Saturday, July 26, 2014

UK - Discoveries: including the home of Dr. James Parkinson

197 years ago, Dr. James Parkinson published, “An Essay on the Shaking Palsy”.  Today his former home is marked with a simple plaque.  The search for that plaque was the focus of run #43/44 in my journey.


In the Preface to the article, Dr. Parkinson wrote, “The disease is of long duration: to connect, therefore, the symptoms which occur in its later stages with those which mark its commencement, requires a continuance of observation…these advantages the writer has had the opportunities of availing himself, and has hence been led particularly to observe”.  Many times throughout my travels and since, I’ve been asked what was the most important thing that I learned along the way.  Similar to Dr. Parkinson’s advantage of observing those with “shaking palsy” over time, the most important discovery I made was the result of the advantage of observing so much of the world in such a short time.

Monday, July 21, 2014

Norway and Iceland - Northern Sights

My overnight stop in Oslo was again - very brief.  As I was looking forward to meeting up with my parents the next day in Iceland, my time in Norway seemed even shorter that it was. However, with a lack of major expectations, my night was to include several "successes" that are good examples of the small things that defined my daily success on this crazy journey.