That was never 11 days we had just then

Why yes, that was rather a long gap between posts. Mainly it was because of marketing: selling stories linked to events and dates, and though the ones I've been fully occupied writing about are marking the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic a whole month from now, and Anzac Day even further away on April 25, there's been a bit of a rush to do it because I've got some travelling coming up. On Sunday I'm being whisked off to Buenos Aires on LAN's lovely business class, and thence to Iguazu Falls, Lima (again) and then, most excitingly, Easter Island. I once reviewed a book that was set there - rather unimaginatively titled 'Easter Island' - by Jennifer Vanderbes, who had clearly done a great deal of research into ancient angiosperms that she didn't want to waste, so by the end of the book I was quite the expert (temporarily) on fossilised pollen. Never heard the term 'palynology' before? Now you have.

Then after I've been home for less than a fortnight, I'm away again, for an incredible 6 weeks this time, to Europe: partly private but mostly work, and it's going to be very busy. Fun and interesting, but busy, and tiring. It doesn't help that there are three very old animals in this house, who miss me when I'm gone, and who so far have always been here when I've got back from a trip but, one day...

So anyway, the Titanic. I keep bumping into it, so to speak - of course, in Ireland last year, when we went to Cobh which was the ship's last port of call before setting off across the Atlantic, and where there was a really good exhibition in the old railway station there. Then there was an astonishingly, not to say anally, comprehensive travelling exhibition that I came across while I was in Copenhagen, that absorbed me for the best part of two hours while rampaging Hamburg football fans laid waste to the city outside (well, almost). We'll be going to a new one at Greenwich Maritime Museum while we're in London; there are, I discovered, others in Southampton, Liverpool and Cherbourg, all Titanic sister cities that I've been to; and several in Halifax, Nova Scotia where I haven't been, but have been increasingly hankering to go to over the last few years. Lots of the recovered bodies were buried there, including one J. Dawson, who was actually James, a boiler-room hand, but that doesn't stop a steady stream of fans of Leonardo DiCaprio's Jack going there to leave red roses on the gravestone:

Catching up

I've been MIA all week because of a new laptop and the unconscionable effort it's taken to get it set up and transfer all my files. Worst of all was migrating my old emails which took an entire weekend of Googling and wrestling with nerd-speak, getting familiar with esoteric things like .dbx files and trying over and over and over to shift files from Outlook Express via Windows Live to Outlook (for which I'm going to have to pay actual money to use). Thanks a lot, Microsoft. But it's done. Yay.

So what has passed me by in the meantime? Australian soldiers on leave getting drunk in the Middle East - sign of the times that that was a news story, but they were in Dubai, where the official relationship with alcohol is uneasy and it's a behind-closed-doors, consenting-adults sort of activity. Westerners who live there - and there are very many - have to get a licence to buy wine from a few special shops and then have to transport it straight home. You can only drink in hotel restaurants, and even then you're meant to behave yourself. (They frown on PDAs too, public displays of affection between the sexes, though it's all on for women and men to hold hands with their same-sex friends: it's rather sweet to see a couple of swarthy young Arab men in robes striding along with their pinkies linked.)

A dinner-table conversation about an upcoming fancy-schmancy family wedding at Hampton Court House (presumably near the actual HC) led to a mention of Blenheim Palace, which was followed, according to the law of coincidence, by a TV documentary that night about that amazing place, with some fantastic photography. It's a private home, always has been, but it's truly called a palace, and it's awesomely beautiful. And then there are the Churchill stars: handsome John, the first Duke of Marlborough, and Winston of course. Unmissable.

And yesterday a cruise liner inexplicably did a Titanic off the coast of Italy, with shameful losses of life. I wonder if it will give pause to those people who have booked for that trip in April to follow the course of the actual Titanic? The last place their ship will call at before crossing the Atlantic is Cobh, in southern Ireland, where we went last year and were happily absorbed by the excellent exhibition in the old railway station there. They've got a lot of artefacts (though not as many as in the travelling exhibition I saw in Copenhagen, which will be back in Barcelona by now) including a letter in a bottle that was thrown overboard as the Titanic sailed and was delivered to the writer's mother after his death in the sinking. And then I imagine the tourists will call in at Halifax, Nova Scotia, where many of the recovered bodies were taken and buried. I'd like to go there one day. I wonder if I will?

