The bottom of the escalators

New Journal 12 – Holy jeans

Rachel looked at me: ‘Jimmy, you have a hole in your crotch!’

I looked down and did indeed find a hole in the crotch area of my favourite jeans. I love these jeans. I don’t want to replace them. I’ve considered creating a patch, kind of like an elbow patch, to cover the hole. I fear this may draw unwanted attention to this region. Then again, it may start a trend.

Travelling ruins your clothes. In Indonesia, the laundry places had no hesitation when it came to writing numbers on your garments. For 2 months I walked around with a very visible number 2 on the back of a yellow tee-shirt.

Since these are more or less the only clothes I own in the world, I tend to make friends with them. Replacing jeans doesn’t come easily when they’ve got a name.

My dad had a funeral for a pair of his jeans once. He buried them in the garden. My brother cried. True story.

Rachel said we should wait until we get to the US to buy some new ones. I agreed. America has jeans. They’ve got cowboys, for crying out loud. They must have a good selection of jeans for me to befriend.

The problem is; buying jeans is a complicated affair nowadays. With skinny jeans, straight leg jeans…(that’s the end of my knowledge of jeans), I don’t know where to start, not to mention my slow transition from a 32 inch waist to a 34. I’m in between numbers right now. Why don’t they make a 33?

Rachel just told me there was something called ‘Boyfriend jeans’. It’s madness. When I’m there, I’ll just ask myself ‘what would a cowboy wear?’  After all, everyone in Europe knows that most Americans are cowboys and ride horses. I just want to fit in.

I hope the shops in the US are as relaxed as most of the ones in the UK. In many parts of Asia, shop attendants have a tendency to follow you around, creating too much internal stress that force you into panic buys. If the shop employee is a pretty girl, it’s even worse. You end up buying things you didn’t even know existed and don’t really understand. What exactly is a mankini?

On a more travel-related note, we moved upwards to the Argentinian wine region of Mendoza this morning. We took a 17 hour bus, which, compared to our last long distance bus journey, was luxury. We were served with red wine for dinner, indulged in a game of bus bingo, watched a film and slept on a chair that reclined into a flat bed. It was lovely.

Even better, we arrived at our accommodation at 9am. They were still serving breakfast. We enjoyed pancakes, croissants and coffee out on the terrace in the warm sun. It was a good way start to the day.

We have 3 more days in Argentina before we move over to Santiago, Chile.

Today’s photo – The escalators

Taken at Newcastle’s pedestrian tunnel, these wooden escalators are more than 60 years old. They sometimes work. One of my main aims with this image was to accentuate the grittiness of the place. I also wanted to exaggerate the light coming from the top of the escalators while creating a slight vignette at the bottom.

Before the Joys of Post-Processing