The Other Side

Apart from ‘only footprints and smiles’, we have found ourselves needing to leave a few things behind as we’ve moved around so far. I thought it could be interesting to keep track of them. It could also be really tedious, but we’ll just see how it goes…

• Tickets, brochures and receipts. Nearly everywhere. Either too heavy or useless.
• My sunglasses. Fethiye. Broken by being sat on, replaced.
• Jodi Picoult, ‘My Sister’s Keeper’. Gulet, Olympos to Fethiye. Finished, donated to girl from Adelaide.
• My yellow Havaianas and brown ‘dressy’ sandals. Olympos. Consolidated into one pair brown Havaianas.
• Geraldine Brooks, ‘The People of the Book’. Goreme. Finished, swapped books with AJ from Orange.
• Al’s sunglasses. Istanbul. Broken by being sat on, replaced.
• My replacement sunglasses. Istanbul. Broken by being sat on, replaced in Zadar.
• Al’s replacement sunglasses. Istanbul. Left on bench at light rail stop, replaced in Zadar.
• My white long-sleeved top. Istanbul. Coffee stained despite professional washing.
• Elizabeth Kostova, ‘The Historian’. Sighetu Marmatiei. Finished, swapped with book in hostel library.
• Al`s replacement replacement sunglasses. Mostar. Broken mysteriously, not yet replaced.

It has become a travel routine of ours to wrap all our pens in several layers of duct tape. Weird, yes. But it saves bringing a big separate roll of duct tape, and can come in very handy later on.

These are some of ways our trusty duct tape has helped us so far:

1. Holding up a broken toilet seat lid – dodgy hostel, Beyoglu, Istanbul
2. Patching a leak in Al’s back cushion – bus rides, Turkey
3. Covering a broken air con vent to stop it blowing directly into my face – overnight bus, Turkey
4. Making Al’s new Crumpler backpack look old and worn out (like the duct tape was holding it together) as an anti-theft precaution, when we left it behind for a few weeks with the winter clothes we didn’t need yet – unattended hostel luggage room, Istanbul
5. Covering the tip of the pen we lost the lid for, so it won’t leak through our bag (lesson learned after I found a huge black ink stain on my jeans and my skin underneath) – bus, Zagreb to Zadar

More to come, I’m sure!