SO LONG, FAR WELL...

GOODBYE EVERYONE,
This is it the very last post. This post Is a continuation of the last environment I was at. I wish I had found this community early because i am thoroughly enjoying it. When I went back again tonight i saw on one of the members posting that she used an emoticon to emphasis how she was feeling in her post. i sometime this i know nothing about computers, blogs and online communities because i did not know that when posting a comment or entry a person could use the various emoticon to express their feelings. I knew IM did it but not a environment like livejournal.

The emoticon she used was aggravated, apparently she has a traveling situation, however after reading through her situation i also saw at the bottom that she apologized for doing a cross-post, however i dont know what that is. But i ddi come up with what i think it is. I think she posted and then someone else posted and then she posted again about the same problem, however i could be completely wrong. Maybe someone could comment to me and let me know what it means. Anyways some people comment and gave her some good advice for her problem, so hopefully it will all work out in the end because she got help from her community, because that what a community does it helps people.

PS its been fun, safe traveling!!!

A HOME AWAY FROM HOME

Hello Everyone,
Ohh, it is getting very sad now, because blogging is almost over for me.
I found an awesome new environment today. Its this online community call "a home away from home"and they call themselves expatriates. The first aspect of the environment I notice was this new girl Kim put up some awesome picture of place around the world that I ASSUMED she had visited. They were also on a flip patttern and changed every second, whihc definately drew my attention to her entry. Here entry was so much fun to dicipher, because when she described thing she did it in a half English/American way. The was she wrote her entry were expressed sometime in the way the English don;t use the word "the" when they are talking or writing about a place for example seh was say how she was "In Hospital" over the weekend because she was sick and did not have a primary doctor over her in the US. She also had a lot of interesting things to say about living here in the US and people wrote some really nice comment welcoming her to the community and to America.


The different personality is something i am going to miss when i end my traveling journey across the world on blogger. I have learned about and observation so many people. However, now that i think about I may have to start up again and become active in an environment, when i travel to Europe so I can get help and feedback lke Kim.

PS I thought I live this comment with a sunset, signifying that my online journey is ending on this sunday night and from this point on tomorrow is a new day and a new journey and a new sunrise.

LITTLE BLACK BACKPACK

I was online, on different online environment this weekend and I found this one person, who is using the online environment as her own personal ebay which I thought was pretty inventive. She was suppose to go backpacking this summer and she bought a really expensive backpack, at least I consider a backpack that is $200 dollars expensive. Then, it turn out that she was not able to go on her trip so now she is looking for someone who needs a backpack and want to be it off her.

After she posted her information about the product, she got alot of comments, the comments were people trying to help out her situation. She had a problem returning the item at the store she got it from and people were tell her that when they bought something from the exact same store they did not have a problem returning it. By using her online environment she was able to attempt to sell her product and find out information about returning this product. This modern form of technology has helped this traveler and given her so many options with her little black backpack now that she has this form of computer-mediated communication.

PS My favorite thing about her psoting display is that she have a picture of the truffle shuffle! I love it.

A NEW ARRIVAL

When I was online today i found this girl who is teaching english is Japan and this is her first time posting in this community and she says she loves it. She has all these plans to travel around after she is done in Japan. She wanted to get feedback from everyone about her plans to travel after she is done with her job. She did in fact get a lot of good feedback from people that have done the trip that she is interested in. When people come into this environment, it seems a lot of the time they ar e looking for help plannning a trip, the people of these communities have turned into everyone's own travel agent. If someone is not sure about a trip that they are interest in taking, other people that have gone on a vacation that another person is thinking about doing that individual impart their wisdom on him or her.

This aspect of communication is what make profound and long-lasting relationships. People put trust and faith into the people of this environment. They begin to relieve on the travler of this environment to give good advice. Its a community where everyone helps everyone. I dont see too much or even any flaming for that matter. People enjoy vacation and traveling and i know when i want to travel i want to know as much as possible, so I can make a sound decision when i travel.

THERE IS SOME MUCH TO LEARN

Today, i went online to another online environment and i found an interesting discussion about israel and turkey. It was interesting because I had now clue what the individual who posted the entry was talking about. And it is difficult to comment on the posting because i cant ask her to be more clear and explain what she is talking about without waiting until she checks her comments. That is something i dont like about the asynchronous aspects of online environments. Patience has never been something i could withstand. I would perfer a syncronous online tool like AIM to have discussion groups than tools like livejournal.

Dont get me wrong, her posting was iteresting and i am definitely going to be looking up "lonely planet" online to figure out what the majority of the post is referring to, however, not knowing what a discussion means is very disconcerning. She has done something however that i have yet to see anyone else do, she posed question for people to answer in a format of 1,2,3,4... that was a very orginal idea of her's, however no one has respond to her question probably because they have no idea what lonely planet is and they have no idea what she was talking about in relation to lonely planet and israel.

NEW TRAVELER

Well, I was on my online environment over the weekend and i came across a new guest into the livejournal world of travelers. She seems like a sweet girl to me by what she wrote, it was very sincere and genuine. She is planning on backpacking around Europew with her fiance. The psot was short and sweet and i didnt really notice anything wrong with the post. I guess I looked over a spelling mistake she made with the word INTELLIGENT. However, when you visit her comment section there was one comment made by an individual that i percieve as quite rude. The girl had wrote soemthing about being an intelligent traveler and making her vacation cheap and like i said she accidently forget a second L in the word.

