Im feeling festive

Yes I do realise its still atleast 5 weeks until christmas but the christmas spirit is in the air and I'm getting excited!!
What better way to start feeling festive that with a stroll around London. The lights and decorations filling the streets are amazing. I'm loving Regent Street with its huge display of twinkling lights and ohhh Harrods.. the already amazing building is covered with lights showing its beauty to the londoners!

I cant wait till christmas and I'm already planning on visiting the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park this weekend.. now its just to decide where to go ice skating.. Tower of London, Somerset House, Hyde Park or Natural History Museum... oh the choices!!

Tagines, sand dunes and camel rides - Moroccan adventures

Well I did it.. I ventured to Africa for a taste of the Moroccan life and whilst it had it's up and downs I can really say I loved it.

I should probably mention before I start that I was going there by myself.. Well I was meeting my 2 lovely friends but I had to fly there by myself... Something I really shouldn't do. After my last horrendous flight coming back from KL by myself and the fear that instilled in me, I was quite nervous if I'm honest to be going on another flight unaided.
The flight was fine but after arriving to Marrakech airport and waiting for my transfer I realize they have forgotten me. So I'm stuck in the airport.. alone, nervous, angry and being hit on by various Moroccan men. Awesome.
After an hour and a half, 2 phone calls and £10 of credit later I finally make it to the hotel. Yippee!!

After the stressful beginning it got better as we headed out to the sahara desert. If I could have stayed anywhere in morocco, hands down I would choose to camp out in the sahara. It was amazing. The red dunes that go for miles, the luxury camping complete with western toilets, proper beds and turbans. One night was spent on top of a massive sand dune watching the sunset. This single moment is one of the most amazing experiences of my life. How many people can say they watched a sunset from the middle of the Sahara sitting on a sand dune...??

Whilst I loved being out in the desert , the camel ride was not so great. It started good and it was pretty exciting but the novelty was quickly lost after we realised how painful this was on our bums. I felt for the poor boys that had to sit on them.. I hope they werent planning to have children anytime soon!!

After 3 nights in the desert, I was silently applauding myself that I hadnt been sick.. the morrocan bug had quickly spread around camp... until the day we were leaving which incidently was the day we had to drive about 10 hours to our next stop.. 2 vomits on the bus later and I was completely and utterly under the spell of the morrocan bug... so not fun!! And I take full responsibilty of spreading the vomiting part of it around our group like wild fire. They dropped like flies after that!! 

So I should probably mention about the tagines (just typing the word has sent my stomach into uneasiness). The tagines were great... for the first couple. Slowly after that the taste of one tagine to the next was turning into one big gigantic cumin spice of a meal. And dont get me started on the stale bread!! I think everyone barr Alisha would be absolutely fine if we never had to eat one again.

I shouldnt complain because I had the best time on my week in Morocco. I met some really amazing people, had some great times and ticked another country off my to do list!

Tube Tales

With all my previous jobs I have had in London I had the luxury of being able to catch the bus or walk from home which was pretty much the greatest thing about all the jobs i had... now that im an upper class girl working in the heart of mayfair it is imperitive that I catch the tube everyday. I can now say these journeys into London each day has opened my eyes to the commute most londoners face and I have to say its not a fun one...

Firstly, no one, and i repeat no one makes eye contact. If you do its probably the end of your life as you know it. If your face isnt buried into a book, the metro, your laptop or iphone and you decide to gaze around to look at fellow passengers be wary of someone else doing the same. The awkwardness of catching someones eye will leave you utterly ashamed and wish you could curl into a ball and hide from the world. your eyes do funny tricks as you quickly dart them left and right, up and down to relieve yourself of the embarrasment.

Secondly, no one talks, and if you do everyone will hear it. I cant count the number of times I have overheard an emotional sob story between friends about a current break up, a bitch about that awful girl at work who gave you work to do a minute till home time, a whinge about the kids... no one wants to hear it.. unless its really funny like the time 2 girls were saying they wouldnt come to Australia because of the hail.. i mean really.

There are some very (how shall I put this..) dumb people out there who have no idea of the etiquette of being on the tube.
LET PEOPLE OFF THE TUBE BEFORE YOU GET ON. This one annoys me the most. I mean really dont push your way on before the rest of us have got on. I now push my way back and have been known to barge a few people out of the way because I could almost not get off in time.
TURN YOUR MUSIC DOWN. No one wants to hear britney blasting from your ear phones.. (Do I sound like an old whinging nanna??)
PLEASE USE DEODOURANT. I detest standing next to someone holding onto the railing above and their armpit is practically in my face and they forgot to either shower and/or use deodourant.. its not fun.
ITS PROBABLY BEST NOT TO FALL ASLEEP ON THE TUBE. We dont enjoy listening to your snoring, but I do get enjoyment out of the fact that when you woke up and asked where you were, you figured out you had gone 5 stops too many. Classic.

I could literally go on and on about the ups and downs of catching the tube but I'll leave it at this... catching the tube everyday for work is expensive... £27.60 for a weekly pass just for zones 1 and 2... not the best thing for my poor bank account.

Job hunting in London

I've been pretty lucky since arriving in London a crazy 16 months ago and have never had much trouble getting a job.
After arriving back in London after our huge 2 and a half month summer travels I was exceptionally nervous about finding myself a job. I was scraping on destitute after blowing my life savings on the epic travel plans so needed a job a-sap.
LUCKILY a few recruitment agents found my resume I had put online and one great agent was good enough to get me a job... sadly only for 3 weeks but it was the best 3 weeks and it was seriously the first job Id had over here that I had actually liked. After a few days off and a few days of worrying myself stupid about what I could do besides selling myself on the street to get some pennies, I again was lucky enough to get another temp job. This time in the middle of mayfair, a magazine publishing house in the middle of all the richies (DVF, juicy couture, mui mui to name a few). So its another few weeks of temping until I can find myself something a little more permanent.
So even though the world is in this financial crisis and so many people are losing their jobs I have still been pretty lucky and already getting myself a pretty great reputation in London as a good worker! WOO! Feeling good until this job ends and I have to look for something else... then its back to the worrying and the thoughts of having to come back to Australia earlier than expected to live with the parentals free of charge and save some money. Boo.. not wanting that yet!

P.S Any Londoners willing to give me a job that pays well I am available!

Under Strict Instructions

Arghhhh... Its been a while since I wrote a post.. i admit i got slack.. I got busy and the whole blog thing took a back seat...
So now I am under strict instructions from Mitch's mum Naomi to get back into writing my blog.. I was also told I must mention her name.. so I will try to write it as often as possible.

