Today I handed over my keys to my landlord. I now don't live anywhere or have a job, and from tomorrow I won't own any property. There is a Trev on the loose. I was visiting family earlier in the week and we were watching a show on nightmare travel experiences. Great stuff just before you go on an adventure. It didn't actually make me worry though. All the stories came from people who had really got themselves into silly situations. They were also surrounded by people who were trying to help them. The only person giving them problems was often themselves.
Things are so connected now that a brief whatsapp to some people when I land will let them know I am fine. I intend to keep up my daily blogging. I am going on a 22.5 hour flight though, so it may be a case of daily blogging with slightly delayed posting. Hardly a Marco Polo situation. I still have a desire at some stage to put myself in a situation where I am forced to learn a new language by being in a place where no one speaks English. This is not that occasion. Going to Australia and New Zealand reinforces just how much culture is shared across the globe. I felt like that in the US which I visited for the first time last year. When I looked at their history, it was my history too.
I have a growing bugbear about how openly people speak in a derogatory way about immigrants. It seems that now that sexism, racism and homophobia are beyond the tipping point of acceptability, being anti-immigrants is one of the last forms of condoned bigotry. Moaning about immigrants is not cool. Perhaps because I am an immigrant (although I don't consider myself having left anywhere). Any form of ingroup/outgroup moaning about 'them' making 'our' lives difficult without any empathy is going to be very embarrassing one day.
The notion of nation states is very young. The Marco Polos of this world did put themselves at risk but they could also travel freely into the dangerous unknown. I would love a world where people could move freely and be welcomed wherever they obey the law of the land they find themselves. A world of global citizens free from Xenophobia.
Leaving for the airport
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