Tag: travel

~ Mark ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been enjoying Daniel Pink’s travel tips series, but one bit from tip number 7 about how to zip through airport security really spoke to me. I’m both ashamed and proud to see myself here:

Men are crazy. We are hyper-competitive. So, every opportunity we have to best someone else, we will take it. What this means is when men get in a security line, they do not want to move more slowly than the guy behind them because that would compromise their masculinity.

And that is why you should get in the line with the male business travelers. Our tacit competition will keep things moving quickly.

~ Mark ~ Leave a comment

If, as a westerner, you are going to visit Africa, the earlier in your life you do it, the better. The writer also brings up the paradox of service missions:

I suspect my earnest young woman felt that the only “appropriate” way to interact with Africa was to roll her sleeves up and start hammering a wall into place or digging a latrine. That is certainly what most British politicians do when they go to Africa. The charities that organise student gap years also seem to regard building schools in Vietnam and digging wells in Malawi as the best use of their volunteers’ time. It’s bizarre, when you think about it. The one thing the developing world has a surplus of is physical labour.

~ Mark ~ Leave a comment

From an interview with Anthony Bourdain, a passage on those beautiful moments and how they feel kind of sucky at the same time:

I‚Äôve talked elsewhere about there are times in your life… I‚Äôll use the example of you‚Äôre standing alone in the desert, and you see the most incredible sunset you‚Äôve ever seen and your first instinct is to turn to your left or right and say, ‚ÄúWow, do you see that?‚Äù Okay, there‚Äôs no one there, what do you do? Next, where‚Äôs the camera? Look through the viewfinder and you realize you know, what you see through that little box is not what you‚Äôre experiencing. There comes this terrible moment when you realize well, this is for me. There is no sharing this. Worse: if you try to share it with old friends or someone you love it‚Äôs almost an insult. “How was your day?” “Well, we did three hundred covers tonight, somebody sent back a steak…” “Well, in the Sahara there was this sunset and you wouldn‚Äôt believe it.” You know?

~ Mark ~ Leave a comment

Common phrases in Icelandic, a collection of videos and another cool resource I’ve found getting ready for vacation. Not too long ago, you wouldn’t be able to hear a native speaker until you got there. In the same way, when look on Flickr I can see recent photos in Reykjavik, see what folks are wearing, get a feel for the street. It’s be easy to go overboard with this pre-immersion stuff and dampen all the surprises, but it’s really cool.