Greek Islands

After 3 trains, 2 flights and a car ride we finally arrived to Santorini, one of the most popular greek islands.
The flight from athens to santorini was an experience.. We make it out to the tarmac and are directed towards a plane, we figured our plane must be the big one behind the small one that sat in front of us.. but no no we were going by the small plane. It sat about 40 people and was the smallest plane I have ever been on.
Once we were seated the air hostess walked down the isle handing out what we thought were lollies... we came to learn they were actually travel sickness lollies...eeeep!! Thankfully the flight was fine, Ive definitely been on worse flights flying with jetstar or easyjet. Once we landed the pilot came out and SHE was the hottest thing I have ever seen.. practically a barbie.

We stayed down at Perissa Beach, more known as the black beach (the sand is literally black). Our accomodation was.... less than average I must say. The owner fancied himself an artist... a con artist more like it if he was trying to pass his work off as art!!

We had decided to spend 5 nights in Santorini and it was well worth it. We spent our days fanging around on our quad bikes, hanging out at the beach, swimming and eating gyros.
We spent a night up at Fira, the main town of Santorini, where there are hundreds of the amazing white houses with blue roofs on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. The sunsets are absolutely amazing and is one thing I love seeing is a sunset over the ocean.

After 5 nights in paradise we headed to Paros. It is probably my favourite of the islands we went to. The stunning landscape of the beaches mixed with the baron centres and dry land is absolutely amazing.
Our 3 nights here were spent generally doing the same thing... riding around on quads, hanging at the beach and working on my growing tan. I definitely could get used to this kind of life!

Our last islands, Mykonos was definitely really fun! We stayed in Gilos Platus a few beaches around from Paradise, the well known party area. The place we stayed was AMAZING complete with an awesome pool and pool bar overlooking the hills of Mykonos.
Our first night mitch took claire and I on a mission walk around to paradise beach, we didnt quite make it as we couldnt work out which beach was actually paradise beach at that stage, but we stopped at an awesome bar for some cocktails and was so worth the rocky trek to get there.
we spent our days doing the usual, beach, pool, eating, working on tans. nothing out of the usual!
Our second night we were going to head into the port area for dinner and a quick look around, on our way we had to pass by the pool bar and met our new friend Adam, an aussie living in london (something unusual) and invited him to dinner as he as all alone until his friends arrived. We are such nice people haha. Lucky we did because we all became really good friends and was good to talk to some other people.. something I miss about not staying in hostels. After an amazing dinner, we practically had to be rolled to the bus to get us back to our place. Something about greek food makes me want to keep eating and eating!

Claire left us the next day so she could head back to turkey, but Mitch and I stayed on for another night. Our last afternoon we met some more people around the pool.. a group of amercians travelling together. They are such amazing people and again so glad we could meet them. I love meeting so many people!
Now with our big group, we headed out for our last night in Mykonos to see it out with a bang! we trekked again to Paradise beach, having some cocktails on the way. It was such a fun night hanging out with everyone! we finally got to bed about 3am and sadly the next day we had to leave the amazing greek islands and head back to dreary london. So depressing!

I absolutely loved the greek islands, I would probably go back again but do the greek sailing to see a bit more! the lifestyle of staying on the greek islands is amazing.. swimming, quad biking, eating gyros... I mean really who wouldnt love it???

Heaven on Earth - Cinque Terre

Cinque Terre.. to sum it up... WOW.
This place is absolutely amazing and is now one of my favourite places in the world.

We arrived to cinque terre late in the afternoon after a 6 hour train ride from Naples. The train ride itself was an adventure.. the train was old and we had pre-booked tickets and reserved seats.. except mitchs seat did not exist so he spent the entire train ride moving from seat to seat when one was available..not a highlight for him.
Mitch and I met up with Claire at La Spezia station and we headed out to Cinque Terre together. We stayed in Vernazza which was definitely my favourite of the 5 towns. Its the second largest town (we had one main street and a few little ones coming off that) and a stunning view to the ocean of crystal clear water.
The 5 towns of Cinque Terre are linked by rail and also hiking trails. Our first full day we decided to do the hike. Starting in Riomaggiore (or Rio-town as we had come to call it) we headed off. The first walk was very easy, it was flat, along a concrete path and only took about 20 minutes. We passed the hundred of padlocks that people lock to the railings as a symbol of love and then throw the key into the ocean, had pictures taken on the lovers chair and took many many photos.
The second walk from Manorola to Corniglia was tough... the easy route had been closed due to a landslide and most people took the train to the next town.. however we decided to the 2 and a half hour detour hike to get there. To say it was painful is an understatement. For an hour and a half we walked so high up into the mountains, climbing uneven steps. The sun was at its finest and belting out over 30 degrees of heat making it almost unbareable. Once reaching the top the views were definitely worth it as we looked out to the ocean. The next hour was spent walking through vineyards and making our way down the rocky terrain to Corniglia. we finally arrived and had a small lunch. Claire and I were exhausted and incredibly hot so we decided we would go back to our town by train, have a swim and relax for the rest of the afternoon. Mitch decided he wanted to do the whole walk in one day so he set off. He was so exhausted by the end of it but pretty pleased he done it all.

I had decided I would finish the walk 2 days later and Im so glad I did as the walks from Corniglia to Vernazaa and then to Monterosso were worth it. They were tough but the views are just so incredible you cant pass up the opportunity. I also roped mitch into doing the walks with me too so he hiked the whole thing one and a half times!
As a reward Mitch said he would take me to jump off the high rock in Vernazza into the ocean. It was completely safe as the water is ridiculously deep but I was so scared. Being petrified of heights I had to cling to Mitch and could barely get my legs to stop feeling like jelly so I could actually stand up there. It wasnt even that high I dont think, but any height is petrifing to me. A crowd was building watching and waiting for me to jump.. I had a moment of adrenalin and I knew in that second if i didnt jump I never would. So i quickly let go off mitchs hand which I had been squeezing and jumped into the turquoise water. The crowd cheered as I jumped, plunged into the water and came up to the surface being happy with myself that I had done it.

I am so glad we had gone to Cinque Terre.. after Mitch and I saw an episode of Getaway on it we made sure it was high on our bucket list and we would be going. So now thats ticked off and its also made its way to the top of my favourite places list. I would most definitely recommend Cinque Terre.. we were there for 4 nights and it wasnt enough. You could never get sick of the views, the lifestyle of swimming and jumping off rocks, snorkelling, eating amazing italian pasta, seafood, gelati... all of it, it's amazing.

Its my heaven on earth!!

