.S) which resulted in a landmark Supreme Court decision relative to the Speech and Debate Clause (Article 1, Section 6) of the United States Constitution.

It's fascinating to meet people like that, and I suppose my point is that whilst staying in Youth Hostels is great, sometimes you get a deeper insight into places and the people that live there if you stay with local residents.

Washington DC

Washington DC felt different to any city in the USA that I had experienced hitherto. People say that everyone that you meet in DC is either involved in politics in some way, or wants to be. And to some extent, some of the people that I met there seemed to verify that notion.

It's also a very easy city to find your way around. Perhaps partly because I was staying near Columbia Heights Metro stop, I travelled around by Metro quite a lot. The Metro system is marvellous. If anything, it seemed a little underused.

DC is famous for it's Museums. There are many, and lots of them are free. I'm a great fan of free Museums. It was one policy that new labour brought in 1997 in the UK. I remember going to London Museums before that, and they were expensive. The thing that I like about free Museums - and apologies, if this is really obvious - is that you can just wander in and out of them at will. After an hours browsing you can take yourself off for a coffee. Office workers can spend 45 minutes of their lunch breaks in them.

With hindsight, given that I was in DC for a week, I wish that I had spent more time in Museums. But there we are. Two of the best that I went to were the Natural History Museum and the Museum of Flight. The highlight of the latter was joining Titus Auberon in a flight simulator. He was the pilot and I was the gunner in a military aircraft. Great fun, but as I said to him afterwards, I don't fancy getting into a car he's driving. The simulator seemed to be quite advanced and several times we appeared to be flying upside down. Exciting

Although it was quite cold when I was in DC, it was often sunny. and it's a great town to walk around, what with the large open streets and attractive buildings. Another nice thing about DC, is that in the centre, you hardly need a map to navigate (even if, like me you are hopeless at navigation). So when someone asks you to meet them at 22 and M (i.e. the corner of 22nd street and M Street), it's easy because the streets follow a 'grid iron' pattern with ascending numbers and letters, running perpendicular to one another. It does make life as a tourist easier. And you can concentrate on sightseeing rather than gawping at a map.

Half way through my time in DC. I said goodbye to Titus and Catherine after a morning spent at the Arlington cemetary and went to meet Benedict Alexander, Jean-Jacques and some others who had come down from New York on a bus. It was a strange juxtaposition, although I had plans to meet up with Titus and Catherine in Seattle, I'd been with them now on and off for ten days or so. They were heading north to Montreal and soon I would be heading south for Florida and some warm weather.

The serendipity of travel

This next blog is testament to the non-chronological nature of my postings. The events described below happenened before many of the subsequent entries. Sorry. I never was much good at doing my homework on time.

It was a bit of a wrench to leave Philadeplhia. The hostel there is great, with friendly staff and we'd had great fun. But Washington DC, the nation's capital beckoned. So it was with excitement that I boarded the bus with Titus Auberon and Catherine Lennox. The weather was great as we headed for DC.

Titus and Catherine were staying with old friends, just the other side of the Potomac river. And after many days in the shared dorms of Youth Hostels, I felt like I could do with one night with my own bedroom. I borrowed Catherine's travel guide and selected an inexpensive guest house. And out of sheer laziness I took a cab towards the address for this place.

From the guidebook it seemed that this place was head and shoulders above the other establishments and there was a note to the effect that if you turned up at lunchtime they laid on a buffet. To follow the story from here, you need to know that I am A, a bit gormless and B, hopeless at directions and things of a spacial nature. Furthermore, whilst the taxi driver was very nice, I didn't think he was the best taxi driver that I had ever hired.

And thank goodness he wasn't.

He dropped me off on this street outside the 'guesthouse'. As I closed the boot of the taxi the route seemed obvious to me. There was an external set of stairs with an open front door at the top. What could be easier. But as I got to the top, some doubt crept in. Could this really be the guesthouse? As I walked up the stairs there was a surface with tourist brochures, and I thought that there might be a receptionist behind there.

By the time that I got to the top of the stairs I was committed. People were milling around a buffet lunch and sipping drinks. I walked into the lobby with all my luggage - a large rucksack, a laptop bag and a separate plastic bag - and said to a lady who was stood there, "Have you got a room for the night?". When she replied "Are you serious?", I knew that I had come to the wrong place. But before I had escaped - which was my immediate instinct - the assembled people had encouraged me to put my luggage down and had thrust a drink into my hand.

Best of all, before long I had been lined up with a sofa to stay on for the night. The party was great, I met lots of interesting and friendly people. I even met someone who worked was in a similar line of work, and we arranged to meet up for a coffee later in the week. I left the party with Joe Kingston, who's sofa had been kindly offered to me. It was a short walk through a sunny DC.

The day ended brilliantly. Instead of spending that evening in lonely guesthouse. I watched the superbowl with Joe and his housemates who had welcomed me with open arms. As I watched the American Office with one of Joe's housemates towards the end of the evening; it felt like I had lived there for ages.

Re-united with Jean-Jacques

Independent travelling can be an interesting thing. I had some rough timescales (if only in my head) as to where my travels might take me, and when I might move on; when I departed for Boston, MA in mid January 2009, but things didn't pan out quite as I had planned. One of the things that happened, and I am very glad that it did was that I met and got to know good people. I enjoyed their company and companionship.

I took the view that travelling is more fun when you are with friends and I compromised. Not necessarily in terms of where to go, but the speed at which I planned to go there; so I could stay with these new and wonderful friends. But nevertheless, I've observed that groups of people form and stay together for a few days. But then, and despite any bond that may exist, the group fragments and moves on. People have different priorities for their own travels. So as an independent traveller travelling on your own, you join and leave different groups as time goes on.

Jean-Jacques was a core member of the crew that I travelled with in Boston and then New York. And then we went our seperate ways. What is weird, is when you meet up with the same person in a totally different context it feels strange. I was delighted to see Jean-Jacques. But something in me screamed out that I know J-J from the East coast of the USA, not from Brussels.

I had a ferry to catch from Calais to Dover. Our time in Germany had passed so quickly that I suddenly realised after ten days, that it would soon be time to go home. So two days prior to the ferry leaving Calais, we left Saarbrücken and headed to see J-J in Brussels.

I had only been to Brussels once before, and I had completely forgotten what a lovely town it is. My companion had this mystical ability to dream her way to youth hostels and we managed this, once again, without any problem. The weather was fabulous the architecture is great and we were just catching the last of the daffodils in the park. My stay in Brussels included two trips to local public houses with J-J. It was lovely to see him again.

The morning Ferry meant leaving Brussels at around 0530. An easy two hours or so on the Auto-route brings one to Calais and the Ferry. Although I guess it's quicker, I can't really understand why people take the tunnel. Taking the Ferry is so much more of an experience. I love boats, an on these particular boats there is the thrill of leaving the port, seeing the white cliffs of Dover and then coming into Dover. I'm not quite sure how to express the thrill, other than what I've already said. But boarding a Ferry fills me with a frisson of excitement.

As we disembarked the Ferry in Dover. The weather was sunny and warm. Good old blighty.