So, the very first post she gets has nothing to do with the content of her post that she was asking people to respond back to, it was this pompous idiot that thought it would be funny to discuss how ironic it was the she spelt intelligent wrong and wrote nothing else. Thats the crap that annoys me about online environments, you dont know who is making fun of you. At least with face-to-face interaction people know the people they aredealing with on what i think is a more intimate level.

JUDGING A TRAVEL BROCHURE BY ITS COVER

The next oline journal i looked at was an online journal that discussed camping. When a person first looks at the page, their possible first reaction would be this page is a joke. The first aspect that give it a non serious tone is the colors use on the journal. The person entering the journals writes down his or her ideas in bright green text color. However that aspect does not necessarily mean tthat what the person is writing about is less important. Unfortunately teh picture icons on his page does not help in the maturity of this member. They are cartoons, which leads me to believe that the person writing these entries may be young, which is not a problem. However, at first look a person my pass over this person's live journal because it looks like a child is writing it.

When a person uses creatively colorful, bubble text along with childish pictures their work and entries could be taken less seriously and not given the attention they deserve. These aspects are things to consider when publishing any information that a person want a serious and honest opinion about. The irony in all of this is that the individual entries was interesting and serious. It was about different types of camping location and activities available for campers, something that i personally am interested in.

EURORAIL ANYONE?

On my online environment tonight i found this girl that is getting really excited about traveling through Europe on the Eurorail in a few weeks. I could feel her excitement and could tell be her writing that this is an experience she is really looking forward to. In her first line she wrote about her trip and at the end of every line she emphasized her excitment with an exclamation point. She then went on to apologize about how she hadn't posted for a while, but when she does she enjoys it, becuase she loves the comments she gets from her online communities. Towards the end of her somewhat lengthly post, whe asked for input for other users that woudl be viewing and forming opinion about her post. Her length however, my not be construed as long, but in my opinion, it was a bit long for a journal entry. It was close to two virtual pages.

Well, after reading her post I decide to enter the virtual world of her readers. In this particular post, she had 7 comments, which in my opinion is a decent number of postings. When i click on her comments link, it brought me to a new page that had her posting as well as the postings of her readers on the page. The most interesting component of this section, was one of the views had an intersting video game like picture icon. I dont know, i am not that computer savvy, thats how i would describe the picture of the virtual girl i saw. Well, the texts style and the computer techniques of this live journalist was an interesting look into their own online communicative style.

THE TRAVELER ON THE OTHER SIDE

I was online again tonight looking at another person's posting and they expressed themselves so well. They really articulated what they were feeling about life right now and how the wanted to finish school and take a break from life for a little while, ya know, do some traveling. The way this person was talking I could relate so well, but is was weird, they had a picture up , but was not a portrait, it got me thinking some more. I thought, this is not what i am use to, I dont normally comment so much to perfect strangers and try and get inside the lives of these people. Not knowing a person's face and imaging what they look like, with endless possiblities is hard to wrap your head around. But i was there, sitting in front of the computer picturing a girl, but i was really sure if it was indeed a girl. So this girl was sitting infront of this computer, so where else in the world planning a trip that almost was identical to the ideas i had. I think if iget the opportunity to comment on this livejournal agian, i will. However, these livejournal for people, i think, are a way of expressing their opinion and concerns without getting to personal, so unfortunately, i may never know what this person looks like, i can only imagine.

ITS ALL ABOUT SOUTH AMERICA OR IS IT?

I was online tonight on a livejournal site and I found this girl who is planning on backpacking around central and south America with her boyfriend, however she is not sure if where she should go or if she should to the Galapagos Islands. It got me thinking, I dont know anything about these island and this girl wants feedback from viewers. I could image that their are some people that go online and like to mess around with people and give them false information. This is something that people, especially myself. I, at some point may set up an online journal with my plans to travel. This girls is looking to people for advice about her trip and yeah, she probably will get some people that have looked into these islands and are truly interested in helping her out, but i can't help to think that some people in the online environment would give her false info.

I hope that for her sake and mine, if you go online looking for people to validate a place or trip they pull through and give her some good info.

HOLA DE CANCUN!

My next stop on the virtual trip is to Cancun, Mexico. I, myself have actually visited Cancun. I found a guy writing about how he was heading down to cancun for his spring break. Cancun is an awesome place and i told the guy he is going to have an awesome time. When i was down there it was the first time i went snorkling and rode a horse on the beach. It also a really great place for a spring breaker. There are tons of clubs and bars in cancun that can be a fun crazy time. So for some good nightlife, Cancun is the place to head.

ORIENT EXPRESS

I have been looking on the on-line communities because last week I saw this interesting show about different types of asian food and I also have been interested in the idea of taken a trip on the orient express, which is a train that travels from eastern europe across asia. I got to reading this one girl's live journal and she is interested in taking a trip to the Vietnam region. After reading about her interesting insight into the asian culture, it gave my a new interst in that area of travel.

SAN FRANCISCO TREAT

I found that irish girl during my online journey again. She has made a decision and San Francisco was the deciding vote, as well as a few other features. However, in one of my comments to her, i explained to her how much fun California is, especially San Fran. San Francisco really is a treat. It is one of my favorite cities in the U.S. I love the rolling hills and the trolleys. I hope my influence helped this girl in choosing San Diego as her travel destination, she will love it. She seems to have the same interests as I do. She still has a few months to research the California area, which will give her plenty of time to fully appreciate all that these wesat coast cities can offer. Good luck Irish Girl!