There was a time that I kept a detailed travel diary. It helped fill the time when I didn’t have a smartphone, MP3 player and/or Internet access to share impressions and fend off boredom when out on the road.
I don’t diary my travels the way I used to but I did want to capture a few personal impressions from my most recent trip to England.
London
William Gibson caught a sense of what it is to be a visitor to London in Pattern Recognition:
[Cayce] has no internalized surface map of this city, only of the underground and of assorted personal footpaths spreading out from its stations
It’s very true, certainly in my case. Getting around London is easy via Tube. Especially when you’re on a tight schedule and need to just get to your dinner, or only have a few hours to cram some sightseeing in, it really cuts back on the ability to develop a fully integrated sense of the city.
That’s not a complaint of course. And despite my lack of a mental map of the city, I like London a lot. It feels comfortable. Probably because although it doesn’t look like New York at all, both have a density and energy that I understand. And the fact that I speak the language (more or less) doesn’t hurt.
I managed to cram in a quick trip to the Tate Modern this trip. Seeing modern art when jetlagged to hell is a different experience. I found it a little easier to experience and appreciate some of the edgier works that I might normally dismiss with “is that art?” Even exhaustion didn’t make Roy Lichtenstein interesting though.
Brighton
Several people told me that Brighton was like San Francisco. I’m not so sure. If anything, it reminded me more of the Jersey Shore, although with better food and architecture, and no reality show freakazoids. Spending four days working a conference isn’t the best way to get a good sense of a city though.
I did like what I saw of Brighton, and if I’m lucky enough to get back to Flash on the Beach next year I’d love to add on some time to see more of the place.