Travel is a funny thing. Twenty one hours aloft in a speeding capsule, hurtling towards a strange and new continent provides plenty of time for thinking and soul searching.
And scratching. Ah, sweet scratching....
And when we're done scratching, back to thinking. Thinking about how there is much to learn in this crazy spinning spherical mass we call EARTH. Too much to learn from any book with pictures or even words. One has to move around; to experience these things. For no reason, i provide the following: how do you describe "heat" to one who has never felt it?
By spraying that person with a mug of boiling liquid and bellowing "BE ENLIGHTENED TOWARD HEAT", of course.
Before getting totally lost on strange tangents, it is important to understand the world around us, and in doing so, I have thus sprayed myself with many a metaphorical mug.
All the while, emerging scathed, but also largely less-than-scathed, by whatever I had put into that particular mug.
So here is/are the fruit/s of my learning: The Observations of Jimmy Weasel.....
*Food that one is not accustomed to eating will cause large intestinal discomfort.
*Foods (ie fish) bought from ladies on the roadside operating from wooden carts will also cause large intestinal discomfort, caused mostly by diarrhoea.
*Should one be afflicted by said large intestinal discomfort, it is also a mistake to accept carbonated cola, no matter who is paying. Regret will strike soon after.
*People everywhere are the same: nobody likes a smartass. For example: if a fellow says "Do they speak the Queen's english in Australia", the reply "Yes, but the strict guidelines of the Queen's grammar are not neccessarily adhered to" will be met with both a grunt and the back-turning of a lifetime.
*Tapwater in a strange place will also cause large intestinal discomfort, caused mostly by diarrhoea.
*Monkeys do not appreciate the following things (in any order, and any combination)
1) close proximity
2) excessive eye contact
3) sudden, lunging movements
4) shrieking
There is much more to learn, to be sure, a lifetime of learning. But these are the things i have found most important in my stay on this foreign continent.
Updates as enlightenment commands.
J. Weasel.
Published on Wednesday, 15 January 2003
By Jimmy Weasel
Making meals for the world to enjoy.