You've got a friend in me

Most people want to be liked. Most people want friends. I am certainly not different from most people in that respect. I watched Remember Me on Saturday night and was a little upset at the portrayal of bullying towards a really gifted young girl because she was different. I guess while I was pretty different at school, the last time there was any attempt at bullying towards me was when I was 9 – and even then I wasn’t having any of it. I remember the girl in question being very much bigger than me as I was quite the runt in my early days and while I was certainly beaten up in the fight, I made sure she knew there was a fight. Needless to say, after I became the second tallest girl in addition to the rough tomboy I have always been, there was never going to be a question of anyone bullying me.

This is not to say that I did not have my fair share of the popular girls throwing out insults because I was different but it pretty much meant that I evolved quickly into the person that I am now – someone who doesn’t care about people that have no positive impact in my life. As one of introverted disposition, I went through secondary school with the same 4 friends that I made at 9/10 and pretty much kept them as my closest mates – with 2 permanent additions as well as 3 or 4 temporary additions over the course of the subsequent 16 years until the last year or so. I suddenly find myself in the position of having made 5 or 6 proper friends in the last couple of years – a pretty amazing number in my book because after I read somewhere that most people make their friends up until university, I was convinced that my circle would remain 6 strong.

It got me wondering about the rules of friendship, how do some people get to be keepers while others don’t? After much musing, here’s what I think:

1.       It’s a chemistry thing: I accept that there are people that will like me and there are people that won’t. I pretty much know within 15 minutes of meeting someone whether we will get along or not and so far I’ve only been wrong once – who could have predicted that the girl I grudgingly allowed to share an office with me and who I thought could not possibly have anything in common with me would turn out to be one of the most awesome people in my life?

2.       There has to be reciprocity: A really good friend of mine had to write an essay when she was 8 or so about her best friend(s). She wrote a really nice composition about her two best friends only to be devastated when it turned out that they had both written about each other. Till this day she refuses to declare anyone as her best friend. Anyway, if I make all the effort to keep up the friendship, then it’s not really a friendship from my POV. If the other person’s making all the effort it just means I don’t really care.

3.       Even if you haven’t seen each other for years, when you do see each other you pick up from where you last left off: This is indeed true with my friend JT. I could go for months without speaking to her (or indeed communicating with her in any way) yet when we meet up it’s just as though we were still living together in Mauldeth Road.

4.       If you’re not sharing it’s not real: Back when I was in Benin, I went to visit one of the original four and she shocked me by saying “well you never tell us anything” when I asked why I was always the last to know the really private stuff in our group. I’m a little weird in this sense because I often think that if people want to know something about me they should ask me yet I think that if my friends want to share something with me they’ll tell me. I was also raised to believe that dirty laundry should not be aired in public so there’s a naturally secretive element to my personality. However, since she said that to me I made a conscious decision to share even the minutiae of my life with friends and ask them about theirs.

5.       Do unto others as you would be done by: Ok I have twisted this a little bit because as a rule I am more chilled out than most people. If a friend stands me up, that’s Ok as long as it isn’t a regular occurrence. If a friend turns up late, provided they tell me in advance or have a good reason, I’m good too. I’m so laid back I’m horizontal but I realise that some people have higher expectations/different values than I do. I am Nigerian so I have an elastic view of time. While I always aim to be on time, I’m invariably 5 to 10 minutes late. However when a friend mentioned to me that she takes lateness personally, I started making the effort to turn up on time for her.

6.       Don’t do things because you expect your friends to do them back: This might seem contrary to the reciprocity thing but I think it’s slightly different. I think that if my friend asks me to turn up at theirs because they have a crisis of any kind, I would do it in a heartbeat – as long as I was not physically unable to do so – but I don’t expect the same of my friends. I would love to say I was being selfless in this scenario but the truth is I get a high off of making the people I love happy and I accept that it is not necessarily the case with other people.

7.       Call it as you see it: I am not tactful or subtle and neither am I a sensitive soul but I am either honest or I keep quiet. I remember a friend of mine once bought a coat with a fur collar and asked me if I liked it and while I was trying to think of a nice way to say no, my face was scrunched into a “don’t think so” look so she got the message and I burst out laughing. It was early days in the friendship hence the hesitation but I pretty much aim to be the friend that tells you the truth so you don’t have to find out from someone who wouldn’t be telling you with good intentions. Needless to say I love my friends to tell me the truth...even if it is bitter – I’d rather I heard I had kicking breath from them than find out when my date made a swift exit after leaning in for a kiss.

