Europe Shananigans from alex b on Vimeo.

I have travelled extensively around the world but have very little to actually show for it. I didn’t own my own camera until 2001 so I just wasn’t in the habit of taking shots. Until then I used disposables or a friends and those shots have somehow been lost over the years. And even with my own camera, I tend not to take very many photos - I get too caught up in just being a part of the scenery then in thinking of capturing it.

When I went back to Europe last Spring, I had every intention of filming and documenting my trip. But I went there so exhausted that instead of photographing and video’ing, I often went out without my camera, computer or phone for a bit of much needed quiet.

It wasn’t until recently I decided to put what I had together as a video and thought it was a nice balance to some of my Flickr stuff. It actually made me want to do a little more video’ing in the future of the people I meet and the things I see (and far, far less of me). The only challenge? I’m shy and pulling out gear can be a hard thing to do!

Hopefully the little video of my European shenanigans is entertaining. Here are links to things in the video:

Flight: British Airways Business Class, which they call Club World (San Francisco-London | London to Luxembourg | Paris to Los Angeles). With the new BA Terminal in London, you get access to the most amazing lounge and spa so from this point of view, it’s worth it. I flew on the top of the plane coming back and it made a world of difference; it was quieter, more private and had way better service. I’m going to book that upper section from now on.

London Hotel: The Levin Hotel. Loved this hotel from the location to the rooms to the service. It’s right by Harrods which means fantastic tube access, walking distance to mostly everything and it makes you feel as though you’re living in a London Flat. It’s a small boutique property that is stylish without being snooty and extraordinarily reasonably priced for the class of hotel and location. Loved. It.

Luxembourg: I’d never been before and ended up staying with a friend who had a lovely flat within easy walking distance to the city centre. We drove all over the country in a day (in a mini cooper, so fun!), seeing about half a dozen castles. All I have to show for this whole trip is 3 photos! So bad!

Luxembourg to Paris: TGV 1st Class. It only took a couple of hours and I’d recommend paying for 1st. There isn’t a huge difference in price but there is a huge difference in seating, service and quiet.

Paris Hotel: Hotel Particulier Montmartre. I normally stay at the Four Seasons in Paris because of its incredible service and location but I had heard raving things about Hotel Particulier and decided to try it. It was beyond incredible and I loved my nights here (and had the best bath ever) although I have to say, staying in Montmartre is not my favourite area (it’s just inconvenient to a lot of places I go to and friends I see).

And the little orange cat is my partner in crime, Chat du Voyage! It gets more photo time than I do!

For the still photos: See My Flickr Set.

“On your phone, you see her tweet: “I don’t like the chicken I’m eating.” What? Why doesn’t she send it back? Suddenly, it hits you: She’s telling scores of random strangers around the world that she doesn’t like her meal, but can’t be bothered to tell you sitting at the same table?”

“We reply to someone we don’t know on Facebook, and we won’t even look at the cashier at the grocery because we’re too busy typing text messages on our phones,” Gordhamer says. “Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Zen poet, says the most valuable gift you can give someone is your attention. The danger with this new technology is you can become less available to your children, friends and partners in your real-life world.”

From The popularity of Twitter has some relationships in a twist

After hearing all the incredible feedback from my Negotiating Technology post, I thought of a another blog post I wrote in 2005 about taking the time to really hear someone in an age when it can often be hard to be fully present. Four years later, I think it’s still pretty relevant and thought I’d share it here:

Many years ago during a tramp in New Zealand, I learned the importance of really hearing someone. High in the mountains it was quiet except for one lone bird who called out loudly and continuously. Its call was the most tragic, saddest sound I had heard. I asked my friend why it kept making the noise that it did and my friend told me that it was waiting to be heard.

After a few minutes, another bird replied with one long loud sound which silenced the tragic sounding bird; it had been heard and didn’t need to call out anymore.

This past weekend, I was visiting with my four year old niece who is always terribly excited when I come around. We don’t see each other often and always have much to catch up on. For this reason, she repeats Auntie over and over again, vying for my attention.

When I saw her and she started with her Auntie, Auntie and desperately trying to get everything out to me while she could, I slowly knelled down beside her, put her little hands in mine, looked at her and calmly said, “I hear you. I will hear you until you have told me everything you need to say.”

With that, you could literally see her little body relax. There wasn’t the worry that I would only pay half attention or walk away. She could relax and slowly tell me everything that was important to her whether it be how we could cut and paste a card together or what she learned in school.

There are so many things as people that we have to pay attention to and with the internet and television we are used to scanning, flipping, and catching only bits. The art of listening, of hearing the other person fully, is slipping away. We tend to assume we already know what they’ll say, the answer to the question or that it’s not as important as what might come next. Hearing doesn’t seem to be important anymore.

I very seldom offer advice but what I always offer is to hear a person. Sometimes people don’t want a solution, they just want to be heard. Sometimes people don’t want things; they just want to be heard. Sometimes people don’t want to be advice, they just want to be heard.

