Lady_Disdain's VirtualTourist Home Page

Update: For shame, barely a week has past since I started my project and already I am behind.

I am tired of complaining that I never update my tips. Unfortunately, the solution for that is to, ahem, update my tips.

So I have started the tip a day project. Every day, Monday to Friday, I will post a new tip or update an existing one. If I don't have the photos to go with the tip (my favourite excuse not to post a tip), the tip will go up without a photo.

Saturday and Sunday are exempt, since those are the days I should be on the field, gathering fresh new materials.

I hope this will get me off my inercia, posting more tips and taking more day trips on the weekend.

I wonder if I can count this update as a tip - that would get me off today...

After frolicking in Misc for a while, I decided to head home for a breather.

When I got here, I started to think about a little number I had never really looked at before (no, not my rating - I plot that against the S&P index daily): the number of page hits.

Quite a bit higher than I expected, actually. My vanity is flattered.

But, of course, I started to wonder who my visitors are (and to do a little hasty sweep of the place - who knows when a new visitor will pop in? The shame, the shame...). What has brought them here? Was it a forum posting? A particularly juicy tip? Random browsing?

And, of course, what did they think? Did my unknown visitor like my page? Hate it? Or just forgot about it a minute later?

Most important of all: how do I get all of them to rate my tips?! ;)

PS - sorry - I've run out of photos on this computer. I'll get a new one up when I get back home.

I have a huge world map hanging on my wall. It is covered with sticky notes with curious facts, scribbled with potential travel routes and it has several photos on it as well.

I love that map. I can see places I have visited (few), places I someday want to go (lots!) and places I don't want to go (none, so far). I dream of future trips and plan them. I ponder wether I should go to Vietnam or Turkey next. Then reality nudges me and I look for places closer to home... Argentina again? Or perhaps São Luiz do Maranhão? Or perhaps...

At the moment, my travel list includes:

Vietnam
Turkey
Argentina
Peru
Chile
Mexico
Honduras
United States
Russia
Morocco

And inside Brazil:

São Luiz do Maranhão
Bonito
Itu
Minas Gerais
Chapada Diamantina
Pantanal
Manaus
São Miguel

Sorry - I have no great urge to be a space tourist. Not a lot of people or culture up there, I guess.

But, of course, if I got a free ticket to the Space Station, I wouldn't complain!

I came in to update this page (for a change!) and found myself staring at the title.

When I first put it up, I wasn't happy with it. I was, however, itred of fiddling with it. So I decided to just label it as "under construction" and polish it off someother day.

So I occasionally update it, change a few things, add a few more... but I always think of it as "under construction", never quite finished.

I don't think it will ever be finished - thinks are changing, I see and hear things that make me wonder and think and dream. So I have decided that, officially, this page will remain uder construction for as long as I am active.

Just like some public construction efforts we all know.

Why do we feel the urge to go somewhere different whenever possible?

Are we so jaded with our own culture that we chase after different ones?

For me, travel is exploration - cultures, places, concepts. Travelling is connected with learning. Not text book learning, but experiencing and absorbing.

I want to see everything we can do and be, to observe and participate in all variety of life. This way, I can understand just how amazing we can be - and how I myself represent a small part of that.

I want to understand just how much there is in this planet - and that people are a component of it. Not the center, the rhyme and reason, but another small gear.

The lazy days by the beach are not for me. For me, travelling is an exciting, active and intense experience.

(...)

BENEDICK: Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?

BEATRICE: I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior
Benedick: nobody marks you.

BENEDICK: What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?

BEATRICE: Is it possible disdain should die while she hath
such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick?
Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come
in her presence.

(...)

BENEDICK: I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and
so good a continuer. But keep your way, i' God's
name; I have done.

(Five acts, a faked death, an interrupted wedding and a terrible love sonnet later, Benedick and Beatrice marry)