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Published: August 22nd 2006
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Sunset over Sarf London
Sunset over Sarf London I paid the balance on my round the world ticket this morning. It's done! All that remains now is to find the cash to pay for my insurance and my placement in Bolivia - maybe I should pawn off all the clothes I don't wear including those Cacharel dresses - and get the bank to agree to give me a loan to cover me until I've worked for a bit in Oz and saved for the South American adventures. Easy....
It's now about 10 weeks until I leave my job writing for a financial magazine in London, about 5 weeks until I move out of my flat in Brixton into my mate's pad in Hackney to save a few £, and about 11 weeks until I cut off from every single thing, possession, person and habit I've accumulated/clung to for the last seven years of my life and trot into the unknown. There's a fine line between stupid and clever, Nigel Tuffnell said that so he would know. Or was it Derek Smalls...
Either way the idea is to live the oposite life to what I've been living in London Town, and see if I can do it, while meeting plenty of people who do, and seeing some of the places that I've been reading up on for the past couple of years in the Economist, Wikipedia and Rough Guides (and when I was at school, my geography textbooks and my dad's Newsweek and National Geographic collection) to try and learn about. In particular I want to try as many new foods as possible, because I'm a gannet, and then learn about the different politics, history and ideologies that mark different countries, in particular how socialism works when it is a dominant force. (the UK's Labour Party doesn't count as a 'socialist' party anymore - Labour is the New Tory, Tory is the New Labour - it's all fucked). To really learn this stuff I guess you have to live within a community for a little while, because passing through as a tourist only gives you a passing glance at the places that have been prettifed for your foreign eyes. When my parents used to take me and my brother to our luxury timeshare on the Costa del Sol every year of our childhood, I used to sneak out of the apartment just as the sun was coming up and go exploring the town and the beach on my own, always coming back before anyone woke up; I was totally fascinated by what seemed so exotic, and so far away from anything I knew (it was only the Costa del Sol!), and it felt so exciting to be exploring alone, walking on wet sand which was cold because it was still pretty dark, seeing the roads with no one on them. White-washed villas and palm trees, janitors cleaning pools...the lights of distant fishing boats twinkling way out on the edge of the sea...it was all so beautiful and intoxicating to a 12 year old girl from Surrey. But how was I to ever know back then that Spain had a history, one that contains so much colourful culture, but also so much bloodshed, invasion, religious persecution.... it is still one of my favourite countries but few poeple stop to think about what came before the Irish pubs and frozen paellas.
I should say that I think of myself as more pro-Capitalist than Socialist (I don't fully subscribe to either). Both regimes have good and bad points as anything in life does, and a mixture of the two seems to be the way more successful parts of Europe operate (and now China, and look at it's economy)...but Bolivia has a Socialist government, for example, and it will be really interesting to find out how - if - this works at street level as oposed to the extensive reading I've been doing about other Socialist societies, the well known ones that end up repressing their people because power in any form eventually corrupts, n'est pa? Also I find that stauch socialists tend to be very fiery in their arguments, and usually very articulate too making for persuasive and compelling oratory, but they are usually backward-looking and offer no practical solutions to the world's ills. They are dreamers - but so am I.
The arguments against capitalism are well worn also, as are the ills perceived to come from capitalism - but free markets let the people decide what they want and how to provide it, and allow competition, and free speech to a better degree. As a financial journalist I believe in these ideals and see them in evidence every day, but most financial journalists are also raging hippy lefties even if they won't admit it - me too - so I'm open to all arguments and will let my eyes show me what works for who.
I'm supposed to be taking work experience at Los Tiempos newspaper in Bolivia, so I'll annoy the journalists there by asking them what they see going on in that regard. (Perhaps they will not want to talk about it: perhaps they will all love their government. Who knows?) At the moment my knowledge in these areas is minute, but my interest is huge, so I admit that I go into it totally ignorant and ready to learn. I am sure I'll see and hear lots of things that are uncomfortable for a coddled middle class, white British girl, but I'll see and hear it for myself. Therein lies the whole reason for going. Oh and I'll have to remember to chill the fuck out and have fun while on this investigative project.
I have forogtten to mention there that my first few months away will be in Australia, preceeded by 5 days in Japan, so that will make the first part of the trip as different to the second as I imagine you can get. (The first month will be the chilling out part). Or maybe not! Maybe it is a small world after all. I guess I'll know in due course. Maybe I'll read this blog back in a few months and then claw my own eyes out for having been so incredibly ignorant.
But Jesus Christ, I'll miss London - going from Camden indie club to Mayfair eatery (on a Toptable deal, naturally), from TopShop to Brixton market, from symphonies at the Royal Albert Hall (£5 standing tickets at the Proms, natch) to gigs at my favourite piss-soaked, scuzzy venues... this city is a girl-about-town's wet dream.
It would be easy to stay and live like this forever. But nothing lasts forever!
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