Woke up hungover and dehydrated yet again. Hangovers are always worse in hot countries because you sweat all your water out in the night and your liver has a nightmare. I usually wake up just as drunk as I went to bed. Got showered and dressed and ate something from the hostel kitchen – I forget the name but it was an Indian wrap and it was astoundingly delicious. Continue reading
backpacking
India: Tombs and Temples and Booze
Alright, I’m reasonably sober and fed and hydrated now. So, before I jump into the narrative of what’s gone on, let me first list interesting things I have found in Indian culture: Continue reading
India: The (Rough) Plan
It’s all so close, goodness me, it’s all so very close now. I can almost smell the runway tarmac. I can almost taste the soggy airport sandwiches. I can almost hear the grating rumble of 20-something girls insisting on dragging their miniscule suitcases over the cobbled ground– PICK IT UP FOR FUCK’S SAKE SARAH IT WEIGHTS ABOUT 15 GRAMS MY GOD –I can almost see the rooftops of Berlin shrinking majestically below me.
So I’m flying to Delhi on the 1st of March. My last day at work is the 23rd of February. Back to the UK for two nights to bid loved ones farewell and drop off any shit I don’t want to inevitably lose on the road, then a quick return to Berlin for two days of goodbye-ing, then away. That’s the plan as far as you know it thus far. I have since planned in a tad more detail. Continue reading
Waiting On India
This image has absolutely no relevance to the article. Great album cover though, right?!
Seven fucking weeks and I’m getting giddy, man. I don’t have a long winter stretching ahead and the slow climb into summer and living tree branches – I’ve got this gorgeous gleaming severance, a runaway, a hop and a skip and a great big fuck off all the merry long dance to sunny Elsewhere. And it’s this that’s keeping me going through this cold sad winter – filling every day with dreams of hostel beds and foreign bars, mountains and heat cracked motorways and all of it, all smashing together, clacking like marbles, clacking like judging tongues. Continue reading
The Berlin Diaries – Seven Weeks Left
Fifty one. Fifty one days is all that remains of Berlin. I ain’t coming back here once I leave, you can’t do that. I’ll never live in Newcastle again, never Sheffield, never Berlin. Happy memories in all, of course – and that’s the way I want to keep it. If you meddle too much with the cheerful snapshots that crowd your mind, you risk tarnishing them with your greasy daft fingerprints. Continue reading
Soooo I’m Leaving Berlin and Moving to India
Prague Day 3: I Did Something Terrible
MEGA QUICK RECAP: On Day 1, Alfie, Dave and I were forced to sleep rough. On Day 2 we irritated some Australians.
*****
It was our last full day in Prague, and so far our breezy trio had seen not one jot of the city – save for the various doorways and alleyways that we shivered in trying to snap up a wink of sleep in the midst of the bellows of Storm Herfna or Heroshi or whatever it was called. Crap storm anyway. I’ve had more ferocious bouts of wind. Goodness, aren’t I rather forthcoming and jubilant today? That’s what happens when I have my first coffee in a week. Better than crack. Not that I’ve ever smoked crack. As far as I know.
ANYWAY. Continue reading
Prague Day 2: Pissing Off Australians
After our sleepless storm-hammered odyssey the previous evening, Dave, Alfie and I were finally allowed to crumble into our bunks at 3pm. I awoke three hours later; I was overtired and couldn’t sleep for nauseating nightmare flashes. It was dark and we’d missed the whole day, and we didn’t have the will or the strength to venture out again that evening in search of a party. Being homeless in a foreign city during a storm tends to quench your thirst for adventure a little. Continue reading
Prague Day 1: Sleeping Rough (or, What Happens When You Rely On Dave To Book Your Hostel)
Dave had been prodding me in the ribs and asking about Prague for a couple of weeks. Petra and Leslie were driving down there for one night over the bank holiday weekend, and he wanted to road trip down with them. I wasn’t super keen – seemed like a long way to go for one night. However, a week or so ago I went for a beer with Hannah, and she mentioned she was heading down as well on the same weekend. Well, this was starting to sound more like a party. I told Dave next day and we booked a coach to Prague on the Saturday. We would dick about for a couple of nights, and Leslie and Petra would meet us on the Monday.
I was originally going to end that introduction with the tired old hook, ‘what could go wrong?’, however if you know me or have read anything at all on this site, you’ll know that really, that question is redundant. Of course everything went wrong. Of fucking course it did. Continue reading
The Berlin Diaries: Berlinniversary!
Right: Shut it.
Do not speak a word, idle reader. Do not utter a sound; for this day, this wonderful day, doth mark my one year anniversary. My Berlinniversary, as it were. Continue reading