Naples, Pompeii and Ischia

Wow.. I am so far behind in my blog its not funny. But it got hard to write them on my Iphone and then I was too busy enjoying travelling to update everyone on whats been going on. I finally have a bit of time now that I will catch up with everything I have done.

So we arrived to Naples.. I had booked us 5 nights here which I was worried was about 4 nights too many but it turns out it was just enough. We had heard that Naples isnt that nice, bit grotty and of course a city with a high percentage of petty theft (having just come from Madrid where I had my whole purse stolen, there wasnt much more they could steal from me, so I was feeling safe).
After a mission walk to find our hostel we had to climb 100 steps (we climbed them so much that I counted them every time) and those steps are a puff!! We were exhausted when we finally got to our room, luckily it was late anyway so we pretty much fell straight asleep.

Hola from Madrid

So I'm a bit delayed on this post but no worries.
After spending a few days in alicante, a small town on Spain's eastern coast just an hour south of Valencia (we didn't do anything exciting except for sit on a beach really, not exactly riviting and didn't require it's own post on the blog) we headed for Madrid. After 5 painstaking hours on the bus we finally arrived to 30 degree dry heat.

I'm just going to put it out there... I wasn't a fan of Madrid (it's my blog so I get to say it, sorry to all those Madrid lovers). If your an art lover you would be in heaven as the city is crammed full of art galleries and you spend a few full days wandering between each gallery if your that way inclined.. I'm not.

Even with our hesitations we decided to go on a walking tour. I mean Valencia proved me wrong so there was a possibility that Madrid could as well.
Anyway we started our walking tour in sol, the very centre of Madrid and the epitome of city. Bustling with people, buskers and protesters the square is manic. Walking around Madrid was actually pretty cool. The history is amazing and we learnt alot. Our guide Hannah, a Londoner, gave us so much information but in a way that was interesting. It wasn't fact and date after fact and date. She put effort into it and we really learnt things. For 3 hours we roamed the streets seeing every part of the main central city. I highly recommend these walking tours as you see so much and learn so much that you would never see or know if you did this yourself.

It was after this tour that one of my worst travel nightmares happened... I was pickpocketed. I wrote a post about it before this one so if you haven't read it I suggest you do... Once discovering I was pickpocketed and my purse was gone we then spent an entire afternoon canceling cards and sitting in the police station. Not my idea of fun I can tell you!

I don't want to blame Madrid for this, but it's also one of the reasons I'm not exactly a fan of the place.

Our next few days we managed to see alot more of the city, roaming ourselves around, eating tapas and generally trying to make the most of being in the capital of Spain.

So although I may not have been a fan of Madrid, Spain was amazing. I loved the culture, the history, the people and the sangria! I won't be returning to Spain again before I go back to Australia but hopefully one day I will be back!

Adios espania!

I've been pickpocketed

After visiting notorious pick pocket places such as Bangkok, Phuket, kuala lumpur, hong kong, Paris, Rome, Barcelona and have always been in possession of my belongings, it's finally happened.... I've been Pickpocketed!
Madrid... Should have known I couldn't get through 4 stops in the country that is rated the 5th most likely be robbed in the world!

During what would have been a 15 minute (at the most) time span my wallet was taken. The their took my favorite little purse (Anna Sui, not real but I still loved it) along with it they now have 3 bank cards, my drivers license and 60 euro.. Plus some extra things.. A subway club card if u want to know and some other rubbish.
I spent the afternoon of which we had planned to relax before our pub crawl tonight calling mastercard and visa to cancel my cards, and several hours at the police station making a statement! I hope the theif is happy with themselves!!

So it has totally ruined my day and I'm not happy Madrid! Fingers crossed no money was taken in the time before I was able to cancel the cards.

Top travel tip... Keep your bags very very close to you, in front if possible... Those damn pickpocketers are good!

Hola from valencia

Hola!

So I'm a few days late and I'm not actually in Valencia anymore but that's ok.

So we arrived to Valencia mid afternoon, everything was closed for siesta and we made our way in the hot hot weather to our hostel. After a brief look around and a quick lunch our first impression of Valencia wasn't a great one. I'd booked us 4 nights here and we thought it was possibly going to be 2 nights too many! After researching on the net for what seemed like hours and we had no better option that wouldn't cost us a ton of euro we decided on making the most of being in the town and staying the full 4 nights. I'm happy to say that first impressions can sometimes be wrong and Valencia proved me very wrong indeed!

My top tip if I give any is definitely do the free walking tour, I say free but there is a level of expectation that you tip the guide at the end, which is fair enough! Our guide was Duncan, a Scotsman who had come to Valencia as a history buff and ran walking tours, tapas tours and pub crawls. He was full of knowledge and for the next 2 hours we walked our way around most of the old town area. It really is a cool little city with so much history!

After filling our brains with Valencian History for 2 hours we followed Duncan on to the tapas tour. It wasn't the best tapas but we got some free sangria(mmmmmmm so good!) and met some amazing people! It's funny how you can pretty much go anywhere in the world and you will always see some Aussies!! It was the best day and we carried on with the drinking of sangria well after the tour ended with our new friends!

Our next day we met up with 2 of the guys we had met on the tapas tour. We aimed to see more of the old town area. Our first stop was into the town hall which was an impressive building in itself but the reason so many people go to look at it is for the amazing timber ceiling that has been carved. The ceiling is from another building which was there. The whole building had been wooden and it had burnt down. Somehow they managed to salvage the ceiling of this burning building and now resides in the town hall.
Our second stop was to the cathedral El Micalet which was built in the 1200's. It's really an amazing cathedral made up of many different chapels paying tribute to different saints and eras. The most important part of this church is it is said to hold the holy grail. Now I'm a little skeptical on this but they apparently have the most convincing and logical reasons for said holy grail to be in their possession. I thought it would be a little bit more extravagant but there it was. A tiny gold cup behind some glass!

After our history stops we decided to hire bikes and we rode through the park.. Cool story about this park actually.. It was once a river but then once the river overflowed and flooded the whole of Valencia. They then decided to reroute the river and it was turned into a park. So now there are thousands of meters of walking tracks, bike lanes and grass that snake itself around the city. So after riding right down to the port area we headed to the aquarium. It's the biggest in Europe and worth checking out. It was pretty cool.
It was extremely hot by this point and so we headed off to the beach and relaxed for the afternoon. It was great!

Our last day in Valencia was probably a bit of a waste. Mitch was hungover so he slept most of the day while I took myself off to central market, a market full of fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, fish and cheeses. I loved just walking up and down last the stalls peering at what they all had. The rest of the day I relaxed too.

