Bookiversary: A Year In The Life Of An Author, By The Numbers

We interrupt Enrichment Voyage programming for a brief message: Today is Europe on Five Wrong Turns a Day's bookiversary! That's totally a word. I know because I just made it up. 

A year ago today, nearly 200 people crammed into a subterranean bar in Nordeast Minneapolis to help me launch the book. The twelve months that ensued were equally as frenetic, nerve-wracking, wonderful, weird, and cocktail-fueled (make mine an Old Fashioned, please).

Some selected highlights, lowlights, and weird-lights, by the numbers:

• Honors I still kinda can’t believe actually happened, and make me grin like you wouldn’t believe: National Geographic Traveler Book of the Month and being a guest speakeron a cruise ship, along with, um, Sandra Day O’Connor and other Genuinely Accomplished People.
• Overall talks/readings/signings: 17 (I think?)
• Number at (or presented by) indie bookstores: 8
• Number at cooking stores: 1 (the excellent Hill's Kitchen in Washington, DC)
• Number at which I gave an old-school slide show (you know, with an old-school slide projector): 4
• Number given with a cocktail in my hand: 1
• Type of cocktail and person who first introduced me to it: Caipirinha; Lee, obviously (in Europe)
• Number given on a cruise ship (as noted above): 5
• Overlap between cocktail-in-hand and cruise ship presentations: 100%
• Oddest encounter during a book tour event: the biker guy at the TV station in Seattle, who swore up and down that he had just videotaped "a mother sasquatch nursing a baby" and they needed to put it on the air right now.  
• Place where I got the best audience questions: my old high school (true story)
• Silliest question at a reading: “Can you recommend a guidebook for Paris?” (This after I had just spent half an hour talking about how I’d visited the Continent—for the first and only time—with a 1963 guide, making me really not the right person to ask this question.)
• Question I frankly am sick of answering: “What’s your favorite city?”
• Percentage of readings (and interviews) where someone asked this: 85%
• What I do when this happens: Smile and reply with whatever city sounds good at the moment, but the truth is it really depends on my mood and a ton of other factors, as described here.
• Postcards and Commentary Track Bookmarks given away: Probably around 200
• Interviews for and/or stories in foreign media: 4
• Coolest story about that: My mom was traveling in Europe shortly after Germany’s Die Zeit newspaper ran an interview with me. During casual conversation with the guy sitting next to her on the airplane, she mentioned my book and he said, “Oh, I just read about him when I was in Germany!”
• Foreign media requests turned down, with regrets: 1, because, alas, if I tried to do a live radio interview in German, I would sound like a less coherent, less sophisticated Dumbass American version of the Swedish Chef.
• Times I have checked my Amazon Sales Rank: Um. Like mumble-mumble-trillion.
• Current Sales Rank: (Sigh.)
• Amount of the Amazon book page URL that I have to type into my browser before it auto-completes the rest: A
• Book clubs directly interrogated by: 2
• Book clubs that live-tweeted at least a portion of their own discussion (and tagged me in their tweets): 2
• Book clubs where someone brought chocolate croissants to the their discussion: 1
• Site of the above book club: National Geographic HQ (!!)
• Emails from readers who used Europe on Five Dollars a Day themselves, in the 1960s: 20 or so
• Emails from readers who used Europe on Five Dollars a Day themselves, in the 2000s: 1
• Emails from  1960s travelers who asked me to check my book for old-school hotel information she’d been wondering about for years: 1
• Letters, postcards, or packages from readers: Oh, man. Dozens, maybe hundreds. Turns out there are a ton of other people who like old-school mail. (Ahem: PO Box 1922,  Minneapolis, MN 55458-1922)
• Coolest package contents: a fresh packet of the Big Boy Bail Bonds pens that Lee planned to use to ward off Belgian thugs (please see page 105, where you will note that I erroneously called the company “Bad Boy Bail Bonds,” an egregious error for which I sincerely apologize).
• Speed with which I have replied to various correspondents: Approximately the same as continental drift
• Level of guilt I feel for the above: Immense
• Assurance I will make: It’s coming. For real. I promise.
• Most polarizing chapter: Venice
• Profanity-laced caps-heavy emails from readers who cannot BELIEVE that I would say anything positive about that VILE Paris place or anything sarcastic about that TRANSCENDENTLY WONDERFUL Venice place: 1
• A brief comment to this and the other (very few but vocal) persons who were taken aback my brooding in said chapter: It’s really about travel fatigue, not gratuitous dissing of a city that, I now understand, you daydream about on an hourly basis.
• Answer to the inevitable question about The Next Book: Workin’ on it. I have an idea; my agent likes it; I need to get started on the proposal.

