8 by 10 colored glossies with circles and arrows and a paragraph of the back of each one...

Photocopied maps with highlighter and handwritten notes make me happy. They make me happy before I go because they're full of sparkling hope and wonder and curiosity, and they make me happy when I get back because they're memories.

I did it first for the Scott Cohen fanclub trip to NYC. I did it again for M's & my Christmas trip to NY.

Right now I'm looking at a mismatched frankenmap taped together from printouts at two different scales, but it's still making me VERY happy. Because the handwritten notes on the bottom go:

1 - Hotel
2 - Howells (filmed as Hendricks, Rose. Opens at 10. Food, clothing, luggage)
...
5 - New theater (Panto @ 7. Also where Unquiet Dead theater scenes filmed)
6 - National Museum (open 10-5, Impressionists)
7 - Queen's Arcade (auton attack filmed)

The playground that got graffitied in "BAD WOLF"s turns out to be in a bad neighborhood and many of the Torchwood sites turn out to be too far away from where I'll be to get to in a day (in a choice of touring film sights and shopping, I'm shopping!) but... geek heaven.

seti_drd, I've made you a copy. Ask me when we meet up.

Cardiff was the easy map; only one day there. Now for the biggie - marking up the London map! Man, I was under 10 last time I had *this* much fun with highlighters and colored pens!

For those who've made it this far and are thinkging STOP BRAGGING, DAMNIT, something completely different: a worksafe-ish (he does say "hell" a couple of times): Classical music standup geek humor on youtube. Put all drinkables far, FAR from the screen!

Nostalgia Squee

I did Junior Year Abroad in London, did y'all know that? Nine months up in Hampstead Heath, and every time my allowance permitted, I'd go scooting down to a road whose name has been lost in the mists since my very distant college days. There was a Foyles there, and a Waterstones right across the alley, and if I went a block over there-ish and turned, there was this funky little store where I could buy fanzines.

So here I am, making dots on my craptastic map of London, and I've got a Waterstones here, and a Waterstones there (and everywhere a waterstones) and oh, look, the Foyles is right next to one of the Waterstoneses... and now where's Forbidden Pla-

Oh, my. A block away and around the corner, just like I remember it!

I now have this bizarre urge to dig out a very old fanzine printed on odd-sized paper, the one with the parody story where Spock calls Kirk a "wally." Alas, I never did find a copy of the Blake's 7/Doctor Who crossover where the Fifth Doctor was thrilled to be given Avon's lines. "NO, I won't give them back! I get to kiss the girl! I never get to kiss the girl." "If you kill her at the bottom of the page, it's my script." "Uh... here you go."


("So, Nea, if you lived in London, why are you going to the tourist sights again?" "Because, dude, I *LOVED* Westminster Abbey and the Vic&Albert. And, uh, lemme put it this way, the Globe wasn't there the last time I was.")