How I found gratitude on my own

Looking through my old photos to find the herring I wrote about in my last post, brought a lot of memories to the surface. Every picture triggered a story I wanted to share with you. Remembering the fun times I had was enough, but sometimes these stories had a point to make too.

This simple photo of a coffee was one of these.

The morning after the first time I got high, I went to a cafe near Amsterdam Centraal. I had made the classic rookie mistake of taking too much at the start and ending up super stoned, but in my defence, I waited nearly 2 hrs after eating my space cake with zero effect. They recommend waiting 30 minutes, so you can't question my patience.

My high was as fun as I'd hoped it would be, at least what I remember of it, but I was alone, and I'll admit, felt a bit like a loser for it... Thankfully being stoned makes that easier to deal with.

The night before, wandering Haarlemmerstraat, trying to work up the nerve to go into a coffeeshop and buy a brownie, was the first time that I really felt like I was missing out on some unique experiences by travelling solo. Sure, I'd wanted company before then - by that time I'd been abroad a little over a month - and I missed the friends and family I'd left behind, but I really relished the challenge of backpacking alone too. No compromises, no quarrels, total freedom.

What also comes with that is no assistance or support. There's no one to brainstorm ideas of what to do next, or to sound off feelings about where you want to go and how. There's no corroboration or collaboration to validate that the choices made are the right ones. I find it so much easier to be calm when I'm with calm people, because I reflect their mood, and in turn they absorb my zen. Without that, I internalise, mull, and stew over the smallest details, which leads to anxiety and indecision. I can freeze on the spot in the middle of a crowded street, not sure whether to turn left or right, and terrified about the consequences of either, completely aware that the decision I have to make is not at all as apocalyptic as it feels.

When I'm by myself, there's no shared laughter when things get a bit ridiculous. And I realised, as I entered a dim smokey coffeeshop on my own and pointed at a herbal cupcake for one, that I really wanted a friend or two at that very moment, to giggle about how silly the whole situation was. (My journal later reads in shaky handwriting, "There are actual Jamaicans in here!")

Still, there's something to be said for letting the situation dictate the proceedings. Just as you cannot walk through an ocean, the environment does have a fair bit of control over the journey you take. When push comes to shove, you just have to work with what you've got. Go build a boat. Go enjoy the water and swim. What you shouldn't do is stand on the beach and get frustrated. There's no doubt some things are more fun to do with company, but if you simply don't have something you want, instead of moping about it, or willing it to appear by constantly wanting it more, it's far better (and in the long run, actually easier) to accept things for what they are, pick yourself up, and keep plodding on.

I have since surprised myself by learning that I can be extremely easygoing on the road. (I still make plans, and I'm slightly more neurotic about those plans when I'm by myself than when I'm with friends, but I also like to follow my nose and not have to consult anyone about making sudden detours.) I have also proven myself that I can make friends out of strangers - not just random people to share space with and help me disappear into crowds, but really good friends; souls who I probably wouldn't have met if I hadn't dared to venture outside without a social condom to protect me.

So that's the "never say no" and "live life to the max" and "go single girl solo travel power" part of this post. But I've kind of always been into that. What is it about getting away that has such a hold on me? And when am I going to get to the point of that coffee photo?

Mostly, I think what I always savour by travelling alone is the mental relief that physical distance and solitude gives me from the pressure of expectations I feel when I'm home. Doesn't really matter how much of that stress is real, imagined or projected, because I suffer it all in the same way. And until I learn to let go and find space from it internally and figuratively, finding literal space helps a great deal. I have a slight hang up about whether this is a cowardly form of escape... But deep down, I firmly and truly believe it is a healthy thing to do - to separate, detox from distractions and routines, refocus, and pay attention to the immediate surrounds and the present moment.

Going to that cafe the morning after the night before, took some time. I'm slow first thing, especially when I have to make choices and plans by myself. I was further hampered by what was either a pot hangover, extreme sleep deprivation, or both. But I finally made it out to that cafe, which I remember searching for specifically, for reasons I can't recall; perhaps good reviews on TripAdvisor. Cosmic irony stepped in to ensure that the cafe was severely understaffed, so on top of all of my own self-imposed delays, I waited a really long time for my coffee.