8.       Accept your friend just the way they are: I think some people like their friends to be their clones. While it is lovely to meet people that are really similar, I think the differences make people interesting. Obviously if your ‘friend’ is throwing out snide comments behind your back or trying to engineer your downfall, hotfoot it out of that relationship ASAP! Like someone once told me, they knew they were in love with their (now) husband when they realised that didn’t mind the things that would normally annoy them. Friendship is love without the sex

I wonder if there are any more thoughts........ and I wonder if any of my friends think I’m chatting out of the wrong end of my body because I don’t follow these rules.

*DISCLAIMER: I consider all the people I am friendly with and hang out with who don't tick these boxes "acquaintances" for the purpose of this post. Don't be offended - I'm just telling calling a spade a spade.  

Oops!! I did it again

I like to think of myself as absent minded or eccentric or sometimes even a borderline genius – no I’m not egoistic, it’s so I can understand how the things that happen to me happen to me. This morning I spent 20 minutes trying to find my house keys. Normal people get locked out of their homes. This is the second time that I had managed to lock myself in. I’ve been setting my alarm for half 6 so that I can get the bus to work at 7.30 thus arriving well in time for my 9.00 start. So far, I’ve never actually woken up at that time, I tend to snooze till 7.30 and leave about 45 minutes to get ready.

Invariably at 8.15 I am in a rush to leave as there’s a fine line between arriving at 9.00 or 9.15 and invariably I spend 5 minutes or so looking for something. Yesterday morning it was my travel card, Monday it was my ID card. I usually try to circumvent my natural carelessness by putting things in specific locations. For example, my travel card goes in my left coat pocket with my keys, my phone in the right pocket, my ID card on my neck or in the side pocket of my handbag. Obviously I haven’t been following this ethos recently hence the morning searches.

To cut the story short, I eventually found the damn thing under my newspaper because I had dropped the newspaper and bags by the sofa once I got home. I was in a rush to eat because I was starving. The funniest thing was that I saw the paper as I was getting ready to leave and thought “I am too much in a rush to put that in the recycling bag”. If only I’d known that I would get to work half an hour late, I would have picked the damn thing up!

Klutz-like things I’ve done recently:

·         Forgot my laptops in a taxi – fortunately got them back because the receptionist had seen the company number on the taxi

·         Forgot my suitcase on a train – after much worry that they would destroy it I eventually tracked it down at the station the train terminated at.

·         Left my mobile phone on a train – fortunately I remembered right after the train left and advised the station manager about my seat number and phone details

·         Walked to the station with my dress in my tights – the horror! Fortunately I had on a long coat that day so my blushes were spared

·         Forgot what my colleague looked like and introduced myself to the new woman standing by my desk. In my defence I had only met her a few times and she changed her hair.

·         A family friend/general acquaintance introduces herself to me. I launch into a long spiel about how I know her and had seen her mother and sister recently. She replies “Nope, that’s not me. You’re confusing me with Ada”

·         Called my friend excitedly to wish her happy birthday – I was excited because I am notoriously bad at remembering birthdays. She was delighted I’d called but reminded me that her birthday had actually been 5 days prior.

·         Went shopping with my friend. We happened to walk past a display of pills that were advertised as helping to flatten the stomach. I turn to my friend and say “what sort of idiot would believe this nonsense?” to which she responded “erm...that’s what I came to purchase”. Talk about foot-in-mouth disease.

·         Missed my flight home from the US – I had a departure time in my head and despite walking around with my ticket in my bag for 5 weeks and even being told by my brother that he couldn’t check me in for a flight at the time I specified (I responded there must be something wrong with the website and I’d check in when I got there, I turned up 2 hours after my flight had left.

·         Turned up 12 hours early for my flight to India – I read the arrival time as the departure time

·         Spent 15 minutes searching for my glasses until my friend asked me what I was looking for and pointed out that it was on my face – I still can’t explain this one

It’s always funny after the fact and now I’ve written them down I think I’m a pretty lucky girl.

I am afraid of...

