Discussion: How Do You Travel with Books?

Hey guys, it's been forever since I've done a discussion post! Though I usually talk more about the actual text and story aspects of books in these discussions, this time my question concern the books as objects. I've done quite a bit of traveling this summer (more on that here) and my book-loving were both a source of excitement (visiting awesome bookstores! Meeting authors! So many great books! So much cheaper than at home!) as well as a problem when it came to packing.

When I left for New York City, I packed only one paperback plus my Kindle. I knew I'd buy a ton of books and other stuff and I wanted to keep my suitcase as empty as possible. But already after that first week, I had like a dozen books. A few more were added in New Orleans. At the airport, my suitcase was exactly the allowed 50 pounds. But I knew there'd be more books added in California (San Francisco, I shall one day write an Ode to your book stores). In the end, my sister and I both bought a carry-on each - to be filled with books. Only books. To the brim. Plus a few stuffed in elsewhere.

I always need something to read when I'm traveling, even if it's just a bus or train ride. I need to know that if I have to wait for something (and let's face it, airports mean loads of waiting) I can just pick up my book. I can make my own bubble of comfort and disappear into a story. I like to read at the beach, at a café, basically wherever. But that also means lugging around books all the time. Weight. Space taken up. And even though I love print books, the Kindle comes in damn handy at those times. The problem is just that the battery of my Kindle Fire only works for like 8 hours, even if I have the light turned way down. So I still need a paperback with me, too.

How do you handle this problem? Do you have a Kindle, and do you use it for travelling? Are you a print-books only kind of person? How many books do you take with you when you travel? Do you worry about damage to the books (I sure do)? Do you like to buy books abroad? What was your craziest or most embarrassing book-related traveling experience? Let me know in the comments :)

On traveling and adjusting to life when you return

So... hi? Is anyone still here? This is me, crawling out from under a rock. A rock I'm sorry I stayed under for so long. It's been almost three months since I last posted here, the night before I left for the US. And to my defense, my sister and I's time in America was amazing, but also exhausting at times and I could just never find the time to finalize my update-from-the-road posts, though I have quite a big draft and might tell you more about my travels in my 'Get to Know Me' posts that I used to do on Sundays.

Dear Americans, your country is HUGE. I travelled about twice the north-to-south length of my country every day, for 3 days, going basically all the way straight through lots of desert. I've never seen so much sand, or flat space without mountains. I can't even begin to count all the new things that I've seen during those 6 weeks I was abroad, but let me give you a short list. I have:

• met a fellow blogger - shout-out to Kelly from Effortlessly Reading! She is such a wonderful, generous person and you should check out her blog if you don't know it already. She showed us Strands Books and Books of Wonder in New York and contributed to the heaviness of my suitcase(s). Kelly, thank you again for everything, and I hope we can meet at BEA some day!
• ridden the Greyhound bus
• had my fortune told after going on a ghost and vampire tour in New Orleans. Then kept chatting with the fortune teller and her fiancé in Jackson Square until long after midnight. He could do an amazing impression of Jack Sparrow and the Joker from Batman.
• drove from New Orleans to Tucson in 2.5 days
• slept in a tent in the woods at Grand Canyon after stargazing through a telescope and seeing Saturn's rings.
• seen a show in Vegas
• WENT TO ALA IN VEGAS AND MET HOLLY BLACK OMG!!!
  
  Seriously, I had no clue it was in Vegas this year, and during the time we were there! We could only stay for 3 hours but it was awesome, I met Holly and Julie Kagawa and I got a ton of books and I wish we could've stayed longer, though I made a bit of a fool of myself in front of Holly because I was so excited. I've loved that woman's books for ten years and never in a million years thought I'd get the chance to talk to her.
•  met April White, author of Marking Time, an awesome novel that is currently free on Amazon and that I've reviewed here on the blog a while ago. She is one of the most generous and kindest people I have ever met! April, thank you again for everything you've done for us - you don't know how much it meant to me! Also, I owe you email and a review.
• saw July 4th fireworks at the beach
• went whale-watching and saw a pod of about 1000 dolphins! Dolphins used to be my favorite animals as a kid.
• drove up Highway 1 along the coast from San Diego to San Francisco
• biked across Golden Gate Bridge
• had an amazing hostel-organized tour of China Town during which we visited two temples, a factory where they still make fortune cookies by hand, and had a tea tasting with the best snarky host-lady ever
• was in Japan Town during a festival. Lots of cosplaying people! A store with awesome hats! A store with a whole floor of manga!

