I’m moving quickly this morning before we leave for Wellington and wanted to give you a look at two thermal parks we had a chance to see recently. I wish I had more time to describe it in detail, but time is short so what I say will need to be as well.
If I were to say smelly, scalding, and beautiful in its varied colors and even the barren bits then you would have a pretty good idea of the experience. I forgot to say that there is a strong scent of rotten eggs in the air … overwhelmingly so in places, but worth seeing if you ever get the chance.
The dried surface can look crusty and firm, but can be very thin and dangerous in places. I have included a couple of shots of some who chose to disregard the signs to get a better shot. Although I am not always known for following the rules, on this occasion I did.
Today I had a chance to meet a blogging friendthat I came to know several years ago through her powerful words and images. She begins and ends blogs from time to time deleting posts as she changes her creative direction, but she is always constant with a wisdom that goes well beyond her physical years.
Hay short for Hayley is mother to four daughters the eldest of which is poised and ready for her teen years … a time that most mothers worry will be their undoing. It hardly seems possible that a woman who looks as young as Hay could have had time to birth the girls who are just as darling in person as they have appeared in photographs on her blog pages in the past.
Although I am eighteen years older than Hay and technically old enough to be her mother, I always, always, learn something when we communicate online and now in person like today. Mothering a new little life to adulthood is difficult and most of us just stumble our way through much of the time trying to do the best we can with what we know.
Some women seem born to be mothers and they nurture quite naturally a larger circle than the children at home who call them mom. They pass out reassuring words and alternative possibilities like cookies and juice at a blood drive and do it in a way that seems as easy and natural as breathing. Hay is one of those who can shift your focus with her own honesty and soothe a worried mind with only a word or two.
She and her husband Roger took time today to come down to Rotorua so we could get together for a little while. I so appreciate having a chance to hug and share stories in person. I have said this before and it is still true it really is wonderful and affirming when people you get to know through blogging turn out to be just as you imagined they might be in real life.
Arriving in Sydney Australia early yesterday morning just as many of you were waking or going to sleep yourself, we flew into a gorgeous sunrise and the beginnings of a journey I never imagined I would take.
While I have long had a list of 50 Things To Do Before I Die, trips Australia and New Zealand were not included. Travel is there of course, but closer to home and more familiar than the other side of the world to where I was living in Athens Georgia when I began building my list.
Looking back I have to wonder if some of the things on it were limited more by the idea of practical obtainability than the scope of my imagination.
Don’t get me wrong … there are some pretty far-fetched ideas written on that wrinkled piece of yellow legal stationary such as my desire to write a speech for a US president or play the cello like some of the musicians I had seen on stage.
Many dreams I imagined important in my 20s no longer matter and there are new ones taking shape in ways I could not have foreseen when I created my list in the late 80s while finishing my undergrad years and preparing for the birth of my daughter.
Turning 50 a few months ago, I realized that I needed to close the door on certain dreams. It seems very silly now to mourn for a lost life as a dancer when I never even had ballet lessons as a child. Truth told, I have such trouble picking up steps that I was always a disaster in any musical audition that required dance and early lessons probably would not have changed that.
Speech writing for the president is another dream that’s not likely to happen as people develop whole careers as speech writers, a path I do not wish to follow. And while cello lessons and practice would improve my skill with the instrument, I wish for smaller things with it now such as solo pieces I can play with ease for myself.
It did occur to me while I was sitting and thinking during our 22 hour flight to Sydney that a writer has the best career because they get to be anyone and do anything in the stories they create.
After seeing treetops filled yesterday with loads of large bats in a park near our hotel, I wondered if the Wright brothers had studied the bat and its wings when considering how to cover the wings of airplanes while dreaming of the possibility of flight.
Which led me back to who I really am as I began crafting a story outline involving Orville and Wilbur Wright. I may not have a pilot’s seat on the flight deck listed on my list of 50, but I can fly all of the planes in the stories I write and the possibilities are really much larger than that old list ever was as long I stay open when the opportunity presents.
