Tell King Tut I want my mummy

I miss my mum. When she last got in touch she was going to a sinfully sunny island in Greece. She’s on a cruise – complete with movie cinemas, swimming pools and restaurants - where dinner is served promptly at ‘whatever o’clock.’ When some folks in her social group decided to book a cruise, she jumped high and far at the chance to travel.


She asked me to come but alas the trip coincided with exams and assignment madness. With the gotcha gremlin of hindsight I now think I’m crazy for passing on this one! She gets back tomorrow and in amongst doing my essays (1 down, 2 to go!) I look forward to seeing her.

My plane reading is sorted, thanks to recommendations from fellow bibliophiles. I'll be cruising the clouds with my head stuck in David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas , thanks to Matt. Satisfying two of my passions, wanderlust and bibliomania, is Books, Baguettes and Bedbugs, a travel narrative by Jeremy Mercer about his stay at an English-language bookstore in Paris - Shakespeare and Co (cheers tanabata!). Overexcitement bubbles at the thought of reading the YA book Holes . I will leave it behind owing to Bybee's input about its lack of page-number meatiness. Not ideal for plane material, but I hope to consume it quickly the week before I leave.

I must offer up a little confession at the risk of being maligned. I’ve never read Harry Potter. Horrified now? I'm willing to correct my backward ways and the trip would be a good excuse. So, if I get hold of a copy of the first book, I might make a substitution… I'm not sure about the Los Angeles aiport, but since we have a six-hour stopover there I could possibly acquire it there.

Vicariously French

If you’re a foreigner attending a function or dinner in Paris, don’t expect to be the life of the party. Instead, make like a chair. Apparently, pretending you’re a chair is the best way to quell your insecurities and keep your composure at stuffy Parisian events. Sarah Turnbull’s experience in Almost French deals with the dilemma that it is to belong to two places, two cultures. Traveling in Greece, Sarah encounters an old Greek on Samos island who warns her:

It’s a bitter-sweet thing, knowing two cultures, he’d said. ‘It’s a curse to love two countries.’ Well I certainly don’t think of living abroad as a curse - I don’t think the Greek believed it either. He was just dramatizing his dilemma, the feeling of being torn between two places. And this is I something I now understand.



Sarah comes to know this ‘bitter-sweet’ dilemma as an expatriate in France. Uncharacteristically, she accepts an invitation to stay with Frederic, a Frenchman, at his place in Levallois. The decision is couched in uncertainty as she had only briefly met this quirky, self-professed ‘maniac’ (a term she puzzles over at first but which eventually endears her). The travel narrative explores the process of adjustment and cultural negotiation that occurs when Sarah moves to Paris. Cultural clashes emerge as she realizes she’s more Australian than she’d care to admit. But despite the frustrations of Paris, she discovers its enchantment – from the hypnotic world of haute-couture to the tolerant regard Parisians show to the homeless.

With the exception of Bill Bryson, my experience with travel narratives has been limited until recent weeks. I must say Almost French was surprisingly funny and self-aware in both its participation in and interrogation of cultural clashes and stereotypes. Authenticity is an issue for travel narratives, as the reader may sometimes be sceptical about whether they really get to the meat of cultural difference or instead perpetuate stereotypes. Nevertheless I appreciated Turnbull’s honesty. Travel narratives as a genre provide an excellent vehicle for the representation of an individual’s intercultural understanding.

One month until I leave for my trip! At the moment with travel narratives I do feel a bit like I’m popping Pringles – I can’t get enough. I’m wondering, in your experience does the need to live adventures vicariously through travel narratives come and go?