I got a job! And Round # 2 in Amsterdam

Back in London.

I must admit I was pretty bloody lucky with my start in London. When I'd been in Majorca, I had an email from the recruiter in London saying that Bloomberg had seen my CV, and wanted to interview me for a contract/temp position. So I landed back from Lisbon on a Saturday, spent the Sunday prepping, and had my interview first thing Monday morning. 

I had absolutely no idea what the role was, nor did I particularly understand it after having the interview. A mix of customer support / training, and technical troubleshooting. Not exactly where my experience lies. But hey, it's a job right? And let's be honest - it's Bloomberg - I'd have interviewed for anything if they'd asked. By Monday afternoon I'd had a call from the recruiter saying that they'd like to offer me the job. By Tuesday I had the contract, and was due to start the following Monday. That's how quickly it all happened for me. Like I said - LUCKY.

 I already had my 'last hurrah' trip to Amsterdam booked for that coming weekend, so it was pretty fitting that it would be my last weekend unemployed too. On the Friday, I flew out to Amsterdam to meet up with Caitlan and 2 of her friends, with plans to meet up with Hayley & Jeff the next day for our final night together before they flew home.

I don't remember too much significant happening in Amsterdam. A lot of drinking. A lot of walking into clouds of weed smoke. Nearly getting taken out by cyclists. The by far most exciting part - was something called the 'Magnum Experience' - a tip from Ciara that I'd met in Madrid - which was a pop-up store where you could... Wait for it... MAKE YOUR OWN MAGNUM ICECREAM. Hayley was in heaven, as the rest of us were. Hayls & I had our final night out on the Sat night - a very emotional one at that. I can't remember it ever being so hard to say goodbye to someone (aside from my family when leaving Aus) - I guess the drinks didn't make it easier, but we were both blubbering by the end.

The next day I was on my own, Hayls n Jeff had left, Caitlan and the others were packing to leave - so I figured I'd do something cultured and go on the Free Walking Tour of Amsterdam. Having done the cycling tour the year before, I thought I'd know everything.. I did NOT. The best part though, was meeting Brooke. Brooke was late 20's, from Bristol, England, and was in Amsterdam for the weekend for work. We were both on the tour solo, and hit it off straight away. By the end of the trip, we'd exchanged numbers, facebook friendships (I got her REAL account - not the fake one she gives to her clients ha), and vowed to organise a weekend that I could go across to Bristol for a weekend. 1 year later, I've been to Bristol - twice - and Brooke and I are now really good friends. It's actually the travel blog she started for her 3 month South America trip that inspired me to get mine back into gear. Cheers Brooke.

✌

Lisbon, the happy city.

Right, so over 1 year since my last post, and I've decided that I really do need to keep this writing thing going. But the idea of re-writing about things that happened a year ago is daunting. So I gave myself a deadline; that before I head to Dublin next weekend I need to write about the main places I've been over the last year and a half, and fill in the gaps later.

So - picking up where I left off - Lisbon, Portugal.

I don't know how to explain the difference between these two cities. Madrid felt dark and gothic, whereas Lisbon was so colourful, light, and the city itself felt so happy. Checking into my hostel (award winning - Travellers House). The guy at reception was by far the most passionate I've ever met. He was on the verge of tears when he sat down to go through the tourist map with me - because he was losing his voice and struggling to emphasise how beautiful or must-see some of the places were. My room was probably the nicest I'd had so far - complete with reading light, lock & safe under my bed, and no extra charge for towels - #winning.

I remember spending a day walking (well, I'd call it hiking!) through the cobbled streets of the castle district, in search of a viewpoint. The graffiti in this place was so different to what I'd seen elsewhere. Not just delinquents spraying 'John loves Stacey', or 'Jessie is a sl*t', but this was art. 