Often I wonder if we really stopped to be fully in the moment of someone telling us their woes, their fears, or their excitements, how much that would really change things. Perhaps that sounds too easy but often the answers to the most complicated questions are the simplest words. Words such as, I hear you.

In most European countries, Denmark in particular, new mothers push their babies in prams something I can’t recall ever seeing in any US city I’ve been to. Because these prams are rather large and most shops are very small, mothers often leave their babies bundled up in the prams while they quickly pop into a store. Time and time again I saw prams with babies outside stores and no one ever seemed to think it strange or dangerous.

When I shared this with friends in the U.S., everyone sighed at the idea of living in such a society where one could do that. Each lamented how that would be impossible here. In fact, I heard a lot of parents say how they don’t even let their children play in the front yard for fear of strangers or something happening.

However, Salon’s recent article, Stop Worrying about your Children, suggest that the fear is in our minds:

“The crime rate today is equal to what it was back in 1970. In the ’70s and ’80s, crime was climbing. It peaked around 1993, and since then it’s been going down.

If you were a child in the ’70s or the ’80s and were allowed to go visit your friend down the block, or ride your bike to the library, or play in the park without your parents accompanying you, your children are no less safe than you were.

But it feels so completely different, and we’re told that it’s completely different, and frankly, when I tell people that it’s the same, nobody believes me. We’re living in really safe times, and it’s hard to believe.”

I live in a highly affluent area where people are 97% satisfied with the city and 98% satisfied with the city’s (almost non-existent) crime rate. It’s a very safe area that has a relatively large family population (in multi-million dollar homes) yet I can literally count on one hand the number of children I’ve seen (or heard) playing outside.

I’m not one of those people who believes the world is a more dangerous place but I think I owe this to several things: I don’t have a television, I listen to NPR, I’m an optimist. So not being inundated with daily doses of murders or glorified crimes that sell headlines and instill fear. Instead I can take in information from relatively calm sources and assess every situation as it is - not what it’s made out to be.

Are there dangerous areas? Of course! But as adults we have the ability to judge when it’s safe and when it’s not. Front yards, probably safe. Leaving a child in a pram outside, depends on where you are. I think what it also comes down to is knowing your community. Knowing the people around you.

In Denmark, for example, people don’t go to large lot stores to buy goods; they patronize the local flower shop, the butcher, the seamstress, the same pub. People get to know each other so there is a sense of responsibility to look out for one another. There’s a sense of trust. Stores are set up so that you can see your pram outside or you know how long it’s going to take you to run in and out.

One of the places I find really interesting to see this sort of thing is at Disneyland. There are thousands of strollers in the park and, when you go on a ride, you must leave it. You see all sorts of things being left on the strollers (souvenirs, clothing, bags, toys, food) yet the crime rate at Disneyland is very, very low. There’s a certain sense of trust (we’re in the happiest place on earth!), a certain sense of relaxation (we’re on vacation!) and a sense of community (we’re all here to have a good time!). What if Main Street in Disneyland wasn’t just in Disneyland? What if it existed in our towns and cities too?

Would you be more willing to leave a pram, a stroller, your bike, your dog out? Would you do it now?

For the last year, since the writers strike in LA, things have been quiet. And by quiet I mean there’s been fewer parties both professional and private. There’s been less get togethers for coffee and outings. And when the recession really hit us last fall, things almost seemed to stop. It was as if most people equated fun with either business or spending money. The free or cheap kind just didn’t seem an option. This made being in LA less fun and had me feeling a little older.

So I decided to shake things up; bike ride in pig tails more, play yahtzee with friends, spend the day at the beach, read a book on the couch every night, bake, laugh, sit in cafe’s and be nothing but in a good mood to every one I met. It had me feeling 18 all over.

Apparently, that feeling caught on because a friend noticed the fun and wanted it, badly. Her life had become full of work, bill paying, worrying, social climbing, decorating, managing and less about fun. She realised something had to change when she got caught unexpectedly in sprinklers that went off at a local park which made her furious at first, only to make her burst into laughter at the situation. A situation that, 15 years ago, she would have sought out for fun. She realised she hadn’t laughed like that or felt so young in ages. She couldn’t wait for an unexpected sprinkler system to go off to find the fun, she had to create it.

So what did she decide to do? Set up her house in Palm Springs as if it were the 90’s - the music, food, games, 90210 playing on TV and telling everyone to dress the part (I’ve got my baggy logo sweatshirt, shorts & hair clip ready!) and act their 90’s age. It was going to be a weekend of no-responsibility, of freedom, of fun.

I couldn’t pack my bags fast enough.