What struck me was that I really wasn't fussed by the wait. I empathised with the barista who apologised to me for the inconvenience while she rushed about like a headless chicken - I noticed this because normally I'd only be thinking about myself, and feeling critical and judgmental.

Not that morning. Instead I sat quietly at the scrubbed wooden table, my journal untouched, and stared mesmerised at the warm amber hue of the sunlight as it slanted across the tabletop, like transparent gold. It occurred to me how beautiful mid-morning sunshine is, and how I never noticed it before the way I seemed to be noticing it now.

I briefly wondered if I was still high, because I was really transfixed by that sight. Then I realised it didn't matter. I felt really happy. I'd had an amazing night, one of those first-in-a-lifetime type of experiences. I hadn't waited for anyone to give me permission to do it, or to babysit me through it. It was a night I would always remember - me, the straight laced, straight A's, rule follower, spacing out in the lobby of a Dutch youth hostel. Then, because of how light and liberated and joyous I felt, I would always remember that following morning too.

I almost couldn't believe it. Look at where I was! I was in the Netherlands! A whole world away from home where I'd been sheltered for 20 years. All the doomsday warnings I've been given about being a female backpacking around Europe alone were proven to be wrong, because I was totally, utterly, blissfully okay. I had coffee (eventually), sunshine, and myself. And it hit me - that's all I needed. Suddenly the many years of exams and grades and good behaviour I'd spent so much time and energy stressing about seemed not only pointless and petty, but stupid and wasteful. Where had I been all this time? Had I even been living all these years?

My time was running out in Amsterdam, and this was the point when I usually began to make lists of things to see and do, and weigh up the things I could tick off against the things I would miss, followed by estimations of how great my traveller's remorse might be. Exhausting, right? That's just how my brain operates. But instead of running through all the sights and activities offered by that great city in my mind, my thoughts wandered back home, to Sydney and university and jobs and family and so on, and what I would do with myself when my holiday was over. The thought of it made me feel queasy, and distracted. Suddenly, I really couldn't be arsed worrying. It wasn't relevant to what I was doing right then and there. I deserved my break. I would worry about my career in the all-too-near future. The present moment had no room for worry. Neither my family nor my college education had a place in that cafe with me. To continue the metaphor: I was not going to force myself to walk through the ocean to reach an impossible horizon. I wanted no boat. I wanted to swim in the water and feel the waves against my skin and soak my hair and laugh, just floating and bobbing about, and enjoying the sea.

It occurred to me that this was gratitude. I was, for the first time ever, 100% genuinely grateful: for all I had, for all I was, for all I'd done, for all I'd been given and was a part of. I was grateful for the waitress for running around to give me coffee. I was grateful for the sun for shining when it could have rained. I was grateful for my holiday for giving me time to linger over that morning. I was grateful for the edibles I'd had the night before which brought me to a state of heavenly relaxation. I was grateful for myself for being there, and having this beautiful moment all to myself. I didn't know gratitude was something you could discover, but there I was, discovering it - and according to recent blogs and articles espousing the latest mental health crazes, gratitude is "so in" right now. However I was a few years ahead of the fad, and I'm proud of it.

Gratitude is no joke, people. It is the real deal and if you discover it, I hope you experience the same joy and cathartic calm I did. If you haven't yet, be patient and it will come. For me, all it took was a cup of coffee, and a bit of sunshine.

Have a great weekend everyone. I'm thinking of you and wishing you peace. Love Bernie x

Travel by food

The popularity of food-related travel media - and vice versa, travel-related food media - is huge. I feel like it's really boomed in recent decades, far beyond the traditional settings of the home and the restaurant where food was once singularly based.

And how could it not? Food is so deeply and intricately tied into our culture, our history, and our identities. Once you start looking into different cuisines, you cannot avoid the influence of place and time and people. You know that old saying, you can escape on a great adventure with a good book? I would say the same with food.

