My Hovercraft is Full of Eels

To Greece by train - and other journeys of the mind, body and soul

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Singing with Raging Grannies and bye bye USA

July 29th, 2011 by jane · 2 Comments · travel, USA

We are sit­ting at gate S16 at Seattle Tacoma air­port wait­ing for our Icelandair flight to Glasgow via Reykjavik. I can still see the tower­ing snowy vol­can­ic peak of Mount Rainier through the win­dow, one of the many vis­tas that makes Seattle such a beau­ti­ful city. We’ve had a great couple of days here stay­ing with […]

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Drive through ATMs and other drive throughs

July 23rd, 2011 by jane · 3 Comments · climate change, resources, USA

In Asheville’s lovely organ­ic food store I asked where the nearest ATM was.  The very friendly chekout per­son gave me clear dir­ec­tions to a Whachovia ATM just across the park­ing lot.  I walked across and it was only when I got right there that it dawned on me that what i was doing was unusual […]

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Two hours in Atlanta Georgia

July 16th, 2011 by jane · 2 Comments · Uncategorized

My flight onto Asheville, North Carolina is delayed because the crew has­n’t arrived yet, and then a big thun­der storm hit, and light­en­ing strikes inside the air­port com­pound means that no planes are mov­ing for a while. A good while. I’m sit­ting here enjoy­ing hear­ing the sweet drawl of the Southern accents and see­ing Black faces […]

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The American’s car is his castle

July 16th, 2011 by jane · No Comments · climate change, travel, USA

Venture, Highlander, Uplander, Hummer, Trailblazer, Envoy, Mariner, Dodge, Riverado, Silverado, Avalanche, Liberty, Power Stroke, Grand Prix, Avenger, Infiniti, Yukon, Montana, Dakota Sport, Grand Cherokee Names of vehicles at the Ludington State Park camp­ground.  Most of them huge. 

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Canoeing down the Thornapple River

July 11th, 2011 by jane · 2 Comments · travel, USA

1 Northern Cardinal 1 Crayfish 2 White tailed deer 2 Turkey Vultures 3 Great Blue Herons 3 Turtles of unknown spe­cies 5 Muskrats 5 baby Turtles of the same unknown spe­cies 16 Belted Kingfishers Ebony jew­el­wing dam­sel­flies dart­ing every­where, rest­ing on our paddles, hats and arms. Many mat­ing. Innumerable dragon­flies And racoons screech­ing in the […]

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This flying lark

July 9th, 2011 by jane · 3 Comments · climate change, flights, travel, USA

Up at 4am after very little sleep. I’m really nervous about fly­ing so far after so long — this mys­ter­i­ous and magic­al pro­cess over which we have no con­trol and which seems to work on trust alone — and not look­ing for­ward to the bur­eau­crat­ic, unwel­com­ing and offi­cious immig­ra­tion pro­cesses. Also full of the dilem­mas of hav­ing chosen to […]

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Porty sings for water

April 8th, 2011 by jane · No Comments · singing

A big mass sing to raise money for Wateraid, ‘Scotland sings for Water’ is tak­ing place in Edinburgh on Saturday 2nd July. This involves singing 6 great songs in har­mony with about 299 oth­er folk  — it should be a great sound! If you like singing and are inter­ested in tak­ing part, Penny Stone and Jane Lewis […]

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Brasov to Budapest

August 4th, 2009 by jane · 2 Comments · Greece, trains, travel

Our couchette (cuşetă in Romanian) was already occu­pied by 2 Romanian men and one teen­age lad (one of their sons?) already in bed when we got on at Brasov, so quite strange shar­ing such a small space with 3 people we had­n’t met and wer­en’t sure we shared any com­mon lan­guage with. 

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How do you reserve 3 beds from Thessaloniki to Bucharesti?

August 3rd, 2009 by jane · 2 Comments · Greece, trains, travel

9.00am Greek train book­ing office, Athens: “No, I can­’t give you reser­va­tions on the train  Bucharest.  I have only 3 beds and I must sell them.  But you can buy in Thessaloniki.  The Romanians have more — it’s easy” 1.30pm Larissa train sta­tion, Athens.  Inernational book­ing office opens: “No train to Bucharest” “Why?” “I don’t know!”

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Kimolos

August 1st, 2009 by jane · 1 Comment · Greece

I almost burst into tears when I arrived here — out of sheer delight!  It is a beau­ti­ful, quite and undeveloped island with a few Greek hol­i­day makers (and the French couple with the young child we chat­ted to on the first day).  It feels so much ‚ore relaxed and gentle this way, with just loc­al visitors, […]

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