Two steps forward, three steps back

Turn 90 degrees and photograph whatever you see

How many different ways are there of seeing the place you live? Abandon all control of your destiny and find out.

Here’s what you’ll need: a friend or two, a camera, a bag, a watch and a sharp eye. Each of you should start in a different place in town and follow these instructions.

• Walk towards the sun for three minutes (try to stay in a straight line as much as possible). Note down where you are.
  
• Look around you: can you see something the color of the sky and small enough to pick up? Pick it up and put it in your bag, then keep walking in the direction you walked to get to it.
  
• Stop when you see a sign. Photograph the sign.
  
• Think of a number between one and 60. Pretend you’re standing in a clock and turn that many minutes, then start walking again.
  
• Keep walking until you see something beautiful. Photograph it. Then turn 90 degrees and photograph whatever you see.
  
• Walk straight ahead, counting your footsteps, until you have taken 143 of them. What song is in your head? Write it down.
  
• Look directly at your feet. What’s there? Pick it up if you can, or photograph or describe it if you can’t.
  
• Turn 45 degrees and walk for another three minutes in a straight line: then take the first path, street or alleyway on the left, then the next one on the right. Walk along that for one minute, or until it runs out. What is in front of you? Write a haiku about it (one line of five syllables, then one of seven, then one of five; they don’t have to rhyme).
  
• Now take a photograph of yourself and go home.

When you get home, compare experiences with everyone else who has done the exercise.

This is just a short version of a game that could run all day: feel free to write a set of instructions that would work well in your town.

Cut off from culture

Language isn’t the only barrier when you’re visiting another country. Even when they speak English, the shared experience that a people has of local news, television shows, ads, childhood toys and favourite foods can make you feel terribly excluded. Imagine, for example, coming to America and trying to have a conversation with someone when you’ve never heard of Lucky Charms, Saturday Night Live, ‘Where’s the beef?’ or Mouse Trap?

You’ve probably never noticed just how often you refer to popular culture, especially in conversations with people you don’t know that well. While there’s no way to wipe every Monty Python sketch or Simpsons episode from your mind, you can experiment with cutting yourself off from culture. You’ll find it doesn’t take long to feel the effects.

Here’s what you do: for two weeks, don’t watch TV, read the paper or look at the internet. That’s it. OK, now try and have a conversation at the water cooler, with your car pool, at playgroup or waiting for class. Good luck!

Get lost

‘One of the great joys of Prague is finding yourself completely lost.’ ‘You don’t need to know where you’re going; wandering aimlessly is one of the best ways to see New York.’ ‘The winding alleys of Toledo will have you lost in minutes, and you’ll love it!’

Admit it. Every day you take the same bus to school or drive the same way to work. You see the same old things so often that you don’t even see them anymore. When was the last time you ditched the routine and risked getting lost?

It may cost you some time, you might have to get up a bit earlier, and it might sound like stating the bleeding obvious, but next Wednesday, you should go a different way. Walk a different way to the bottle shop, catch a different bus in the morning or get off at an earlier stop, get off the freeway and hit the city streets. It’ll get your brain moving. Go on, give it a try.

Q8

Back in 1991, everyone wanted a piece of this previously unheard of little autocracy in the Arabian Peninsula. Now the rush is well and truly over, you can grab yourself a piece of Q8y action.

Get a street directory for your town and open it to a random page. Go to the coordinates Q8: what’s there? Probably not much. That’s your destination for today.

Treat this like an expedition to a far-off land. Remember to pack all the things you’ll need – bottled water, camera, comfortable shoes – and put your money in a safe place. When you get there, wherever ‘there’ is, take plenty of photos, pick up some souvenirs (some interesting leaves, a flier taped to a lamp pole, a catalogue blown into a gutter – whatever is available), and remember to send your family an email telling them what a great time you had.

Scavenger hunt

You know how it is: you’re in a new city, head buried in a map, trying to find the entrance to the subway, the public bathroom, the shop where they sell those shoes you saw on ‘Sex & the City’, and the Museum of Dental Hygiene. And while you’re busy looking, you keep stumbling over other, far more interesting things that you never even knew existed: a tiny store selling teacups from around the world, a fountain in the shape of a giraffe, someone drawing copies of Tintoretto on the pavement, a coffee shop specialising in cupcakes.

Until you get out there, you never know what you might find. But you need a reason to get out there. So (if it’s good enough for pirates, it’s good enough for you) send yourself on a treasure hunt.

Making your own list – particularly if you can impose it on others – is part of the fun, but to get you started here are some suggestions for things to find: a person who looks like their pet, an equation, something that belongs underwater, a fictitious animal, foreign money, some food that could hurt you. You can document them with photographs, drawings, descriptions or whatever takes your fancy. For variations, set yourself a list of tasks as well (sing on stage with a band you’re not a part of, pretend you’re in an Olympic event while queuing at the supermarket…). Have your friends join in, compare results and give prizes.