So after a deceiving start we had a great time in valencia. It was definitely worth staying there for!

Hola from Barcelona

Hola!

After spending a day in London washing, buying some new books and repacking, mitch and I headed to Barcelona. I didnt have many expectations of bar elona due to most people saying 'meh it's ok there', 'oh you just need two days there' so the expectations plummeted and I didn't hold much hope for the city.
We arrived late afternoon on Saturday, it was so hot which was a stark contrast the weather we had just left in London. After finding our hotel we headed out for our first real look at the city. We stayed just off las ramblas, the centre of Barcelona that holds the epitome of what the city is all about. The tree lined street is crammed with hundreds of tourists, souvenier shops and Spanish gypsys. At night the street lights glow, artists come out sharing their talent and many a street performers impress us all in hopes of making a few euros for the night. It's a great street to people watch and generally bask inthe ambiance that is Barcelona.

Our first full day we headed off to do a bike tour of the city. Most definitely worth every cent of the 18 euros we paid for it. Our guide was an Aussie called Mitch and we were lucky
enough to be the only 2 clients of that time of the day so the bike tour was personal and so much fun. We biked around 15km of the city to see everything barcelona has the offer including the most famous building sagrada familia, the surrealistic church which the famous architect gaudi started building in 1882 and is still an incomplete masterpiece!

Gaudi's work features prominently around Barcelona and his works are some of the strangest I have ever seen. It was known that he was constantly tripping on some sort of acid and so his work of art shall we call them are strange and do not ever feature a right angle! It's pretty cool to see such surrealism art in a city that prides itself on it's amazing architecture!

The highlight of Barcelona for me was the magic fountain! Our second last night we headed off to montjuic (hill of the Jews) to see the amazing light show in which the fountain moves in time to music. We were there fr the Disney melody which I felt was quite appropriate since I had not long been to Disneyland. It was pretty cool to watch this show and finished off an awesome day!

Our last day in the Spanish city was spent walking around guelle park, a 15 hectare park featuring more of gaudi's work, and an afternoon at the beach!
So after much hesitation to visit spain's second largest city I had the best time and would definitely recommend anyone to go there!

Next stop velencia!

Why I like Blogging

So it took me a while to finally start a blog. It had always been in the back of my mind to do something like this for a long time. I only wish I had of started this travel blog from when I first left Australia to document everything I had done.

I love blogging about what I do, because it reminds me of how much of an awesome time Im having, how I am so lucky to be having these amazing adventures, its also a great way to tell everyone about what I have been doing instead of sending separate emails all the time saying the same thing over and over.

The thing I love most however is seeing the stats of what posts are being looked at and where these people are from. In the past week I have had people from India, Germany, Canada, USA and beyond looking at my blog. I find it crazy these people find me and actually think this blog is well worth a read even though most likely they have absolutely no idea who I am.

I would love to hear from anyone about how they found the blog, what they think and if they have any questions or ideas on posts. You can email me at labellavita.travel@hotmail.com. Would LOVE LOVE LOVE to hear from everyone...

Hola from San Sebastian

Hola!!

So we made it San Sebastian. It was a mission train ride from Paris that took us 5 and a half hours but we finally got there.

We are staying right on Playa Del A Concha beach which is the best part of town.
San Sebastian is the cutest beach town and we are loving it here. Everyone is so nice! Its quite an old city with a small old town similar to Dubrovnik and Split in Croatia. Apparently the old town had parts burned down so no buildings are older than the 1800's. Still pretty old though!

Our first night we decided to try some tapas. This being my first time to the mainland Spain I had never had tapas before. Pretty good but ended up being pretty expensive. We wandered around the town a bit and made it back to our room just before the storm hit. Weather forecasts had said it was to rain the entire time we are in San Sebastian. BOOO!

We awoke the next day to discover the weather forecast people were wrong. Thank God! Blue skies laid before us and the mercury hit 27 degrees. I cannot tell you how thankful we were for the beautiful day.
The morning was spent walking up the hill to see Monte Urgull Mendia, which looks like a spanish version of 'Christ the Redeemer' in Brazil. The walk up the steep hill was well worth the effort as the views were amazing that looked out over the beach and further inland.
We spent the afternoon lying on the beach, getting some sun, reading books and relaxing our little hearts out. Such a perfect day!

The last 2 days have been well... less than perfect. It has rained the entire time, which for a beach town where is nothing else to do than go to the beach this has been a bit of struggle to fill our days. We spend our time walking around the shops, and finding cute places to eat dinner. I must say its been a little disappointing the past couple of days as I was keen on getting a tan and spending day after day at the beach. I can only hope the weather for the rest of our trip is great.

Tomorrow we head back to London for a day then Mitch and I head back down to the rest of Spain. I cant wait!!

Adios amigos!!

Bonjour from Paris

Im writing from one of my favourite cities in the world... Paris!

Having been here before in 2009 I had done all the main sites, going in to the louve and seeing mona lisa, going up the eiffel tower, watched a caberet show.. so it left me with nothing else but to enjoy Paris in all its charm!

We are staying right near Notre Dame, right near St Michel's fountain. The best location we could ask for. So close to everything and full of character.
Being right on the Seine we walked up and down the river endlessly looking at the market stalls selling old photos, paris souveniers, and old classic books. I just love it!

I remember my first impression of the Eiffel Tower a couple of years ago, it was one of mixed reactions. I was first in awe at its size and that I was actually standing under, and then on top of one of the worlds most notable attractions... my other reaction was of disappointment that its brown... I wasnt expecting that at all. This time when I visited I didnt have any expectations of course and took in the tower for all its beauty and enjoyed being in the city of love. Our first night in Paris we sat under the tower eating nutella and banana crepes and watched the tower twinkle in the dusk light when the light show started. It was a perfect evening and a great start to the Parisian leg of my 2 month adventure.

Our first full day in Paris we headed to the Marais area and found a famous bakery selling delicious pastries. We couldnt help ourselves and Claire and I got a chocolate Eclair and a lemon meringue pie to share. (They were amazing if anyone is wondering)
We sat down in a park area for a while enjoying the slight bit of sunshine that came with the day and by lunch time we were starving and headed to the famous felafel place. I had never had felafel before so was slightly hesitant in getting it but I loved it. After demolishing the felafel and headed for the louve. We sat outside in the park doing a favourite past time of mine.. people watching and the whole time thinking I cant believe I'm in paris again!!
Later that night we headed to Mont Martre and walked around a bit. The guys trying to con you into making you a bracelet for 200 euros were in full force and one even yelled out to be 'sexy boomba i like your breasts'. I mean really. thats disgusting. I would just like to mention I did not have any sort of revealing top on so it goes to show they are creeps! After seeing the church and then walking along to take some happy snaps of Moulin Rouge we found a cute restaurant and had a great dinner. Blew the daily budget yet again but what the hell...

