Starting over

January 2018
A short but fine adventure by Justin.Lina Read more
  • 7footprints
  • 2countries
  • 6days
  • 28photos
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  • 12.7kkilometers
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  • Starting over

    January 7, 2018 in the United States ⋅ 🌙 17 °C

    And just like the collapse of all great empires and your amazing My Space profile picture the travel pod website is gone. Like so many other digital memories that were built to last forever these 0s and 1s have now become just 0s. Leaving us with the feeling that maybe we should have printed something out. Technology lulled us into a false sense of security with its sweet lullaby of convenience, and now we're left staring at a blank screen without even a dusty picture filled shoes box to place in the attic.
    Without any pieces to pick up we've decided to learn from our mistakes. We will now travel with a charcoal pencil set and paper and sketch every moment like a court reporter, possibly even higher a stenographer to shadow us to make sure our conversations are documented. And should the pencil fail us we have taken up clay sculpting to give our memories a third dimension . We ve been left with no choice but to start over from the beginning and when this website inevitably goes belly up we will look technology square in the face and laughing as we clutch our satchel bag filled to the brim with drawings clay figurines and meticulous written conversations.
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  • Day 1

    Are you all right?

    January 8, 2018 in England ⋅ ☁️ 3 °C

    The grey cloud filled sky parted and  London welcomed us with about as much sun as it could muster up in the middle of January. The brisk winter air was just what we needed after being stuffed in an aluminum tube for an almost unbearable amount of time.  Had my brain been functioning properly I would have realized that the greeting I received when checking into the hotel "Are you alright?" was merely the British equivalent of "How is everything?" Instead I just assumed that my outside looked like my insides felt. Despite my internal gears spinning no expression left my face or mouth. Luckily without pause  the hotel concierge continued on, telling us about the hotel amenities. In an attempt to battle our modern time travel scenario, we decided a walk through Hyde Park was in our best interest. The fresh air was an appropriate remedy but eventually jet lag got the best of us and we retreated back to our hotel. Welcome to London, are we alright?Read more

  • Day 2

    Portholes

    January 9, 2018 in England ⋅ ☁️ 4 °C

    The sun has disappeared. In its place an impossibly thick wool blanket of grey lays just out of arms reach. We spent the late morning walking around the shoreditch area of London. Upon exhausting the areas offerings we set out to a new location via a few shoreditch back streets. It was on these streets that we stumbled upon what Lina proclaimed to be the best thing she had seen yet. Hidden in plain sight down a semi steep set of stairs below a small shop was an even smaller quaint kitchen. This miniature cafe seemed to be frozen it time and it wasn't hard to imagine an elderly English woman warming up tea and biscuits while baking Lemmon drizzel cake and tarts and bottling homemade jam. We soaked up the ambience while Lina sipped on a mint tea and daydreamed about the English countryside. After finishing up and ascended the stairs back into shoreditch and it's hustle and bustle we half expected the inter dimensional portal we just traveled through to swirl around and close up forever with an electrified crackle closing off the quaint English countryside for good. No electricity no snap or crackle just a door in a row of doors on a row of buildings, maybe all these doors hold some kind of mysteries.Read more

  • Day 3

    The test

    January 10, 2018 in England ⋅ ⛅ 4 °C

    Normally as a rule we don't split up. With no way to communicate, going our separate ways could be a recipe for disaster. Although it should be noted that plenty of people pre cell phone has successfully navigated the city and rendezvoused with friends without a digital companion to assist them. We decided to give it a try as a test of sorts an exercise in pre 2000s living. Several rules were put in place, we will meet here at this time. If by chance one of us didn't show up protocol 2 would be put in place which was turn on cell phones. If scenario 3.4 happened (which was if one of us were to meet Huge Grant we would enact procedure 7 and so on and so forth. So there I sat as the metro whisked me away from Lina at a random station in a foreign city hoping that we had covers all our bases. Clutching my map I headed out to East Finchley to a record store that was having an annually half off sale hopping to get there a bit before opening for my best chance. As I approached the store about 40 other people had decided to arrive before me. And now we had all decide to stuff our jacket clad bodies into an area that was much to small for so many patrons. This was Tokyo metro at rush hour mixed with Black Friday with a sprinkle of championship parade hysteria for good measure. Squeezing my way through the crowd
    I managed to grab a few things as I floated by and then found myself in the queue to pay. After payment I was again whisked away and found myself outside the shop. It was then that I realized that our meet up time had come and gone. A small panic set in as I went through the mental role call of procedures to find the chink in our armor. I had thought we had done everything right. Had the Huge Grant clause been enacted? Had Lina been given access to the royal palace? These were the only scenarios that seemed plausible. Just then as I was about to return to the 2000s and turn my phone on I saw her walking up from across the road. Our test was a success.
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  • Day 4

    Rule 7.6

    January 11, 2018 in England ⋅ ⛅ 6 °C

    Throughout our travels we've established a few rules we try to stick closely to. Today we've added a new edition to that very list. While booking accommodations in a new area besides looking at photos and reading reviews it's not always easy to get a sense of what the surrounding neighborhood is like. In order to remedy this we've establish rule number 7.6 the Whole Foods rule. We let the organic market do the research for us. If they've taken up residency in the area it's mostly safe to assume that the neighborhood is either up and coming or its already arrived. If organic snacks, vegan cafes and designer pastries isn't your speed and you prefer to stay in a more adventurous area feel free to see rule number 9.6 the pawn shop rule.Read more

  • Day 6

    36000'

    January 13, 2018, Labrador Sea ⋅ ☁️ 7 °C

    36000 ft in the sky ,7 hours from London and a million miles from nowhere. Staring into the frozen ocean where no one will ever go. The cracks spread out in every direction like travel less highways. Inspiring and terrifying all at the same time. Soaring above this alien landscape should be reserved for sci-fi movies but here today I can sit comfortably (three seats all to my self) from a aluminum tube with a small porthole to view it all, very strange. Multiple visits to Lina's new favorite cake shop and to many records later we're on our way home.Read more