This two month trip with John is one of those opportunities and I am wide open to possibility.
For all of you who included New Zealand as a destination in our upcoming extended holiday … you were right!
Even though we have Round the World tickets, most of our time will be spent touring New Zealand. While I usually book flights myself, this was one instance where I saw the benefit in working with an agency to book the many flights we will be on while we are away for eight weeks.
John has handled all the arrangements, bless him for that … for most of my travel life, I have been the one to take charge of the big and small details and it is so different to relax and let someone else do it. Having been to New Zealand in 1996 for six weeks, John knows exactly what he is doing and how to get the best experience for the money.
I would never have known that buying Round the World tickets were the way to go since I associated the RTW expression with the mega wealthy who might go for six months at a time and stop in more countries than the four that our toes will touch down in while we are away. Remember when I said we would be in four countries, well … one was to throw you off a bit as we will only be refueling there during the 22 hour first leg of our journey.
We can hardly count Thailand as it will only be a quick stop, but we will spend a few days in Sydney, Australia before moving on to New Zealand. If you live in Sydney and want to meet for a cup of coffee or a bite of lunch let me know. We are staying near the Botanic Gardens while we are there, but plan to squeeze in a bit of sightseeing after we recover from our long flight. If you have any suggestions for places around Sydney that we should put on our ” Must See list ” please leave them in a comment below.
Some of you guessed correctly that America would be on our list as well. After about seven weeks in New Zealand, we will fly to Atlanta to spend Christmas week with my family. I am really looking forward to showing John what Christmas with my family is all about and it feels like the perfect way to end our trip.
Getting back to travel research, we have gone through guide books both old (from John’s 1996 trip) and new, The Rough Guide To New Zealand, but none of these have photographs that do proper justice to the beauty of the country we are going to see.
The slightly unorthodox ” travel guide ” below has done more to get me excited about what we will experience than all the words in the books above.
Billy Connolly’s World Tour Of New Zealand
Billy Connolly is a comedian who I find screamingly funny at times, but has such a potty mouth that some of you may find him offensive. I know a lot of comedians can get pretty tacky on stage and he tends to put me off a bit with his bad language and constant references to sex, but when he talks about New Zealand (off stage) and shows us places he visits during his ” Too Old To Die Young ” comedy tour he shows us his softer side which is my favorite. (Off topic: I also think he is a fine actor and I loved him in the role of John Brown in the movie, Mrs. Brown with Dame Judi Dench)
John ordered the New Zealand World Tour DVD set above and we have been watching it for the last few days. It is broken into series of eight shows that mix New Zealand travel with segments of his shows performed in towns on both North and South Island. The country looks as magnificent as I have heard and I cannot wait to get there.
I will as you might expect be blogging from the road so don’t be a stranger as I won’t be completely away.
If you are a reader who lives in New Zealand and would like to meet for coffee, just give me a shout through email (found on my “About Me” page at the top) and I will get in touch. Suggestions from readers about what not to miss are always welcome so feel free to share your thoughts in a comment below.
We still have a few days before we go, but the house is such a wreck in places that I feel a little overwhelmed. I don’t know if I feel more obliged to leave it spotless as our housesitters will be family or if strangers would make me feel the same need.
What about you … would you worry more about order and neatness with family or with folks you did not know well?
Today I made my first Kindle book purchase from Amazon. I always thought one needed a Kindle to buy books in this way, but after doing a bit of research this morning, I was able to download a book straight to my MacBook.
Intrigued by a post written by Suzanne Anderson who comments at GOTJ from time to time, I went in search of her book, Mrs. Tuesday’s Departure which she talked about over at her place today. She recently decided that self-publishing by way of Kindle was the quickest way to get her book in front of readers. It is an interesting possibility for many writers and one I had not considered until today.
Photo Courtesy Of Suzanne Anderson
I plan on doing some more of my own research, but I may be a bit slow in getting back to it as I will be busy reading Suzanne’s new book.
