h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

2 August, 2000

Today I went to Harvard Square with my Japanese guest. After showing her the sites and passing on all the Harvard folklore I've collected over the years it was time to let her loose in the Harvard Coop, a time-honored tradition for everyone visiting the university. Harvard logos as far as the eye can see, and on every piece of merchandise imaginable.

I haven't been to Harvard Coop in years. The last time I was there, it was cramped and almost tacky. Today I entered a completely different store. Open the doors, and behold…a beautiful bookstore. Once through those doors I was transported to one of my Nirvanas (can one have multiple Nirvanas?). I should set a self-imposed ban on bookstores until I have a landed a full time position with a decent salary. I told my companion she could spend as much time as she wanted in the other parts of the store…I would stay in the bookstore and "browse."

The floor plan designer knew what book lovers like. Lots of place to sit and look through books and multi-levels. Have you ever sat in a library where you can watch people browse books from above? If not…get thee to a library (or bookstore) with levels. But more than being great for people watching, there is something romantic about sitting on a cliff and reading…even if the cliff is just a floor above and there are railings.

I ended up buying five more books on Central Europe…mostly with an emphasis on Slovakia, or Czechoslovakia. The one that really excites me is _Politics Without a Past_ by Shari Cohen. It is a case -study of post-communist Slovakia and the rise of nationalism. It is quite recent and has a fantastic bibliography. Okay…wake-up dear reader…I am done with the politics

Then I wandered into the travel section. Oh my goodness! There are tons of guidebooks on *walking* in England! Okay…so most guidebooks will devote a few pages to the best walking tours of big cities…but entire books…that is a new one on me. I resisted the temptation to buy a bunch…well…resist isn't the right word. Having spent a quarter of my paycheck already, resisting was more like resigning the temptation. I made a long list of titles, though. One is an old title, _Turn Left at the Pub_. It looks like a lovely little book. Maybe not useful, but pleasant reading.

I am going to love England…and Scotland if I get there. Any place that inspires travel guides on walking is certainly a place I will enjoy.

Just a thought about walking guides for your planned trip - I don't know how it works in the States but over here you can find local guides in most bookshops or newsagents, and they're often a good way to explore somewhere when you have limited time. Also, you'll find Ordnance Survey maps:

http://www.ordsvy.gov.uk/

everywhere, showing footpaths and rights of way. BS will tell you I'm a map anorak, usually spending more time looking at the map than actually doing the walk

Wow! That site is great! I don't think we have a "national mapping agency" in the States. The only maps I ever see *used* in Boston are the horrid tourist maps that have silly cartoon icons for famous places and are so small it is impossible to fit all the streets so what looks like two streets away is really five which means you take a wrong turn and end up in the wrong side of nowhere.

"Map anorak," huh? And I bet you say things like "this looks like an interesting route," based solely on the way the lines appear on the map But...ya gotta admire a man who isn't afraid of being seen with a map. That is one level higher than the man who isn't afraid to be seen carrying his spouse's handbag

Me...I love maps because I refuse to travel the same route twice.

Probably the US Geological Survey http://www.usgs.gov (an agency of the Dept of Interior) is the closest you'd get here in the US. It's not the only thing they do, but they definitely have a series of maps that is often referenced when describing hiking trails and such. I think these maps may in some cases be used as the basis for maps from other sources. I'm sure that kind of info is on the site in any case.

Maps are fun though. I've always liked them in fact. I remember the driving trips with my parents when I was young: I became the navigator, knowing where we were, comparing the place names on the signs with the place names on the map. Much better than asking "Are we there yet?" don't you think? A map can be a highly useful tool indeed.

So, it looks like we're all map-heads , I think there is nothing better than standing on a hill top and looking around naming all the features from a map. Morgan and I both have maps of Islay, there's nothing better than getting heads together and planning a route .

Just to make sure I don't mislead...I am a "map-head " but I can get lost in a paper bag. I have a pretty poor sense of direction. And that's why I am such a nut about maps. But I'm one of those people who needs to get the map facing the same direction as me before I can figure out where I am. That annoys the hell out of some people I know...

US Geological Survey...YAWN! They need someone to go it and spice things up over there! I've dealt with the offices on Cape Cod for new articles and I reached the conclusion those men need to go out and get lost sometimes.