I turned 18 in 1992 and life was pretty amazing. I didn’t have millions, I didn’t own any furniture, I didn’t have a career or ambition or pets. Without all those worries, without all those responsibilities, without all the have to’s (created or real) I was able to create so much fun and so many stories to tell. And although things have changed now (I have furniture, a career, pets, responsibilities and things to manage) what hasn’t changed is the need to find the fun. In fact, it’s probably more important now. Creating stories to tell shouldn’t just happen in your 20’s - it should be an ongoing thing whether you’re 18, 35 or 65.

So I’m headed for a road trip with a girlfriend for a holiday break, just like in the video above when I took a summer vacation in 1991 with my girlfriend (I was 17!). Of course it won’t be the same and I don’t expect it too. I just expect to have a really good time. And I hope this weekend you find the fun, too. Whether it’s on the road, in your own backyard or just over a glass of wine or cup of coffee.

On February 28, 2001 I was working in an office in Seattle. I was standing, chatting with my boss when the building began to rock. I looked at him and calmly asked, “Are we having an earthquake?” “I think so,” he said.

It was so surreal that it took us a moment to dive under our desks but just as we did, bookcases started tumbling, the lights went out, we could hear crashing coming from all over along with screaming as our building was an outdoor sports gear manufacturing plant that had heavy machinery downstairs and the offices upstairs. Water hoses were going off, cranes falling, the upstairs floor went downstairs and part of the roof caved. For about 3 minutes, we laid under the desks, rolling as the floor literally went up and down.

When it stopped, we had to maneuver debris and the dark to get outside. Once outside, we all shook. The earthquake was a 6.8 and our office happened to be in one of the hardest hit areas (Starbucks corporate office was across the street, and they suffered broken windows and fallen floors). We all tried our cellphones but they weren’t working. At the time, my home was in Madison Park and was built over Lake Washington. I worried about my cat being OK but didn’t know my neighbours or anyone near there. It took me about 5 hours to get home that night and I worried the whole way home.

In the last month, here in Santa Monica we’ve had 3 earthquakes of at least 4.0. There’s a huge prediction tomorrow for one over 4.5 (on a fault that is expected at some point to do over a 7.4). The quake on Sunday and today had me shaking - and thinking - not just about my safety, but about those around me.

I’m fortunate right now to be working from home so when the quakes have struck, I can get myself and my pets to safety. But my neighbours all work outside the home - two of them have dogs and one has a couple of cats. LA traffic on a good day is a nightmare, after a quake it’s going to be a mess.

I’ve spent a lot of time talking about community - both online and off. I’ve spent a lot of time talking about service and connection. But I confess that it wasn’t until my current flat that I really began to know my neighbours. For the first time since coming to America in 1999, I feel connected to the people around me which - for anyone living in a major city - will tell you that’s a rarity. So many times the buildings are faceless and the people who live right next door are unknown. Maybe if you live next door to Creepy Mc. Creeperston you want to keep it that way but unless you live in an isolated area in the country or in totally Mc.Creepville, then you have people all around you that might need your help, your kindess or just a hello (and you might need it too).

When one neighbour asked the other day if I could let his dog out during the day, he at first offered to pay me for this. But since the dog is only there part time (with his girlfriend the other half) and I have to let my own dog out, I gladly told him I would - without pay. I think when someone can do a simple human kindness, they should. Being neighbourly shouldn’t cost us anything. Besides, what if I needed someone to let Jack out? What goes around.

After today’s quake, I wondered if my neighbour had a plan for his dog. Then I thought of my other neighbour and her cats. Then I thought of my other neighbour and their dog. If something happened to this building, wouldn’t they want their pets safe or to have someone to call?

So I wrote up little cards with all my contact info (full name, phone/text, & email) with an offer that, if I’m here during a quake, to be a contact person for their pets. That I’d do my best to make them safe. I also wrote that if they needed help during the day with breaks or during vacation, I’m here. And if they wanted to chat over a glass of wine one evening, I’m here for that, too.

I should say that I’m actually shy in my personal life (work life is totally different) and I’m generally not one for just chatting or opening up. Often I can feel a lack of connection to those around me simply because I create it. But that can’t change unless I change my actions to match my beliefs which is that we need each other, we need community, and we need support. Especially if we don’t have family nearby or we’re new to the neighbourhood or we’re single with pets or kids. Everyone needs connection and at one time or another, needs help.

I’d offer that if you don’t know your neighbours, get to know them in any way you can. Say ‘hi’ when you see them, offer to help if you see them needing it (moving, carrying in groceries). Pay special attention to neighbours with needs (single parents, elderly, disabled) and offer help to them or to be of service during an emergency (quake, flood, tornado). Give your neighbours your contact info and take theirs - you’ll never know when it’ll come in handy.

It’s often so easy to say that we live in a world where no one cares about each other or helps each other out like ‘in the good old days.’ I’m guilty of saying this sometimes and it’s at that moment I ask myself, what is my participation in that? Am I connecting? Am I being of service? Am I caring to those around me? It doesn’t take a lot of time or effort, it just takes a little step forward.

And I think we can all do that. It’s not that scary. I promise.