Killing Batteries

I have a love/hate relationship with staying in hostels.  I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that I tend to be 12 to 17 years older than most of my hostel-mates.  Hearing stories about spring breaks, or worse, their recent prom, has finally stopped giving me little embolisms.  What’s becoming increasingly exasperating, as I find increasing success as a travel writer, is the inordinate amount of time I spend working at the hostel (read; hiding in a corner behind my laptop, not making eye contact with the people who are there just to have unbridled fun, because, ironically, I hate those guys.).

The reason I still stay in hostels – dire budgetary issues notwithstanding - is because I love the community; socializing with people from around the world (and ‘by around the world’ I’m largely speaking of Canadians and the ubiquitous Australians).  I get a charge out of the open network of information sharing, as there is always someone who’s just arrived from wherever you’re headed to next, who can ease the just-off-the-train discombobulation. 

Alternately, I hate the rules (I’m looking at you Italy), the fact that I can never sleep due to some kind of noise disturbance and the occasional attack of bed bugs (I’m looking at you Paris).

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Nothing I can say will beat the picture, so let’s get that out of the way.

Geeks, if you’re worth your weight in 10 point broad swords, you should immediately recognize the device on the Pettersen dinning room table.

For those of you with recurrent sex lives, I’ll spell it out for you; this is an action shot of my new Bluetooth Laser Virtual Keyboard, which I am using in conjunction with the already geeklicious Palm Tungston T5 to take my sans-laptop research trips to the next level of priceless, giddying productivity.

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I leave for Paris tomorrow.  I’ll do two weeks of mild, worry-free travel in France and Italy - areas I’ve been through before - and then I’ll move into a ground floor, furnished apartment on Sardinia right on the beach, where I’ll edit for four months, as a 19 year old, dark haired, attentive village girl in an ill-fitting peasant shirt attends to my light house keeping and meals while slowly falling in love with me, like in the movie “Love, Actually”.

So why do I feel like I’m parachuting into Darfur with a week’s worth of beef jerky and orders to assassinate someone important?

This bloody pre-travel anxiety happens every time.  I don’t know how many trips I’ve been on…  at least a squillion.  You’d think I’d be pretty nonchalant about it by now, but no.  For days before each trip, whether I’m traveling for a weekend or ten months I get all bent out of shape.  I can’t sleep, I’m antsy, I babble (more so). 

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I kid you not.  I was in shorts just this weekend and this morning I wake up to snow!  It’s October 12th for chrissake!

You may be thinking, “Yes, but Leif, you’re in Minnesota.  Derr!  These things happen.  Hasn’t 24 hour darkness set in already?  Don’t polar bears forage for food just outside downtown?  In fact, isn’t there a waiver you have to sign when you cross the border relinquishing the state of all responsibility in regards to weather related catastrophes because there’s so goddamn many of them?”

But none of this is true.  It’s all just hearsay and trash talk perpetrated by reprobates on the coast.  It never snows this early in Minneapolis.  October can get a little chilly now and again, sure, but snow?  Sometimes we get all the way to Christmas without snow! 

One time, in college, it snowed like 23 inches in 24 hours on Halloween (October 31st for you non-heathens).  It was so early and there was so much snow that even the University of Minnesota shut down, which has only happened a handful of times since colonial days (or whatever - I made that up). 

Believe me, Minnesotans can handle snow (Best. Snow. Removal. Ever.), but even here, there’s a distinct line where one should be able to confidently expect a snow-free experience and that line was stomped on today.

On an unrelated, but unfortunate note, I shaved my head two days ago and the sudden cold is zapping right through my skull and frosting my brain stem like a bag of microwave vegetables. 

Moreover, I shouldn’t even be here.  If I hadn’t delayed my flight to pound out five articles in six days, I’d be in France by now!  It’s 75 and sunny in Nice!  I briefly entertained the possibility of finally making a visit to Switzerland next week, because I’m getting sick of telling people that I’ve been to every country in Western Europe except Switzerland.  Oh yeah, and Finland.  Forgot about those guys.  My bad. 

Anyway, screw Switzerland.  And screw Paris too.  I’m getting on the first train headed for the French Riviera when I land on Wednesday.  Us homeless people may have bad hair and limited wardrobe options, but the upshot is that we’re mobile and mobile people get to go to Nice when they feel like it.

Have a good winter suckers.

Was there a full moon last week?  I don’t mean just one day, I’m talking the whole of last week.  Or maybe there was a once-every-million-years wacky planet alignment?  Did anybody notice if the stars rotated into a formation, forming the words “send Leif stuff, so he has to work like a miserable dog”? 

Well something was messed up in the space-time continuum and what was formerly known as ‘reality’ last week, because assignments fell all over me.  I’ve never experienced anything like it in my three, long years (two of them paid) in travel writing.

Five assignments in five days, which when added to the one assignment that I was already picking at, qualifies as a full-on deluge.  Sweet Jesus, people want me!  I really shouldn’t be complaining, because I do love being popular, but I was hoping my time in Minneapolis would be almost exclusively filled with sleeping, eating, drinking, seeing friends and letting said friends buy me ciders. 

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Rumor has it that patience is a virtue.  Whatever jackhole said that wasn’t waiting to hear back on their book deal.

Yes, it’s out there.  I may have a book deal some time soon.  Or later.  Or maybe never.  Such is the unending complexity of the publishing world and why all writers are anxiety-fueled cookies, with nervous tics.

I’ve been loathe to mention my book deal developments in public because of the staggering Jinx Factor and my horrific luck with the same, but I’ve decided that if I’m going to be candid about the rest of the struggling travel writer milieu, I might as well put this out there as well.

A few months ago, I was contacted by a literary agent.  Her name is Bridget.  From my former understanding of the process, in order to hunt down a reputable literary agent, one has to spend about half a lifetime researching, pitching, writing, begging, sending fruit baskets and maybe stalking a little bit in order bag this particularly elusive prey.

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