Back when I first started my globetrotting adventures, I kept a cliched travel journal. Actually, journals. A different one for each trip. My preference was for slim volumes with blank pages (never lined!) which would allow for drawing, when so moved, as well as the occasional taped-in momento. As part of the pre-trip rituals, each one was chosen to be better than the last: the earliest was just a sketchpad, while the last was French-made, black leather-bound, with a smart clasp. (There’s perhaps something Freudian here, which I fear to delve into.) These, like the journeys themselves, I began with great enthusiasm, making interesting and sometimes silly observations. Here’s a bit I wrote the last time I was in Paris, for the Y2K:
Contrary to international myth, Parisians have a limited sense of fashion, much of it seemingly derived—nay, devolved—from American standards. In particular, their sense of color is confused— although this may be a general European problem: they think nothing of wearing yellow Nikes with blue dress socks, and all this with gray slacks. They like jeans, especially Levis, even in odd colors like green and fuscia, but will wear ones named “Devis” in a snap.
But mostly, they appear to prefer black, perhaps because it shows less dirt, which is the next topic…
Paris—while a beautiful city in its historical, monumental way— is on the whole, filthy. In the States, littering is considered rude, if not outright illegal; here, it’s a national pastime. The streets are covered in the debris of everyday life and tourists follow suit… The French seem to think nothing of piling used undergarments onto streetcorners, letting their little Fifi dogs shit on the sidewalks, spitting in your path, then finishing up by pissing on an available tree. And that’s just the women.
Some things I wrote were for My Eyes Only, while others became anecdotes I’d share with friends (over and over, to their annoyance and my embarrassment). Typically, as the trips progressed and got sidetracked from their original itinerary, so did my journal entries, getting filled with the detritus of museum tickets and tour brochures, and scribbled contacts for fellow travelers (often of the female persuasion). Yet, even though the specific day-to-day remembrances faded, I could flip through my written record, to relive those memories.
On my last trip, I carried no journal; instead, I dragged an iBook around. I traded the convenience and comfort of a small, low-tech instrument for the whiz-bang of a personal distraction gadget. I ended up with just as much paper, but a lot less writing.
So while blogs may be the modern-day equivalent of the travelogue, I’m finding it a bit harder to make the digital transition. Someday— probably not that far off— people will speak nostagically of paper diaries, the same way we now remember LP records and video tapes. (Those have disappeared, haven’t they?)
Pretentious. Well done.