Our last full day in Paris was pretty great aswell. We started at Champs Elysee and walked the street up to Arc De Triomph. Again taking a few happy snaps. We headed back the Eiffel Tower and we had a picnic in the park under the tower. It was pretty great until a gypsy girl came along and tried to steal our food... literally. I snatched it back off her and we yelled at her to go away... These gypos are the pits!!
The afternoon ended with another walk along the Seine and I bought a few pictures for the one day when I have myself a house and need to decorate. The day finished with another nutella and banana crepe which finished off the trip to Paris with perfection.

I love this city, I really do. Its charm, its beauty and its history is amazing.

Je t'aime Paris... Until next time...

It's been a while...

Bonjour from Paris!

Its been a while since my last post.. forgive me.. im having the time of my life!

I finished my job on June 30, am now unemployeed, no job forseeable in the near future and have set off for the start of my 2 month adventure.

First stop.. Disneyland.
Claire and I have always asked our parents to take us to disneyland.. they never did.. so we had to take ourselves.

The day started early at 5am and I made my wasy sleepily to Kings Cross St Pancras station to meet claire and catch the eurostar to France. It started well.. we go the right platform and got the train and headed for Lille. A quick change over there and we were on our way to Disneyland. Behind us was an old lady who not only breathed so heavy you could hear her from the next carriage but the breathing was so rapid, shallow and lacked any sort of normal breathing qualities we thought she just may cark it.
We finally got to our station and caught the free shuttle to our hotel. We stayed in the Santa Fe Disneyland Hotel which was pretty cool.. old but cool.
Our first afternoon at disneyland started out great.. amazed by the whole park, we lined up for our first ride at thunder mountain. The map said it was 'big thrills' i would say medium thrills but we still had fun. The rest of the afternoon was spent on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, and Space mountain. I would say the park is mostly attractions and there are heaps of little kid rides. Hong Kong Disneyland was the same.. I suspect they all must be like this.

Our second day started off at disneyland again with rides on the Peter Pan ride and a walk through Alice's Labrynth. We decided to skip the rest of the rides and head for the Disneyland studios next door. Definitely the right decision and we spent the afternoon on the 'scary' rides. I am now obsessed with the Twilight Zone's Tower of Terror which is like the Giant Drop at Dreamworld only better... We ended up going on the ride 4 times!

I have to commend Disneyland and the Studios on their awesome shows though. We saw a Tarzan one and a action stunt show and were so worth the whole trip to disneyland. they were amazing!
The Disney Parade was also awesome and the highlight for me was seeing the Queen of the Red Hearts take a tumble.. actually not a tumble.. a full on smack to the ground I thought she wasnt getting up. The float was momentarily stopped while the mad hatter helped her up. Classic!

All in all, my trip to Disneyland was pretty great. I had the goal to visit every disneyland in the world.. 2 down (Hong Kong and Paris) so only 2 to go (Tokyo and LA). Will most likely be going to the LA one next September so Ill be making plans to go to Japan in the next few years.

Au Revior!

Being a Tourist

Its not often that I go right into London and be a tourist, but when I do I always love it.

Last weekend was Claire's last weekend in London before we head off travelling and then she heads home, so we decided to do some touristy things and take advantage of the 28 degree days.

Saturday night started with dinner at Ping Pong in Southbank. After we stuffed ourselves full of dim sums and delicious squid we headed off for a walk.. Starting at the London Eye we crossed the Golden Jubilee Bridge and headed for Trafalgar Square. Possibly my favourite part of London, Trafalgar square was packed full of people standing around, taking photos and generally enjoying the extended hours of daylight and fact we could be outside (at night) without a jacket. We kept on walking through Picadilly circus and onto Leicester Square. We excitedly went to m&m world which has just opened.. and I must say its sooooo much better than the New York store. 4 levels of merchandise, chocolate and goodness. mmm yum!!
The night finished off with a viewing of Bridesmaids in Leicester Square.. (which reminds me I must go and see a movie premier there sometime)

The highlight of my weekend was the sunday afternoon lounging around Hyde Park. We had talked about having a picnic in hyde park for a very long time. It was always either too cold, the weather suddenly turned or we woke up too late to get ourselves organised for it. But we finally made the plans and we spent the afternoon of the hottest day of the year sitting under a tree, having a delicious picnic on Mark's and Spencers food and watching the other thousands of people who had the same idea as us to head to the park.
There seemed to be a revival of rollerblading/skating and hundreds of crazy skilled skaters would fly by showcasing their skills.

The weekend finished off with some apple cider and then Pimms and lemonade by the Thames. Pretty freaking awesome weekend...

Now to get through the next few days at work when I finish on Thursday and I'll be a tourist heading around France, Italy, Spain, Greek Islands and Thailand for 2 months.... tough life eh..

Ascot Races

Last weekend we went to the Royal Ascot Races. I don’t know if it was the weather, the abundance of mud, the lack of seating or just the British attempt at a race day but it didn’t live up to expectations.

Don’t get me wrong I still had a great day. It was fun to dress up, see some friends, drink pimms and cheer on the horses but there was still that niggling feeling that Magic Millions is a lot better.

The day started early with a 6.30am wake up call. We got ready (complete with my own handmade fascinator which I am extremely proud of by the way) and headed to Temple station. The bus pulled out slightly behind schedule and we headed for Ascot, an hour and a half drive away. It was raining on and off which didn’t do wonders for my hair.. or my outfit which I believe looked better without a cardi and/or wrap. We were provided Pimms, wine and a buffet lunch which filled the spot.

By the time the races opened it was pouring and we had to make a 5 minute walk to the venue, not fun, but we got in without hassle and it was there we got to enjoy being in the famous race course.

Pushing our way to the fence after trampling through a field of mud, we secured ourselves an ok position to view the races. It was at this time my highlight of the day happened… I saw the queen! She made her grand entrance with cutie Phillip in carriage and waved to the crowd. I like to think she waved directly at me… for purposes of a really great blog post lets suppose she did. It was pretty cool to see ol’ Lizzie and definitely lifted spirits.

The rest of the day was spent cheering on the horses, walking through mud and having a great time. The bus ride back was painful though as we were so tired and I just looked forward to getting out of my ruined muddy heels. We did drive past Windsor Castle though which was pretty darn cool.

