India: Taj Mahal

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I woke up in Agra at 5am, to visit the Taj. I skipped showering and it was cool outside, and I felt cold for the first time in India. I set out with two girls from my dorm whose names I either never learned or forgot. They were American and had been travelling for years. A lot of people I’ve met this country have been on the road for a year or more; it seems India is somewhere you only really hit up if you’ve got at least a little bit of backpacking know-how. I’m glad I do – the culture shock of India without a warm up in Vietnam and Cuba would have been bone-shattering. Continue reading

India: Stolen Bunks and Squat Toilets

Background-Website-FinalWoke 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

India: The (Rough) Plan

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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

The Berlin Dairies – Time’s Almost Up

minimalism-1519045758340-3448It’s the 19th of February, and these dairies have been running on for 18 months now. They’ve become less frequent, sure, partly because I’ve got used to life in the city and therefore am less inspired to write a 3000 word dirge fresh off the heels of yet another evening’s ketamine and kebab consumption, and also partly because I have, through no fault of my own (honest) been drunk a LOT. We’re not talking Oliver Reed or Shane MacGowan levels of astoundingly ever-twatted, there’s no need to worry, but certainly enough booze quaffed over a 6 month period to reopen Bärenquell Brauerei for a long weekend. Continue reading

Waiting On India

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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

Jill

Last week, on a sunny Thursday evening after work, I’d had a couple of beers with friends who were heading off to watch the rugby. I said goodbye, and hopped on a bus home. I was on the back seat and watched the bus slowly fill with people. An old woman stepped on, and headed straight for my back seat. She asked me if I minded her sitting next to me, and I smiled and shifted along to give her more room. I didn’t pay her much attention. She was wearing a pink t-shirt, and had her hair in a ponytail. She didn’t look very old, for an old person. Continue reading