The Internet: The Third Arm of Society

You learn a lot about people when you travel. I'm not talking about the people that you are traveling with in particular because you are bound to get to know them better; I mean the people that you encounter along the way. Traveling appeals to lots of different types of people and therefore when you stay in hostels all over Europe you get to see a very clean cross-section of the 'world society'. Anyone who has ever been in a hostel (either at home or abroad) will understand the kind of mix of people that can be found in places like that - it's all very interesting. One of the main things that I observed about these people when I was on holiday was that they all had one thing in common: they all wanted access to the internet. No matter what type of person it was or where they were from, everyone hovered around the computers in the hostel until there was one free. Most of them were looking for their fix of Facebook but no matter what they wanted to do online it struck me that whatever it was, it was vital. It brought me to the conclusion that most people (particularly young people) can't live without access to the internet for longer than a few days. I'm no different and I knew that I was going to struggle but it's nice to know that I'm one many who need to have the internet at their fingertips whenever they desire it.

Too Much to Learn? Deal With It

It's Monday and I'm me; there is not much else for it than to write a 'Me on Monday' post! After well over a month of eerie silence and wasted opportunities, I'm back for good this time and hopefully the coming weeks and months are going to prove fruitful on the blogging front. Today's post is regarding something that niggles away at me almost every single day of my life. It's a problem that I'm sure I'm not alone with and one that is probably most overt in our teenage years. The problem that I'm talking about is 'choosing' what you are going to learn. Obviously we don't get the choice with a lot of things (we're told what to learn at school and that is that) but then there are those extra-curricular things - the things that make us who we are. Now I've written much on this topic in the past including this post which in which I list the things that I want to learn to do - safe to say that not much of it has been learned in the 6 months since I wrote it. It's not even a case of me not wanting to (of course I do) but when I think about all of the things that I want to do with my spare time I get bogged down and end up doing nothing. This is not the wisest way forward and I'll never learn anything new at this rate. Hopefully this post might help to remedy the situation.

Summary of a Summery Holiday

I've been thinking about writing this post ever since the wheels of my flight left Scottish soil almost a month ago. In fact right from the moment when I knew that I was going on holiday I already had it in my head that, yes I was going to miss a whole month of posting, but that at the end of it I would have some really great things to write about - I was not far from the mark. The truth is that I've got so much to write about from my 3 and a bit weeks of traveling around Europe that I'm not sure that there is enough disk space on any computer in the world to hold it all. My fingers have been twitching for a long time as I've encountered new and interesting things; it felt like I had lost a limb with not being able to post for a whole month. Had it been for any other reason than being on one of the best holidays of my life I doubt that I would have been so accepting of the situation. Anyway, enough of the reasons for me not being able to write and lets get back on it! My holiday consisted of 5 different stops right up the middle of central Europe: Florence, Venice, Vienna, Prague and Berlin. The plan for this post is to give a little insight into my favourite things about each of them. I should say that this post comes with a warning though: I'm going to recommend that you visit each of these places and will continue to do so for pretty much every post that I write about my holiday - for this I can only apologise!

Home!

My fingers are stiff and my brain is labored by writers block but I'm back and I'm here to stay. The month that I've been away from this blog has been one of the most exciting and stimulating of my life and I hope to be able to portray that in my up coming posts. It is safe to say that I've missed writing more than I've missed most things but you'll all be glad to hear that I've been keeping an eye and an ear out for interesting things to write about and I think I've got a juicy little batch waited to be squeezed through this keyboard in the coming weeks and months. Anyone that has started a blog will know that it is sometimes difficult to come up with ideas on a regular basis but this, for bloggers, is the bread and butter thing that you have to be able to do otherwise you just won't get readers. My hope is that my recent spells of silence (for my exams and of course my holiday) haven't left people feeling bored with the idea of my blog. If anything I'm more excited about blogging than I have been for a long time and I'm going to try and give something back to everyone that sits down on a regular basis to read my posts. A month is a long time in a teenager's life and I feel like I've undergone a few changes in that time because of things, both good and bad, that have happened in my life. So here is to what promises to be a fruitful summer of writing and I hope you enjoy what I've got to say in my future posts!

Much love,

Martin