So all in all, I still had a great day. Something to tick of my list of things I want to do.

But really, the Poms don’t do a race day like the Aussies do!

Something to aspire too..

I have been trawling the web for some cool travel websites, to see what other travel bloggers write about, where they have been and generally getting some tips, ideas and plans for all future trips I want to do.. (the list grows every time I find a new website)

My favourite site so far is about Nomadic Matt. An American travelling the world and making all of us extremely jealous of the amazing trips he does.
I love his website, because alot of it is so relevant to me, cheap places to stay, cheap eats, things to do on a budget. exactly what im looking for in a nutshell.. well a webshell shall we call it?

Despite the amount of travel I have done I am pretty jealous of this amazing travel lifestyle matt has. One day I'll start my own website similar.. Something to aspire to!

Check out Matts website http://www.nomadicmatt.com/ I guarantee you will be planning a trip to somewhere exotic after reading it!!

Happy Anniversary!!

It has been one year since we left the comfortable, warm, beachy surroundings of the gold coast and headed to the big smoke I now call home.. London.

The year has gone so fast, but when I think about when I last saw my friends and family it does seem like such a long time ago.
The year has been filled with plentiful trips around europe and to america, that have constantly filled the gap in my life. It has not however eased the travel bug that is constantly coming out.

Every week I have found a new place I want to go and its added to the list. there is not enough time or money to visit them all, which saddens me beyond belief.
The only thing I can think of to do is getting myself a super cool job in the travel industry, becoming a professional travel blogger and/or researcher and getting paid to see the world. Its my only answer to fill the whole my heart!!
So anybody... everybody.. please send my details to every travel company you know to get me my dream job!!!

A year in pictures

Next week it will be a year since we left home.. crazy i know! Its been the best year of my life and I have loved every second of the amazing travelling I have done.

Here is the past year of my life in pictures..

June

We left on june 14 and headed to phuket, soaking up the sun, the cheap food and drinks and our enjoying the start of our big adventure

July

We spent almost two weeks in my favourite country of the world.. Croatia. Dubrovnik and Split are absolutely beautiful and I would head back in a second!

August

After 2 months off I started working, it didnt last long and we headed to Lagos in Portugal for a long weekend. We spent the whole time relaxing on the beach, eating cheap food and generally doing not much at all.. amazing!

September

A group of us headed to Oktoberfest which was super great fun. The first day was a write off for most of the boys... Mitch drank 5 steins in 3 hours, asked us to take him out of the beer hall and passed out in the park.. he also spent the next day spewing his little heart out. All in all it was still a fun 4 days.

October

We spent Halloween in the best place possible... New York! we saw the halloween parade and got a little dressed up.

November

We were still in New York in November.. Hands down New York is my favourite city in the whole world. The place is amazing and I couldnt get enough of it. I almost wondered if we have moved to the wrong city!

December

The temperatures dropped severely and it start snowing. It was so amazing to wake up and see a blanket of soft white snow over everything. I made my first snowman!!

New Years

We saw in the new year under the london eye watching the amazing fireworks. they went for atleast half an hour and by the end you could barely see them due to the smoke all around. It was the perfect way to end 2010 and start 2011 in a new city!

January

I became a skiing professional in Les Deux Alps in France. It was the most fun week ever. I started out as a gumbi in the beginners class having never skiied before,  but by the end I was one of two who did a blue run out of the whole class and I survived!!

February

We were mean to head to Egypt, but due to the riots there our tour and flights were cancelled. we were absolutely devastated! luckily we were able to book a last minute trip to canary islands. Mitch spent the week diving so I spent the week sleeping in, going to the beach, reading and shopping. pretty much the perfect holiday!

March

I didnt go anywhere in March which is pretty disappointing, but I did turn 23 which was pretty exciting!

April

We spent an amazing 2 weeks touring around Turkey, with a special stop in Gallipoli for ANZAC Day. That was the best experience of my life and i cherish every memory of it. Lest We Forget.

May

My second month in the year I have been gone where we didnt go anywhere. I spent the days counting the weeks till the next holiday!

June

And here we are... one year on and still loving living in London!

London Living

I love living in London, there is so much to do in this exciting city. I had to load all my photos onto my new computer yesterday and I looked through some of my photos that I have of my new home.
It got me thinking about the amazing things I love to do... and so I will share...

Although it was a few years ago, I loved the bike tour we did of London. We did the tour with Fat tyre bike tours http://fattirebiketours.com/london. It was the greatest thing. We rode all around london - Houses of Parliment, Buckingham palace, westminster abbey, royal parks, big ben, trafalgar square.. the list goes on. The best way to see the city!!

I love heading down to Southbank and seeing the London eye, the thames, big ben. We saw in the new year standing under the London eye watching the fireworks.. pretty freaking awesome.

I posted on it before, but I like going to Borough Markets. They sell some great food and its a good day out!

I absolutely cannot stand watching soccer (sorry football) on tv, but being at a game is so fun. The atmosphere is awesome and we always have a great time. I have been to 2 games, the first we saw Fulham v Werderemen (a german team with some serious hot players) and the other we saw fulham v everton.

We decided to make fulham our team because they are one of the closest teams to us, they also have Mark Schwarzer who is Australian..we love him.

London always has so many shows to see. Bands, comedians, musicals.. we have seen a bit.

I've now seen 2 musicals - We will rock you (possibly the greatest show on earth) and The Lion King. I've taken my tally of comedians to 3 with Ross Noble, Carl Barron and Stephen K Amos. Sadly I have only seen one band - I saw Muse at Wembley which was amazing. Wembley stadium is so big, it fits 90 thousand people.. a tad bigger than skilled stadium haha. The atmosphere was crazy!

These were just some of my favourite things to do... and the ones I have photos of..
There is always an abundance of things to do and I dont think I will have time to see and do it all!

You said what now?

It seems people have a great misconception on Australians and Australia in general;

Here are some funny things people have said to me so far;

(whilst talking about languages people learn at school)
'Did you learn aboriginie in school?'
Really? which one of the 5000 aboriginie languages would you have liked me to learn?

(whilst talking about the floods in QLD)
'Is your family worried about the crocodiles coming into their backyards'
Good job english newspapers for printing that one!

'Do kangaroos really hop around the streets?'
Yes, we also ride them to work...

'Your roads must melt alot in that extreme heat you have'
No, just because yours do because you have dodgy tar doesnt mean ours do.

'Is it not polite if you dont say g'day to someone?'
I dont think i've ever said g'day in a serious way.