I can't exactly remember the order of things, but I met a few aussies and kiwis in the communal area, and the hostel activity on this first night was a walking tour to the castle district. What I hadn't realised when booking this trip to Lisbon, was that it was the Santo Antonio festival (the patron saint for Lisbon). Which means that the entire city turns into a party. All the people that live in the old city (castle area) open up their doors and terraces and blare their music, offering drinks and food out of their windows, pop-up bars and dj's everywhere. Every back alley and side street was filled with people. It was like being lost in a maze, but instead of trying to find your way out - all you wanted to do is get lost deeper and deeper. The best part - everyone was HAPPY. Our little crew was pumped, and the locals were in love with their city. I remember seeing this gorgeous older couple dancing in the middle of the street, in their own little world, and thinking that they reminded me of my parents.

One of the must-do's for Lisbon, was to taste a Pastel de nata - AKA a portugese custard tart. These aren't just any old tart, and I didn't want to try them at just any old place. I wanted the best. So I ran to the neighbouring town of 'Belem', where the cafe famous for it's award-winning Pastel de nata's was: Casa Pasteis De Belem. And Oh-my-god. For about €1 each (I bought 5), they were a-mazing. I guess this leads to -

Rule # 3rd: Eat local food.

Near the hostel is a seafront square/plaza rimmed with cafes, restaurants etc, and one of these was a wine exhibition offering free wine tastings every hour. So my new kiwi friend and I went along for one. The wine was amazing, and after the tastings we were invited by 2 US marines to share a bottle with them. So the four of us spent an hour or two, sitting inside this wine expo, getting p1ssed. One of the guys was super excited because he'd just found out his wife was pregnant - and they were on their way home soon;the other was married with kids (but a sleeze). We ended up out for dinner with them at a hostel-recommended restaurant, and all I can remember is that the food was delish, the wine was just as good, and the marines paid for our meals :D

I may as well throw another one in:

Rule # 4: Drink like a local

On my last night, it was the most surreal thing: just before 9pm, the hostel guy told us all to take a glass of our wine and head down the sea-front square. The city was going to perform for us. Not knowing what he meant, a few of us gathered down at the square and waited...Along with hundreds of other locals & tourists. I don't know how it was done, or what the meaning of it was - but the city played us music. What I mean is, that the church bells chimed while the ships at sea blew their horns and the nearby train whistled: all coordinated and beautiful. I have no idea where all the different sounds were coming from, or how it was all orchestrated... But in awe, we all fell silent to listen; this is my favourite memory of Lisbon.

✌

Watchmegetlost

Watch me get lost.

(Yes, I'm hopeless at updating this blog of mine - and having just counted that I have 7 more places I need to cover, I should probably get my growing-a*se into gear and type up some posts).

So. Madrid. First solo travel - and I got lost as soon as I left h&j in Barcelona. I should probably do a crash course in map-reading. So I managed to get on the train to Madrid from Barcelona in good time (winning!!), was sat next to these canadian (well, they say they were canadian, but they looked like Jersey-shore wannabes, and I'm sh1t with accents so if they were lying I wouldn't know). Managed to steal some pringles off the guy next to me - so that was another win :)

So I arrived, navigated my way to the hostel (after standing on the street outside the station for 10 mins with a map trying to get my bearings), checked in, unpacked (weird routine, but I need to organise everything in my locker before i feel settled ha), said hi to the people in my room, and headed to the common area to use the wifi. Met a brilliant Irish girl - Ciara - tall, uber skinny, extremely travelled (lived in Fremantle for a few years!) and really kind. We hit it off, and pretty much spent the rest of the time together. Went out for a feed (one of the perks of Madrid - most drinks come with free tapas :P) so every sangria for me (no where seems to sell cider!? or bubbly?!) meant a little plate of cheese or bread or sausages or omelette .. nom nom nom.

Madrid itself - wasn't my favourite. It's a very typical capital city where history meets commercial meets residential - it just didn't seem to blend nicely. I didn't get the culture-feel that I'd been told of.. and to be honest - aside from going out on a pub/club crawl (which I wanted to avoid on my first solo attempt) there really wasn't much to do. Ciara and I spent the next day basically walking around the city - and we managed to get to almost every 'main-attraction' on the hostel map. Yes, the church was beautiful, and the viewpoint we found was pretty cool, we found a pretty cool  market - my god, they love their food (as do i haha), i also found red wine for €1.30 haha (winning again!) but I just didn't get a great feel for the place. I did however get a hug from a giant Bart Simpson in the main square - but again - what does the Simpsons have to do with Madrid? Random...