There were of course many many more things, big ones, smalls ones, fun ones, less fun ones (like the crack in our windshield), people met and left behind. I've never been away from home for so long. I've never seen so many places in such a short amount of time. There are so many cities I want to go back to. So many memories. At times over there, I even forgot I had a job. My old life seemed very far away.

So, coming back was harder than I thought it'd be. It was strange to be in the same place for so long and not live out of a suitcase. Everyone spoke Swiss German, which was weird at first. I had to go back from seeing new, exciting things every day to somehow trying to fit into the everyday-routine of life in Zurich. My city suddenly seems very small, even though it's the biggest one in the country. My life seems small and boring all of a sudden, though there were of course also perks to being back, like meeting friends, eating healthy food, having an Xbox again... Still, I miss being on the road. I kind of envy my sister, who after 3 weeks here is currently in Shanghai.

I haven't quite found my footing again yet, also because I'm in a very in-between kinda situation. I've finished my MA thesis and final exam at the end of may, but I will only get my diploma on September 24, so I can't apply for any jobs or internships yet. Still, after 6 years I'm done with university. I don't know what to do with that. I've been a student of some kind for almost 20 years, and I've never done a gap year or exchange program. And now I'm suddenly not part of the student population anymore, and it's weird.

I'm supposed to be an adult now, right? But what if I don't feel like one? What if I have no idea how to have a career, or if I want one, or what kind I want, or what I want to do and how to go about it?
This type of questions, combined with falling back into the routine of my part-time job, is one reason why I didn't start blogging again at the end of July. I also had a strange kind of fear and writer's block thing going on about blogging because I've been away from it for so long. I have no idea what everyone's been up to. I don't know which books are coming out. I don't know if anyone still remembers me.

But you know what? I missed blogging and the interactions that come with it. I miss talking about books, posting my new book purchases, reading Top Ten Tuesday and WoW posts, interacting with people in comments and reading reviews. And I hope that eventually, I can find my way back in and that there are still people interested in what I have to say.
Have any of you had similar experiences after travelling and/or not posting for a while? Do you ever feel insecure about having something worthwhile to say? What do you do about this strange fear of posting? I'd love to hear from you in the comments :)

I am done with EVERYTHING! And coming to the US! :D

Hey guys!

I know I know... it's been a very long period of silence from me. It wasn't intentional. I just couldn't keep up with everything at the same time, and I had to prioritize writing that MA thesis. But I'm done now. Done with the thesis. Done with the exam. Everything is handed in. My next and last action at university will be getting my diploma in September with everyone else who finished this semester.

It doesn't quite feel real yet. Studying was a huge part of my life for the past six years. It was a part of my identity. To not have that anymore... it feels weird. But also good. Because I was sort of fed up with... everything. I just need something else. I need to see the world. Which is what I'm about to do. In pretty much exactly 12 hours from the moment I'm writing this, my plane takes off. My sister and I are doing a huge, six week trip to the US!! :D

WE ARE SO EXCITED!!

Neither of us has ever been to the US before. And now we're going together. First we'll be in New York for about the week, then we're going to Washington D.C. for a day, then we're boarding a plane in Baltimore and flying to New Orleans. We're staying there for another few days, then it's off in the car. We're driving across Texas and then somehow up to the Grand Canyon, then to Vegas for my sister's birthday. After that, down to L.A. and San Diego and then up the coast until San Francisco.

Yup, we've quite a program. And we hope it'll be awesome. And that we'll have adventures. And meet people along the way.

I'm also a bit scared though, to be honest. I've never been so far from home for so long. (I also haven't driven a car in forever) But I also hope I can sort of figure out or at least get more of an idea what to do with my life post-university on this trip. I hope I can write some stories and have new ideas, see new things, get a new perspective.

