Dear diary,

On the holidays, I went to Coruscant. It had suburbs named "Chicago" and "Toronto," but I wasn't fooled at all. As soon as the sun went down, all traces of the natural world disappeared from the landscape and I knew that I was a long way from the old-fashioned trees and rocks we have back home.


( Read more... )

Oy. I think I've been spending at least eleven hours a day on my feet... but it's my brain that's starting to hurt ( Read more... )

Chicago takes a while to get up to speed, but when it does, it doesn't stop. I've been waking up hours before others in the hostel, and walking through silent streets waiting for things to open. Fortunately, most places are still going well into the night - my 'normal' bedtime is well after midnight, so there's plenty of stuff to do ( Read more... )

I'm sure you remember the diagrams from highschool science or geography classes - water evapourates, forming clouds out over the ocean. Winds carry it inland, where mountain ranges cause the clouds to rise up to cooler altitudes, unleashing their cargo of rain ( Read more... )

It's a strange thing, flying East across the Pacific. Flying out, the sun is high. As hours pass, the day ages prematurely - afternoon becomes evening, evening becomes night. The plane plunges into darkness, crossing the Date Line and emerging into the light of yesterday's dawn ( Read more... )