I may have had a mini freak-out at one point - I went to the 'botanical gardens' for a run, and told Ciara I'd meet her at the lake in the middle of the gardens afterwards (gave her my bag to look after)... So I finish my run at the lake.... and can't find Ciara... Who has my phone, bag, money, ID.. all that jazz (yes, in hindsight - a bit stupid to leave a new friend with all my belongings) so I ran around the lake 4 times or so, trying not to panic, running through tourists and buskers, trying to spot a tall, skinny irish girl carrying 2 bags.. Nek minit - Ciara's popped out of nowhere and is running after me trying to get my attention haha.

PHEW.

Although Madrid wasn't my favourite of cities, the people I met were incredible and had amazing stories.. My last night there, a group of us were sat around in the common room.. One chick (Rosie, from England) has just finished this 800KM Camino trail over 2 weeks through Spain & Portugal (the blisters on her feet her insane), another chick was 20 years old, from Quebec - she had an Israeli dad and a Canadian mum, spoke french, english, hebrew (because of jewish background), arabic (her dad lived in egypt), and spanish (just finished a 6 month stint working at Club Med in spain) ..wtf? And Ciara - she's lived in like 4+ diff countries (including france and australia), worked in everything from candle-making (fremantle) to waitressing, to chef-ing (no qualification) at a surf yoga retreat in portugal..  And I thought it was cool to have Seychellois' parents, understand a bit of creole and move to london haha. I can't even remember the stories / backgrounds of the other people but it really blows me away how little I know about the world compared to others. That night the group spent about an hour explaining the difference between Christianity and Judaism (don't ask me now - I've forgotten) and then how Muslim/Islam etc all works. I felt was the most naive / uneducated person there - but no one made me feel like i was stupid when I asked 'so islam is the religion and muslim is the person, right?' for the millionth time. Even though it all went in one ear and out the other, it just made me realise that people don't really care where you're from, what you know, who you were back home - if you ask, you can learn so much - and people love telling their stories :)

The 2 days in Madrid was enough for me I think. Maybe if I'd gone out on the pub crawls I would have seen more of the night life & culture. All in all, a great first stop on my own - spent more time getting to know the people than the place - but that's half the point right?

Next stop... Lisbon!!✌

Return to Barcelona

Back to my faaaavourite place from last year's trip. Where I met the most amazing people and have some of the best memories. Barcelona.

We checked into our hostel (Sant Jordi Mambo Tango). Tried to find a bloody massage place (unsuccessful) but we were warned that any 'massage' in that area would most likely be a different kind of 'massage'. We ended up wandering down to La Ramblas, thru the food market (of course I bought a tonne of chocolate and some dried figs ha), drank sangria (which I thought I hated from last year but now really like!), ate (cant remember what - paella perhaps?) and made our way up to Magic Fountain.

That 100ish yr old dancing water fountain still blows me away. There's 3 different 'sets' that it shows.. One is classical music, one is movie themes (what we saw in the pouring rain last year) and lastly pop songs - which is what we saw this time. And wow let's say I've never really caught myself bopping along to "call me maybe" but this bloody fountain seems to be magic in more ways than one.. It was more beautiful this time round because it wasnt bucketing down with rain - and even Jeff admitted that it's pretty beautiful.

We left happy (and wet from the splashing water) to head back to the hostel - to realise that at some point during my new found love for sangria and carly ray jepsen, I'd been pickpocketed.. :( waaaaah. Luckily they'd only managed to swipe my sunglass case (prescription sunnies included) so it was more of an inconvenience than anything because it meant that in the next 7days of beautiful sunny places - I couldn't really see sh*t. Had to buy a new €10 pair of sunnies that just made my eyesight worse.  Anyway, lesson learnt. And it could have been my purse or phone..  