Parting words to everyone who has read the book, bought it, recommended it, etc.: Thank you all. So much. 

By the numbers: writing-a-book edition

I finished my first full draft on Sunday! Woohoo!

Date of book deal: 2 June 2010
Date of completing full draft: 16 January 2011
Form of celebration: Surly Darkness! And a delicious, impromptu feast of pasta and pork tenderloin (thanks, Sebastian and Becky!)
Manuscript deadline: 1 March 2011
Editing that I need do before then: Well ... a lot
Target word count: 70,000-75,000
Current word count: 91,810 (gulp)
Total chapters: 12
First word: It
Last word: Friends
Most over-used punctuation: em dash
Elements of Style rules broken: probably all of them
Shortest paragraph: 1 word ("And.")
Longest paragraph: 374 words
Shortest section: 32 words
Longest section: 1,598 words
General section-length target when writing: no more than 800 words
Shortest chapter: Zurich (just barely beating out Brussels)
Longest chapter: Vienna
Median (length) chapter: Amsterdam
Easiest chapters to write: Berlin, Munich, Zurich, Madrid
Amount of time spent on each of those chapters: about two weeks each
Most difficult chapters to write: Paris, Venice
Amount of time spent on those chapters: about a month each
Rough percentage of time spent writing in various locations:
... at desk/table in apartment: 10
... at downtown Minneapolis library: 20
... in easy chair in apartment: 60
... in other locations (e.g. coffee shops, various places while traveling): 10
Percentage written while not wearing pants: 92 (kidding!)
Cities included in "other locations" (i.e. where I wrote on the road): New York City, Boston, Washington DC, Baltimore, Seattle, Key West
Preferred writing fuel: Bolthouse Farms' Blue Goodness Smoothie
Preferred writing music: Pandora station with classical guitar, instrumental jazz/hip-hop, low-key electronic (nothing catchy, nothing with lyrics)
Computer mice killed in the process of writing: 1
Post-It flags currently in my copy of Europe on $5 a Day, marking Important Things I'm not sure I ever got around to mentioning: 12
Books used as sources for research component of writing: at least 20-30 (I'll try to compile a list and post it sometime)
Newspaper/magazine articles: countless
Frequency of selected words in draft:

... tourist, tourists, touristic, or tourism: 433 (!!)

... travel, traveler, or traveling: 269

... Arthur: 229

... Lee: 176

... Mom or mother: 130

... I: 2,092 (Yikes! Well, it is a first-person memoir)

... croissant, pain au chocolat, or pastry: 17

... awkward, awkwardly, nervous, nervously: 14

... whizzer: 1 (regarding Manneken Pis, "the wee whizzer")

The 125 most common words in my current draft

Tour guides with extended cameos in book: 4

Number of those tour guides used as case study of everything wrong with tourism: 1

