Final Reflections
It’s hard to believe that I have reached the end of designing this site. I have been working on it for so much of this semester, at least in my mind, and now I feel that I have reached a point where I have said all that I want to say. I am pleased, for the most part, with the final result (only displeasure comes from not having been able to provide scanned images showing the photos that I took while on the trip.)
In many ways this project has been a trip down memory lane for me. As I read my entries, and then transcribed them into html, I found myself remembering so much about the trip that I didn’t include (which, of course, led to the hyperlinks to some of that "additional commentary.") But there are other things that I didn’t include in either the original text for the diary, or in the comments, such as the feeling of safety I felt when walking in Barcelona – guns are illegal, and crimes are rare. I felt safe walking home from the bars in the wee hours of the morning, without an escort. That is not a sensation I have ever felt in any other large city. Another entry I didn’t make regards the last meal I had with the family (though, as I look at the Diary I cannot figure out when we would have had this meal). Anyway, it was a Spanish version of a Shepherd’s pie – absolutely fantastic! Actually, all the food I ate on my journey was fantastic (as you might well have guessed from the entries about the meals.) One thing I was surprised by, in Spain, was how many "American" things I ran into. I have a very distinct (and slightly horrified) memory of standing on the grounds of the Sagrada Familla and seeing a McDonald's, a Pizza Hut, and two adds for American soft drinks on the street corner next to the church.
I wonder why I ended my Diary in the station in Paris. There really was a whole other adventure to write about (involving getting to Frankfurt about midnight only to find the airport shut and having no money for a hotel room) but for some reason I didn’t record that experience. Though I am pleased with the mood on which the document ends – feeling "up" is a good closure for me.
The design of this site has been an excellent challenge. As I thought about the Diary and how I wanted to tell the story that it contains I had to devote much time to the theories of hypertext and navigation. I had to decide what options to offer my readers, and then determine where those options might lead. I also had to think about how I like to read a site and contrast that to the preferences of others. I feel that the final appearance of A Traveler’s Diary comes close to what I had originally imagined, though with different options for navigation.
Thank you for taking the time to explore this site. I hope that the venture has been rewarding for you, and that you enjoyed the information that I have presented.
The following links will take you to some of the sites that I frequent and/or that I find to be entertaining (this is my way of pushing you out into the wild world of the web.) Enjoy your journey and the exploration of the world of hypertexts!
The Canadian Broadcasting Company
Mark Wade's Encyclopedia Astronautica
Dogpile (my choice in search engines)
Of course, if you would like to return to the Introduction to A Traveler's Diary, you may do that as well. Remember, hypertexts are all about choice. Please exercise yours.