SocialWasteland

Oh dear oh dear oh dear… Where does one begin..? As I make my plans for departure from London I am reminded that I havent written a blog while I have been here. An entire month dearest reader, such a long time for us to be apart! You see, unlike the country where I left all of you darlings at, Morocco, the cost of internet in London Town is a little, well, AGGHHHHHHHH!!!! And so it is only now, that I have my own little netbook of love and joy, that I have the cost effective manner in which to communicate my misadventures to you. Now, bear with me, I really am thinking back a month to recount my tales and I have been very drunk of late. Now the truth is that I cant really ... read more

Sorry for the delay, travelling with other people means that you have to really find time to get to a computer... also no time for editing or spelling checks. sorry! cont. The sahara: Evocative little name 'aint it. It conjours up great hocking gobs of images of rolling sand and the endless sky, people struggling along on lonely yet majestic desert voyages and a wilderness so dauntinly beautiful that it has retained a certain sense of mystery all throughout the world. Nothing can really prepare you for the Sahara and even its arrival is can come as quite a shock. We had been driving for five hours already and the landscape had been gradually changing. Slowly left behind were the stone lined hills and arid feilds only to be replaced by sandy groud and those evocative ... read more

Les Jacarandas I wandered around the medina or Rabat today, full of hectic locals buying everything from bootleg DVDs, to the most amawing smelling herbs: corriander and thyme by the cartful. I experienced the Atlantic Ocean for the first time afterwards then took a look up at the beautfil Kasbah aith its painted and lovingly adorned entrances. I was pleasantly suprised to find that growing in one corner was a beautiful, flowering Jacaranda. Home, it seems, can come from the most unlikely things.... read more

Thank Cod for Rabat Casablanca brings forth in my mind the words of Banjo Patterson in my favorite poem, "Clancy of the Overflow": "And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city, Through the open window floating, spreads it foulness over all" As an introduction to Morocco Casablanca can be likened to showing a new tourist to Australia the town of Nambour. On a very bad day. After a small civil war. It is a filthy business town which neither sees many tourists nor wants many tourists. It is a place for businessmen to come and work. To scramble about their day in a surrounding whose sole purpose is brief, financial and contrived. And while i can only assume i will have a different attitude to the city by the time i make ... read more

And so it begins, (or, The things ive learnt about international travel in the last 24 hours) I find myself at a thankfully free internet terminal in abu dhabi airport at midnight. Thankful in part for the freeness and in in another part because it is midnight outside and dipping to a very chilly 33 degrees celcius. I am on a time limit so i will just list a few points i have been thinking about interntional travel. 1. Lingua Franca internationalle baby! Every single native english speaking person has an almost intollerably wonderful advantage in the world of international travel. Singapore.... English signs, English speakers, The United Arab Emirates.... English signs, English speakers.... All native english speakers are frickin lucky and should damn well appreciate it! 2. Read your itinerary... otherwise you do silly ... read more