The Post-Travelling Blues #2

BARCELONA PT.I

Song of the day: Barcelona - The Plastiscines

How I wish I was far away from the miserable mess that is London. Scratch that, I love London with all my heart and soul I really do. But I've caught the travel bug and I highly doubt I will be cured of it anytime soon.

I know it's been awhile since my last post. I was busy settling into normality. Back to London, back to working life, back to reality.

Debbie and I on the way to Barcelona!

Earlier this year around March/April time, I was constantly working by doing many promo shifts during the day and then working in the cloakroom at night until 3:30am. It got to a point where I was only home to sleep. It even got to a point where I couldn't remember when I last had a day off. I was exhausted. I decided to have a week off. Luckily for me, my work is pretty flexible.

So what did I do? I had money to spare so I booked flights with a good friend of mine called Debbie to Barcelona and Lisbon. Why those places?

1) I've never been to either of those places in my life
2) It was cheap
3) I have friends in both countries

You want to know how much my flights cost me? London - Barcelona - Lisbon - London was £70. Yes you read right. £70. Of course I had to book it for that price. You want to know what was even more perfect? I had a friend I could stay with in Barcelona! All around awesome badass hailing from Dungannon, Northern Ireland who goes by the name Jenny. Also my friend Debbie was from Lisbon, so we stayed at her mum's home. Accommodation was sorted. The only money we needed was to spend while we were away. If that's not travelling on a budget I don't know what is.

Barcelona, Barcelona, Barcelona where do I begin? I was there for 4 days. It was fucking great. The first thing that happened when we arrived was that we actually landed about 2 hours outside of Barcelona. Literally in the middle of fuck all nowhere. There was the airport, car park for the airport and then poof. Nothing but sand and some buildings. Cheers Ryanair. We wondered why it was so cheap. We didn't see it as a blunder in our journey, we saw it as another adventure. Plus it was warm and sunny while London was cold and raining. That was all that mattered. I mean come on we were in another country! HOW EXCITING? After attempts of poorly spoken spanish on my part before Debbie swoops in with a perfect conversation in spanish, we managed to find our way to the train station and hopped onto the right train that was headed straight for the heart of Barcelona. Spanish trains come at us! We conquered you like a pro. So far...

We stumbled off the train and found our way to an underground tube station. It was like being in London all over again. Except we got lost. This time we were the tourists that people rolled their eyes at because we couldn't fathom their gosh damn train station. You know in London I'm all, "I don't understand how you get lost. Each train has their own damn colour on the tube map, its not hard!" We had to make our way to the Sagrada Familia because my friend Jenny lived next to it. We managed to find our way and we made it to our stop. You think it was that easy? Oh no my dear friends. Just no. Don't get me wrong we got onto the right train line. Everything was smooth sailing. We saw our stop coming up. We got our stuff ready. Bam. The train missed our stop. Debbie and I looked at each other and everyone in the train kinda looked at each other all confused. After ten long seconds the train did an emergency stop. I remember laughing with Debbie, we were all, "The driver forgot to stop!" beautiful. We heard the scratching sound of the train speaker go off and the train driver said, "We are uh....having a technical difficulty."

I was cracking up so much because everyone in our train carriage had that look that they know that the train driver knows that he just messed up and forgot. We all secretly wanted you to admit it! So everyone who was meant to get off at the Sagrada Familia were forced to get off at the next stop and catch the next train going back, which we did with ease. I felt sorry for the train driver. A man in our train carriage as he got out went up to the driver door and started yelling and kicking the door with all consuming rage. Let's just say you didn't have to know spanish to understand what he was saying.

Want to know the first thing we did when we finally got to the Sagrada Familia? Apart from admiring the awesomness and beauty of the building. Our eyes saw the sweet familiar yellow M that represents... McDonalds. Yes we were starving. We realised we hadn't really eaten. Instead of savouring the exquisite and tantalising spanish cuisine Barcelona had to offer, we opted for McDonalds because we were all around tired and lazy. You know how McDonalds in every country is a little bit different? They had a chicken version of a Big Mac. Debbie and I in our hungry states thought it was the greatest creation to mankind. It was like two massive chicken nuggets with the Big Mac sauce like what? London get your shit together and start selling these bad boys. I joke, we have enough fast food chicken shops in London to last a lifetime. We don't need anymore junk food in our lives. BE HEALTHY.

