Nov 212011
 
The Dying Lion of Lucerne is simultaneously restful and heartbreaking

One thing that taking 6 and then 3 weeks off from the dayjob, and spending it roaming various non-Australian continents without a computer, was that I took an honest, proper, thorough holiday. No dayjob, no writing, nothing but hanging with interesting people, traipsing around places I've always wanted to see, and reading. (Okay, okay, there was some writing, but it was mostly by way of jotted notes. I think we all know this much at least was inevitable.)

I must be rested, because not only have I been hitting my daily target on the novel lately, I've even had the mad, temptingly irresistible idea of writing an iPhone app. There are plenty of things I need to do first with all the time I don't have, and I have never written a single line of the code that iPhone apps are built on, and yet…

Clearly I'm too rested! But a couple of weeks back at the dayjob ought to take care of that.

The swans of Lucerne treated us to a fine display of not caring about us.

Narelle Harris has a post up today about connectivity, and the impact that has on our attention spans, and it's something I've been contemplating a lot lately, care of the trip. In Europe and the US I had no data, so couldn't check twitter or any of the blogosphere as often as I'd grown accustomed to; and while I missed the chattiness of it all, I loved the way that my mind stopped feeling frazzled and dazzled, and started to sink back into a slower pace of observation. My work is more efficient now than it has been for a long time.

Perhaps I need to schedule some techno-holidays into my weekly routine? (Ssh! Don't tell twitter!)

The Dying Lion of Lucerne is simultaneously restful and heartbreaking.

 Posted by at 7:30 pm
Nov 122011
 
also i saw (more than one!) marmot in the wild. i don't think any of them had the plague.

Full travel stories (with pictures) will come in time, but by way of a quick run-down I have, in the past two and a half months: climbed mountains, hiked glaciers, seen movie stars at work (Bollywood and Hollywood), traipsed medieval city walls, read a Dr Suess poem at a wedding, dared the interior of mountains to see corkscrew waterfalls and limestone caverns, watched horses perform ballet born of battle, visited no less than 3 zoos, watched a marabou perform one of the most spectacular (and creepy) territorial dances in the animal kingdom, saw a baby sloth demonstrate his version of energetic behaviour, swum in the Adriatic, discovered exactly how agonising a pebble beach really is on the feet, seen a pangolin, witnessed my very first hummingbird, ate my first ever bagel, attended World Fantasy (during which there was much alcohol, traipsing around various room parties, Twister, swimming, and said first bagel; but very little actual panel attendance…), glimpsed the marvellously heart-rending New York City, and read books without worrying about the time (oh glorious indulgence!).

Oh, and I watched a frightening number of movies. Seriously. With the amount of time I've spent on planes in the past few months, there've been movies. Lots of movies. And most of them terrible. Let's not talk about it, shall we? I'll take that one for the team. (You're welcome.)

marmot

also i saw (more than one!) marmot in the wild. i don't think any of them had the plague.