Big congrats to Suzanne and good luck on this new adventure. She will be talking more about self-publishing in the days to come and you can follow her discovery and progress here.
The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs…
one step at a time.
~ Joe Girard
My sister Margaret gets the credit for the photo of me climbing the 280 steps to the top inside the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. I thought this photograph was a good one to use in a thank you to all of the readers and friends who took time to leave a supportive message with regard to my writing and ever so slight disappointment over receiving a polite ” not interested ” response from the newspaper I queried recently.
I have found such fine support for the writing I do here and I am never sure I let you know how much it is appreciated. Mary from A Breath of Fresh Air left me a very kind comment yesterday about writing a book, in which she said she that she would not hesitate to gift a collection of stories taken from my blog to her friends. It was just the lift I needed yesterday to pick up my pace mentally and refocus on the steps before me.
Thanks again to all who visit here at Gifts Of The Journey and thanks for your support.
During my recent visit to Paris with my sister Margaret, she snapped this shot with her iPhone on a crowded Metro train (can you see how small I’m trying to make myself and the disembodied hand over my left shoulder) All over Paris we kept seeing signs advertising classes designed to teach people how to speak Wall Street English. Reading them, I had visions of Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko standing before a chalk board with ” Greed Is Good ” in large letters and a class full of French folks repeating the words slowly one at a time.
Success in any field is contingent upon many factors only one of which might be understanding the language and language can expand to include the necessary knowledge of the industry such as in my case yesterday with regard to news reporting versus feature writing.
Yesterday, I sent off what I thought was a fairly well crafted letter to a large US newspaper suggesting that perhaps there might be a place for my type of writing. I was clearly thinking of my style as being one easily adaptable to feature writing, but I was quickly and very nicely informed that the kind of writing I proposed, ” does not fit with our mission to cover local news and features. “
The woman who sent me the nice response did say that she enjoyed my blog, but it still felt a bit like getting the ” Miss Congeniality ” award to me. I was glad to receive a response at all though and sent back a short thank you while thinking to myself that even though I don’t speak the language of the newsroom, I certainly could do excellent feature work for them on a variety of topics including some more serious areas such as healthcare in the UK versus America … based at least in part on the personal experience of a medically savvy American living in the UK. This suggestion did not get my foot in the door either.
Having spent a great many hours researching the newspaper and the changes it has been through in recent years, I thought (maybe naïvely) I might have a chance and while I don’t think I need to go back to school if I want feature writing to be part of my future, perhaps I might need to work on presenting my ideas using the language of the industry a bit better.
Thanks to everyone who has commented on my first giveaway post if you haven’t had a chance to stop by, do take a minute tolisten and comment here.The contest ends this Friday at 2:00 am Eastern Standard Time.
I have been inspired to write about Benjamin Wagner and his passionate pursuits several times in the past. If you have not had a chance to read this postor the one that followed, please click on the links and take a minute to get a bit more background on Benjamin.
In my first post back in July of 2008, I explained how I found Benjamin online through a piece he had written about Fred Rogers who is better known by most people as ” Mister Rogers.”
What I didn’t say was that I actually introduced myself to Benjamin through an email more than a year earlier in May 2007 when I wrote to him and said among other things that I had an image in my mind of him performing one day in front of many children. For a rock and roll artist and MTV executive, this might have seemed alarming on two levels.
I was a little concerned that he might think, ” Who does this crazy woman think she is writing to tell me her vision of my future ” and I also imagined he might think that playing his songs for children was too far removed from the dreams of rock and roll stardom he may have imagined when he was writing for Rolling Stone Magazine online.
That he took the time to send me a gracious and thoughtful response impressed me and reaffirmed that sometimes people are exactly who they seem to be. We had an opportunity to meet in person later that same year when we happened to be in Las Vegas at the same time. He was there preparing for an MTV awards night and when I stopped by without warning, he took the time to come out and say hello in person even though he was just about to begin a big meeting with his team of folks. I was once again impressed by the way he was consistently warm and approachable.
