:: Free Traveler ::

By: Carmen Jenner

Paris, France

The computer screen taunts me with photos of charming Parisian apartments with minuscule dimensions. My two-year-old is dancing to Hi-5, having given up on the promised trip to the park. Finding a flat for our six-week stay in the French capital has become my latest obsession.

Our requirements consist of a two-bedroom apartment easily accessible to the Latin Quarter, where I will be studying in July. My research has been enlightening as I learn not to take anything for granted, not even walls.

My findings are baffling: traditional two-bedroom apartments apparently are rare in Paris. Some bedrooms are partitioned off with screens, curtains and “vertically exposed beams.” In some apartments, the number of beds doesn’t equate to the number of people supposedly sleeping there. How French.

Sometimes, the second bedroom is on a mezzanine floor, which is often not full height. Some lofts are only as wide as the bed and others don’t have railings; I guess that’s not a problem as long as you don’t roll out of bed. Although, when you are putting on your jeans while crouching, you could lose your balance and topple over the edge into the living room. Often the beds are hidden away in cupboards, a system known as a Murphy bed.

(more…)

Ruth Boreham outlines the history of the famous publishing dynasty whose archive has been preserved for the nation and is now accessible to all at the National Library of Scotland.

IN MARCH 2006 THE JOHN MURRAY ARCHIVE moved from Albemarle Street, London, to its new, permanent home in the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. Change of ownership was made possible by a major grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, a large contribution by the Scottish Executive and a sustained and ongoing fundraising campaign. It is the most significant archive to become publicly available in the last 100 years. Since the 1760s seven generations of the Murray family have maintained an archive of 150,000 items, including business papers, correspondence and original manuscripts. The archive at present available at the National Library of Scotland covers the years 1768 to the 1920s. Its richness derives from the range of individuals represented, including great thinkers and writers who shaped the nineteenth century in literature, travel and exploration, science, engineering and technology, politics and religion.

(more…)

By Patricia C Behnke

Learning to Be a Small Part of the Whole, Not the Center

Travel brings us out of ourselves and allows us to observe the world from other’s perspectives. I have found in my travels that where we come from predisposes others to form judgments, if we allow it.

It is up to us as members of the world community to dispel the negative and embrace the uniqueness of each of us.

My daughter and I flew to Milan to begin our month-long stay in Italy. Our first night in the city where Mussolini preached, built, and died, we wandered the piazzas. We sat and observed under the watchful eye of Leonardo da Vinci in the Piazza Scala next the La Scala Opera House. A dozen Italian men stood in the square arguing passionately.

It was too precious an opportunity to pass up as I watched the waving hands and shaking fists. I began snapping photos surreptitiously, moving closer with each shot. Finally one of the men spotted me and smiled. I walked over to him and explained I was an “autore” or author. In broken English they began talking excitedly about The New York Times and the front page.

(more…)