περιπλάνηση: 9-12-12 the throw-away keepers

Since I was rifling through the shoebox filled with pictures and scraps from my European trips to find yesterdays' Simone picture, I started pulling out all the pictures that, when I looked at them, I scrunched up my eyebrows and wondered, "Why did I take this picture?"

No, that's not quite right. I know why I took them. But anyone else looking at them would probably ask, "Why did you take this picture?"

I've gotten much, much worse at snapping everything under the sun now that we're all digital and I don't have to worry about wasting my precious film.

Sam will not have to worry about running out of film, but she hasn't got the picture gene, so my guess is she's still going to come back with a tiny fraction of the pictures I would take.

Still, there's something delightful about the "throwaways" that gets more charming with age.

So, here's a primer, based on mine of 30 Rules for Pictures No One Else Takes:

1. Take pictures from your hotel rooms. Every hotel room, in different light...

Paris

(even if you can't even get an angle all the way down the street because you can reach out and touch the building next door)

Rome

London

2. Take pictures with lines of things (not just cars) in any weather. You're going in June, like I did, and you will probably have lots of rainy days and gray skies. Don't let that deter you. Snap away.

3. Take pictures of activities in every square or plaza you walk through. The life here is fascinating. Make sure you get strangers in them.

4. You will spend a lot of time on the bus. Get the window seat and take random street pictures. Don't worry about the glass reflection. Take them anyway.

5. Don't be afraid to ask the locals who are performing to pose. They usually love it.

6. If there are two horses, maybe you should step around so the one farthest away (who was looking at you) can actually be seen.

7. Snap the London double deckers on the "wrong" side of the street at every angle. Get their destination from the front but don't neglect the sides, where the ads are posted, like I did.

8. Shoot the countryside. You're going to be staring at it for what seems like forever anyway. Most of them will be gray blurs, but sometimes you will get lucky.

9. Make friends with random strangers. Then take their picture. Mine was Lynn from San Luis Obispo, CA. I found her recently and emailed her a thank you for being so very kind to a scared 16 year old in 1987 who was flying over the ocean pretty much alone and didn't know a soul. I am very glad I have this photo.

10. Take a picture of your bus driver. That man is stuck with a bunch of kids on a very long haul. Making friends with him is the smartest course of action. He might just show up to party at the hotel one night and buy a round of drinks for your table. Just wink back.

11. Take a picture of the signs that are vaguely familiar and very strange. You will end up in a McDonalds at some point, desperate for something familiar. It won't be. (Also, get the camera in focus.)

12. Take a picture of lines you're stuck standing in. You can wonder decades later why anyone could possibly want to wait an hour for a chance to buy a t-shirt.

13. Take pictures of buildings with cool crap on them so you can spend hours online many years after the fact trying to figure out what you are looking at.

14. Not sure how much luck you'll have with Samantha, but if you find a sign with your name on it, you must take a picture of it. It's like a law or something. This also applies to the name of your boyfriend.

15. You won't be in Germany, but be on the lookout for snicker signs to snap a photo of.

16. Take pictures of the architecture, especially the places where you eat ice cream.

17. See #14

18. See #13. This one was slightly more helpful since I managed to get the name of the place in the picture.
Burgtheater

19. Take pictures of billboards and bus stops ads. They'll date your trip like nothing else.

20. In the obligatory group shot in front of some monument, get in the picture better than I did. I was the only person in the group wise enough (thanks to the previous year's trip) to have packed a sweater (which you can't tell I'm wearing) for the middle of June. Note the tightly packed group of people who are frickin' freezing in rainy Paris.

21. Get the people out of the way of the hot car parked on the street that you are actually trying to get a photo of.

22. Take pictures at border crossings carefully and without arousing suspicion. You'll feel like a spy, you just don't want to get mistaken for one.

23. You're enough like me to already know this one. Pet all animals that cross your path. But when you go to take a picture of them, make sure they don't appear dead.

24. You will learn to hate the bus with a passion. Take a picture of it anyway, especially since the rules hold true here: the cool kids always take up the back row, without fail.

25. Take pictures of the stuff that makes everyone else on the street look at you funny.

26. Addendum to #1, also take pictures of your hotel rooms. I only did this once and wish I had pictures of all of them. I wanted to get a sense of how small the room was and didn't do it very well. I was, however, sitting in the window of the room just to get this far back.

27. Inevitably, the tour guide will start shouting to you on the bus about something you are whizzing by. Snap away, blurry or not. You probably won't remember what she said which will make it all the more interesting later.