Travels with a Pony · 12:08pm Jun 17th, 2018
Last week I was in France. As a travel addict and hard core Francophile, I had to go back sooner or later to get my fix. Fortunately my boss let me go to an underground science meeting in Avignon. And I took a few extra days off to visit some other towns.
I brought along Pinkie Pie so I could play the game of photographing a pony at landmarks. Here she is at the Nîmes arena—one of the best preserved Roman amphitheatres—nearly 2000 years old, and now used for music concerts. And bullfights—this is one of the few towns in France that still allows this. Story idea—how would Pinkie Pie do as a bullfighter? Picture her in matador costume, taking on Iron Will by the horns… Imagine she would have her own unique style.
Pinkie Pie aside, I was travelling solo. I like this. Not that I dislike travelling with a companion or a group, but I never found the lack of someone else to go with a good enough reason not to take up an opportunity to visit somewhere. I vaguely recall one edition of the Hitchhikers’ Guide to Europe saying that the benefit of travelling solo is that you don’t have a companion dragging you on a 1000km detour to catch an exhibition of Russian icon art in Geneva. There is also the advantage that you can take a 1000km detour to catch an exhibition of Egyptian rock hieroglyphs in Turin without some bored companion tagging along.
And there’s nothing quite like sitting on your own in a café in a street or square in France or Italy, with a notebook, to get new ideas for writing.
One thing that happens a lot when you check into a hotel as a solo traveller with a backpack—at least small hotels with lots of floors with no elevator—is they put you in the tiny room on the top floor. But in Nîmes, I had no complaints about this, as I got to sit out on the roof while watching the swifts swoop around the rooftops. Perfect environment to do some writing.
I remember teh last time I was in a hotel room 8 years ago, only because I think the previous time I was in a hotel was in the mid 80s, Only for one night, due to a 2 day computer show, but still managed to get a heavy, slow allergic rash from the hotel cleaned towel thaat felt like a cross between an epoxied cat and steel wool.
thet reminds me, I still havent unpacked that bag.
Oh well, its mainly got all the old ISA SBC boards in it.
Given all the things in the UK, I wonder what excuse they would give for the Ampitheatre burning down accidentally so a new and modern venue can rise from teh ashes in its place?
But you weren't alone!
Hoping to get to France sometime this year with Twilight Sparkle... oh and I'll probably drag my wife along, too.
I wish that I should travel. You are lucky.