Rats, mice, rodents: I recently went to India and was privileged to be invited to the University of Punjab – India’s top research university. As part of the tour I was taken to the “animal home” where all the animals used for testing are kept. I saw a few cute monkeys and suddenly we were in a room with a million albino mice. I felt physically ill. I was absolutely horrified when I was asked to touch one. So yeah, I’m the girl who jumps on a chair screaming at the first sight of a rat/mouse. I once watched an episode of I’m a celebrity, get me out of here where one of the contestants had to be lowered into a box or something and thousands of rats were let into the confined space. I almost died. I totally had to switch channels.

Failure:  This is a big one for me. I do not like failing. I know that people say that you cannot win if you do not try and that it is better to fail than to fail to try. I don’t buy any of that! I feel wretched when I know that I made an effort at something and then failed to achieve it.

Height: This has got worse as I’ve grown older. I remember climbing everything as a kid but I don’t do as much anymore. I’m fine inside tall buildings or with heights where I’m protected. I think that my fear of heights is only linked to a fear of death. So if I feel like there is no way I can fall off, I’m fine. If the railings/guard is not up to half my height then I believe I could fall off, I don’t stand on unprotected ledges and I was very much against climbing the near vertical steps in Wat Arun on a recent visit to Bangkok.

Death: This is probably my top fear because it directly affects all my other fears except failure. I didn’t learn to do a back flip because I was convinced I’d die from a broken neck. I started being afraid of rats because my primary school teacher told me they cause cancer. I don’t go to hospitals if I can help it because I don’t want to hear “terminal”. I lost interest in sky-diving because there was one week in 2003/2004 when 4 people died doing it. I know I shouldn’t be so silly but I really can’t help it.

Financial dependence: I cannot bear the thought of not being financially self-sufficient. I got my first job at about 16 - almost unheard of at the time for Nigeria (only people who need to work at that age typically) - because I always hated asking for an allowance. I am not rich and I am very simple. I live in a decent area of London, I go out a few times a week, I travel a few times a year and I’m happy that way. The thought of being unable (for any reason) to maintain the status quo by myself frightens the heck out of me. I think perhaps it's a way of ceding control but I can't say I fear a lack of control because I'm fine with that IF AND ONLY IF it's on my own terms.

Snakes: This is part fear, part intense disgust. Snakes can kill you, so of course that makes me afraid of them but I also can’t stand the way they slither (same goes for worms, centipedes and other creepy crawlies) I remember once I found skin that had been shed by a python in the backyard of my late grandmother’s house. I refused to go to outside unaccompanied for the rest of that trip. I’m always baffled that people that want to hold snakes or even visit them at the zoo. Crazy! As for my ill-advised viewing of Snakes on a Plane, let’s just say that I saw about 25% of the movie. I had my head in my hands for most of it.

What are you afraid of?

Audit: 2010

I meant to do this on the 31st to see out 2010 and ring in 2011 but I guess it actually works now since 2010 is well and truly over. So here goes, my official review of 2010:

1.       What did you do in 2010 that you had never done before? Even though it feels like there were a million things, the one that stands out has to be I travelled by myself. I spent 4 days in Agra and Delhi totally by myself. I don’t think I like solo travel.

2.       Did you keep your New Year resolutions and will you make more for this year? Well I made some that I promptly forgot so I guess I didn’t keep them. I’m making some for this year and I hope that at this time next year I’ll be feeling smug because I kept them all

3.       Did anyone close to you give birth? I guess the interpretation of close is fairly loose here but there were a lot of births. My cousin Amara had a baby, my friends Ada and Kpoms had babies too.

4.       Did anyone close to you die? Thankfully not!

5.       What countries did you visit? Italy, US, Thailand, and India

6.       What would you like to have in 2011 that you didn’t have in 2010? Savings – like proper long term savings

7.       What dates from 2010 will be etched upon your memory, and why? I’m not terribly good with dates. I remember key events from last year but it would take an awful lot of digging to reconcile them with the dates

8.       What was your biggest achievement of this year? Getting promoted in March

9.       What was your biggest failure? Not getting a transfer that I applied for. It might be sour grapes now that I think I didn’t really want it but at the time I felt like a massive failure.

10.   Did you suffer illness or injury? From a seriously wimpy perspective, yes. I had crazy stomach issues, chronic lower back pain and a recurring injury to my medial ligament

11.   What was the best thing you bought? Ahhh, there’s some serious competition between my Blackberry and my iPhone 4. However, I have to say the BB. It literally saved some of my closest friendships from dying.

