I’m sure each country has its own bizarre (or not) traditions come midnight when the clock strikes. Having said that, and having lived in 5 countries, I can’t seem to remember any at this moment. Hmph.

Anyway, tonight is called “Noche Vieja” (old night?) here in Spain, and the country has the tradition of eating (or gulping!?) 12 grapes in time with the midnight clock-chimes. It’s an ancient tradition that goes back to 1909 when there was a surplus production of grapes and the industry had to find a creative way of selling the grapes to get rid of them.

I’m told that, although you can buy small grapes in little bottles especially for this occasion, eating them all without getting your mouth stuffed or choking on a seed is practically impossible.

Also, there are 4 bongs before the actual 12 bongs, to alert you that it’s time to get your grapes ready and bring in the new year. Only in Spain would this make perfect sense

For those who don’t want to be part of the street madness tonight, but still want to go to Sol (Madrid’s center where the big clock is) and eat the grapes, every 30th December people gather there for a rehearsal of tonight! I almost went out of sheer curiosity and amusement, but in the end my sofa got the better of me. I will be going tonight though!

If you take part in any tradition tonight, do let us know what it was and how it went!

Happy New Year!

Next month at the RolfPotts.com Writers page, I interview John Gimlette, who authored At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig (about Paraguay) and Theatre of Fish (about Newfoundland). Unlike many of my other travel-writer interview subjects, Gimlette has keeps a day job — as a lawyer in the U.K. “Being a lawyer, I am not dependent on my earnings as a writer,” he tells me. “That’s quite liberating. I can write what I want, when I want — and writing is therefore (for all its hardships) still a joy for me. It also funds the writing. Even if you can write a book that’s included among the New York Times’ ‘Books of the Year’ (as both mine have been), the financial returns are slender. I can’t therefore imagine that there will ever be a day when I give up plodding round the courts, and that’s fine with me.”

Here are some more outtakes from our interview:

• “I feel culture shock very acutely, however well I have researched a place and however much I think I know what to expect. Very often it means that I don’t really enjoy the first week of my travels, and I just hope the feeling will pass. Even Paraguay — which I adore — does this to me, and I feel horribly alien and out of place. But the feeling does pass, or I get used to it, and so it’s not really a challenge at all. That leaves just loneliness. I can’t stand being by myself for more than a day or so, and begin to crave company — almost any company. Perhaps this is an advantage to a travel-writer. Looking back through my writing, I always seem to team up with the oddest of people; drunks, bums, philanderers, a fascist lawyer in Paraguay, bear-trappers in Labrador, and a homeless tramp in the Scottish Highlands. I remember one critic commenting that the only people I ever seemed to meet were oddballs and hucksters. Well, try being me; these are the people I meet, when I’m on the road.”
• “I love the research. The only difficult bit about it is that — at some stage — I have to stop absorbing the detail, and start painting the picture. The writing is harder; some days it flows, and some days I have to take a break. The sheer effort of wringing out the imagination is exhausting, and yet — at the height of it all — I can’t sleep. That’s when I have to go back to being a lawyer for a while, and sleeping like a baby.”
• “It’s a source of real pride seeing your work in print and out in the shops, but it’s a pretty transitory thrill. There’s no doubt that the best bit of any book is the travel itself.”

Full John Gimlette interview online here.

Over at his always-interesting travel blog, writer Chris Elliott recently came out with his list of “The 20 most inspiring travel blogs of 2007.” And guess what? Vagablogging is on the list! He writes, “Rolf Potts and his colleagues have created a must-read travel blog that features a nice blend of news, tips and notes from the road.”

I agree with most of his other recommendations, especially World Hum, home to some of the best travel writing anywhere; Intelligent Travel, the blog of National Geographic Traveler; and The Best Travel Photographers, a site that’s great for vicarious traveling. Also well worth mentioning are the blogs of Tim Leffel, of Cheapest Destinations fame, and Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek.

But, as Kunta Kinte used to say, “You don’t have to take my word for it.” Check them out for yourself.