Traditions old and new

Still with the Christmas stockings, the healthy breakfast spurned in favour of chocolate, deliberately unlabelled gifts under the tree that no-one could identify; plus someone who shall be nameless who turned out to be too fat for a Santa suit: no comment. Pine needles and scented lilies.

Then acrimonious squabbling over the Secret Santa rules, a long cheerful dinner at cobbled-together tables with ham and salmon and baby carrots but no gravy (forgotten) and no herbs in the stuffing balls (forgotten); and pavlova with raspberries and strawberries, and pudding with sauce but no brandy butter (forgotten). And feeble cracker jokes (a locomotive made of toffee? A chew-chew train) but no solemn toast to Absent Friends (shamefully forgotten this year). But new friends at the table, Rosa from Honduras (where there are 7 million people and only one McDonald's) and Andrea from Seattle (really? We went there last year!) and Skyping to a prettily frigid Winnipeg and phoning a damp and dismal Lancashire.

Then home with a share of the left-overs for a nap in the sun, the Queen's Message, toffee and chocolates, Tim Minchin, Graham Norton, the Royal Variety Performance with two Kiwis - Hayley Westenra and the Boy with Tape on his Face - and no ads. It'll do.

Geography

Just gotta love these daylight legs. Even though Air NZ's entertainment system is SECOND TO NONE in its depth and width and accessibility from the moment you board, and I've revelled in getting deep into entire series of hi-qual TV series ('Episodes' - yes!), there's nothing like the real-time, real view from the window.
Of course, you need to be over land for it to hold more than a few minutes' interest - there's a limit to how long you can concentrate on empty sea - so unless you're flying over Oz, that means a long wait on any ex-NZ flight.
But so worth it! How much fun it is, looking down on vast landscapes that change so quickly and that feature recognisable things like Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon! (re which: never mind from the moon - actually, myth - how stunning to be impressed by its size even from 33,000 feet in a 777).
And even when the spoilsport cloud muscles in and wrecks the view, there's still the airshow map showing that we're passing over places with names like Salt Lake City, Mt Rushmore and - whoa! Gimli!!! Ok, waiting for Aragorn to pop up now...
And has anyone ever counted Canada's lakes? Seems excessive to me - but maybe that's the port talking. Even though I'm on the starboard side, hahaha! Ok, getting dark, going to sleep now.

Ringing bells

The OH knows he’ll be in big trouble if he ever buys me my favourite perfume. For years now I’ve been training myself to associate the scent of Lancome’s Miracle with setting off on a plane trip; so as soon as I’m airside, I swing by the duty-free shop for a squirt from their tester bottle. Already, if I catch a lingering whiff on my watch-strap when I’m back home, I can instantly visualise the airport, the passport and boarding pass in my hand, the planes outside — and feel the excitement. The idea is that when I’m a shrivelled old lady and stuck in a chair, I can sniff the bottle and get instantly high: say, 30,000 feet.

When we travel, we take photos and buy souvenirs, but all too often ignore the other senses, which can be much more effective in summoning vivid memories. Smell seems to be a particularly direct route back to the past, although it’s not always possible to reproduce once back home. This is certainly a good thing in the case of the stinking durian, even if it does evoke tropical markets with all their colour and buzz. But vanilla will take me back to Reunion Island, where it’s grown and processed; 4711 cologne to the elegant shop in Cologne where a perfumed fountain tinkling in the corner scents the air; frangipani to Tahiti; cloves to Indonesia.

Taste always works well, although foods that are still limited to their places of origin by definition won’t work as memory aids: you’re not going to find roasted guinea pig, casseroled fruit bat or coconut crab on any menu here. But something you taste for the first time on holiday is good, so for me Parmesan cheese means Sydney, parsnips are England, quinoa is Peru, chowder means Vancouver.

Though crowing roosters bring back Bali for me, sirens and whistles evoke New York, and cawing crows epitomise Australia, music is the best audio trigger. I first came across the quirky compositions of the Penguin Café Orchestra thanks to the driver of my car in Mauritius; an M2M hit sweetly sung to us by our guide at the end of a tour always reminds me of China; and Kelly Clarkson got me dancing on Reunion Island (possibly also the rum). Hear the music, and I’m there: so in Tasmania I used repeat plays of my latest favourite song to fix the association. Now just the first few notes take me back to the Bay of Fires, the spinifex seeds tumbling over the hard sand, the sun on the rocks, the turquoise sea.