Food celebrities like Anthony Bourdain, Rick Stein, and Luke Nguyen (I think he's slightly less renowned on the global scales but still very famous and one of my personal favourites), have made it trendy and edgy by travelling to exotic places and eating local fare on the streets side-by-side with the people that cooked it. Nowadays you can visit entire museums or join city tours that have only food as its main feature. But at its core, I feel that food at its most authentic and revealing when it is humble and homey.

To reference yet another favourite food celebrity of mine, Nigella Lawson, through food you can travel without ever leaving your doorstep. Even in your own kitchen you can evoke flavours and aromas that are interwoven with strong memories and even stronger emotions. To drop another quote, this time from the beautiful film, The 100 Foot Journey, "Food is memories".

I have definitely had many of these evocative moments - when the smell of something delicious bubbling away in a pot makes my head dance with images from my childhood; or the sight of a familiar packet label in an international deli makes my heart leap with a long forgotten but suddenly recalled holiday experience.

These moments have always struck me as really profound, but also really joyful. I think this is common. However I suspect it is especially acute in people like me who are super greedy hedonistic obsessed foodies (a majority of my friends may raise their hands now!)

I'd like to share more of these moments, starting with one I had recently.

I had an IKEA day with my sister and brother-in-law last weekend. It was more of a research & recon trip, so we made very few actual purchases, but walked out with plenty of snacks from the shop.

I was excited enough already with my 500g bag of Daim toffee chocolates. It was without fail my favourite candy while I was in Europe, and always very strongly reminiscent of my Belgian friends because they were the ones who introduced me to it in my first week there. I spent a lot of time lounging on their couch helping myself to handfuls of Daim's off their coffee table! Once I started I couldn't stop. They are addictive!

We also got a couple of jars of marinated herring from the IKEA shop. My brother-in-law laughed because he would never be caught dead eating something like herring, and he thought I was a real weirdo! As an adventurous eater, fish is hardly the oddest thing I've ever tasted. My sister chose it specifically to remind me of my time in Amsterdam, which I thought was a really sweet gesture.

But I had no idea just how much I would enjoy the experience of eating herring again, with herbs and seasonings so redolent of a faraway place where I haven't stepped foot in years. I was bouncing on my tip-toes as I speedily prepared myself a plate with the herring centre stage.

In the crisp of winter my family tends to crave hot noodle soups and chunky stews. This is so not the kind of meal we're used to eating for dinner... toasted rye bread slathered with salted butter, generous portions of the herring, and a few raw and cold pickled sides and sauces.

Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure I nearly had an orgasm sliding those soft tender slippery herring fillets out of the jar.

It took me right back to Amsterdam, standing by the canals, spearing those small pale morsels one by one and letting them melt in my mouth; enjoying their subtle aftertaste briefly, before spiking it with a crunchy sharp sour onion or pickle.

I believe the mark of a truly enveloping dining experience is when you don't feel the need to do something else distracting while you're eating: talk to someone, watch tv, read a book, enjoy the view. Don't get me wrong, these are all fun things I love to do while eating, and sometimes they are exactly what makes it divine, like when I'm absorbed in great conversation with friends around the dinner table, or admiring a gorgeous sunset with wine or hot chocolate. What I'm talking about is those moments when I have lost sense of everything but the food right in front of me, and the taste and texture of every single bite - that's when I'm really connected with it in a way that is more than merely a meal. I'm not being hippie or new age at all; you know, we've all had those moments where could do nothing more but close our eyes, sigh, and chew - because it was that good.

And this herring was so good. It wasn't as melt-in-the-mouth as the raw herring I had in Amsterdam, because it was marinated and therefore would have cured and cooked to a firmer bite over time. Still, I couldn't help but go straight to my computer afterwards to search for the photos I took 4 years ago, to help me relive the food, and the happiness it brought.

It took me all night to find this snapshot but it was so worth it, for the feeling of instant travel it gave me. It's like culinary apparition!

A much younger me, and totally shameless tourist, so keen for that herring I asked the stall holder to take my picture with it!

Food is easily my favourite topic ever, and I would love to hear all your fond travel-related food stories and memories! Please comment below 😊 Happy eating!

Don't wait

I think often about how this blog never turned into what I hoped it would be... i.e. an evocative, photo-laden, detailed, running chronicle of my travels in real-time as I backpacked solo across two continents.

