Onward!!

In the vein of impulse decisions (like buying a suit this past weekend) I could have made a snap decision to move into a flat I viewed today.

Pros: It’s clean and quiet (the others are all PhD students), there’s plenty of space with a large kitchen and a living room, there’s a garden and two bathrooms. It’s all furnished and seemed warm, though my room would be on the ground floor.

Cons: Maybe the guy doing most of the talking when I went round emphasized cleanliness a little overtly. “It is very important for us to have the place very clean”. I’m all for a weekly cleaning rota and cleaning up after myself in the kitchen but I’d hate to end up with passive-aggressive “please clear the plughole of any hairs after you shower” notes passed under my door. Also, it’s not ideal in terms of transport – a mile and a half (so most likely on a bus in the mornings) to the tube, after which a mercifully short 15 minute ride to Holborn. I’ve never lived on a tube line – is that standard? I guess I could walk it for exercise. The room is also pretty small with no real room for a desk but on the other hand I’ve never learned to study at a desk at home, hell – to study in general! The desk in my current room has seen me do other things than pile paper on it maybe once or twice during the past half year.

Oh, and a big minus – agency fees. They’d fall on me as I am the reason they have to draw up a new contract (don’t ask me, English estate agents confound all logic) and that’s something like £150-200 on top of the returnable deposit that I simply wouldn’t get back. So in a way, it’d be £33.33 per month extra rent (still keeping it manageable I guess). And of course if I do end up staying in London and not going to one of the other universities I’m thinking about (just how did this MSc business become my goal in life anyway?) I’d have to cough up again as the contract is extended in late August. Or I could move again I guess. Sigh.

Comments appreciated. No, really. This place would be a massive load off my back but the list of cons above is daunting. But will they be similar in any other place? Maybe. Aargh.

I’m sitting in a Starbucks on the corner of Dallas and Main in Houston, having managed to get some free internet access and have been talking to people in Houston, Johannesburg and London. How weird.

This holiday is nearly over. In a matter of hours I’ll be at the airport, and all that’s left is to pack everything including the clothes I’ve bought and eat something nice.

There’s been a lot of relaxing and chilling after Christmas and New Years. After Machu Picchu we spent a night in Pisac and I had a chance to see the ruins overlooking the town. They were really impressive, in many ways grander than Machu Picchu, certainly in terms of scale. With agricultural terracing flowing with the contours of the mountain, cascading down into the valley, you could not be unimpressed with the Incas.

Pisac itself was a little sleepy town with a large market catering to the tourists. On the Sunday, the market swelled to accommodate locals selling all types of food, with the indigenos bringing fresh ears of corn cooking up thick Andean soups that smelled delicious. I could have stayed both in Pisac and Ollantaytambo for longer, not because they necessarily had much in the way of tourist things (they didn’t) but because the vibes were nice, unhurried and relaxed. Too bad we had to leave for Cusco the next morning.

One thing I do prefer in Lima over the Andes is the food I’ve had. All the fresh seafood here is incredible. They mix with Asian and colonial influences to make a cuisine that really rocks. I’ll miss ceviche in London, that’s for sure. Yeah, you could conceivably make something similar, but will the fish be as nice and fresh? There won’t be the delicious camote sweet potato or the monstrous corn accompanying it.

I’d like to come back here. It would be an amazing trip to go up to the jungle and riverboat my way down toward the Amazon. I had my shoes shined in town and the guy asked whether I’d liked Peru. “Si, si, muy bonita” I replied, and responded affirmatively when he asked “Come back, next year?” Yeah, it would be cool to, especially with a person who knows the language.

I won’t lie, I do miss London a lot. I miss the people there and a lot of the cultural aspects too. I don’t miss university and the grind it’ll inevitably be. My Uni friends were right when they said that I was insane taking three books to read over the break – I’ve made progress on none of them. Oh well, things tend to work out a certain way so hopefully this won’t be an exception. From what I’ve been able to make out, the planes we’re taking back to Europe have the latest video on demand equipment, meaning that should I not be able to sleep it’s unlikely I’d be reading over watching some crap on tv.

Have my new earphones last longer than 9 months and a bit, which is what my Sennheisers worked for. To be fair, I used them heavily and handled them less-than-stellarly, but still the usual contact error in the cable pisses me off.

edit Jan 5: OK so I’ve ordered another pair. £16.99, wow. Well, I guess I listen to enough music to make them worth it. Hopefully they’ll be waiting for me when I get back to London. Fun, this internet ordering business.