It has been a fun ride to watch as he continued to make and release his own CD’s while moving even further up the ranks at MTV taking on bigger titles and more responsibility. Since I began to follow his words and music, Benjamin has married Abbi and they welcomed their first child a few months ago, a precious daughter they call Maggie.
During all this he also found time along with his brother Christofer, to complete their documentary, ” Mister Rogers and Me,”which has been viewed by audiences at several significant film festivals and is already winning awards.
The reason however for my post today and the explanation for the title above is that Benjamin Wagner has a new CD release aimed directly at the ears of a younger audience while still managing to hold the musical attention of his older fans as well. It was no surprise to me that a little more than three years after I had an intuitive flash of Benjamin with an audience of children gathered around him, he and his band mates played an early show for a group of little ones.
I am so pleased to be a part of his “Forever Young” video. Not long ago Benjamin sent out a call for childhood images from his virtual ” neighborhood ” so I emailed mine and forgot about it until yesterday when I saw the video première.
I was giddily surprised to see myself as the first child in his video showcasing the faces of those who will stay forever young.(at least on the video) You can’t miss me, along with being the first face you see, I’m the one wearing an early look of deep contemplation and a puffy blue dress.
Benjamin tells you why he decided to record his ” Forever Young ” CD in a post over at his place and you can read about it byclicking on this link.
You can purchase ” Forever Young “ one song at a time or all ten songs at onceby going to iTunes which exactly what I’ll be doing in a minute. By Monday you will be able to buy it through Authentic Records and CDBaby if you prefer.
I’ve had a chance to hear all the songs and find Benjamin’s version of some of my favorites as enjoyable as the babes who are just beginning their journey will.
I lifted this information which so fits with who Benjamin is directly from his blog,
” Proceeds will be donated to The Fred Rogers Center and The Campaign For A Commercial-Free Childhood. Though neither is affiliated with the project in any way, we believe strongly in supporting their efforts towards advancing early learning and children’s media.”
Since he’s doing his bit to give of himself, I thought I would give a little too.
Today marks my first giveaway!
I will be giving away a copy of ” Forever Young ” to someone who leaves a comment below. If by some miracle I happen to at least get 100 comments, I’ll give away three copies.
My goal is two-fold … to share the work of this kind-hearted and multi-talented man and to help with his efforts to raise money that supports early learning for children and reinforces the deep and simple philosophy of Fred Rogers. You have until this Friday at 2:00 am Eastern Standard Time to comment and enter. Good Luck!
To hear more songs from ” Forever Young ” you can click here to listen to all ten tunes. If you want more chances to win and at the same time do a good thing with little effort, leave me a comment below and forward this post along to your friends and family.
Special thanks to Benjamin for helping this newly turned 50 year-old stay,
” Forever Young.”
Big CONGRATULATIONS to Cindy! Her number came up when I used Random.org to do the hard work for me. Cindy please contact me by emailwith an address, and I’ll have your copy sent to you directly from New York. Thanks to everyone who took time to comment. If you bought a ” Forever Young ” CD, I would love to hear your thoughts in followup. Thanks again for reading and commenting.
Some of you may be thinking,” What does the famous Shakespeare And Company bookstore in Paris have to do with Surviving And Thriving? ” Aside from the obvious fact that AmericanGeorge Whitman’s bookstore has survived and thrived since he established it in 1951 across from Notre Dame, today’s post has to do with the ways in which we may unknowingly affect others in the blogging community.
I can’t remember if I visited this bookstore the first time I came to Paris in 1980, but I do have a photograph of myself standing in front of it in 2000 and again in 2009. While it may seem pretty touristy to have your picture taken in front of such a well-known shop, it has become a bit of a tradition for me now to stop by George Whitman’s eclectic bookstore to see what’s happening.
