When I meet Tim for the first time it’s in the farm’s kitchen. I’ve heard rumours he’s a vegan so I say the obvious thing. “So, I hear you’re a vegan.” Straight faced and stern he replies back. “No. I’m not a vegan.” Tim has long blonde hair tied behind his head and a large dark beard with grey patches. His voice is a laid back drawl and he gestures slowly with his hands. My immediate impression from how he looks: hippy. But I don’t let the thought stick.
I stumble upwards, crawling my way up boulders, heading for the summit one hundred feet above. I’ve been hiking since dawn, my body aches, but I scramble forwards anyway.
Although the sun is hidden by the trees I know it’s going down quickly. The sky is turning from blue to purple, the first sign that the day is ending. My hands painfully scrape the rocks but I know it’ll be worth it. There’s a view waiting at the top. A view. What the hell is a “view” anyway?
Rewind 15 years. I’m 10 years old. My dad is driving the family along a steep country road. As the road winds around hills, I feel my stomach starting to turn. Motion sickness. I groan and my mam turns around. “Don’t worry. We’re nearly there.” Moments later I’m dry heaving into a plastic bag as the car stops. My parents scramble out of the car and look out at the “view”. Perfect green hills roll away from us, going on forever, disappearing into a misty distance. “Look at that view!” my mam says. “Isn’t it beautiful?!” I look out. I see. Well. Hills. Nothing but a load of bloody hills. Big deal! My mother smiles happily and I promptly vomit on the ground. No view in the world could be worth this.
This is standing. In the cold. With your thumb up. Praying that somebody is kind enough to stop.
This is hating every mother fucker that doesn’t, because they think you’re a rapist. A murderer. A crack addict. Or just another human being.
This is three hours spent in the rain. Watching people drive along in empty mini-busses. Guzzling up fuel. This is expensive cars. Pick-up trucks. Eighteen wheelers. Motorcycles. Dune buggies. Tour busses. Not stopping. Ever.
This is knowing that there’s no point in putting your thumb up for an RV because only two types of people drive them: old retirees and families – neither of which want you. This is putting your thumb up for an RV anyway, in the small hope that they will stop. They don’t.
This is the police pulling up. This is looking like trouble. This is them giving you a bottle of water because it’s a hot day. This is a “good luck, kid”. A pat on the back. A smile.
Have you ever had a perfect moment? I have. Many times. But once you have one perfect moment you become addicted. All you ever want is perfect moments, you search for them everywhere and will go to great lengths to get them. With this in mind I set off for Redwoods National Park in California. Where the trees rise so far into the sky that you can’t even see their tips. The types of trees that can be one second majestic and the next pure evil – but always truly beautiful.
As June comes to an end the strawberries start to go downhill. There’s so many just sitting there in the fields that it would be a waste to let them all rot away. So we pick them all, hoping to make jam. For three hours I toil with some Mexican girls and I just about finish a bucket. The girls speak in Spanish to each other and laugh. I know what they’re laughing about. They’ve picked 4 buckets in the exact same space of time. I feel dejected.
I’m going on a date tonight.
It’s the talk of the farm. Everyone is whispering about it. Yesterday the big news was the goats escaping – but today I finally have my 15 minutes of farmyard fame. It was a close run of course between my date and the woman who picked 30 pounds of strawberries. I won out in the end though. Tonight I’m going on a date, I’m the top of the gossip heirachy.
I go to see so many films at the cinema when I’m home that you’d think that would be the thing I’d miss the most. Not so. The thing I always end up missing while I’m away is music.
Until you live a life without music you don’t realise how important it is. Nowadays we listen to music so much that it’s a major factor in our lives and how we view ourselves. We all have soundtracks that we pick each day – whether consciously or subconscious – to play along while we make our memories.
Some days we feel bad so we decide to listen to Radiohead. Other days we feel good so choose to play a little Alphabeat. Sometimes though we just choose random music – seemingly for no reason – but really there is a reason, we just consciously don’t know what it is.
Cairo is a smoggy hell-hole, where the polluted air sticks constantly in your throat and you spend the last 10 minutes of every day pulling black snot from your nose. If you want proof that CO2 emissions are hurting the planet – the only thing you have to do is go to Cairo and breathe. You’ll taste the Earth’s pain in your mouth, (if your taste buds haven’t burnt away) and you’ll no doubt wonder “how could anybody live here, let alone come here on holiday?” The usual escape would be a hotel room. A little bit of peace and quiet in your own space. But the ever present car horns of Cairo’s streets travel through even the thickest of walls, and for SOME unknown reason your travel partner has booked you into the only hostel in Cairo hosting an all-day, 72 hour Islamic festival.
Now I have nothing against festivals at all. I love them. The music, the dancing, the drugs. These things are all fantastic and I don’t mind people doing them at all… just as long as they’re doing them nowhere near me! Music is noisy, dancing is for people who enjoy looking like tits and the less I say about drugs the better.
But hell, I’m kind. If you want to play a little music and do a little dancing, who am I to object? Have your festival!
In central Kiev it’s cheaper to get a prostitute than it is to get a decent quality meal. With the former it’s almost guaranteed that they’ll “make good times for you”, with the latter you’ll end up crying into a bitter grapefruit juice, while wretching down jellied eels – after your toga wearing waitress takes your order incorrectly.
Why the hell would your waitress be wearing a toga? Because you’re in a Roman themed restaurant. Why the fuck are you in a Roman themed restaurant? Well it was either that or the pirate themed one. In Kiev the cream of the restaurant crop are all themed. If you want good food, be prepared to talk to somebody dressed in a loin-cloth and if you want a bit of variety there’s always the Jewish-themed restaurant.
You arrive in a strange new country with a wad of bank notes and nothing much else. You’re desperate for the toilet and thankfully an airport urinal relieves your pain. After your business is finished you decide to wash your hands – it’s the civilized thing to do after all – and as you look around for a way to dry up you see a kindly Arab man holding out a paper towel. What do you do?
A/ Wipe your hands on your pants – aint nobody handing me a towel.
B/ Thank the kind Arab gentleman before you, take the towel and dry your hands before leaving.
C/ Unroll your pile of new currency – realising you only have large notes – then throw the lowest note in the man’s face, running from the room and losing 10 English pound in the process.
D/ Dry your hands, calmly shake one of your valuable notes into the man’s hand and strut from the room with a wink.
If you answered D then you are well on your way to happiness, the man is satisfied, he got his money and you are content because you managed to leave the bathroom without making a scene.