What does all of this mean for the blog?
Well, even if I'm traveling, I will still be reading. I have in fact read quite a lot even while writing the thesis. I just didn't get around to/have the energy to blog about it. I am VERY out of touch with everyone and everything, including new releases. I also have quite a bunch of ARCs I never got around to reading, but I hope I can catch up a bit over the summer and I still plan to write and post these reviews, even if it's not around the release date anymore. I really missed blogging!! I feel like so many cool things were going on and I am way out of touch with everyone :/

Also, you can expect this blog to become a kind of travel blog for the next few weeks, with pictures and stuff every few days, also depending on where we can get WiFi.

Lastly and very importantly, if you live in NYC or New Orleans or L.A. or San Francisco or basically anywhere I mentioned above, I would love to meet you! It would be so cool to meet bloggers in real life! I wish I could have come earlier and gone to BEA, but I had my exam on  May 27.
I don't mean to come across as a creep with this meeting thing. But we could have coffee or maybe go to your favorite book store or whatever. So if you're a blogger and maybe we've talked before and you live along our route, I'd love to hear from you via email or on Twitter!

So... yeah. I don't really know what else to say. I have to go finish packing and stuff. And freak out some more. And hopefully catch a few hours of sleep. And not do something stupid like forgetting my passport or ESTA thingy. Hopefully you'll hear from me tomorrow or the day after that while I'm sitting in some café in Brooklyn and annoying the natives :P

Have any of you ever gone on a big road trip? Do you have any tips for my sister and me? Places we totally need to see? Things to avoid doing? Bookish places to visit? Let me know in the comments! I've really missed blogging and interacting with you all!

Going on holiday

Hey guys :)

Starting tomorrow, I'll be in London until Tuesday night. I wanted to answer comments and maybe even schedule a post or two, but real life intervened in the form of an essay I had to hand in to a professor before leaving. So now I have to drive to the airport in 5 hours and I haven't slept or even packed yet. We have to leave at 3am because we'll need more time there because of a strike of the security personnel *sigh*

Anyway, I have no time to do other blog-related stuff before leaving and I'm majorly stressed out. The time in London should be great though and I'll probably have a big book haul when I return ^^' I might blog from my kindle fire sometimes but that's a bit annoying usually so I might also just let things rest for a week.

Enough of my rambling, I have to go hunt down loads of stuff and pack and maybe catch like 3 hours of sleep...

Get to Know Me: When I went to Paris and met Oscar Wilde

Hey guys, I realized it's been a while since I did one of these posts!
I couldn't make up my minds about a 'favorites' post so I decided to pick another city I've visited and show you pictures. Lots of pictures. Click them to make them bigger.

And since I know a lot of people are into the idea of Paris... voilà!
I've been twice, once in 2003 or so and then another time in April 2010 with my mum :) It was kind of a mother-daughter only getaway and we had a wonderful time! We both speak French pretty well, my mother because she was once an Au Pair in Geneva for a year and me because I love languages and French was the first foreign one that I learned (it's also one of the 4 official languages of Switzerland, so it's mandatory in school). And it's true that French people are nicer to you if you at least try to speak their language.

We were only there for three days but we still saw quite a lot of things and also just soaked up the atmosphere of the city because neither of us is really into standing in looooong lines and being jostled by lots of tourists. We wanted some stress-free time and often just sat and people-watched :)

First off after dropping our luggage at the hotel, we went to see Sacré Coeur and Montmartre. For those of you who've seen the movie Amélie, there's a carousel there just like in the film that plays the film theme music!

 Here are some more pictures of the area. It's also a good place to get a big view of Paris, and a great artistic little place behind the church!

Lots of people just go there to hang out, and there are often street musicians and dance groups on the steps.

After that, we went to the Cimetière du Père Lachaise because I love old cemeteries and because Oscar Wilde (among Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf and lots of other famous people) is buried there and I really wanted to visit his grave! That cemetery is a really special place, a whole city of the dead, and I even wrote a short story about it afterwards.

Bottom left is a whole manuscript! There were also flowers, fruit, letters, black lipstick...

I'm not sure whether I think of all the scribbles as defilement or a show of extreme dedication. The whole area around the grave is now walled in with glass, which I think is a pity.

This poem dropped there really moved me.

