Thee Prodigal Returneth

I suppose I should start by apologizing for being rather scarce, except that I don't know when that's going to change - I might be back from the Epic Visit to Australia, but I'm still juggling the stress balls. At least I'm not having what I not-so-fondly refer to as stress meltdowns on a daily basis.

Anyway.

Here's a little mental exercise for anyone whose mental hasn't been exercised enough lately. Picture a large, busy airport, rather behind on essential maintenance and somewhat grotty. Add a departure lounge area that can handle maybe 300, crammed with something near 1000 tired, harried people. Now imagine 3 gates, all adjacent, all of them showing the same departure time for 3 long-haul (8+ hour) international flights. Garnish with a less than stellar PA system performing rapid-fire updates in several languages, some of them possibly English.

Now imagine Kate, with body claiming that I should have been horizontal several hours ago, standing and trying to wait patiently for the boarding call on the flight that should have boarded 1/2 an hour ago. Notice that Kate is swaying. And looks like collapse is nearby.

And people wonder why I hate to fly?

Anywho, I survived that little trauma, got to Melbourne for WorldCon, and lo and behold, 4 hours to transfer one bag between adjacent terminals is simply not sufficient. So it's exhausted Kate stumbling around looking for something suitable in size beached whale in order to not look like something the cat decided against dragging in because it was just too disreputable.

Once that little problem was dealt with, the con was wonderful, if rather quieter than many of the cons I've been to. I suspect that the huge space of the Melbourne Convention Center plus the lack of any real 'gathering space' had a lot to do with it. The people there kind of rattled in that massive area.

The good: Catching up with assorted friends I know mostly online.
The bad and the ugly: Melbourne Convention Center does not have any water fountains. Not one. What's more, the water in the loos is temperature-controlled to be warm. I ended up getting my water refills at the loo taps, going from basin to basin to get the cooler water. I didn't have the budget for the convention center's overpriced bottled water, so I ended up somewhat dehydrated despite the regular trips to the Ladies for water refills.

It seemed kind of light on publishing folk - perhaps an opportunity for the enterprising? As Dave mentioned on Monday, Aussies read. Despite shamefully high book prices (someone is making out like a bloody pirate there, and it ain't the authors or the readers - when the Aussie dollar was worth about half a US dollar, the prices were kind of reasonable, but they haven't dropped any and the two currencies are pretty close to parity) people buy books.

Then came the blast from the past. Picture an airport terminal. Now throw away the picture and replace it with a warehouse. Insert some rooms and a few counters and the like inside, park some seats in there, and you've got Melbourne's Essenden Airport - the one the light planes use. Security consists of a friendly guy on the counter asking "Have you got anything dangerous in there?" and you answering "Nope." To get on the plane you walk out on the tarmac and climb into a 20 seater (this is the big plane) with no amenities. Just seats and seatbelts.

And at the other end of the hour-long flight, Kate finds Heaven on Earth, otherwise known as Flinders Island. Of course, nothing's perfect - Dave makes me catch my dinner (squid) and food for the cats (wrasse). I recommend this as a relaxation cure - you can even eat what you catch, so long as Dave doesn't make me cook it! (The less said about my cooking the better).

So now I'm back, buggered (to use the Oz vernacular), and periodically removing velcro cats who are quite convinced if they let me out of their sight I'll leave them again. And now that I've splattered you with my travel tale, it's time for yours. What are the best trips you've taken, and why? The worst? The weirdest?

A Tinker's Lot is not a Happy One

Or: travel and trade in medieval times

Continuing my erratic tour of the middle ages for writers, I'm moving on to the question of travel and trade. For those whose attention spans don't survive their jobs, I'm doing this because the default setting for fantasy is something that looks sort of medieval with castles and sometimes knights and usually lords, and always a whole lot of oppressed peasants (Of course they're oppressed. It's kind of de riguer in modern fantasy. A kingdom that isn't oppressing its peasants isn't trying).

The actual era - mostly from around 1100-ish through the early renaissance, say 1500, 1600 or thereabouts - was rather more complex. While most people would never travel more than a few miles from their village, that didn't mean they were completely isolated. What happened was rather more like the current-day New Guinea uplands, where there are different dialects, cultures and languages within a relatively short distance. (As an aside, this is why England has so many dialects and accents. The same happens elsewhere in Europe, too - and a regional dialect can identify someone's home to within a few miles)

Every community saw a number of travelers each year. Those nearer the cities saw more, while the more remote communities might only see a few travelers. Some of the 'traveling classes' were the tinkers, who made minor repairs to pots and pans and sold small goods, various pedlars usually selling whatever they could carry, various flavors of gypsy (largely distrusted since even the best tended to regard the belongings of non-gypsies as theirs for the taking - yes those reputations tend to be based on a certain amount of fact), and entertainers, including jongleurs, troubadours and so forth (usually conflated as 'minstrels', and generally the carriers of news about the rest of the world). Often when a number of the travelers were in the area at the one time, there would be a fair where people could relax and forget their normal concerns for an afternoon or so, sell the "crafts" (weaving, wood carving, anything they could do that would sell) to the travelers, and stock up on the goods that weren't locally available.