12.   Whose behaviour merited celebration? My parents were absolutely awesome and amazing. I finally understand unconditional love.

13.   Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed? I don’t know anyone whose behaviour could depress me and I guess no one (other than politicians and public figures) appalled me last year.

14.   Where did most of your money go? Other than bills, I guess it was travel

15.   What did you get really excited about? Lots and lots of stuff - visiting Asia for the first time, Miami, my friend’s wedding, the most awesome work party ever are just a few

16.   What song will always remind you of 2010? This is so easy since I already covered it here. Tie My Hands by Lil Wayne.

17.   Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer? Fatter and richer. The happiness thing is a little trickier. If I think about January 1st 2010 alone then I’d have to say that I’m definitely happier today because I flew back to London from Nigeria on that day. Having thought about it a bit more now I think it’s safe to say that I’m happier now. I spent the last day of 2010 with one of my favourite people in the world and my forecast for 2011 is sunny and bright.

18.   What do you wish you’d done more of? Followed through with my plans

19.   What do you wish you’d done less of? Sat on my arse and procrastinated

20.   How did you spend Christmas? With two of my siblings at home.

21.   Did you fall in love in 2010? Nope

22.   What was your favorite TV program? Mad Men

23.   What was the best book you read? Oh, this is really tough. There are a few books that stand out and I’ve never been able to pick out a favourite thing – like ever. I know I’ll probably revisit this when I’ve had a chance to check the deep recesses of my brain for the awesome books I read last year but right now I’ll go with Brooklyn by Colm Toibin.

24.   What was your greatest musical discovery? Florence and the machine. “Lungs” is so amazing!

25.   What did you want and get? A promotion

26.   What did you want and not get? A transfer

27.   What was your favorite film of 2010? Oh boy! Another tough one. I really liked Inception. Kick Ass was seriously memorable. I’ll go with The Kids Are All Right though. I saw it in cinema three times!

28.   What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 27 and I went out with 3 of the coolest girls on the planet. It was a great birthday.

29.   What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Probably loving a guy who loved me back.

30.   How would you describe your personal fashion concept of 2010? Evolving. I’m neither stylish nor fashionable but I made some effort in 2010.

31.   What kept you sane? Music

32.   What political issue stirred you the most? I don’t know if I’m allowed to say it was the healthcare reforms issue in the US. Is that political? I don’t even know.

33.   Who did you miss? A lot of my friends are far away from me and I miss them all the time.

34.   Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010. That much as I love to live in the now, it’s probably best to think about the future a little more.

35.   Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. This is super tough because I’m not really a lyrics girl and it will probably take hours into days into weeks and maybe months for me to figure out a lyric to sum up my year. I’ll update the post once I figure it out though.

So that’s it for 2010. It wasn’t the best year of my life so far but it was a pretty good one.

The soundtrack to my life

I sit and type this while I’m listening to Meiko’s Reasons to Love You. I feel myself settling. I couldn’t sleep – I’m suffering withdrawal symptoms from my ‘crackberry’ (a story for another day). It’s such a beautiful tune. There are a lot of songs that do this for me. Calm me. Keep me grounded. Make me happy I’m alive. What’s really weird is that I didn’t care much about music till after secondary school. Sometimes I think about my life in terms of music and I’ve often thought about documenting the ones that have made an impact so here goes:

·         Ooh Ooh Baby (Eugene Wilde) – OK, so maybe this is cheating considering that this came out when I was about 1 but according to my mum it was the first thing I sang. I “remember” it or maybe (more accurately) I have manufactured a memory of it since I was told. Baby Chimmy obviously had exquisite taste since I still love this version as well as Foxy Brown’s cover.

·         Sacrifice (Elton John) – I only recently worked out what year this is from because my mum pointed out that it was her 40^th birthday. It was a Saturday and we were all home. My dad had his music on and Sacrifice came on after a whole bunch of reggae (yeah I’m not a fan). I remember nothing else from that day other than watching my aunt Nen dance and singing along with Sir Elton.

·         Heal the world (Michael Jackson) – reminds me of December 1995. A whole bunch of my maternal cousins and I were in my Grandfather’s house a lot. I love that house and I’ve had so much fun there. One night we all sat in the bar singing this song. It was also the night that my 6 year old brother got beaten up by his 3 year old cousin – still cracks us up.

