by Julie

The speed of things

Walking home from the train station I noticed how fast everyone was walking - way faster than me and I always thought I moved quickly.  Then I remembered being somewhere where people did the opposite, walked really slowly, so slowly that I had to slow myself down to fit in and not feel like I was rudely rushing through the city. I thought - where was that? Then I remembered - Rio de Janeiro, specifically.  South America in general. No-one rushes in South American cities, it's a totally different feel to New York, London or…
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by Julie

How to be like Captain Cook, not Admiral Nelson

In response to the challenge of www.justmeplease.com, here is my tip for dealing with sea-sickness: DON'T GO ON BOATS! But I jest of course. The best thing about travelling is the opportunity to do things you wouldn't normally do, and going on boat trips was one of them for me. I never even considered sea-sickness until the day I went to go snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef, from Cairns in Australia. It was a rocky enough trip and I remembered what motion sickness was then, I tell you. It was even worse when I…
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by Julie

Does grace exist?

The woman on the radio plugging her book was talking about her conception of 'grace': she posits that it's about how we move through the world, that graceful people put other people's needs ahead of their own, are kind, polite and considerate to everyone they meet. On that basis can we say that grace exists anymore? It made me think of some of the people I met as I made my way around the world: the barman in a restaurant in Rio de Janeiro who stepped in to help me when the waiter and I…
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by Julie

Captain Cook and amplitude

I love maps. All kinds: new, antique, obscure, land maps, charts of the sea, weather charts. I have absolutely no idea how one goes about drawing a map, as I can just about read one. My general ignorance of the process of map making makes me admire Captain James Cook even more. I managed to take this photo of a map of his travels which was displayed in the Tairawhiti museum in Gisborne in New Zealand, before the staff there told me I wasn't allowed to take photos.   Captain Cook originally got the gig to explore…
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