I hope to do a scrapbook, as I collected a huge amount of restaurant business cards, receipts, serviettes, tickets (everything from cable-car to admission to Ripley’s Odditorium). I’m not one to buy souvenirs, as I prefer these very personal kind of items. Each brings back a flood of memories.

I’ve occasionally fanatasized about the idea of travelling America as a kind of ‘tracing my cultural origins’ exercise, a possible book. Truth is that both the Anglo-American and the African-American cultures are a major part of my cultural upbringing, more so - if truth be known - than my father’s Maltese ethnicity or the fact that I was born in London.

Next time I think I’ll travel without my kids - they’ll be old enough to remain in Australia. Maybe it will happen.

Hope to catch up soon.

Regards,

Barry

PS - Also took about 1300 photos.

I’m hardly an intrepid traveller, but every time I come back from holidays in NZ (my only o/s destination) it always takes me a while to settle back into normal life when part of me keeps thinking, it’s going to be another year before we get back again. I tend to get caught up getting photos developed, making scrapbooks, and last year I made a short video (our first NZ trip with a video camera). And I tend to accumulate a lot of research materials on the places we’ve been, thinking that one day I will write something more substantial than a travel diary with it all. Instead of focusing on how long it will be before I get back to NZ I focus on where I’ve been and the stories I have gathered and eventually I get it all out and I’m right again. You have some wonderful stories about your trip, maybe doing something with them will help. (I loved the letter to the Binghamton paper, that’s something I would do) Or given your love of blues music, why not write a ‘post-holiday blues’ song!

My two cents, for what it’s worth…

Louise