But that doesn't mean I still can't share some stories from my travels. Yes, it all happened a long time ago, but I honestly think about travelling every day I'm home, so it is as fresh and precious to me now as it was then. For some reason, I keep these thoughts to myself, as if it isn't relevant to my life now. Totally wrong of course! Let me explain.

I follow a group on facebook called Girls Love Travel. The title of the group is pretty self-explanatory. Some of the posts and comments are really insightful, and even enlightening. The community perks me up when I'm feeling low - and I feel low often, what with my bleak 9-5 working routine of going to and from the office in the chilly winter darkness.

One GLT-er (as we call ourselves) recently shared a story about her father who is quite ill, and asked the group for advice on how she can take him on one final trip overseas to fulfill a long-term dream, while still being mindful of his health. Her love, thoughtfulness, generosity and compassion for her dad, who was an avid traveller in his younger days, and now as an older man is basically confined to a motorised chair, really touched me. While many people would host a lavish dinner or buy a fancy gift to show affection, she chooses to give him a memorable experience, perhaps one that will end up being his final hurrah in a lifetime of memorable experiences.

It was inspiring in a way, but mostly just jerked me back into perspective, and was very validating. Why? Because while I long to travel every day, I also doubt myself every day. I constantly wonder if it would have been better for my future if I didn't spend most of 2014 & 2015 overseas, but instead spent it sitting at a desk chair as I do now, making $$$ and padding out my CV.

Nevertheless, I do not regret it. Not one bit. And stories like that GLT girl's story really give me confidence that I made the best choice for myself at the time, and that I have to trust that the results of it will carry through forever. Because some day I may not be able to do it again - and if I had waited, I may not have ever been able to do it at all!

It may not have been the right decision for everyone, but it was the right decision for me. And the benefits are subtle, which is why I question my actions all the time, but they are there nonetheless, and I will learn to see the value of it as I grow. Like I did when I read that one simple warm heartfelt facebook story.

So while this blog is never going to detail my travels back then as they happened, I can still recount, retell, and relive, with the added serenity of retrospect. And I think it will serve as a reminder, not only to myself, but to all of you, that what you get in a day's travel, you keep for a lifetime - and beyond! When we tell our stories to our friends and our kids and our grandkids, we inspire them to be curious and exploratory and adventurous and proactive, which is a great gift.

Seriousness aside: I will also admit that I am a terrible perfectionist. When I was on the road, I never made the time to throw out a word or two, slap on a pic or few. That's ok, I was busy living!

Now I am back, I still feel like I need so much time to sort through old journal entries and photos and blah blah, and then plan and design each post. And it does. But if I just tone down the inner critic, it really doesn't take long to click "Publish". Honestly every time I flick back through my old pictures, I get such a rush of memory and emotion and sensation, that I think this is a really rewarding, satisfying process I've been denying myself for too long out of laziness.

So don't wait. Don't wait to travel if you want to and you have the means to right now. Don't wait to do anything, actually, if you want to and you can. Even if that's just sharing some lovely stories on the internet.

Here's my photo of the mesmerising ocean of temples in Bagan, Myanmar. I wanted to stand here forever, just gazing peacefully and in wonder at that vast expanse of green, sprinkled with dabs of ancient brick-hued history.

I was in Myanmar for a month over July-August 2015, exactly 2 years ago now. It has been the most challenging and also one of the most intimate experiences of my travels abroad so far. My confidence behind the camera skyrocketed in this mystic country and it helped me dig a bit deeper into every encounter I had. You can see some of it on my instagram.

Not only that, I made wonderful connections, and even collected a motley crew of adopted international "family" members that I journeyed with for a few weeks. Now that we are worlds apart again, I should probably let them know that I still think about them, and how much they mean to me, and how much our travels together changed me.

What would you do right now if you decided not to wait for it? Would love to get your comments below!

Have a great night folks!

My first time travelling, but not the last

I've been travelling around Southeast Asia for 7 months. Really. 7 months!