When language translation software was first being developed, it seemed as if people who spoke different languages might finally be able to communicate easily with one another– in writing anyway. Just type in your native-language text, select the translation language, and hit “Translate.” Easy, right? Well, I can tell you that if it were that easy, I would have gotten a lot better than a C on my senior-year Spanish paper.

Language translation software is notoriously unreliable, as each language has its own quirks, ambiguities, and nuances that are often “lost in translation.” In Chinese, one character– seen in the photos, it looks a bit like a telephone pole– has a multitude of different meanings, and that has led to some rather egregious translation errors. One recent article explains how the mistranslations are happening: “[S]everal Chinese characters pronounced GAN1 or GAN4 — and meaning such widely disparate things as “dry,” “calendrical sign,” “to do,” and much else beside — all got collapsed into one simplified character.” It goes on to say that since the word “do” is occasionally a replacement for “fuck” (as in, someone “did” someone else) that’s probably where the misunderstanding came from.

My favorite photo, seen at right, is a bit of perceptive commentary on our consumer-driven culture, where one’s belongings necessarily define their place in society. That, or the translating software f#$%ed up again.

The best thing, of course, is to always have a native speaker read translations before they are used in public. Since that’s seldom possible, we can all just sit back and see what the software spits out next.

For a whole f%$#ing menu of mistranslations, go here.

Trendhunter points us to this list of hot new destinations for 2008:

• Buenos Aires – a favorite amongst “creative young vagabonds looking to get away from the US hustle and bustle”. My husband and I spent a month there earlier this year and whilst we loved some of the neighbourhoods like San Telmo, Las Canitas and Recoleta, we were less impressed by the mosquito invasion and dog dirt problem littering the streets.
• Lisbon – whilst it’s always been one of the “more affordable European cities”, the fact that it’s never been viewed alongside the like of Berlin, London or Paris, may well be about to change.
• Roatan – a secret diver’s paradise that looks set to be not-so-secret anymore.
• Quito – long time favourite of backpackers to South America, it looks like Ecuador and Quito are becoming more mainstream.

If you were already planning to head on over to any of these places next year, then I’d get a wriggle on before they’re over run with mass tourism and trend followers.

Iceland is the world’s best country to live in, according to the United Nations 2007/2008 Human Development Report.

The “human development index”, which determines the rankings, is judged by life expectancy, adjusted real income, and level of educational attainment. Rounding out the 10 best countries to live in: Norway, Australia, Canada, Ireland., Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, the Netherlands, and France. The United States ranked 12th, dropping four places from its 2006 rating.

With an average life expectancy of 81.5 years and a very high adult literacy rate, Iceland narrowly edged out Norway for the top spot, after six years of Norway taking the number one place. The deciding factors in Iceland’s lead were new life expectancy estimates as well as updated gross domestic product per capita figures.

Analysts compile the annual report based on data from 175 UN member countries as well as Hong Kong and the occupied Palestinian territories. The 2007 rankings do not include Iraq, Somalia, and Afghanistan, as well as 14 other UN member nations due to a lack of reliable data.

The 22 countries with “low human development” rankings fall in sub-Saharan Africa, a region devastated by AIDS. In Zambia (ranked 165 out of 177), one in two children will not live to reach the age of 40. In nine other nations, forty percent of children will perish before they are 40. Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone are ranked lowest on the list.

The major emphasis of the report, in addition to assessing human development, was the devastating impact of climate change. According to the report, there is overwhelming scientific evidence for climate change and the topic must be addressed with “fierce urgency” as the window for meaningful change may be rapidly closing. It says, “The world lacks neither the financial resources nor the technological capabilities to act. What is missing is a sense of urgency, human solidarity and collective interest.”

I was surprised to see that Kayak.com paid $200 million a few days ago to buy out Sidestep.com. That makes the company the 5th largest travel site (behind Expedia at #1).

I haven’t really used Sidestep, but I’ve been a fan of Kayak’s quotes and daily alerts. Both websites will stay intact and active, though each will upgrade in early 2008 with perks from the (formerly-competing) sites: Sidestep will get fare alerts, and Kayak will add customer reviews and an airport guide.

