Fashion mashup: batik and gingham. Though gingham is a type of plaid, it isn’t a Scottish pattern—it may have come from the Malay word genggang. Photo credit: Tumblr.
As the trees shed their leaves with the coming of autumn, so do we as people shed our summer clothes. If Target ads are any indication of fall trends, plaid is the pattern of the season. While tribal and Polynesian prints are considered “ethnic” summer motifs, Scottish tartans have been eagerly integrated into American fall style.
I started this blog in the middle of the story, as though it were some sort of Homeric epic. While I can hardly claim to have accomplished any heroic feats, my journey spanned several nations and exposed me to new cultural experiences. It was pretty epic in my book. Toward the end of the trip, on the ferry ride from Corfu to Athens, I watched the water trail behind the ship like white frothy fingers splaying across the surface of the Ionian Sea. I was transfixed by the way the water churned in the ferry’s wake, the way it was pushed away after being pulled in. It hit me then that I wasn’t like the water, I wasn’t violently crashing and quickly subduing. As I said, traveling isn’t a Herculean task, but I was on the cusp of completing a goal I’d had for years. I’d seen London, this remarkable city that had always felt a fingertip out of reach, and then I’d ventured even farther.
Do not attempt. London phone boxes smell like (and most likely function as) public urinals.
circumpolarfox 