IRC-Galleria

Hello people!

Backpacking isn't just all about checking email and
lying on the beach. Look at the stress we have trying
to adjust to life back home...

To all backpackers, ex-backpackers and wannabies:

Having trouble readjusting to life back at home now
that the travelling is over?

Here's a few handy hints to help you settle back in

1) Replace your bed with two or more bunk beds, and
every night invite random people to sleep in your
bedroom with you. Ensure at least once a week a couple
gets drunk and shags on one of the top bunks. Remove
beds one by one as symptoms improve.

2) Sleep in your sleeping bag, forgetting to wash it
for months. Add some bugs in order to wake up with
many unsightly bites over your arms and legs.

3) Enlist the help of a family member to set your
radio alarm to go off randomly during the night,
filling your room with loud talking. This works best
if the station is foreign. Also have several mobiles
ringing, without being answered. To add to the
torture, ask a friend to bring plastic bags into your
room at roughly 6 in the morning and proceed to rustle
them for no apparent reason for a good half an hour.

4) Keep all your clothes in a rucksack. Remember to
smell them before puting them on and reintroduce the
use of the iron SLOWLY.

5) Buy your favourite food, and despite living at
home, write your name and when you might next be
leaving the house on all bags. This should include
mainly pasta, 2 minute noodles, carrots and beer.

6) Ask a family member to every now and again steal an
item of food, preferably the one you have most been
looking forward to or the most expensive. Keep at
least one item of food far too long or in a bag out in
the sun, so you have to spend about 24 hours within
sprinting distance of the toilet.

7) Even if it's a Sunday, vacate the house by 10a.m.,
and then stand on the corner of the street looking
lost. Ask the first passer-by of similar ethnic
background if they have found anywhere good to go yet.

When sitting on public transport (the London Tube
would be ideal) introduce yourself to the person
sitting next to you, say which stop you got on at,
where you are going, how long you have been travelling
and what university you went to. If they say they are
going to Morden, say you met a guy on the central line
who said it was terrible and that you've heard Parsons
Green is better and cheaper.

9) Finally stick paper in your shower so that the
water comes in just a drizzle. Adjust the hot/cold
taps at regular intervals so that you are never fully
satisfied with the temperature. Because of this
frustration, shower infrequently. These simple but
effective instructions should help you fall back into
normal society with the minimum effort.

Good luck!!!!!