Alex keeps repeating: You must be the clumsiest women on earth!! I usually don't get what he means? But now it seem to be the time to admit it. Not only have I lost many lighters and packs of cigarettes, my Ray Bans and innumerable amount of clothes and towels in the waters of the harbor. Now this dirty little place is also the home of my precious Blackberry. My Dear Blackberry whom I love very dearly and have (had) a very intimate relation with.
Oh yes, I had already decided that I would throw this, last piece of contact with the materialistic world in the ocean, the day we're leaving for the circumnavigation, but not a single day before it! Buhu.. I rarely, or never, get depressions, but this morning was a heavy one. To wake up and having to realize she's gone. Nothing seem to interest me in these mourning times. Alex offered himself to get the scuba tubes on and dive for it last night when it happened. Though the idea sounded very tempting, I just couldn't let him face the terrible dirt and the dangers down there, 6 meters (20 ft) under our hull in the middle of the night. So I guess I just have to learn to accept the fact.
I'm a slave to my own clumsiness.
Can be reached on email until further notice. /Taru
Last night I went along to Sony Pictures in the West End to watch a preview screening of Julia Roberts’ new film Eat, Pray, Love. The film is being released on 24 September 2010 and it was fun to see it so nice and early! We were fed pizza on arrival and then lead into one of Sony’s special viewing theatres and it was all quite posh. The film was followed by a discussion panel consisting of a travel blogger, yoga teacher, food blogger and dating blogger.
I’ll be sure to upload my review over at Addicted to Media but the film certainly got me thinking. It is hard to judge a film like Eat, Pray, Love because it is akin to judging another woman’s very personal travel experience. Eat, Pray, Love is a true story based on the journey of journalist and writer Liz Gilbert. Liz was paid a handsome advance by her publisher that enabled her to make her year-long journey but there is no doubt that she was spiritually bankrupt and suffering the effects of her divorce when she embarked on her trip. In short – she needed to go and find herself.
I follow a lot of travel writers and bloggers on Twitter and there are certainly many serial travellers out there. There are couples who are taking an adult gap year or career break, young adventurers just out of school or university who are touring the world for a year or two and, of course, there are professional travel writers or perpetual travellers who have managed to monetise their blogs.
It all seems so glamorous and exciting but I’m also relieved that it is not me. Quite simply, I love my life. It can be frustrating and hard and disappointing even but I travel not to escape or to find myself but to experience more of the world and to drink in other cultures and countries. As I mentioned earlier, it is not a judgement at all but just a realisation that I wouldn’t want to perpetually travel the world. I like having a job and my husband and my life and that is what makes my travel experiences so important to me.
Having said all of that though, I think in some ways I have done exactly what Liz Gilbert did. Being an expat can be monumentally alienating, bewildering and lonely at times. I came from a country with nine month summers to one with five months of bitter winter and I’m generally fluey for four of them. Perhaps importantly, I battled the winter blues and the residual effects of traumatic experiences that I had in my home country. Running this blog has been my own little journey of self-discovery. Friends often remark to me that I seem to ‘do so much’ but that has always been the purpose of this blog. Being an eternal tourist, seeing the quirky things in every day life and showing my readers the world through my eyes is my way of reminding myself that I am alive and it has been the most life-affirming, inspiring and, yes, therapeutic processes I have ever undertaken, Thank you all for being part of that journey!
Um, *cough*, I’d be interested in knowing if Eat, Pray, Love has generated similar epiphanies in other bloggers / travellers / expats. It is certainly not the best film I’ve ever seen, based as it was on a priv-lit book but it sure got me thinking! Here is the trailer for the film:
(Oh and in order to avoid constantly repeating myself, I’m not going to apologise again for being behind on comments and commenting. I mean, I am sorry but I just don’t see life slowing down in the next seven days so I’ll try get back on the wagon again next week)
Of course there was a cake on Alex birthday. Even though I can find an excuse to swirl together a cake whenever, it's always more pleasant to do it for someone you love. He likes it simple, my man. Everything that comes with a rich taste of chocolate and anything with peaches involved - so I made this simple, but oh so delicious, brownie - and as there were no white peaches to get hold on, I marinated the nectarines in fresh peach juice..
2 eggs
2,5 dl sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 dl unsweetened cocoa powder
2 dl flour
100 g melted butter
(add some chopped and toasted walnuts, pecans or hazelnuts if you'd like)
Preheat oven to 175°C (350°F), grease and flour a pan. Break the eggs into a large bowl and mix it with the sugar, whisk until fluffy. Add all other ingredients, butter lastly. Pour the batter into the pan and place in the oven for around 20 minutes. The cake should be fudgy and soft on the inside and crispy on top. Cut the cake while it's hot. Garnish with whipped cream, icecream or fruits. Voilà!
Sorry for the bad photo quality.. This was the greatest tuna we caught, so far. Almost 30 freaking kilos it weight and filled up our fridge in a second. The funny thing was that Alex reeled this thing up with our thinnest rod and the smallest Rapala on 7 cm (2,7 inch) and he worked on it for around 40 minutes. Still I don't understand how the hell he got it up.. Nice one. /T
We're back home on Spanish waters! The 150 n miles long passage across Golfe du Lion went pretty smoothly. Started with calm sea and around 10 knots of Southerlies, then we caught a 30(!!) kilos mega tuna, slept OK, woke up with 2 meters of waves around us and an established F6 with gusts to 36 knots. Good variation on that one. And can you imagine how glad I am to finally have nonstop service on the wifi?! We have realized a lot of things during this last trip. One is that we definitely need satellite connection through Inmarsat, aboard our boat for the circumnavigation. /T