It’s funny how people pop into your mind when going through your day and when I mentioned to Donna Freedman in an email recently that I thought of her during my trip to Paris last month and she could not imagine how or why Paris might have triggered a thought about her. It makes perfect sense to me as I am sure it will you once I share a few things about the day.
You may remember that I have mentioned Donna in the past. She writes a great deal about living frugally and makes it sound almost like a game to enjoy versus anything close to deprivation. While strolling in and out of various places in Paris, there were endless opportunities to open my wallet and spend on things I did not need. I found myself having conversations in my head that generally went something like, ” Oh, isn’t that just the cutest thing, maybe I should get it to help remember my trip to Paris.”
Never mind that I had already accumulated about 3,000 photographs of Paris to help trigger my memory, while walking through Shakespeare And Company I decided ever so briefly that I needed another canvas tote. How many of these bags I currently have did not even matter when I discovered the cool bag in the photo below. I went back and forth, buy it – don’t by it … until finally I thought about what would Donna do and I put it back.
Bag Design By Badaude And Image From Her Site
It was a lovely bag byBadaudeand I would have snatched it up in a hurry if I did not already own more bags than I have use for, but that did not stop me from considering several books just as I always do. I was on the verge of another purchase when I picked up the book below. (The full image is in the first photograph)
It’sNickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich and finding it reminded me of how many in the US are struggling just to get by and how the scarcity of jobs has many people working for far less than they would have considered in the past. That thought led me to frugality, which once again made me think of Donna Freedman and even though she didn’t write this book, I still said to my sister, ” Take my picture for Donna.”
Earlier this morning I finished reading a piece she wrote for Get Rich Slowlythat has tons of information and tips for both the underemployed and the unemployed. Donna writes regularly at MSN Money as well and has her own site that I mentioned in the title above. She also has a contest every week over at her blog home, Surviving And Thriving and even though I have not won anything yet, I feel like I take something away with me every time I stop by to see what she has to say.
So there it is, a message about how Donna Freedman inspired a thought and photograph in front of a famous bookstore, in the shadow of Notre Dame. It could be you next time.
I have said this before and it is still true that one of the best things about blogging are the friends you make online. If you are lucky, you may have a chance to meet in person and tonight was one of those magic nights where once you get past hello, you laugh and talk like old friends who have been sharing secrets forever.
Kim and I have been reading each other’s blogs and corresponding through email for longer than I can remember and I have always enjoyed her blog, Sassiland where she writes mostly about her life in Paris.
I was totally enchanted by her romantic heart when she went to the gravesite in Paris where I’d left my wedding bouquet when John and I were here on our honeymoon and I loved how she took the time to send me a photo showing me that my flowers were still there several weeks later.
Back in April of 2009, I was pleasantly surprised to see a message on another blogging friend’s site directed at me. While on a trip to Paris in 2009, Carolyn, who blogs at My Sydney Paris Life had chance to meet Kim and together they sent me a little message that you can see here.
Tonight after being treated to a lovely dinner at a Paris café by Kim, we snapped a photo for Carolyn who is home in Australia. Well, we think she’s home in Australia now. Carolyn is such a woman on the move it can be hard to track where she and her partner Clive might be and although her blog is about more than just travel, if travel tips are what you need, her space is loaded with great planning ideas.
I took the photograph below in the evening light of the café so it’s not my best work, but I think the message on the map is clear and that’s what is important. (Hello Carolyn, wish you were here)
Elizabeth & Kim
I have to say too that Kim very thoughtfully remembered my birthday with a sweet-filled cup that I loved at once. If you followed the extension posts I wrote about John giving me aroom of my ownfor a writing studio then you will understand her reason for choosing the one she did.
It was a wonderful way to bring our Paris visit to a close. Margaret and I will be seeing the last of the sights tomorrow and then we’re off to Cornwall to rest up for John’s birthday followed the next day by Margaret’s. Thanks for following us around Paris this week. I hope you’ve had as much fun as we have.
Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends.
Gifts Of The Journey 