I recently returned home to Australia and am now capable of fully admitting that I failed spectacularly in my goal to update this blog regularly while I was on the road. I am sorry. I have always been sorry about this. Usually my problem is I have too many things to say, and in my painful, circular attempts to gift you the blessing of conciseness and precision, I give up, red-faced and puffing, mashing my face into the keyboard, and ultimately not saying anything at all. But let's face it, I also made a commitment to choose life whenever it was a choice between living and writing about living. So in that, I won.

Still, I do want to share with you my thoughts, hopes and feelings. All of which have intensified in importance and meaning in my past 7 months away. So thank you for your patience as I try, yet again, to blog.

Reflecting on this past year, I have to say, I made it! Who knew I'd last this long? From May 17th to Dec 11th, I visited Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam. It's a magnificent Google map waiting to happen.

Far from sating my travel urge (I am trying to avoid use of the word "wanderlust" here) by living out of a 60L pack for almost a year , I have merely whetted my appetite to see more places, meet more people, and taste more food. And while I still wonder about how and when my completed university degrees and a successful career will collide in a bankable fashion, I worry about it less than I did before I left Sydney with a ticket to Saigon in my hands. Because I can now, completely and wholeheartedly, own the truth that my true interest lies in travel, and that I'd like to make it priority for at least the next 5 years. If a career happens along the way, whoopee. But come on, choices, people! We can't have everything... although we try. So we have to think about what matters to us most, right now.

(More on this later.)

For now, after realising I have actually invested over 11 months out of the past 24 in travel, I think it a reasonable outcome that at some point, while adjusting to my return to a developed first-world country, drinking tea made from delicious diarrhea-free tap water, I thought back about the first time I truly "travelled" - because I consider myself a late bloomer to the jet-setting, backpacking life. The answer would seem obvious - it was recent, right?

In fact, the result was surprising.

My first travel experience

I remember the first time I travelled outside of my hometown alone, and I mean "travel" in a way that I'd consider more than simply going from A to B. It made an impression.

I was 19. I'd gotten a summer job with a minerals exploration company. I was very excited because I was one of the earliest in my university cohort to find industry-related work experience. Almost everyone else in the company was an experienced older Caucasian male geologist, with greying hair and thick Australian accents.

View from the train window.

Every weekend for 3 months I left the sleepy outer-city suburbs where I grew up, and took a 4 hour train journey to a place further away from the ocean than I'd ever been before. There I spent my days traipsing about the rugged Aussie countryside in steel-capped boots, digging around in soil and rocks, to the operatic tune of heavy machinery. It was a culture shock for me, and a great learning experience.

One morning when I woke up early (not by choice, come on, I was 19) and crawled out of my little metal donga to get ready for work, I went outside before I met my workmates and took a moment to take in the pre-dawn.

Our work camp, consisting of nothing more than a few "dongas" or mobile tin buildings.

The first light of dawn.

An outback sunrise.

This was a new site we were investigating just for a week, and it was my first true-blue taste of The Outback. We were 600 km inland. The ground was as red as rust. The horizon was a dead flat thin black line rising to ever lightening heights into a diluted navy sky still dotted with a few exhausted stars. It was as close to the desert as I've ever been; cold, quiet, and empty. I was totally alone. Yet I remember thinking to myself, "I don't feel lonely. I feel peaceful."

Later that day, the heavens opened up and flooded the dusty, parched earth with torrential rain that lasted barely an hour. It was beautiful. My workmates and I waited for the mud to drain away and took photos of a giant mushroom that exploded out of the ground.

I love a sunburnt country. My country.

Sudden shroom!

This experience was the first time I travelled. The disappointing thing is, I didn't realise it until now, simply because the way I got there was through work. I saw it as only work. Which means I lost years of appreciation for what I am capable of. It took me so long to understand that there are alternative ways to make my dreams happen.

Work. Study. Family. The ultimate triad of life priorities, and they are good ones indeed. But when you've got other interests like travel, and you're not told how you can combine them with the other things on your list, you can feel like you've spent forever waiting to pursue that dream.

All I can say is, don't wait. Find a way. It will be worth it. You will surprise yourself.

~ ~ ~

Hope you enjoyed my return post and my photos! I dug through 6 years of archives and countless feels to find them.

