got journal will travel

Through time famous writers kept journals or diaries. They have been the source for novels, travel literature and autobiographies.  There is  ”The Diary of Virginia Wolf.”  Anne Frank. Sylvia Plath. And contrary to my husband’s belief that men do not keep diaries, there is D.H Lawrence. Henry James. Gustave Flaubert. John Steinbeck. I read that at the time of Franz Kafka’s death, he ordered his diaries burned unread (smart man). I imagine Peter Mayle keeps journals in Provence.

Since I can remember, I never left for a trip without packing my journal.

There’s the one that is worn &brown  leather, the other exotic & colorful, the flowered diary with the key, and some small plain notebooks and even napkins that filled in when I just couldn’t wait to jot something down.  My journal was my companion, whether I was traveling in company or  solo. The little book captured my memories of places and people and was filled with observations, ideas, questions and experiences. And maybe a few secrets.

I included amateur sketches of views I wanted to preserve forever. I stuffed in saved museum tickets. Meal receipts from a notable meal. A wine label. Plane ticket stubs. An old map with a circle around a town I just had to get back to someday. A running log of my favorite food in a particular country. Phone numbers. Postcards.

So when I had a reason or two to revisit some of my journals the other day, and I opened a big red box that houses them all – I  glanced (amused) over  the pages and followed my scribbles (while shouting warnings to the former me – who could have no idea what the future pages would bring -  that so-and-so was going to dump me on page 34 while the nice one I let get away on page 31. Or that on page 11 I decided to board a train to a new destination, and on 14 I realized I should have stayed put).

Of course, most of my journals were filled long before blogging. On trips, I traveled with journal and pen tucked into my bag so I could easily pull it out to record my thoughts on all that was unveiling itself to me - whether  sitting in a cafe or train, or sunbathing on a rock (can you do that when you are blogging?).   The result is more than a dozen journals under my bed with hundreds of pages of words, descriptions, historical facts and figures, and favorite places  – neatly condensed and snugly tucked into a single red box. It doesn’t seem to adequately represent the experiences. And the dilemma presents itself. What to do with them now? Do I want my kids to read my journals some day? (Um.  No.) Do I toss them in the garbage? (Not yet, but my completely illegible handwriting is a comfort to me.) Kafka might have been on to something.

Do you record your travel memories  by keeping a journal? Or do you blog instead?    How do you preserve your travel experiences?

don’t go changin’

Every morning on the way to school we drive past a house where a different flag is displayed daily on the front lawn with its country name written below it. My kids love to guess the country each flag belongs to. It reminds me of my childhood hobby of collecting stamps from all over the world, and displaying them under the delicate, vellum paper in my album next to the country name. I especially liked the colorful ones from countries I couldn’t pronounce. Maybe it’s the sign of the times, because when I asked my daughter if she wanted to collect stamps, she wasn’t interested.

But the other day I found an old coin purse filled with coins I had collected from some of my travels. Her eyes flashed with interest as she examined the lire, centime (“lady with flying hair”), pesetas (“the 25 peseta coin has a hole in the middle”), pounds (“the queen!”), pfennigs and euros.

She put them in a bag and took them to school when it was her turn to share and make a presentation to her class. We talked about how many of the coins are no longer in existence since the euro was introduced in Europe and replaced the currency of participating EU countries (in Italy it was introduced in January, 2002 after a transition period. I believe it was  February, 2002  when lire were no longer accepted. There was talk of many mattresses being emptied during this period). 

My husband and I witnessed this change to the euro while living in Europe. One day we used our thousands of paper lire (which bought like, maybe, a coffee?), and through a transition phase we switched to the crisp, clean, shiny new euro.  People complained of too many coins while the elderly fumbled with special euro change purses designed to help separate the different currencies.  Some said it was an excuse to raise prices. I personally missed the colorful lire and found the euro a much plainer substitute, although admittedly it was much easier to travel to many neighboring countries without the hassle of exchanging money. Pretty soon, as what happens with change, we all got used to it and collectively rolled our eyes when entering the UK or Switzerland, two countries which had the nerve to inconvenience us by not adopting the euro at that time.

I haven’t given up on getting the kids interested in stamps, but we’re just having fun with our small collection of coins. My daughter loves counting them -without realizing she is doing math. It”s an opportunity to learn more about other places in the world and their currencies in comparison to ours. You can collect coins when on family trips, or look up ancient Roman or Greek coins and learn about their history. In fact, coins issued during Cleopatra’s reign provide the only image we have of her today, which is only a profile.

For those interested in more serious endeavors into coin collecting – or “numismatics” – I have found the following web sites are helpful. They say every coin has a story to tell.

http://www.coin-collecting-guide-for-beginners.com/coin-collecting-for-kids.html

http://www.kidscoinworld.com/default.html