'We want to drive from Perth to Sydney, we could do that in a day right?'
Have you looked at a map of Australia?

Rain

Today it rained... i know what you're thinking.. you're in london, of course its raining.. WRONG. Honestly it doesnt even rain that much. Its just overcast and grey alot of the time. But I could probably count on my fingers and toes the amount of times its actually rained in the past year.

Not long after I arrived in London and started working it rained one afternoon. One of my colleagues was astounded at how 'heavy' the rain was. It was pretty much a heavy sprinkle. They just dont get heavy rain here, nor does it last long. It usually rains for about 10 minutes and then its over.
I also love how when it starts to sprinkle the poms go into a panic, reach into their bags and open up their umbrellas. You can barely even feel the rain and you're hardly getting wet but they think its high time for umbrella coverage!

Another crazy thing that happened today was it hailed and it also thundered. I havent heard thunder since I left Australia almost a year ago. I didnt think it got hot enough here for there to be thunder and lightening but apparently so. My colleagues thought it was hilarious that I was excited about the thunder, but it made it feel like home... ahh the nostalgia!

More to the bucket list

Today, whilst struggling through a boring day at work I was thinking of all the places I would love to go to. I've added some more places to my bucket list..

Egypt

Petra, Jordan

Iceland

Peru

Halong Bay, Vietnam

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

LA

Las Vegas

Better start saving!!!

London in the springtime

I'm loving London in the springtime. The leaves have come out after being banished for the long winter, the flowers are blossoming and the sun is out. The mercury is on the rise and warming the place up enough for me not to be wearing my big jacket and layers.

Picture this... its friday 1pm and I head out for my lunch break. Its 20 degrees and so decide the best thing to do to enjoy this beautiful weather on an otherwise mundane work day is to eat my lunch outside in the park. It's no sitting on coolangatta beach but it will do! I sit down in the nicest section of the park and start to enjoy my cous cous and salad which I had been thinking about all day. The lady next to me who I thought was just lying down to relax a bit is actually asleep. She has just let out a tiny snore and had one of those leg shakes you get when your muscles start to relax. Must have been a hard day for her...
The beautiful day must be livening the moods of my fellow park goers and the impending weekend must have left them feeling festive because a group of people busted out in song. Some sort of rap/hip hop song which I had never heard (clearly not up with the latest uk songs), but singing none the less.
A few people look disgusted at the disturbance to their quiet (why come to a public park then??) but some are clapping along and singing the parts they know. I refrain from clapping along myself as I'm not that close to them and I would look like a bit of a douche. But good for them for having a great time on their lunch break and entertaining us all.

I do love London in the springtime!!

The Amazing Race

Whilst trawling through the list of new apps to purchase for my iphone I came across ‘the amazing race’ app. You have no idea how excited I was.

Amazing race is possibly the greatest reality tv show.. its way better than keeping up with the kardashians, america’s next top model, Brittan’s next top model, canada’s next top model, jersey shore.. and all those other ‘reality’ shows I love to watch.

Back to the app… you can actually play the amazing race on your iphone. You choose a team (I chose students), pick a team name (I chose THORS) and you head off for a virtual around the world trip while coming across the usual road blocks, detour and fast forwards. I literally spent close to an hour playing my first game and came in second. Woo. Will definitely be playing some more games to make sure I come in first!

This game got me thinking about how ever since I first watched the show when I was a teenager I have been obsessed and it became my life’s goal to be a contestant on the show. Sadly I missed out on getting onto the first season of Australia’s Amazing Race. But I’ll be signing up for all future seasons.

Now for the hard part.. who would I take as my partner to share the most amazing experience of my life with???

The nominees for the moment are….

Claire -   Whilst she has expressed sincere enthusiasm for her dream to be on the show, she lacks direction (not direction in life, just direction in general.. she couldn’t tell you what way we just came from), cannot drive a manual car (I’m sure this skill would come in handy for the times you have to drive yourself) and has openly said she would not do the gross eating parts. However, she can talk to anyone and everyone which would be valuable as we would need all the help we can get.. shes also smart.

Mitch – He can drive a manual, knows directions (although as per my previous post taking us on back street and having to jump a fence would suggest otherwise), he also has a beard which makes him look older.. perhaps we could fool people into thinking he was an old man and they would feel sorry for us and let us go ahead. His downfall… he would probably forget to take along a belt and we would forever be seeing his crack. I think I would be letting the team down in this partnership, Mitch would forever be yelling at me to hurry up because apparently im so slow! That’s another downfall… he would probably get way to cranky at me. We also cannot be team THORS for obvious reasons.

Dad – He is smart and would be able to solve all mathematical equations in a second, his nickname is GAZMAN (need I say more?), he can also drive manual….. but he is too slow. There is a thing called an accelerator dad!! He wouldn’t use it too much, and in a race this just isn’t what you need. Instead of running to the pit stop so we could secure 1^st place, he would be looking around, stopping to take a million photos of nothing in particular, we would come in last place and be eliminated.

Mum – Bless. As much as I love my mother I just don’t think she could run fast enough. She would be a pretty awesome teammate though. She would be able to handle the early mornings with no worries and would look great on tv because she will always have her lippy on and with those guns she is getting from doing weights and cardio at the gym everyday she is working her way towards being helpful in the activities needing strength. Perhaps you could be considered after all mum!!

If anyone else feels like they would make the perfect partner for my amazing race team let me know your strengths and weaknesses and you will be considered.

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/2575768/la-bella-vita?claim=ub2zbt9424t">Follow my blog with bloglovin</a>

Hows it garn?

Last night we went and saw Carl Barron live. He is the funniest person I ever seen. I literally spent the entire time crying it was that funny.

I should probably start with setting the scene of how the night began... Mitch, Claire and I ventured off to hammersmith... catching the 190 bus (late as usual). We had a quick dinner before hand and walked around in search of Riverside studios where Carl was performing. Mitch 'knew' where he was going, well had a general idea.. but he happened to take us along a back street where we came out into what we thought was possibly a boarding school/naughty boys home/council estate. We wandered around trying to find the exit and were greeted by a group of kids asking if we were trying to get to riverside studios. not sure how they knew thats what we were looking for, perhaps they get a number of people wandering through there looking for riverside.
They directed us.. left, right and left again. We turned left, went to turn right but found it was gated off. Our options were to turn around and try again, or jump a 1.5m fence. the jumping of the 1.5m fence won.
After finally getting over the fence we walked a little further and found the studios... PHEW.