If you like what I write (and forgive me my lack of discipline) please share!

Perhaps you could even

Finally, and most importantly, I hope you have all had a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Where the sky meets the sea

Time for another round of flashback blogging – this time, about my day-trip to Brighton in the south of England. Historic seaside town and royal romps-ville.

The main thing I remember of Brighton is the colour, an overriding muted blue-ish grey, probably owing to the fact it rained all day (it was late October). It wasn’t exactly bleak, though it’d be hard to convince someone else otherwise. I mean, look at it:

For me it felt like a dream, slightly haunting, and very mystical. The sky melted into the sea in a strange mixture of white and pale green. Everywhere I looked it was faded and soft, like an old photograph, which went really well with the sense that this was a place full of history and intrigue.

In the late 1700s when Brighton was still a small fishing village, people came here to bathe in the waters they believed would cure them of every illness. The king also visited regularly for his debauched holidays, to escape the stifling regularity of the court in London, making the gossip-mongers go wild. And still it remains one of the most visited cities along the country's rocky southern coastline.

On the whole, it all had me feeling lost in time, just out of reach of decades of drama. I can’t exactly say why I liked Brighton, only that I did. It fascinated me. I got the impression – as cruel and unfair as this sounds – that it’s a place that tries to preserve the old years of excitement rather than keep it alive today.

I had fish and chips on the famous Brighton Pier. Despite the bad weather, there were still lots of people about who, like me, were determined to make the most of their day. As I walked over those oh-so very old and rather loose wooden planks, distrustfully reading the signs about how much money they put into maintaining the structure to ensure safety, I began to feel uneasy.

I could see through the gaps to the sea beneath my feet. The arcade house was groaning with countless hyperactive teenagers and their exacerbated parents giving them strict instructions not to get lost. Bored couples were lining up to go on the rickety rides, which I listened to clanking and shaking with no small amount of trepidation.

I don’t consider myself a fidgety person, but I was suddenly met with vivid images of a bumper car crashing through the barriers, of a giant teacup breaking free from its rotating saucer and flying into the air; in another instant, I imagined the entire pier shuddering and then collapsing into the cold grey water in a massive pile of splintered matchsticks. I felt a bit silly, but I had to get off that pier!

I must have been onto something because as soon as I hit the promenade, I saw this little sunburst fight its way through the blanket of cloud over the horizon. It sounds cheesy but it really was mesmerising.

My day in Brighton actually started off very frustrating. I woke stupidly up early to catch my train, which ended up being diverted twice and ran horribly late. When I finally did arrive, there was nowhere to store my backpack! Many places in the UK removed their luggage storage facilities years ago due to security concerns. Most hotels won’t take luggage from non-guests. So beware if you are planning a trip there – pack light! I spent the first half of the day walking around with my 60L pack on my back, negotiating an umbrella in my arms, trying not to hit other people with it.

I later found out that the delay-causing “incident” was a very unfortunate track death, which sadly put my problems in sharp perspective! But what really turned my mood around completely was the kindness of all the lovely people I met. The staff at the train station, a guy selling the only good coffee I’ve ever had in England, a man working at the Brighton Toy & Model Museum, a lady at the Brighton Museum & Art Gallery - they were all so helpful, sincere, and patient. I always say that nothing beats good customer service, and it was never truer than on this day. A simple smile or gesture really can make or break it, especially when you're on your own.

For a pound, I managed to squish my pack into one of the large lockers at the Brighton Museum & Art Gallery cloakroom, which made me feel like I’d achieved some huge victory! The beautiful building was packed with families. Where else do you take your kids when they’re bored and restless and it’s pouring outside? When you’ve got a museum with a huge array of diverse collections to suit everyone, as well as free entry, the answer is obvious!

When I was there, I had to stop myself laughing out loud at a few funny things I overheard some very articulate English children say in the restrooms. A couple of good ones:

Mummy, I like it in here, the girls toilets are a lot better than the boys, I think I’ll go here from now on. 

And my favourite:

I’m afraid I’ll fall in! 