Jeff was pretty stoked with the €1.50 beers so he went back out to the pub later that night, bumped into our Canadian-irish roommate and shouted him beers all night ha.  

We did the cycle tour the next day (me being sure to stay up-front with the guide so that I couldn't lose the group haha). We rode past a motorbike accident where the bike was completely mangled and the girl was laying on the floor with people surrounding her calling the ambulance and fanning her down. She luckily didn't seem too hurt but geez now I'm starting to realise why Papa's always said that we're not getting our motorbike licences - the person on the bike (and the bike) never come out of an accident very well.  

Next stop - Parc Guell (Gaudi park) afterwards and good god there were a tonne of stairs. Gaudi must've been a bloody machine while he designed that park if he had to go up n down a zillion Jacobs ladder style stairs every day. I understand why everyone said I had to do the park this time round - its really bizzarly designed but in a weird willy wonka kinda way.  One of the houses could have easily been the witch's house from Hansel & Gretel..  The view over Barcelona from the park was pretty beautiful too so at least I satisfied my "get to a high point for a good view" need. I think this might have to be a new rule.

Rule # 2 - Where possible - get to a high point for the best view.

Trying to remember now what else we did in Barcelona is proving a bit difficult but I think we pretty much walked around, ate & drank.

Breakfast the day that I flew out down on the beach @ Barcelonetta was good, before I said goodbye to h&j to trekk it back to the hostel (getting lost STRAIGHT AWAY walking the wrong direction ending up on the wrong side of the port - hopeless) then to get the 3.5hour train to Madrid. My first solo venture and I get lost in the first 10 mins. Not looking very hopeful for me ha but I have to admit, my map reading skills are improving...

✌

Olaaaa

I never understood people that shake their computers or throw their phones in a fit of rage when theyre not doing what theyre supposed to do... But now I do. I had drafted 3 masssiiiiivvveee posts on my phone during the last 3 weeks while in airports or on buses or trains, with the intention of posting them up when I got wifi. But unfortunately my 'Blogger' app wasn't up to date on my Galaxy.... so none of the posts saved properly. And I can't open them... So now I have to start from scratch and cover my first week in London, and my trips to Majorca, Madrid, Barcelona & Lisbon.

Ive already forgotten a lot..

My first week in London... I had my Britbound appointment to meet a few other new expats, get my national insurance number sorted, get some info on life in London and what to expect  etc etc. Got my (empty) bank account up & running.. Registered with a few recruitment agencies and introduced myself to a few contacts from back home. Walked all over the place, got lost a little bit (in a good way), joined 2 free running/fitness groups (free bootcamp on Saturdays & Sundays...wtf?!) so met a few coolkids through that. Basically a full week of running around to different appointments and applying for every job possible. Not sure if I´ve mentioned, but Im living like 200m from Brick Lane.. so Ive promised myself that as soon as I get a job I´m gonna be going out for dinner there to celebrate... nom nom nom. Hayls & Jeff flew in on Wednesday so we had drinks & dinner most nights, went to London zoo on the Friday (20x better than Perth Zoo might I add..), bootcamp on Saturday morning, then packed and headed back out to Gatwick to fly out to my first stop ( Majorca ) with Hayley n Jeff...

First mission..

We land in Majorca at about 9pm and go pick up our hire car.. We were staying in this place called Cala Pi (rough translation - woop woop) so had a 30km (ish) drive from Palma to our hotel. Of the 3 of us, Im the one with the international drivers licence. Which meant I was the one responsible for getting us from Palma to Cala Pi, in the dark, driving on the wrong side of the road, in a manual (which means gear changes with my right hand), with no real map & no street lights... alive. You dont really realise how fast 100km is when youre basically learning to drive all over again. But with a few casual drifts onto the right side of the road, and some confusing roundabout incidents, and me completely mixing up my lefts & rights, we made it there. But if I hadn´t remembered the tip 'righty tighty lefty loosey' for turning corners, we might not have made it haha. Cudos to me.