·         Sitting up in My Room (Brandy) – Well this really should be the entire Waiting to Exhale album but I needed to pick one so I’ve picked this. It was the year after my cousin Brian was born so we spent lots of time at his mum’s the summer of 1997. It was also the year when I was finally allowed to go out with my friends. I remember getting in trouble because we went for Attiyah’s party or leaving do or something and didn’t get home till 8pm – seriously my heart was in my throat when I eventually made it back. I wondered how everyone else knew what the lyrics to the songs were (I can’t hear lyrics without total concentration and repeated play and I also thought my cousins Linda and Agodi were the coolest people ever because they danced so well to this track.

·         Are you that Somebody (Aaliyah) – My brother and I got to spend some time with our cousins in Port Harcourt autumn 2008. This was a big deal because it was one of the very rare times I was separated from any siblings in childhood. I loved Aaliyah, did the baggy trousers and little top thing for ages. I remember my sister and other brother acting uninterested and like they didn’t like this song because they were envious of our tales of going swimming, eating suya, being somewhere different.

·         He wasn’t man enough (Toni Braxton) – My first proper boyfriend hated this song. I remember conversations where he dissed Toni for the atrocity for her lyrics while I laughed. He cracked me up all the time, still does. So this song brings back good memories of spring/summer 2000 which was one of the highlights of my life.

·         Oops I did it again (Britney Spears) – I was going to pick Seven Days (Craig David), Most Girls (Pink), Doesn’t Really Matter (Janet Jackson), heck even Scrubs (TLC) because all of those songs were part of my ultimate playlist in Autumn 2000. This was the year I visited London for the first time and realised that all my years of prejudice were seriously misplaced. This was the trip I met my late Aunt Nneafor for the first time (RIP aunty), the first time I went to a cinema, the first time I hung with my godfather socially. It was the first time I bought an album. Britney gets the spot because Oops was my first album.

·         A Thousand Miles (Vanessa Carlton) – I spent Autumn 2002 in the US. My aunt got married and I flew out with my father to represent our family at the wedding. It was the first time in memory that I spent time by myself with my father. We bonded over Murder she Wrote (which I adore to this day even though my friends and family think I’m mental for that). I went out to see my cousin Comfort in her university in Missouri and Be Not Nobody was one of the albums she had. I remember us driving, being silly, laughing and singing to A Thousand Miles with the wind in our faces – just having a great time.

·         Cluck Cluck (Product GB) – I love dancing even though I really can’t dance. In December 2002 my cousin Mary got married and the family descended on Port Hacourt (Nigeria) for the wedding. The wedding after party was my first “night party” and I had an amazing time dancing with the best dance partner I’ve ever had – Amari. I never saw him again but I will always think about that night when I hear this played

·         Sweetest Goodbye (Maroon 5) – I bought a minidisc player as a personal xmas present in December 2004. My sister had Songs about Jane and this, along with Usher’s Confessions, became my album of that period. My twin cousin got married, I got drunk for the first time with Com, I had a blast sneaking in and out of Grandpa’s for night parties, my cousins and I bickered over where to sleep, I saw a ridiculous wedding, I got caught snogging a man in public – scandalous! I t was a great Christmas!

·         See you when you’re 40 (Dido) – Ok, so it’s a little unfair to name this song in isolation. George Michael’s I can’t Make you Love me, Keane’s Somewhere Only we Know, Usher’s Work it Out, Whitney Houston’s Love Will be Waiting at Home, and Boyz II Men’s Doin Just Fine, among others, play a major part in what was a difficult time in my life. Dido, however, was the person whose lyrics (yep I suddenly became a lyrics person) I most empathised with in what was my first heart break.

·         Who Knew (Pink) – I was obsessed with this song. Like literally. It came on and I had a shiver go right through me. It hit my core. It reminds me of spring/summer 2006. In Manchester. I was sharing a flat with June. It reminds me of my first trip to Nigeria that I totally paid for. It reminds me of laughing incessantly with Comfort. It reminds me of J – and danger. It reminds me of Lanre – my ex best friend slash major crush slash perfect boyfriend material. It reminds me of the most fashionable time of my life. It reminds me of lingering evenings with friends. It reminds me of nights out sipping wine. It reminds me of the only 15 months of my life that I didn’t live with family. It rocks!