Readers of various sections and/or the proposal that started this all: 11 (in the aggregate; some have read only a few pages, others have read everything, all were invaluable)
Special thanks to the superstar readers: Hannah, Jason, Frank, Maggie
... And the proposal guru: Dennis
... And especially the sidekick and reader extraordinaire: the one and only Lee
... And! My brilliant and supportive agent and editor, without whom, no book: Elizabeth Evans and Marian Lizzi
Amount of my gratitude to you all: Boundless. (Wow, that really sounds cold and rote when it's just shoved into a list. Really, truly: molto grazie, all; I'm fortunate to have such a good network.)
Amount of time I plan to take off from working on or even thinking about the book before diving headlong into the editing: two weeks
Likelihood of me actually resisting revisiting/tweaking/obsessively worrying in that amount of time: Ha! Probably nil. But it's a goal.
Anxiety that I forgot some important point or left out a crucial scene or didn't include enough history or enough jokes ... or generally screwed up and everyone's gonna hate it: Pretty high, to be honest
General contentment with how it's all turned out, in spite of the above: Also pretty high. Go figure.

By the numbers (part IV)

Days on the road: 36
Days left: 4 (sniff)
Cities visited: 10, including current and final city
Current city: Madrid
Miles walked each day: approx. 6-8
Miles walked total: approx. 250
Number of Old World canals fallen into: 0
Rank of overnight train from Vienna to Venice among most restless, uncomfortable nights of my life (bouts of serious illness excepted): top 5
Thought upon seeing sun rise over Italian hillsides: Okay, well, maybe that was worth it.
Time of day Arthur says you should arrive in Venice: night
Time of day I say you should arrive: morning or later afternoon, when the long shadows make the city feel that much more dramatic and atmospheric.
Gondola rides taken: 0
Photos taken of gondolas: roughly 20
Photos I am probably in, taken by others from gondolas: probably a hundred (really)
Location of best pizza consumed so far: Amsterdam
Location of best meal so far: Madrid, last night
Total cost of said meal, including beer and appetizer: 10.35 euros (that's cheap by European standards)
Pastries consumed: Oh, you know. A lot.
Pastries consumed in Rome: 0 (that's right)
Gelato consumed in Rome: Well, are we talking flavors or times I went to gelaterias?
Uh ... let's start with gelaterias patronized: at least 6
Flavors consumed: let's say 14. That sounds about right.
Favorite flavors: lemon torta and chocolate wine, ordered together, at Gelateria del Teatro (as discussed in an earlier post)
Price of the gelato Arthur says you should eat as your final act in Rome: 9 euros
My opinion of said gelato: low
Price of small-ish serving of aforementioned two flavors at Gelateria del Teatro, which I ate immediately after the inferior gelato, in hopes of rebooting my palate and giving Rome a more appropriate final act: 2.50 euros
Price of a typical medium gelato at a good stand in Rome: 3 euros
Rank of Victor Emmanuel statue in Rome among equestrian statues in the world: first (according to my tour guide)
Size of Signore Emmanuel's moustache on said statue: 1.3 meters long
Primary web site for online ticket sales for Madrid bullfights: Ticketmaster subsidiary (but of course)
Maximum price of a ticket to this evening's bullfight: 63.40 euros
Minimum price: 2.90 euros (!)
Location of cheapest seats: in the nosebleeds, in the sun
Price of my ticket: 8.50 euros
My response to what you just thought: Yes, I went. Arthur insisted. Long story to be told later.
General impression of bullfight: Really? People find this entertaining? It's just not a fair fight. The outcome is never in doubt. It's just ... not very interesting, even with the pageantry and funny costumes.
Times when the Prado Museum in Madrid is free, according to Arthur (i.e. in 1963): Saturday afternoons
Times when it's free now: the hour and a half prior to closing every day; longer on Sundays

By the numbers (part III)