Our hotel wasnt bad at all.. We had a 2 bedroom apartment on the 2nd (top) floor so we had a rooftop terrace and a bit of a view. There was a beautiful little cove beach behind the hotel that was pretty much the hotels private beach. A big old lighthouse on the coast on a cliff that dropped down to the ocean. The views were beautiful.

Trying to find things to do around our area was a bit of a struggle.. We were about 40mins from palma town (we went into town twice but once being the Sunday and everything was closed). Me being a bit of an alcoholic noticed a vineyard on the way back from Palma & it got me thinking about wine, so I looked up a winetour company and we did a gourmet tour. For €45 we got picked up and dropped off (45mins each way!) and toured 3 wineries (including t he oldest one in Majorca) and we actually got to tour through the operational side where the grapes are cleaned and the wine's aged and bottled and all that jazz.. A lot more informative than what you get back home. (did you know that the only red wine is red is because they leave the skin on?? So you can actually make white wine from red grapes).  the wines were pretty much all amazing, the food was yuuuuum and wow ive never seen so many bottles of wine in my life. Our driver was incredibly helpful and gave us advice on the very few places we could eat around Cala Pi (my god, the grilled fish we had on our last night at his recommended restaurant was delish !!)

The whole time we were there I'd wanted to go hiking. I'd heard that the mountains of Majorca are brilliant for hiking especially as some of them are coastal so the views would be pretty special. But unfortunately we were staying south east of palma at the bottom of the island....and the mountains were up in the north. So to save myself getting lost driving the 2 or 3 hours out to the mountains and then most likely getting lost in the wilderness, I dragged Hayley & Jeff along on a coasteering excursion :) for €55 we got picked up & dropped off (almost 2 hours each way!) and went out cliff jumping, climbing,  swimming, abseiling & caving. Definitely worth it! The coast is beauuuuutiful and the green glow of the ocean in the underwater caves made me wish I had a waterproof camera. It was so surreal. The cliff jumping sent my legs to jelly and my heart to my throat but well it was pretty cool!  

Aside from the wine tour and the coasteering we literally spent the week eating, drinking, relaxing, & tanning (my mid-stomach tan line from highwaisted bikini is back in action).   We got a tad lost on the way back to the airport and did about 5 u-turns before we found the right turn off for our car return place. Finally made it to the airport.. Next stop - Barcelonaaaaaa :D

✌

The Wedding(s)

Wales..

Not the big ones in the sea that blow air through their spouts, but the mountainous country to the west of England.

I'd been warned about the weather (typically freezing, and raining all year round) and the different laid back "country" way of life (so don't to expect any kind of hustle & bustle).

So after an amazing nights sleep in London on Monday night, I jumped on a 10am train on Tuesday to Bath. Sharon was picking me.up from there at about 3pm to then drive over to Aberystwyth (Wales). I was lucky enough to miss the rain on the way to the tube, but it pretty much poured the whole train ride to Bath, and my 2.5 hours of being a tourist (with no brolly) was spent taking cover in shops. First stop - Sally Lunn's tea shop..apparently where this lady a few hundred years ago would bake these amazing sweet n savoury buns with her secret recipe, and her buns are now famous in Bath called "Sally Lunn's Buns". I didn't have a bun (feeling crook after flying as I always do) but the cappuccino was pretty good. I tried to kill as much time as possible sitting in the little teashop (avoiding the rain) but given that the place is famous and only had about 8 tables I was "stared down" pretty quickly so I left.

Next stop was supposed to be the roman baths but the queue was about 30mins long and out in the pissing rain so I took a photo of the front and kept going. I eventually bought the cheapest brolly I could find (£5 and leopard print of course), wandered around a bit before taking shelter in a pub, ordering a local cider (not bad!), called Francois to complain a bit about the cold, and waited for Sharon..

The drive from Bath to Aberystwyth was about 4.5 hours with shit traffic and a lotttt of rain. Funnily enough you have to pay a toll to get over the bridge into Wales, but no toll on the way out (btw, is WA the only place that doesnt have these stupid road tolls?).

