Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Mostly about Travelouges

I had a test today in MC 301. All weekend I was like, "I should study for this test. I should do the study guide. I should really devote some time going over the stuff that's going to be on this test." But I didn't do any of that. Saturday I was a disgrace to humanity. I woke up. Did nothing. Ate lunch. Watched 30 Rock. Took a nap. Went to Fazzoli's with the lads. Went to Walmart to kill time before work. Saw Thomas there. Had a nice conversation with him. Went to work. Actually the last four things weren't all that disgraceful, but the rest of the day I was a useless human being. Sunday was slightly better. I went to Mass, did some homework, helped with lunch, watched some long way down, made some cookies and played some Pharaoh, but no studying. So this morning, I woke up early to get some studying down before class. I got to class half and hour early, studied briefly, and got a 96% on the test. Boo-yeah. I guess the moral of the story is, I'm awesome.

Speaking of Long Way Down, which I did briefly last paragraph, I enjoyed Long Way Down, which is the second travel documentary made by Charlie Boorman and Ewan MacGregor. If you recall, last year I watched Long Way Round, their first documentary. It was the story of Ewan and Charlie riding around the world on Motor cycles. In Long Way Down they ride from Scotland to South Africa on motorcycles. Long Way Round is a much better documentary series then Long Way Down, but that's not because Long Way Down is bad, it's because LWR is so incredibly awesome.

Now I'm going to talk about how I came to love travel documentaries:

Two words; Michael Palin. My mom got my dad the book "Pole to Pole: With Michael Palin" for fathers day or something one year, sometime after I graduated high school. I don't really know why; dad had never seen the series, nor expressed a great love for travel documentaries, nor Michael Palin for that matter (although, I think everyone's love for Michael Palin is the kind of love that needn't be spoken). Anyway he got this book, and it just so happened that they had that series at the library. So we rented and watched the series and it was very interesting. It was the story of Michael Palin traveling with a camera crew from the North Pole to the South Pole. He goes through a big chunk of Russia and through a lot of Africa. One of the most interesting things about that series is that he travels through Russia, and gets out like 2 weeks before communism falls. It's pretty neat to see the last weeks of communism through the eyes of a traveler.
They had another of Michael's travel series called "Hemingway Adventures" at the library. I watched that one too and loved it. Then I discovered that both of these series were sequels to Palin's wildly popular first series, around the world in 80 days, in which he follows Philieus Fogg's path around the globe using mostly the same sort of methods employed by Fogg. He does use cars at some point though I think. Anyway, I downloaded that one and watched it and was amazed. So yeah. I love travel documentaries.

Here is a list of my favorite travel documentaries:

1. Long Way Round
2. Around the World in 80 Days
3. Pole to Pole
4. Long Way Down

Anyway... I'm done being boring for the night... well at least writing boring things. I'm going to bed.
5. Sahara

No comments: