To the sea ...

I am going on a bit of a family get away this weekend and it's near a beach and the sea ... so I am hoping that the sun will shine all of Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday morning.
I am packing bikinis and cut off jeans and two singlets and I plan to get some sun ... and eat a lot of watermelons and ice blocks.
But I will bring a jersey along and books and I hope to find a farmer's market on the side of the road, I love them! I get to spend time with my nieces.

It's been a long week and I had some friends come over to eat snacks in my courtyard and play on the Wii . We ate cheese, crackers, dips - sundried tomato - it was delicious. My friend made brownies so that was great.
It was supposed to be a monthly book swap, but about 8 people couldn't make it, so we talked about books for about 5 minutes and then got onto gossip, husbands and life in Australia.
We talked for hours - it was great!

I've been reading Barry Divola's The Secret Life of Backpackers where Barry gets to be a backpacker for a month in Australia, travelling, drinking and hanging out with backpackers.

There's really nothing new in this book, backpackers tend to drink copious amounts, have a lot of one night stands and do a lot of vegging around or arbing about.

It seems like it really depends where you go and how old backpackers are, I am sure that there are travellers who really do travel, take in the sights, go on hikes, localise themselves in cities and then there are the stereotypical backpackers who drink, have sex, party, drink, have sex, party and not much else it seems.

I am on page 108 at the moment and nothing about this book or his journey has surprised me. I have travelled myself and lived in several countries. I did the museums and the sights, I went to look at all the writers' houses and places of interest and I lived in some places for 6 months to a year.

I didn't really like hostels and I didn't feel the compulsion to take drugs or drink ... in this book so far everyone seems to drink a lot. I don't find drinking all afternoon and night and then waking up and doing it all over again extremely compelling.

I far prefer to sleep early, veg, tan in the sun, have lunches or brunches with friends, go shopping, meet up with people, read and sadly enough even garden.

This book is fascinating to me because people come from far away and spend their time in hostels drinking and sleeping. Why bother?