The Sagrada Familia. What a beautiful unfinished building. I didn't know that the reason that it's taking so damn long for this Gaudi masterpiece to be finished was because that it's funded solely on donations from the public. We finally made it to Jenny's flat and her lovely flatmate let us in. Jenny was at uni working on her master's degree, which she has since completed! So proud of her! It was lovely to see this building from the balcony of Jenny's flat at night. All the street lights gave it a warm glow. It was different. I can't really explain why. It was just one of those moments while sipping tea while Debbie rolls a couple of cigarettes, after a long day of travelling when you just sit and think, "Wow I'm here" you know? It was a very serene moment and I soaked up every second of it.

Image by me :) - View from Jenny's balcony :)

That was the adventures of the first day. We got lost and ate McDonalds. We're shit tourists. But it was hilarious. I wouldn't take any of it back. Keep a look out for Barcelona Pt. II, which should be up soon.

Cheers,

xxx

The Post-Travelling Blues #1

Song of the day: Make It Easy On Yourself - Sivu

Being away from the hustle and bustle of the big smoke that is London for two whole months was one of the most surreal experiences of my life. I laughed, I cried, I got drunk, I made new friends, I was alone, I danced, I saw breathtakingly beautiful landscapes, I met a guy, I took long walks, I wrote, I ran, I swam in rivers, I swam in the sea, I wore make up, I wore no make up, I saw the sunrise, I saw the sunset and the list goes on. I didn't have a single care in the world.

I went to Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and New Zealand. Along the way, yes I ended up developing this thing people like to call 'feelings' for someone. Disgusting. For those who know me, the ice queen melted. She did okay. I know its been awhile but I can have feelings for someone too. Sadly for me and him, we live on complete opposite sides of the earth. We are two uncertain people set against an uncertain world. Anything can happen. So I can never say never on our story though. Just for the moment our paths won't intertwine anytime soon. However, my adventures over all was a great fucking time, which I will expand in a series of blog posts because there is so much to write.

Image by me :) - Sunset at Gili Trawangan

The only worry I had was what the fuck to do when I got home. Here I am stuck in my cosy little flat in London, in a tiny overpriced box room cluttered with books and clothes and I'm sat on my small bed set against a big window writing this. I got back last Sunday and I find that I'm struggling to settle back into routine. I mean it's good to be back home, to have a sense of normality again. Having to live in and out of a backpack, moving hostel to hostel and catching flights and buses here and there can be pretty exhausting after while.

I was so used to the thrill of living from moment to moment. It's like having twenty nicotine patches smacked on your arm along with ten shots of tequila and a few cans of red bull injected into your system. You don't know where you're going or how you're going to get there or even where you're going to sleep. Now I'm not trying to be all hippie in your face and tell you that everyone should just stop what they're doing and jet off without a plan because everyone does things differently. Travel-wise I am that kind of person who doesn't really plan her day at all, actually now that I think about it that's how I live my life. I don't follow a schedule unless its around work...or food. I just knew I was going away for two months. My flights were booked and that was it. That was the extent of my planning. As long as I didn't miss any flights I was good. It all worked out well. I actually even booked my accommodation the night before my flights. All of them were decent and reasonably cheap. For last-minute travellers out there like me, Booking.com is my saviour for accommodation and should be yours too.

Now here I am back home. Reminiscing about when I wasn't here. I have no clue what I'm meant to be doing with my life. Then again, does anyone really? I woke up at the ungodly hour of seven in the damn morning and I couldn't fall back asleep. Thank you jetlag. I feel restless. I want to be on the move again. Give me an adventure any day. Let me go whale watching. Let me look up at the stars on a clear night in the middle of nowhere. Let me be in a bar filled with strangers with different stories to tell. Let me drink tea in a mountain in Nepal. Let me go on a road-trip with no destination in mind. Just not here. I'm looking for freelance writing work so I can still have the freedom to pick up and go whenever I want and hopefully still have money rolling in so I'm not the poor writer I'm destined to be. If I can get paid to explore the world and write that would be the dream. A dream I'm sure thousands of others share. I'm checking Skyscanner constantly for cheap flights to anywhere but here. I'm thinking Iceland right now for a little getway. I think that will be pretty don't you all think?

Image by me :) - Gili Trawangan

                                 


Cheers,

xxx