| From the Outback to the Arctic Circle A Fool's Alphabet |
| "travel is glamourous only in retrospect" (Paul Theroux) |
| 4 life |
| 4 me |
| 4 travel |
| 4 music |
| 4 books |
| Last updated: Saturday, 26 January, 2003 |
| From A to Z "'I could have told you a completely different set of stories and you would have formed a completely different idea of me�,� he tells her by the time he reaches the destination �X�. ��I mean,� Pietro went on, �I told you about Laura, but I didn�t tell you about Gabriella, did I? I never told you about India or the week I spent in Rio.� I could have been lying, couldn�t I?� he said. �I could have made it all up. I haven�t, of course. But suppose I had told you different things. Even at the age of twenty-six I could have chosen different things. Would you have reached a different diagnosis?� ' I don�t believe in your paradoxical view of things. I could honestly have given you a different story, without lying, just by choosing different things, and you�d never have been any the wiser.� At last Dr Simon was provoked, though it was to laughter. �There is no grand pattern with neat, interlocking junctions, no one truth to a human personality,� she said. �Another version would have been just as good.�� A Fool's Alphabet by Sebastian Faulks |
| inside Ian's Website you will find... life is a real-time autobiography that grows as the years go by me is a name i call myself travel is from the outback to the arctic circle journalist is what i try to do but i can't hack it music is the food of love but you probably think i'm on a pretty poor diet books is what you should be reading and main index is where everything begins a bit like genesis |
| Germersheim, Germany October 1997 - July 1998 I cannot say enough about Germersheim and no words that I can write can ever do justice to what Germersheim did to me. I suppose, just like Childers two years later, Germersheim was a place people ended up in and never really knew why. For a town which boasts such an important university, Germersheim is incredibly small and has a huge number of different nationalities learning languages. Looking back on your life you can sometimes perceive certain crossroads. Perhaps that�s the wrong word, that implies there is some kind of decision to make. Watershed might be a better word. Germersheim is place full of ennui and frustration, yet for me somehow managed to exude a certain mysticism that drew me in and chewed me up. I don�t know whether it�s the close contact you get with people from all different countries or the claustrophobic atmosphere that gives you the feeling that you are always being watched. I enjoyed every emotion there is to feel in Germersheim, and each acuter than at any other time in my life. I remember the first few weeks, wandering around so lonely, so uncertain. I remember the beautiful panorama from the banks of the Rhine either early in the morning or late or night, looking southwards and dreaming of the Alps, looking northwards and imagining the open sea. I remember the wonderful people I met, the ones whose eccentricity we laughed at, the ones I had fun with, the ones I fell in love with. And I remember how Germersheim enveloped my soul and left memories, impressions and scars that will stay with me until the day I die. |
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| Choose your place, either from A to Z or at random, there is no neat interlocking pattern... |
| 4 Angers 4 Bangkok 4 Childers 4 Denver 4 Exmouth 4 Flam 4 Germersheim 4 Honolulu 4 Istanbul 4 Jaipur 4 Krakow 4 Lebanon 4 Melaka |
| 4 New York 4 Oxford 4 Paris 4 Queenstown 4 Rotaroa 4 San Miguel 4 Thessalonika 4 Uig 4 Vancouver 4 Wittenoom 4 aiX-les-Bains 4 Yulara 4 Zermatt |
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| g |
| 4 Alphabet 4 G |