This value-adding holiday tip is brought to you by P. Wade: that’s P as in Pavlov.

Faith 1, science 2

Excellent news today from Christchurch: they cleared all the rubble from the collapsed spire and discovered no bodies beneath it, despite having worried for days that 22 tourists had been inside it. So no-one died inside the cathedral at all. It's hard not to call that a miracle.

And far from anyone dying, there wasn't even a cracked pane in the remarkably vulnerable-looking Art Gallery.That is entirely down to science and technology.

And - breaking away from Christchurch for a moment - I'm presuming that the glass took the strain here, too. That's what you call Just As Bloody Well.

(Not my photo - don't know whose - but boy, that would be something, eh?)

Give them the boot

Or these Manolos for $2495. But the nearby dominatrix Jimmy Choo buckled stilettos were, even for a mere $1000, very poorly finished, I thought. So I didn't get them.

Canada, eh

Up at 5.30am to start the long, LONG day travelling home. Lovely muted grey-green scenery from the train Seattle to Vancouver - quite a contrast from the orange-blue dazzle of the last two weeks.

And now we have half a drizzly day to kill, so where else to spend it other than the Pacific Centre on Granville, to wander and to wonder. For instance, who has $1650 to spend on Guiseppe Vanotti's fetish?

Working hard, here

It's not all beer and skittles being a travel writer, you know. Yesterday we had such a full programme that we had to get up too early to have breakfast at the hotel, and were so busy that not only did we not find time to have it later, we didn't manage to fit in lunch either. So it was a good thing that we had a complimentary meal at the Tulalip Casino and Resort, where our waitress looked after us so well, and was so friendly, that we didn't mind she had no idea where New Zealand was (on the other hand, she wasn't clear about Australia either, so that was sort of pleasing).

Being a frugal sort, all those pokies and craps and card tables we had to walk past to get to the restaurant were no temptation at all, though I did for form's sake throw away $1 on the Lucky Meerkat machine. Don't ask me how it worked, I just pressed buttons till all the money was gone and I could get up and go away again. I got a lot more satisfaction from the Bill Exchange machine, where if you put in a $100 note and pushed a button, it would set off a lot of thrilling whirring inside, after which it spat out five $20 bills. All the fun and none of the loss!

Today it was another early, empty-stomach start to drive up to Anacortes to catch the ferry to San Juan Island. Glossy pewter sea, blue mountains, green islands, and every so often a seal carving a V through the water. (We also mysteriously lost an hour: neither of us can explain how. Island time, I suppose.) Then Friday Harbor, a lovely apartment looking over the Sound, and a leisurely drive around the island hoping to spot some of the resident orcas, but missing out, so far.

This is a relaxed place, all about taking it easy, so that's what we're going to do for the next day. Ok, so there are a few skittles now and then.

There to here in 26 hours

Well, that was a long way to come - but I'm sure it's going to be worth it. The 8pm Air NZ flight from Auckland was very civilised, and Premium Economy, though nowhere as sybaritic as the irritatingly empty Business Class, was much roomier than Economy and is clearly the way of the future when I'm having to *choke* pay my own way.

Vancouver was sunny and warm, and so clean and green and blue and lovely that I felt a little guilty about NZ having snaffled the '100% Pure' slogan, which would apply just as accurately there.

We only had a few hours in Vancouver before fronting up for the interrogation of the immigration man at Pacific Central railway station. That was a sweaty business because I had assumed that my visa from the Disneyland famil a couple of years ago, which is still valid, would do. Big mistake - especially as it had the dread words 'The Press' on it. Humble travel writer mistaken for investigative journo, refused entry to Land of the Free, left to wander the streets of Vancouver, homeless, while husband disports self alone in series of luxurious hotels - I could see it all. But then the grim official made me fill in a form of another colour, and all was well again.

And now, after a mostly dark but otherwise pleasant Amtrak experience, here we are in Seattle. And guess what? It's raining!