Life of a Traveller:

A friend jsut sent this to me. Believe it or not these are all pretty factual! Oh & I keep forgetting to say I posted some Egypt photos a while ago :)

Try this at home for the true backpacking experience

1) Replace your bed with two or more bunk beds, and invite random people to sleep
a) with you or
b) in your bedroom every night.

2) Ensure that a couple gets drunk and shags on one of the top bunks at least once a week. Loosen the bolts on the bunk to ensure a healthy squeak...this will no doubt provide you and your new roomies with a special understanding of the art of drunk shagging (bump, oww, snore, thud, flush,bump, bump, snore). This exercise will also increase your tolerance for such activities after a combination of alcohol, sleep deprivation & dementia take over during the following night and you find yourself sleeping like a baby under a squeaky gyra! thing bunk that's been converted into a sex machine of sorts.

3) Sleep in your sleeping bag, forgetting to wash it for months. Add some bed bugs (yes, they exist) in order to wake up with many unsightly bites all over your arms and legs.

4) 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.

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

6) 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.

7) 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. This will ensure that you spend the next 24 hours within sprinting distance of a toilet.

8) Even if it's a Sunday, vacate the house by 10 a.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.

9) 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 for 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. If they are cute...try and shag them after a cask of wine in the Parsons Green hostel.

10) Finally stick paper in your shower so that the water comes out 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...!