Nearer the large cities and on the major trade routes, wagons and large groups of traders would travel equally well-defined circuits, sometimes covering hundreds of miles in Europe. The Silk Road stretched from Italy to China, with variants that ran through Constantinople, went by sea to avoid the never-ending wars for possession of the Balkan areas, sometimes via the Arabian Peninsula and sometimes north through Mongolia. It wasn't just silk that was carried. Trade empires were built on exotic spices - which are now commonplace for us. Salt was such a valuable commodity it was kept in a container on the high table - hence 'below the salt' meaning of lesser value. Pepper and other more exotic spices were weight for weight more valuable than gold at times (depending on how dangerous it was to get them from where they were grown).

Dyes were another lucrative trade item. A dye that would hold (was 'fast') and give a rich, strong color was immensely valuable. Sumptuary laws limited the access of many people to the best fabrics and dyes, although ingenious people always found ways around them. Slipping out of period a little, one reason why 'russet' is such a common color for clothing in Elizabethan times is that the black dye in use at the time faded to that color. Someone wearing russet was basically wearing old, faded clothing he or she couldn't afford to re-dye.

Another interesting feature of medieval times that generated a fair amount of travel - one that grew less important as the feudal system broke down - was the 'free city'. These were cities which weren't owned by anyone in particular but were jointly governed by a council of some sort, usually under royal charter. One of the reasons London became such a major center is that it was a free city.

Free cities attracted runaways who would apprentice themselves or find some other legal means of remaining in the city for the allowed length of time (Usually a year and a day, if I remember right). For youngsters who showed talent in a particular field, the nearest free city was a beacon of potential freedom - although if they became apprentices, they were the lowest ranked apprentices and could anticipate seven years or more of hard labor before they emerged as fully fledged guildsmen. In an era with strict limits on moving between classes, the free cities were the loophole.

Of course, rebellious youngsters joined the travelers as well, becoming entertainers or pedlers or tinkers or whatever (rarely gypies, as the gypsy clans tended to be rather insular). And even the travelers were bound by class - those who did the village circuits were lower status than the merchants who carried wagonloads of goods from city to city. But, when you consider the difficulties of travel in a world that was just starting to pull itself out of the gulf that was left by the collapse of the Roman Empire (yes, it did take close to a thousand years to recover, and we still haven't worked out some of the Roman technologies), there was a surprising amount of it.

Boxing Day

Lots of traditions are associated with Boxing Day. The one I remember is that of the nobility boxing up the leftovers from the Christmas feast to give to the poor or to their servants, depending on who's telling the story.

These aren't exactly leftovers, but they're fond memories of the holiday season. They're also grist for the writer's mill.

Earlier this month my husband and I took a quick trip to Carlsbad, New Mexico, with a couple of friends to view the Christmas on the Pecos light show. This is a one hour boat cruise along a stretch of water that’s not actually part of the Pecos River. It’s surrounded by beautiful homes, most of them with beautiful light displays.

I found out just how hard it is to take photos at night from a moving boat. The full moon floated overhead, as if to say that no matter how much effort man puts into light displays, Mother Nature can’t be beat.



Before heading home the next morning, we drove down to Carlsbad Carverns to take the Left Hand Tunnel tour. This is a guided walking tour by lantern light. On the way in, the only light we were permitted was that of the candle lanterns issued to each of us. This is the way the cave’s first explorer, Jim White, saw it, except that he was alone and instead of a candle lantern, he had a coffee pot full of oil with a rope for a wick.

Our guide, Ranger Rick (I kid you not), was terrific and reassuring from the start. Before the tour began, the lights in the cave went out a few times due to high winds up top. I was glad we were going to have our own lanterns. Glad to be in the calm, pleasantly cool cavern, too, instead of being buffeted by 60 mph winds.

The footing in the tunnel was rough and we had to help each other avoid obstacles. Ranger Rick told great stories about the filming of a bad TV movie (Gargoyles) in the tunnel in the 70s, and a hostage situation that also took place in Left Hand Tunnel that I'd never heard of.

On the way out we could take flash pictures, including these of drapery and a stalagmite. It was fun, if a little scary at times. I would do it again in a hot second.

—Pati Nagle

(PS—I still have 2009 year-at-a-glance calendars. Send me your mailing address and I'll send you one for free.)