The studios were small and we packed it out with 300 people. We got row 3 and had a pretty awesome view of my new celeb crush.
Carl came out casually and there began my barrel of laughs that lasted an entire 80 minutes.
I wont go into it too much, granted you have probably seen alot of his performances... if you havent you have probably been living under a rock and should get onto youtube a-sap and check him out.
He is hilarious, basing his entire show on his life and the weird and insane things he thinks about.

I really want to go and see him again. I hope he comes back to London within a year otherwise I'll be staking him out once we get back to Australia... whenever that may be...

Why I hate the 190 bus

Whilst I love living in London, the worst part is having to use public transport every single day. There is nothing I would love more than to get in a car and drive. Seeing as I do not own a car in London I am forced to use the public transport.
Fortunately I only have to catch one bus (the 190) from our house to get to work, which is quite literally a 3.5km drive.
In the mornings I am always ready and waiting atleast 5 minutes before the impending arrival and departure of said bus. It is never ever ever on time. I generally end up waiting atleast an extra 10 or 20 minutes past the time it is meant to come. Once I waited 30 minutes.

It also takes along the most random of people. Most days there is a great story to tell, someone is yelling at the bus driver, someone holds up the bus because they dont have enough money on their oyster card, some old man is farting and is blissfully unaware of the stench while we all choke and die.

I know what you're probably thinking now... I did mention it was literally a 3.5km drive.. why dont I walk.
Good thought. But unless you have battled the extreme temperatures of english winter you have no idea how ridiculously cold it gets. Therefore I did not feel brave enough to walk the 30 minutes in these temperatures.
You will be happy to know however that since spring has arrived in london town I have been walking most days atleast one of the ways to or from work which has been so very nice... except for the time I got proposed to from some rando selling door to door.

Today however, I had to catch the bus home. I left work a little bit early so I could get on the earlier bus (I probably forgot to mention that unlike every single other bus that comes every 5 minutes, mine is only scheduled for every 15 minutes). I was at the bus stop at 5.22pm ready to catch the bus for 5.25pm. The bus finally came at 5.30pm. only a 5 minute wait...WIN!

Having a slight crisis

I decided to be creative and change things up in the blog, add a link so you can follow the blog with email updates... and now the list of my followers has gone. looks like no one likes me and no one is following :(

anyone know how to get them back???

HHHEEEELLLPPPP!!

The most amazing group of people

The Bus

Probably the worst part of a tour is the excessive amount of time spent on a bus. But when you want to see so much of Turkey in 15 days you have to expect alot of time of the bus.

By the end of the trip I was so sick of the bus, but we did have some pretty good times on there..

The best part was Muz our driver. He was awesome. He was about 60, white hair with an impressive white moe. Barely spoke english but everyday he was so happy, he gave me a high 5 every time I came on the bus. To all the girls he would take our backpacks from our back and put them under the bus.
One time he stopped on the side of the road so we could buy strawberries from the strawberry farmers, we didnt have much water to wash them so Muz came out and gave us his big bottle of water and washed the strawberries for us. awww. so nice.
Despite his lack of english he was a pretty cool guy. I think our whole tour misses him already!!

The scenery of Turkey was not at all what I expected. It was very green, vast lands and farms covered the area and sometimes I would just sit looking out to the land for a while just taking it all in.
The most surprising part was that were some snow covered mountains.. who knew there was snow in turkey???

I think when I was on the bus I couldnt wait to get off, but now thinking about it, it wasnt that bad... i'll wait till my next big bus trip and I will probably re-think that statement.

Istanbul

After a long trip back to Istanbul we said goodbye to our driver Muz the most awesome bus driver in turkey (more on him later) and checked into our hotel.
We decided on a group dinner and headed to another old underground water resiviour converted to a restaurant for a 3 course meal and drinks. The meal was amazing and again we were just happy it wasnt a buffet.
There were a few dancers and a man singing for some entertainment. They then decided to get woman from a number of different countries up for a bit of a dance off. Leigh represented Australia and did a pretty good job, but my favourite gal Tracey representing the Kiwis did a mad all body shimmy and won herself the biggest applause and took the crown!!
Despite wanting an early night we didnt get to bed till around 11pm. The body clock is definitely off.

The full day of looking around Istanbul began with a visit to the Blue Mosque. Everyone says its a must see in Istanbul, which I have to agree with, the outside is amazing. When we went inside we had to take our shoes off so the whole place smelt like feet which was a little offputting but once inside it was pretty cool.
Its not literally blue, its just called blue mosque because when the lights hit the blue tiles inside it gives off a blue hue. It was built in the early 1600's which is pretty impressive when you see the whole building.

We headed over to Hagia Sophia which was hands down my favourite part of Istanbul. The impressive building which was originally a church, later a mosque and now a museum was built around 600AD. It has a massive massive dome in the centre which isnt supported by anything. They say it was constructed by filling the place with dirt and earth while they built the dome, then they called in thousands of slaves to dig out the dirt once the building was finished. as incentive they put gold coins all through the dirt, when the slaves found a coin they got to keep it, it made them work faster and harder so they got it out pretty quickly.
The church is completely decorated in mosaics, depicting pictures of the virgin mary, jesus and other religious features. I really loved the place. It was incredible.

A trip to the grand bazaar was also a highlight. It is one of the oldest and largest covered markets in the world. there is over 4000 shops, all basically selling the same things, knick knacks, turkish souveniers, rugs, pashminas. Although not as agressive and persistant, there is a thailand market feel. Men calling to you to look at their shop, trying to bargain for everything and anything.
Mitch and I were walking along and a man called out and said 'oh youre beautiful', i kept walking, but mitch turned around and laughed. the man was a tad annoyed and said 'not you..HER'!! hahaha. it was pretty funny.

The afternoon ended with a cruise down the river along the coast of Istanbul, one side was europe, one side was asia. It was a pretty great way to end the official part of the tour and although we didnt look at the scenery much, it was great to have a whole boat to ourselves, having some drinks and talking to the great friends we had made.

Our very last night we decided to have a group dinner again which was the best meal I had in turkey. They also served some amazing cocktails!!
We found a great restaurant in the backpackers district then headed to a small pub in the same area. Weird thing was they stopped serving drinks, turned the music off and kicked us out at 12pm because it closed... it was a friday night!!! although i would say some of us welcomed this relatively early night as the whole 15 days of being on the go constantly had caught up to us and most people were pretty tired and exhausted.

Turkey was amazing. I absolutely loved every single part of it. The tour, the amazing people i met who i now think of as great friends, every single place we visited, the food... everything.
the tour made me completely change my mind and I am so keen to stay another year to do gallipoli and anzac day all over again next year... anyone else keen for a campout with me???