Me, looking awkward ^^'

This was a really special moment for me, and I'm so grateful my mum spent so much time wandering about the place with me (we had lots of trouble finding the grave because the cemetery is so huge!).

 

Sorry to those of you who have a problem with cemeteries, I promise I'm done now ;)

In the evening, we went to the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysées! The view of Paris and the Eiffel tower at night was fantastic, my pics of it less so I'm afraid...

Arc de Triomphe. You have to walk up a ton of stairs, but then...

Paris at your feet.

This flame burns eternally for all the unknown soldiers who died in WWI.

 

The next day, it was Eiffel Tower time! We didn't get to go all the way to the top (we would've had to wait a long time for other people to come down) but I wasn't too sad about that because I have a bit of a problem with heights and the top is supposed to be swaying when it's windy ~.~ The view is spectacular though!

The building with the golden roof is the Dom des Invalides, where Napoleon is buried.

La Défense, the modern architecture part of Paris. I didn't go there this time but the first time I was in Paris I did. Highest building's I'd ever seen. Lots of shopping malls and stuff.

And off we were to Notre Dame and the Quartier Latin (university/students neighborhood). We didn't enter Notre Dame because of all the tourists and the high entry fees but we took a lot of pictures nevertheless. Picture taking within the church is forbidden anyway...

Gargoyles!

I love gothic architecture!

We also did a bit of shopping that day, saw Remember Me in English with French subtitles (Robert Pattinson, why did you have to mumble so much?! I had to rely on French quite a lot to understand you), and then walked around some more. Here are some random shots, also of the Tuilleries gardens, unfortunately on an overcast day.

The Obélisque and the Eiffel Tower

Tuillerie Gardens

The Louvre is across the gardens. We had no time to visit though :(

The metalwork on this building is fantastic!

...And one last shot of the Seine.

That's it! I hope I could give you guys a bit of an impression of the city! I could have taken photos everywhere because I love the architecture and the dress and habits of the people! Next time I go, I really want to go to some of the old bookstores and I want to actually visit selected places of the Louvre, best with someone who actually knows their way around the place a bit. But as a quick holiday with my mum it was great the way it was!

Have you ever been to Paris? What was your experience? Or if you haven't been, why do you want to go and what would you like to see most? Have you been to the grave of a favorite author? Also, do you even like these types of posts or do you find them boring/annoying? Should I rather do a favorites post next time (and about what)? I'd love to hear from you :)

Get To Know Me: that time I went to Dublin and accidentally met an author

Hey guys :)

As I announced last week, I want to keep giving you a little glimpse into my life and stuff I like on Sundays, even though the Know Me Better meme hosted by Kathy from I Am A Reader, Not A Writer is on hiatus at the moment.

Last week, I talked about favorite TV series (I'm now caught up on Game of Thrones, by the way, and can't wait for the new episode!). This week, I'll tell you about a Dublin trip I went on in October 2011. Why Dublin and not some other city I've been to? Well, I'm reading Karen Marie Moning's Fever series at the moment and it's set in Dublin, and I've been feeling nostalgic. So there.
Note: this post includes quite a few pictures, and they were all taken by me. Don't re-use them without permission. Click them to make them bigger.


Oh Dublin. I'd been meaning to visit you for a while. Then a total coincidence happened. A band a I follow on Twitter retweeted a tweet from a girl from my country being sad about not being able to take part in a video competition because no one else she knew was a fan. She was from Switzerland (and lives really close to where I grew up). I tweeted her. We talked. We met. 10mins later, we decided to go to Dublin together. Two months or so later, we did. She's now my BFF. She's one of those rare people who share both your taste in books AND music!

We arrived at our hotel in Dublin at about 11pm on a Tuesday. We dumped our stuff and headed out again, despite the drizzle and cold. I was really glad to be with someone who already knew the city fairly well. We headed strait for the Temple Bar district, to the actual Temple Bar bar. Despite the weather and being quite tired, I loved the atmosphere! It was quite packed but everyone was happy and in a good mood. There was a live band playing and soon we found ourselves sitting on old wood barrels somewhere near the front, enjoying our drinks and unable to keep our feet from thumping the beat on the floor. I felt like I'd arrived properly, like the city had welcomed me. I didn't want to leave, but we eventually did sometime around 1:30 or 2am, I think.