I also wandered North Laine and The Lanes, getting lost like a rat in a maze. My travels around Europe have been far from short of centuries-old winding cobblestoned shopping alleys, but they're still one of my favourite parts of old cities. I got a kick out of the cosy pubs, the tea parlours, and the retro shops selling cute vintage knick-knacks. I wanted to buy everything! Of course, the only safe thing to do was to buy nothing.

The entrance to The Lanes. Is it just me, or does the sign say "Fresh to Death"? I hope they're referring to the produce on sale, not the customers!

I finished off my day at the Royal Pavilion, which I enjoyed more than I can say. I never had an appreciation for interior design before my holiday. I find it a great mix of history, culture, art, and humanity. I'm sorry I don’t have any photos for you because photography wasn’t allowed inside, and even the outside of the building was obscured by temporary construction. But it's a stunning piece of architecture, and if you ever find yourself in Brighton, please don’t leave without seeing it!

"Oh, I want to go to Brighton!" She got there in the end.

My last memory of Brighton is of how many times I ran through in my mind a particular scene from one of my favourite novels, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - when Lydia Bennet had a temper tantrum because her father refused to take the family to Brighton on holiday, even though Mrs. Bennet herself admitted that “a little bit of sea bathing would set me up forever!” It made me feel very lucky to be there.

  

A Gallery of Clocks in Time

When I was in Switzerland, I took myself on a day trip to Zurich. Most of the nation's major cities are easily accessible by a few hours' ride on the train.

One of my favourite parts of Zurich was visiting the Beyer Watch Museum. It was only one room, but I must have spent at least an hour in there, admiring and examining their huge clock collection. They were organised chronologically, from the first primitive instruments, through to the earliest mechanised devices, and eventually to the most accurate electronic clocks to date. I couldn't believe how old some of them were!

The candle was used to measure time by how much wax melted every hour. The oil clock worked by a similar principle.

Beautiful collection of hourglasses.

Many were stunningly beautiful, and were works of art in and of themselves, not merely tools for measuring time.

Many of the clocks had a hidden switch that, when you touched them, activated moving parts which played music or reenacted a live scene, so they functioned as much for entertainment as they did for practicality.

Unfortunately all the artefacts were captioned in German, so I didn't always understand how they were meant to work. But the friendly and very eager museum staff was ready to answer all questions in whatever language you desired.

My favourites were the pocket watches with their intricate details. Just by looking at them, you get an idea of the person who would have owned it, their sense of style and taste, and how they might have used their expensive watch to show off to others about their social standing.

Landscape etching.

The key is as beautiful as the watch itself.

A lot of care was put into the details.

Watches often featured fine period or classical paintings.

Some were a bit naughty.

I can't begin to imagine the kind of focus and skill needed to design these watches - and that was just on the outside! I really enjoyed seeing the interior workings of the clocks, too.

Even the inside of this pocket watch was decorated.

A see-through pocket watch, one of my favourites in the museum.

A wooden pocket watch. It must have been so difficult to make!

I had fun trying to photograph the miniscule details close up.

I was amazed by these delicate little clocks set onto rings - even a miniature sundial!

Meet the smallest pendulum clock in the world! The square metal frame was about the size of the nail on my pinky finger.

I left the museum with a renewed appreciation of the artistry and science that our society has devoted over thousands of years to the understanding of time, and our attempts to control it for daily use, but in the end, how time-keeping has shaped us.

Besides the museum, what else did I see in Zurich? Well, I had a simple but lovely day (despite the grey weather), wandering around, sight-seeing, visiting the major landmarks, drinking hot chocolate, and strolling along the Limmat river and Lake Zurich. I snapped this audacious swan, which was probably trying to con some food out of me. Of course, I made it my model.

Having only a day to spend there, I left with an impression of a bustling commercial city that still retains its sense of history and culture (not that I got to see much of the latter). But I think next time, I'll stay in Zurich overnight.

Before I went, I got mixed responses from my various informants. Some said they found it boring, others said they loved it. Have you ever been to Zurich? If so, what did you think of it? Please share below.

Did you like the photos in this post? Perhaps you'd like to take a moment to  

And as always, thanks for reading!