So we got to Borth (north of Aberystwyth) to our little chalet in northfield holiday park at about 8pm, saw Maman & Papa for the first time in about 5 weeks (and true to form, the first thing maman says after I put my bags down was would I like a rum & coke. Yes, yes I would haha) we had some curry, caught up with the parents and my aunty n uncle, & went to sleep with the heater on its highest setting.

Wake up Wednesday morning (the morning of the first wedding) and I swear it was a different place. Sun shining, the greenest most beautiful view from our cabin overlooking the coastline, still a bit fresh but not freezing. I went for a run, & took a few pics (wishing a certain someone spesh was there to share the view) & I couldn't believe it. Wales didn't look the same.

Rachy & Ben's official ceremony wasnt til Saturday, but because of their humanist/pagan style wedding, its not recognised as a legal marriage so they had to have a civil service @ the registry office too. So on Wednesday Rach got ready in her parents chalet (the one next to ours), Amy and I did her hair (yes, I was half responsible for doing something girly haha, and yes - it actually looked great!!). So we headed down to the registry office, rach looking amazing in a floral dress, had a beautiful service (including a reading by Sharon about 2 dinosaurs that fall in love), and I must admit, considering it wasn't their big ceremony - it was pretty emosh !

Anyway we had drinks (and this amazing pimms punch) & nibbles @ Ben's parents place before a big feed at the local pub/restaurant "the black lion" with their closer friends n family. And wow, ben & rach have some brilliant friends. Especially given the next 2 days....

Its crazy really. The big wedding was held on their friends Rodrig (wrong spelling but im hopeless) and Sarah's organic farm out in basically the middle of nowhere. Thursday morning, the field was empty and there was cow & sheep shit everywhere.. but wow did everyone pull together. The first marqee went up, then the 2nd (the 2nd being hired from a circus company so it was covered in trees). The boys spent the whole day  thursday shovelling shit so that the guests wouldn't be walking through it and so that they could park in the big sheds. They've set up all these hay bails for ppl to sit on during the service. All the decorations / flower arrangements / banting was made by friends n family. Friday was just a massive day of setting up EVERYTHING. But wow it all came.together. from an empty farm on thursday to possibly the most beautiful and unique wedding setup by friday night. Ben & Rach even had this Mongolian "teepee" set up next to the marquees where they would camp for their first night as a married couple.

Friday came and the ceremony / reception was just magical. The ceremony was in the "circus" tent, the brides maids and bride were driven down on the back of a tractor,  the celebrant was hilarious and laid back, bens brother in law played the piano while we all attempted to sing this welsh anthem (in welsh), my (rather emotional) reading of a creole translation of an albert eistein quote was what "sealed" their marriage, Ben's mum sang this incredible opera song, and true to ben & rachs style, their final wedding song before the end of the service was the little mermaids "under the sea"..

The reception (if possible) was even more beautiful. Keeping in mind since wednesday there hadnt been any rain or cloud, pure sunshine (which is unheard of in wales) the big white marquee was nice and warm inside, and wow it looked unrecognisable from when it first went up. The first meal was all from an organic catering company, there was a home brew competition going on throughout the night, the lamb for the 2nd meal was incredible (and again, organic), & the wine was yummy. The speeches were so emotional. Ben is clearly completely smitten with rach and theyre both overwhelmed by all the hard work that went into getting the place all set up in less than 2 days. The best men (all 4 groomsmen because ben couldnt pick just one best man haha) did the most hilarious speech. They had us all singing the chorus of " all you need is love" while they sang their own personalised verses. There was a giant badger, an unexpected trumpet player, a bit of acting, loads of props (including a comparison of "real time" and "ben&rachel time", and a foam helmet for ben so he'll stop maiming himself). The dj was awesome & the dessert even better haham Ive never been to or even seen on tv anything like it. The night was really just beautiful.

Leaving Wales now and heading back to reality (london town) it all feels a bit surreal like it was all a whirlwind and Its over now..but wow, if im lucky enough to have a wedding half as incredible as ben n rachs (I know - a boyfriend would be a nice start haha) then I'll be over the moon, just like they are.

✌