Islay...."Famous for its numerous whisky distilleries" ( http://www.scotland-info.co.uk/islay.htm ). Bet I know where the route you two plan ends

Hm, that's too bad. I must say I just have a reaction to those people who go "Oh, we don't have that here" when someone describes something about another country, and in this case I wanted to go "Well, uh, yes, we really pretty much do". The vice-versa happens an awful lot too. People get excited about what other countries don't have. It's all trade-offs, is all. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not at all certain the trade-offs we make in this country are correct. In fact, I'm more than willing to try some other country's some day (as in by living there, not just visiting). But I'm not naive enough to think there won't be some shortcomings in other countries.

And I guess I'm blessed with both a sense of direction that usually works *and* the ability to use a map. I'm the navigator. Someone else needs to decide where we're going, though.

Ah! I am the one who decides where to go

Regarding maps...the UK does seem to be much more oriented to knowing where they are...the US just wants to get there. And right now there is a bit of "they can do no wrong" around all of the UK because I am in the glow of planning, but I have ideas about what I might find in the UK I don't like. I would head off and live in a different country every year for the rest of my life if I could. I love the United States and I would never give up my citizenship, but we are shortchanged on somethings. And...we have so much of other things.

I think every country has its good points and its bad points. The thing is to approach each new experience with an open mind. That's the marvellous thing about our ability to travel these days, we can go and find out for ourselves . I am intrigued to know what you think you might not like in the UK.

With the maps, in a country the size of the UK it is probably much easier to make comprehensive maps and we also have a strong historic feel for public rights of way.

Ohhh...public right of way. I live on the coast and I love to walk the beach. The "rule" is that anything below high water mark is public access. Personally I think the beach is everyone's and if you build your house *on* the beach, then you had better expect passerbys, but hey...I am senstive to privacy, so I do toe the line on the high water rule. But...my patience is sorely tempted when certain summer people take up post on their decks and holler at anyone who happens to time the tides wrong. Now I head out so that I *do* miss the low tide and when I am yelled at, I smile pretty and say in Slovak "Nehovorim po anglicky"...."I don't speak English." No one would ever be able to respond in kind

What I might not like about UK...same thing as in the rest of Europe. Too much emphasis on dress and outward appearances. I am not a sloppy dresser and I do care about looking nice, but I was never, ever completely comfortable in Europe. And I am aware it may be an imagined perception, so often things like this are...but it does bother me.

I think the UK is probably more relaxed than some other European countries in that regard. Slider's roamed round more of it than I have but when I was just passing through Milan airport last year I felt stranded scruffily in the middle of a fashion show...

You're right on that one Morgan . I don't think you'll feel out of place in the UK, there are places, particularly in London, which are style conscious but overall I think we are less stylish than a number of the European countries.

The one page in my travel scrapbook devoted to Venice (a *day trip* from Austria three years ago!) is a collage of people and things cut from fashion magazines and one picture of the Bridge of Sighs. I felt terribly scruffy there.

Perhaps less stylish in UK (though...a tweed jacket, a bit threadbare and shabby, is terribly stylish in my eyes), but still more *style* than in the States. It always seems to me people in Europe are *born* with fashion sense

Well, at least you have probably missed the shell-suit phenomenon which hit these shores a few years ago. Now there was a fashion disaster . The Italians and the French are probably the most stylish of Europeans, it really does seem that they are born with it. In the UK I think mode of dress is still influenced by class and culture. The tweed jackets tend to be a rural phenomenon . The British also tend to be more reserved in the colours they choose whereas, certainly from an external viewpoint, Americans tend to choose bright colours.

One of my favorite dresses is an impossible lime green with bright blue flowers But...I'd never wear it outside the country.

I had to look up "shell-suit" to know what it is...oh yes! They were here, too! Very scary. My mother-in-law bought me one for Christmas...white with stain-glass-like inserts and metallic gold trim. Oh! The horror of it all!

And class is another of my worries in UK.....

Just remember to curtsey to anyone in a crown .

The dress, hmmm, it might work.

The shell-suit, yep, sounds like a classic example .

Class? Seriously, don't worry, it really isn't like it used to be...besides, we always put Americans in a class of their own .

Lower than everyone else, yes?

Oh no, just on their own .

Class of our own, eh? Yikes. I will have to dig out the backpack with the Canadian flag on it and use that in the UK You know...I'm almost more apprehensive about speaking English in the UK than I was stumbling over German in Germany and Austria.

I don't think you need worry, you know You might even be a tiny bit disappointed, from a traveller's point of view, at how much of English culture now reflects American influence - though admittedly in the countryside, away from the cities, that will be much less marked. But generally, Americans are cool

Ever read your Bill Bryson? If not, I recommend him as an excellent preparation for coming to England; as an American who lived here for many years he pinpoints many of our national idiosyncracies (and idiocies) with a sympathetic outsider's perspective. Well worth looking up