·         Mr Brightside (The Killers) – This is a special song for me. It is on my list of all time favourites – maybe even in the top 5. It reminds me of living with Jen in Mauldeth Road – the recovery from the breakup, nights out on the Manchester student scene. It also reminds me of the 9 months or so when we had interns at work my second time round in Manchester. Cheap drinks, getting thrown out of Revolution, Nando’s, stupid dares, rocking up to work (with only a quick shower in between) after spending an entire night out, bickering over music in the hire cars on the way to work, football, hotel hopping, annoying housemate, fantastic housemate, 2 hour walks around Manchester city centre at 2am – the list is endless. Fun! Fun! Fun!

·         Mrs Officer (Lil Wayne) – The first time I heard this I didn’t even know who sang it or what it was called. I was on my way to a lounge bar in DC with Comfort and Ochu and it started playing in his car. I love the beat or rhythm or something and I wanted to know who sang it. I got a major shock when I heard it was Lil Wayne because I had consigned him and his music to the bin that I reserve for the rubbish that is trotted out these days as popular music. So it reminds me of that trip to the US for 5 weeks in autumn 2008. It consoled me when I turned 25 but couldn’t celebrate because my friend was a minor and I wouldn’t go out without him. It reminds me of Houston, St Louis, Wilmington, Baltimore, New York, LA. It reminds me of new people and great experiences. It reminds me of family.

·         Strong Thing (Banky W) – I spent the entirety of December 2009 in Nigeria. It was the first time in 7 years that I spent longer than 10 days at home. I was my cousin’s maid of honour in a beautiful wedding – second best one I’ve ever been to. It was a period when a friendship evolved. It was a period I thought I was losing my closest friends. It was the first Christmas I spent in Abuja. It was the first time our family was split in half over the holidays. It was when I realised that I had to end the longest relationship of my life. It was from when I thought I might have met the man I would marry. It was a time of reconnection but also a time of confusion. Banky W was there all the way

·         Tie my hands (Lil Wayne) – Imagine that! If anyone had told me Lil Wayne would turn up in this list, I would have laughed here’s his second entry. I listened to this song very reluctantly the first time. I fell in love with London. I’ve watched deep movies and read deep books. I made a start with learning Italian. I finally appreciate red wine. I went to Asia. I have met awesome friends. I finally carried on with Grey’s Anatomy which I stopped watching when I found out Preston Burke left. I even ate cauliflower for the first time in a decade at least (not that it will be repeated anywhere other than in India). It kinda defines/symbolises 2010 for me – discovering awesomeness despite unjustified reluctance from me.

What do you want? Erm, er, erm.....

I recently got introduced to someone via Facebook and her first comment was “I went through your photos. Wow, you get out a lot!” I’ve spent all morning looking at my Facebook photos – the ones I’ve been tagged in. 348 of them paint a fabulous picture. The places I’ve been to, the people I hang out with, the things I’m interested in. It’s all there for the world to see. Despite the fact that I’m naturally inclined to stay home with a good book or movie, I have to agree with her wholeheartedly. I do a lot of stuff. It’s because I have a million interests and I fit into a lot of scenes.

I’m on the second leg of my first trip out to Asia. Bangkok was planned. I contacted my friend to find out where she’d be and when. I booked the hotel and she had a loose itinerary planned out for the duration of our stay. India, however, is the epitome of spontaneity – at least the first 5 days when I am at liberty to do as I please. I booked my hotel for last night in Bangkok airport. I thought I might have to book one upon arrival at Delhi but fortunately people read emails quickly these days or more likely business is slow on Sunday nights.

Now I’ve done some pretty strange (or interesting – your choice will be influenced by how cautious you are) things in my life but this is the first time I will be travelling solo. I think I infuriate a lot of my friends when they ask for my input in decisions on where to go, what to do, what to eat etc and I ask them to make the decision. I’m not trying to be difficult, choice overwhelms me. I’m always certain about what I don’t want but what I want has always been really tough to figure out. A solo trip would probably be people’s idea of a great opportunity to plan the perfect trip but I find it tiresome having to make all these decisions. So, I only decided to turn up in Delhi and see where the wind blows me.

This will either be one awesome trip or a lesson that will finally inspire me to pick what I want