Days on the road: 25
Days left: 15
Cities visited: 6
Current city: Vienna (Wien)
Cities left: 4
Trains taken (not counting subways, trams, and other local transit): 11
Maximum number of trains in one day: 5
Trains we should have taken that day, if the info desk woman in Munich hadn't given us completely erroneous information: 1
Countries Lee visited semi-illegally on that day: 1 (the detoured route took us through Austria, which wasn't included on his Eurail pass)
Comment by Lee as we slipped into Switzerland without event: "This is just like 'The Sound of Music'--I have evaded the authorities and fled Austria!"
Travel days used up on my Eurail pass: 5
Travel days left: 3
Didgeridoo-playing street performers seen: 3
City with best street performers overall: Copenhagen (no contest)
City with worst: Amsterdam
Pastries consumed: lost count. Probably 50-ish.
Panang curries consumed: 3
Way that Panang curry at dive-y restaurant in depressed neighborhood in outer Zurich was probably prepared: from a can
Price of said curry: 19.50 CHF (Swiss francs)
Price of presumably-authentic fondue in fancy restaurant in hip neighborhood in central Zurich: 22.00 CHF
Current exchange rate of CHF to dollars: about 1.05 CHF to $1.00 (that is, nearly even)
Price of a Big Mac value meal in Zurich (not that I had one): 11.40 CHF
Price of a single Whopper in Zurich (ditto): 7.00 CHF
Price of a really good rotisserie chicken lunch, with rustic roll, in the very heart of Zurich: 9.50 CHF
Price of a 20 oz. bottle of Coke at same restaurant: 5.00 CHF
As you will have surmised, amount that Swiss pricing is consistent or seems to conform to any logic: apparently none
Price of a room at the Sternon Oerlikon in Zurich, circa 1963: $3, including breakfast
Price of a room in 2009: 145 CHF, not including breakfast (apparently)
Adjectives Arthur uses to describe said hotel: rustic, quiet, old-fashioned
Adjectives I'd use: loud, ugly, clearly geared toward business travelers with expense accounts and a high tolerance for the greatest interior design hits of 1986
Highest price of a watch seen displayed in a Zurich shop window: 94,700 CHF
Weirdest item seen on a menu: foal
Europe's most popular food, and the most readily-available in every city I've visited: doner kebab
Favorite kebab-stand name: Kebabistan (in Copenhagen)
Second-favorite: Ali Kebab . . . or maybe it was Ali Kebaba (Zurich)
Favorite typo on English sign in restaurant: "menü's" (the rare misplaced-umlaut AND apostrophe double whammy!)
Historic Munich beer halls/gardens patronized: 4
Drinks consumed, aside from beer, that I had not had before: 4 (Old Fashioned, Manhattan, Sazerac, Havana Club rum)
Status of my mother's eyebrows after reading those last two items: arched in alarm
Number of said drinks that were consumed mostly because of the intrigue of imbibing something that is probably illegal in my homeland: 1 (Havana Club, presumably from Cuba; Lee, a bartender, had not heard of it.)
Minimum number of one-line in-jokes that Lee and I established, and which are Very Funny if you know the full context and back history: 4
List of said in-jokes: "the contessa"; "African click language"; "narrative!"; "yeah, we're famous."
Minimum number of instant crushes developed on women on bikes: 138
Number of said women who have spotted me, swooned, and nearly plowed into a canal/windmill/castle/Rodin statue, only to be saved by yours truly at the last minute: ... zero
Number of said women who have even made eye contact: zero
Eccentric pink-fluffy-bathrobe-wearing women approached by in Zurich park, with request for a kiss: 1
Headwear of said woman: plush flower pot hat
Minimum number of cats we were guessing she owned when we first spotted her: 20
Our reaction as she approached us: "It's about a 20-foot drop down this cliff. We can probably make it with minimal injury."
Level of our relief when we discovered that she was basically normal, that the outfit and kiss request were part of a bachelorette party hazing ritual, and that she did not reek of cat urine: palpable
Kisses granted: 4 (2 per cheek from each of us)
Comment to her friends for picking outfit that was just weird enough to be humiliating but plausible (and therefore more embarassing than, say, a tutu): Well done.
Swiss celebrities I can name: Roger Federer (the tennis player)
His native language, to the best of my knowledge: French
Language I assumed they spoke in Zurich, based in this information and Arthur's lack of comments to the contrary: French
Language they actually speak: German with random French and English touches, just to confuse you