Steve Hafner, Kayak.com CEO and Co-Founder, is quoted on the search engine’s website:

“The commercial logic of this deal is obvious…Kayak.com is a technology company focused on perfecting travel search, and SideStep.com is a media company with in-house sales expertise and user-generated content. By merging, each brand can improve its offering while continuing to focus on its individual strengths.”

Stay tuned for what that means for you or me. Better capabilities? Decreased competition? The emergence of new search engines? It seems to mean quicker expansion internationally—Kayak.com will soon add Italy to its roster of international websites (UK, France, Germany, and Spain), with potential elsewhere in Europe and Asia. As for me, I’ll probably continue to try my hand at several search engines, though not both Kayak and Sidestep.

People will try to bring anything on a plane (and the TSA will most likely try to ban it).

With the number of people traveling over the holidays it’s inevitable that some will either return home with gifts of food or mom’s leftovers. Yet the TSA (Transporation Security Administration) is as steadfast as ever in its limitations, even posting new food rules in time for this year’s holiday flights.

Granted, security shouldn’t be taken lightly, but I think it’s funny to see the level of detail in the list of banned items. Anything that appears gel-like should only go in your suitcase (not in your carry-on). This includes:

• Jams and jellies
• Gravy
• Soups
• Cranberry sauce
• Oils and vinegars
• Salsa and sauces
• Maple syrup
• Wine, liquor, and beer

Last Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle recounts the trials of a woman just wanting to bring a pie on the plane. Seems as though the time has come when the family’s dessert course might be dependent on the type of pie that’ll most easily get through security—TSA is looking for anything with a gel-like filling. After a series of pie confiscations over Thanksgiving, the TSA now goes the extra mile to post a pie-related notice on its website, saying that they’re allowed, but “be advised that they might be subject to additional screening.”

For a full recap of prohibited items—now that we’re sufficiently confused—check out SeatGuru‘s handy list.

I always use a backpack. I prefer it to suitcases and think they are generally easier to travel with. But the one thing that always annoys me is that you have to fill the pack bottom-up and when you need to find something, you usually have to take everything out. With the number of times you have to do this (don’t you feel like you are perpetually packing and unpacking for no good reason?), it is impossible to keep your clothes folded, let alone crease-free and it leaves me feeling like such a mess. I always used to wonder, why can’t all backpacks have a zipper that opens out sideways like a suitcase? It’s really that simple. I don’t dwell on it much, but it does bother me often on the road.

So you can imagine my thrill when I found Tidypack — a backpack with shelves that you can extend handles from and hang over a door. How ingenious is that!!

It allows you to keep your belongings tidy and you can even adjust the weight of your stuff on your back so you don’t injure yourself. It looks like a fairly new product, and the site doesn’t talk about color or show outer appearance, but who cares if it can do all this?! However, priced at about US$430 it’s pretty expensive. Hmmm. I suppose it won’t be long before the price drops.

How come no-one thought of this before?

This is my first year away from close family and friends during this festive season. Although I do not celebrate Christmas, I’m feeling a little lost because everyone I know here (local and foreign) has gone home to their families to eat turkey and open presents. All shops will be closed and I imagine bars will be relatively empty as everybody takes time out to be with loved ones.

My flat-mates were kind enough to invite me to their homes for a Spanish Christmas. Very unlike me, I declined in order to go to a day-long Christmas party of others like me who are not Spanish but are here for the occasion.

We will be a group of 12 people from all around the world: Israel, Venezuela, America, England, Italy, Japan, Morocco and India. Everyone doesn’t know everyone, but what we have in common is that we are expatriates in Spain without family nearby, who don’t want to be alone. We will all be making a dish for dinner, and will spend the day watching international films.

When you live abroad, sometimes all you want is to chill with people who are also living abroad. There is a bizarre bond that you know you will share. So this what I’m up to on my first vagabonding Christmas.

Are any of you on the road this Christmas? What are you going to do?