Technology Troubles

Sometime back in the springtime, when I was in Northwest Africa, my Macbook decided it wasn't having as much fun on the Great Odyssey as I was. It initated a 'work-to-rule' campaign, making it a little more difficult to keep this blog up to date, but still possible. While it kept pumping out the stories, it was getting angrier at me by the week. It decided to go on a series of frustrating, rotating strikes, usually when I needed it the most. I visited the Genius at the Apple store in London and we came up with a solution to get Macbook back to work. Unfortunately that solution crapped out on me too. Currently, my computer is only slightly more useful to me than a brick.

Unfortunately, this means that for the few remaining weeks of this trip, the likelihood of my being able to write and post to this blog will be very limited. If I'm feeling particularly ambitious, I may write some stuff on paper, and post it when I get home in August or September or if I find an Internet cafe nearby. Photos will definitely go up in early September.

I haven't written about Sevilla, Portugal, Scotland, or London yet. Still to come on my journey are Budapest (where I am now),  Vienna (where I go on Tuesday), Munich, Black Forest, Rhine River Valley, Bordeaux, Paris, and Brussels. Then I will likely be heading home, unless I figure out how to stick around for a couple more weeks to hang out with some friends who will have just arrived in Italy. We'll see.

So to all my friends and family who have been faithfully dropping by to see what I've been up to, I apologize. It looks like I will be letting you down when it comes to updates. Thank you so much though, for spending some time with me on the trip of a lifetime!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sahara: Dunes & Dromedaries

Image
Two of us were missing. We were going to have to leave them behind. Perhaps they were hopelessly lost in the maze of alleys that make up the Marrakech medina. Or maybe, like thousands of others, the erupting Icelandic volcano had cruelly interrupted their trip. That they would choose not to show up is unimaginable. Still, we had delayed our departure for more than an hour and we had to move on. So began the most memorable stretch of the Great Odyssey (so far). I awoke that morning at 5 a.m. It was a full two hours earlier than necessary, but I was far too excited to sleep. I hadn’t stopped thinking about it since the email from Omar popped onto my iPhone screen, confirming my spot on the excursion. Even if I had wanted to sleep a little longer, those damn chirping birds in the Dar Balthazar courtyard weren’t about to allow it. So, at 7 a.m. I ducked through the Hobbit-sized front door into the cobbled alleyway of Bab Doukkala, leaving behind yet another opulently decorated riad, w
Read more

Fes & Beyond: Melodies and Magic Carpets

Image
Fes Leather Tannery Fes Leather Shoes It was bound to happen and I suppose it’s not really a bad thing that it did. If I had any fear that my trip would peak too early, it was well warranted. For unknown reasons, I’m prone to habitually elevating my expectations – every new experience needs to be bigger or better than the one preceding it. After setting the bar so high during the Marrakech – Essaouira – Sahara legs of the Great Odyssey, a fall (or at least a plateau) from such great heights may have been inevitable. There are worse problems that one could endure. So it was that I arrived in Fes, exhausted from a few weeks travelling in a strange land, but exhilarated from one memorable experience after another. In hindsight, I’m quite sure that two days in Fes , Morocco’s third largest city, would have been sufficient. Instead, I struggled to re-capture the excitement I’d felt during the first three weeks. I stayed four days too long. My brother warned me that I’d have moments lik
Read more

One Night in Paris: Photos from the City of Light

Image
The Pyramid at the Louvre "After that I lived like a young rajah in all the capitals of Europe -- Paris, Venice, Rome -- collecting jewels, chiefly rubies, hunting big game, painting a little, things for myself only..." - Jay Gatsby As with all good things, this Great Odyssey of mine will soon draw to a close. Like Gatsby, I lived life in the greatest capitals of Europe and North Africa this year, even if only for a short while. After many months on the road and countless extraordinary, perhaps even life-changing experiences I will be returning to Canada in a few days. Even Odysseus eventually found his way back to Ithaca. Only time will tell what comes next. I joked along the way that once the hard drive on my Mac is full with photographs, it'll be time to return home. As I arrived in Paris, one of the most beautiful cities on the planet, I was determined to capture the most beautiful memories in the precious few megabytes of space that I had left. Perhaps
Read more