By the numbers: midpoint report

Days on the road: 20
Days left: 20
Cities visited: 5 (Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Brussels, Berlin, Munich)
Cities left: 5
Current city: Munich
Frommer-recommended item I am most hoping does not still exist: "liver-cheese" at a place in the Munich train station
Amount of time left until we head out, with dread, to find it: approx. 30 minutes
Pre-emptive Pepto-Bismol tablets I am going to take momentarily: as many as I can fit in my mouth
Times I have consumed the Pope's favorite beer (Augustiner): 2
Truly bizarre nightclubs Frommer recommends in Berlin: at least 3
Number still open: 0
Entertainment-district bars we patronized in a valiant attempt to discern how nightlife has changed in Berlin in the last generation: 2
Interior design style of the first bar: Neo-Steampunk-Hobbit-Junkyard-Beach Hut Revival
Rank of the first bar among the most sketchy I have ever entered: top 3
Rank of second bar among the most classy I have ever entered: top 3
Times Lee has made me consume weird foods/drinks out of "spirit of adventure": at least 4
Languages mangled (not including English): 4
Average number of languages used in each of my typically-flustered attempt to order pastries: 3
Example of such ordering: "Deux croissant und ein jugo de naranja, please."
Walking tours taken: 3
Pastries consumed: approx. 42
Best pastry so far: chocolate croissant at Melly's Cookie Bar in Amsterdam
Worst pastry so far: Beignet at an incredibly pretentious, fancy-looking place called Paul, just off the Grand Place in Brussels
Waffles consumed in Belgium: 2
Number of said waffles that had toppings other than sugar, and therefore marked me as a tourist: 2
Level that I cared, given that the chocolate sauce and ice cream were so damn delicious: 0
Disappointing statues that I really can't believe are tourist landmarks: 2 (Little Mermaid, Manneken-Pis)
Museums visited: approx. 8
Maximum number of museums visited in one day: 3
Number of the museums on that day that were free: 3 (hell yes!)
Miles walked per day: approx. 6
Total miles walked so far: approx. 120
Pirate bars patronized: 1
Mexican restaurants patronized: 1
Minimum number of non-Mexican cultures mistakenly represented in the ostensibly-authentic decor: 4
Quality of nachos there: appealingly mediocre
Quality of tacos: unspeakably foul
Rank of the Glockenspiel in Munich among most overrated tourist attractions in Europe, according to a recent poll (per our tour guide): 2
(Location of most disappointing: Prague)
Age of the New Town Hall in Munich, relative to the Old Town Hall: older

By the numbers

Cities visited: 2
Cities to go: 8
Museums visited: approx. 4
Amusement parks visited: 1 (Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen)
Pirate-themed bars patronized: 1
Level of theming in said pirate bar: lackluster, disappointing
Frommer-approved restaurants eaten in: just 1
Varieties of tours taken: 3 (walking, boat, bike)
Chocolate croissants consumed: approx. 8
Other pastries consumed: approx. 8
Number of bikes, in thousands, recovered from Amsterdam canals annually: 25
Number of bikes fallen off (by me): 1
Bike-falls into canal (by me): 0, so far
Rank of falling-off-bike-and-into-Amsterdam-canal as killer of my mother's high school acquaintences, at least as far as I've heard: 1
(Number of her classmates drowned in said canals: 1)
Level of my fear of meeting this demise: high
Tourists in Amsterdam killed by trams each year: 2
Times I have almost become one of those two: 2
Population of Copenhagen: approx. 1.7 million
Number of bikes in Copenhagen: approx. 2.5 million
Most common variety of look given by passersby upon seeing my copy of E5D: confusion
Second-most-common: scorn
Fantastic street performers seen in Copenhagen: at least 5
In Amsterdam: 0
Percentage of Amsterdam street performers who are tone-deaf hippies strumming broken guitars, presumably hoping for some spare change for weed: approx. 95
Number of Amsterdam museums that I really can't believe actually exist: at least 5 (Handbags & Purses, Vodka, Erotic, Cannabis, Sex)