Wednesday 26 December 2007

Headline: Girl leaves the UK for 1st leg in Nigeria

Yes folks, today is D-day. As I write this my bags are packed, my taxi is booked and I have enough Immodium in my bag to cure a continent's worth of diahorrea! I have 10 million messages to deliver from fellow ex-pat Nigerians and two suitcases for my mother that contain all manner of kitchen utensils and baked beans (go figure!). I have in the last two days had my fair share of drama putting this Nigeria trip in peril, however I have persevered (see my previous blog) and I'm leaving on a midnight plane to Abuja (literally; we arrive at 5am in the morning).

The other very large bit of news is that I paid the final price of my round the world ticket! Woohoo I hear you cry! So did I, after I finished crying as £1800 made its way out of my bank account into the coffers of British Airways. I need to update the map below a little, but don't have time right now, I shall make sure to do it hence forth! So for those of you wanting, thinking, secretly hoping or madly plotting to do as I am doing, I add some ticket information for you.

The ticket I have is the One World (alliance including BA) Round the World ticket. I am covering 4 continents which is a basic price of £1389. My taxes come to £305 (these are calculated depending on where you want to stop) and the wonderful people (specifically Derreck) at Trailfinders get £100 for their troubles. The ticket allows 4 flights per continent, but unfortunately it does count you making your own way between two points as a 'flight segment'. Jammy Buggers. You can go forwards in any direction, but not backwards and if you leave a continent you can only come back for a maximum 24hr stop-over for flight transfers. I can change the dates I've booked any time for free but to change destinations or add extra stops I pay £75. Not bad I hear you say, well I agree!

So complicated bits over, here are my stops in order; Jamaica - own way around the Caribbean - Mexico - Ecuador - Peru - Brazil - Japan - Thailand - own way down through Malaysia - Singapore - Hong Kong and home! I've found a varied number of local carriers for decent prices that will take me around the Caribbean, Peru and Brazil and also some good recommendations for coach companies for Mexico and Thailand. It's going to be one hell of an adventure!

Travel insurance cost me £90 which is a bargain from Insure and Go; a lot of other 'Backpacker' insurance that I found were selling extortionate premiums for insuring the equivalent of a mobile media lab. Since I'm only taking my camera and iPod in the way of technology (mobile phone doesn't count) then I don't need to pay a £250 premium. I must say, anyone who plans on taking anything more will find they probably won't use their laptop, PDA, GPS system, Walkie talkie or any other kind of pointless communication device!

In conclusion, I'm ready!! All things being equal it's all in place, and I shan't be back in the UK for a while! My next blog will be coming to you live and in colour from Nigeria! I'll see if I can throw in some phonetic content to give you a flavour of the pidgeon English!

Thursday 20 December 2007

The countdown begins...

Well actually the countdown began a while back but I'm pretty damn useless at getting myself sorted and updating this blog!

So...firstly...AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!! Ok, so I'm sh*tting bricks about this now. I mean its all very well and good trying to convince myself that this was always a great idea and I should be excited, but lets look at this objectively:

1. I'm Nigerian.
2. I'm my father's daughter
3. Why in the hell am I galavanting round the world when I should be working for an Investment Bank and thinking about getting married to a nice Nigerian boy called Olu?!

On the flipside, I remember I am my mother's daughter, i.e. no-one is going to stop me from getting on that plane; including myself! And so, as the title of this blog states, the countdown begins.

I know I haven't left yet but I have to thank everyone I've spoken to this year for getting me to this point; both those who supported me and the ones who didn't. I'm a real believer in putting the things you want to happen out there. Obviously, it doesn't pay to expose yourself to sabotage and or idea theft(!), but there are some things you need to publicise to make them happen. There are so many reasons for this in my experience; primarily, the world is about kinetic energy (stay with me). Now I haven't really done much reading into exactly how this works or manifests, but its easy to see how we create our environments,we direct our own futures and therefore we must also bring about your own desires. So if you let it be known what you want to do, and it is genuine, then it makes sense you will gravitate towards it (a year later and the Alchemist is still all up in my vocabulary!).

Speaking slightly less spiritually, there is also the whole thing about telling someone you're doing something, not doing it and the next time they see you hanging around the Whitgift Centre* they think...what a plonker! That is the kind of shame I am definitely not interested in feeling!

It may seem odd that those who didn't support me also get a mention in my appreciation, but they do. I am stubborn as hell; a combination of the Nigerian in me, add to that being a Leo, having a Nigerian father who Sadam would be scared of and being just a teeny weeny bit opinionated. The end result is that everytime someone has looked at me like I'm mad, sick, or devoid of my own tradition when my trip comes up, I get a lil bit of fire going in my belly that either makes me want to kick the crap out of them (Ally McBeal stylie) or prove them wrong. So there it is, thanks.

So I leave on Boxing Day, first stop Nigeria....now that is gonna make for an interesting blog post! I've got a draft title in mind..."Anglo-Nigerian dreams of elaborate homecoming and gets a rude awakening Lagos style!"

*Whitgift Centre - super chav shopping centre in Croydon. Nuff said.