The band was taking a break.

Temple bar in the morning.

The next morning, we did some sight seeing, visited Trinity College, went to the wonderful library there, and looked at the Book of Kells. I had an intense moment of damn-I-want-to-study-here-it's-so-much-prettier-than-Zurich. Unfortunately, I realize I didn't take so many campus pics, my friend mostly did and we never really exchanged them. Here are some shots from the library that I do not own, because taking pictures was forbidden to protect the books.

Trinity College Campus

Courtesy of National Geographic

The Book of Kells was written around the year 800 in is known for its beautiful illustrations. Image source.

Let me tell you, this city is full of book stores of all kinds!! The biggest one we were at is Eason's, and there we had another lovely surprise!

Seriously you guys, I NEVER get to go to any author events because hardly any I read ever come to Zurich!! And I was so sad to have missed Sarah Rees Brennan by one week and that Cassie Clare would be there about 2 weeks after we left. In that very store. Ugh. So when we saw that Becca Fitzpatrick would sign the next day, we talked the book store lady into wizarding up two more tickets even though the event was sold out. Neither of us had read the hush, hush books yet but I'd seen them around and been debating whether or not to read them for a long time. So we bought them at the event the next day and had them signed. I'd post a pic of the signed book but I've already packed it into one of my moving boxes...

Meeting Becca. I'm on the right side.

 Of course I also bought a great deal of other books. 3 for 2 bargains don't exist over here. Also, books cost more than twice as much in Switzerland. I guess you know what I fill my suitcase with when I go abroad :P

Another author I 'met' was James Joyce. I've read most of Ulysses and a couple of his short stories in Dubliners, and finding his statue on the way to our hotel was awesome! One day I want to go to Dublin on June 16, the day Ulysses takes place. It's called Bloomsday and all over Dublin people dress up like characters from the novel. There are also tours and readings of the book and of poetry and it's generally an awesome literary event!

Me & Mr Joyce

Later that day, we also went to a shopping mall called St. Stephen's Green (I think) and I loved the architecture of that place!

St. Stephen's Green

We also made an excursion to the peninsula of Howth because I wanted to look at the sea. It was really cold so we stopped by the Bloody Stream pub too. Here are some shots.

Harbor

More harbor

Two fishermen

Unfortunately I don't know what this commemorates

Bloody Stream

We did A LOT of walking around over the two and a half days we were there! On the last morning in the hotel, another guest and his wife gave us their tickets for a hop-on-hop-off tour of the city. They were leaving and couldn't use them anymore, but they were valid another day. So we jumped that bus and drove around some more, also through Phoenix Park and some other places. We left early in the afternoon after buying some more souvenirs and stuff. It was quite a short visit and I would have loved to stay longer! I'm thinking about going back for a short trip in the summer, but we'll see. Below are some more random shots of the city, some taken on foot, some from the above mentioned bus. I hope you enjoy :)

The Olympia Theatre

This might be the Halfpenny Bridge but I'm not sure...

That needle was so high I couldn't get it on the pic properly.

That pole is the needle from before. Also, Jame Joyce statue from the back.

O'Connell Street

I love how the buildings along the river blend old and modern architecture.
Lots of brick, lots of glass.

Some more shots from the Temple Bar District:

No such thing as strangers in the Dub.

Street Art

Molly Malone statue. And a Leprechaun.

Irish bilingual street signs.

Hall of Mirrors shop.

So... I hope I could give you guys some sort of impression of the city, but I'm not sure I succeeded. I didn't take all that many simple street level shots, and I'm never sure what to include. The way the shops and all that looks is really different from here and I think it looks interesting, but it might be completely mundane and boring for other people. I also realized I don't have any big shots that give you an overview of the city. And many pics look bleak because of the weather. But I hope you enjoyed those I put there, because I had a great time!

Any comments on the pics or the author event? I kind of bombarded you ^^' Do you even like this kind of travel post? Would you like me to do another city? I've got lots from London, south England/Cornwall, Paris, Prague, Budapest, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Florence... Or I could do more stuff with favorites. Feel free to suggest a topic :)