And now, Hawai'i!

Everything’s starting to come together nicely. I joined the Oahu BC yahoo group a couple of days ago, but it’s a closed group, so I had to wait for approval before I could post anything. The approval came through this morning, so I sent a post asking if anyone could host me, and got an email back almost immediately from dustyflint offering me a bed.

Yayyy!!!!!!

I also heard back from the hostel we picked in Singapore, The Inn Crowd, and they had a room available (which was incredibly lucky, because they’re very popular), so I’ve booked us in for two nights.

So that’s another two cities sorted out. And TexasWren and bookczuk are on the case to find us accommodation in Dallas and Charleston, so that means there’s only Perth left on my nowhere to stay list.

I’ve been having a bit of a booking spree, really, because after a bit of a struggle I also booked the train from London to Cardiff. The struggle wasn’t to find a train (there was one at exactly the time we wanted) or even to get a cheap fare (I managed to find us incredibly cheap earlybird fares – £11.50 each!), but to register on the First Great Western website. They had a very clever address locating function, where you put in your postcode and it comes out with your address. Of course, it only works with UK postcodes – but that’s natural enough for a British website. The trouble is, the website won’t let you proceed without putting a postcode in so that it can find your address, even if you select a country other than the UK in the drop-down country box. I tried leaving the postcode box blank, and it insisted I needed to put one in. So I put in our postcode here, but it told me it wasn’t a valid postcode. I was totally flumoxed, until I thought of putting in the Outlaws’ postcode. That worked at last, and brought up address fields with their address entered in, which I could delete and replace with my own address. Horribly complicated and long-winded way of doing it though!

The really stupid thing was that they didn’t actually *need* my address anyway, because I’d asked for the tickets to be emailed to me, not posted!

Just for a break from news about the Bookcrossing World tour, a few recent catches:

A Different Kind of Life by Virginia Williams: this one’s really exciting. I released it while I was down in Alexandra, in the ruins of some old mine workings on the “wrong” side of Lake Roxburgh, only reachable by boat (ok, technically you could walk there, but it’d be a VERY long walk! Have a look at the release map to get an idea just how far away from anything this place is). I think it’s probably the most inaccessible place I’ve ever left a book. And it got caught!

The Concise Encyclopedia of Dogs by Lou Sawyer Ashworth: This one’s in the “never give up” category. Released in June 2004, caught in January 2008, with absolutely no indication of where it’s been in between.

The Spoiled Earth by Jessica Stirling: The combination of a hostel bookshelf and a batch of pre-numbered labels pays off yet again 🙂

Homecoming by Belva Plain: One of the books we released in Invercargill in November.

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom: Not sure if this is a genuine third generation catch, or just the same anonymous finder reporting a change of plans for the book, but who cares – they’re intending to release it back into the wild, which means they get what bookcrossing is all about.

Currently reading: The Amish Landscape by Robert Holman
Currently listening to: The Mammoth Hunters by Jean M Auel