Hello 2011, I've been expecting you!

So 2010 is finally over. For all it's trials and tribulations it has been an amazing year. I think the term roller coaster probably is the best description. But I've learned you cannot appreciate the highs if you don't know the lows ;)

I've travelled thousands of miles, seen and done some amazing things, met some incredible people and learned more than I could have dreamed possible this time last year.

I've finally found a job I genuinely enjoy, I've learned just how strong, brave and capable I am. I've realised I'm a risk taker, who doesn't want to wallow in an ordinary life.

I've learned that you can't rely on others to make your life great, you need to go out there and seize the day.

Mostly I've learned you can't plan your life and frankly if you do you are missing the point. It's not about the destination it's the journey.

I don't really believe in resolutions as I think they can set you up for failure. But there are some things I want to do/continue to do.

I want to get healthier again. I've gone a little crazy at times this year and now I'm ready to put my life on a more even keel. Eat/think/live better.

I want to cram in as many amazing experiences as I can. There are so many things I want to do!

I want to be less critical, of myself and others. Sometimes I see myself being a cynic and that's not who I want to be.

So who knows where I will be this time next year. How exciting!

xxx

Christmas thoughts . . .

Christmas:
Time of crowded shops and panic buying.
Time of overpriced gift sets that you know will be half price on the 26th.
Time of novelty songs and bad reality show singles.
Time of the same old movies. Again and again and again.
Time of party nights out when you find out a bit tmi about your work colleagues.
Time of karaoke and board games you play once a year.
Time of pointless DVD’s: Comedy, sport and ‘get fit’.
Time of crap gifts ‘oh thank you so much for that rose scented body lotion set – how ever did you know what I needed!?!’
Time of eating way too many sweets, feeling sick and promising to eat better (invariably failing by Jan 1st).
Time to tell the kids, ‘Of course he is real!’.
Time of families! (arguments, tears, tantrum, booorrreedddoomm)
Time to send cards to the friends and relatives you don’t see any more.
Time to hear the same songs. Over and over and over.
Time to be covered in itchy glittery clothes and tinsel.
Time to practice present wrapping skills!
Time to start making promises and plans for the new year ahead ;)

She was 29, going on 30 . . .

So as I advance towards the grand old age of 29, 1 year shy of the big 3-0, I find myself in a rather philosophical state of mind and entering the territory of Carrie Bradshaw as I ask:

What's the big deal about turning 30?

Okay, first some 'fun' facts about the number 29 (courtesy of wikipedia, so hopefully they are correct!):

It is the tenth prime number
The atomic number of copper
Saturn requires over 29 years to orbit the Sun
The designation of Interstate 29, a U. S. freeway that runs from Missouri to North Dakota.

In 365 more days I will be departing the land of 20-something which I have inhabited for the last decade and entering the unknown and scary world of 'the 30's'. So what are my issues with this age?

I suppose to be true, it's not really my issues but other peoples. Especially being female, there are so many pressures that come in the 30's. We are expected by some point in this decade to have great careers, been married, had children (the clock is ticking . . .) before we reach the barren land of the 40's. Because of course if these things haven't happened by the age of 40, we are on the scrap heap.

Who is to blame for this? Men play a part. I don't get the double standards of a man having a relationship with someone vastly younger than then and women doing the same. Personally I think dating/marrying/whatever someone (anyone) 20 years younger than you is a little icky and raises all kinds of psychological questions. But as a consequence of this, many women feel they are in some kind of competition with the younger members of their sex. And therefore we are also to blame. We gossip about our friends, place impossible pressures of perfections on ourselves, obsess over tiny details.

Age is just a number. I have friends of lots of ages and I appreciate the uniqueness of them all, we all need to see each other as individuals, not a summation of the number of years we have lived (or our hair colour/choice of clothing brand/how 'cool' we are). I wouldn't go back to being younger for any amount of money. I've learned so much 'growing up' and I still am.

They may say youth is wasted on the young, but it's only a waste if you don't use it. And I choose to squeeze every last drop out of mine.

But, after all that, I may start shaving a few years off now. Just a few :)

Jenna: Wait, listen to me. I'm 13!
Lucy: Jenna, if you're gonna start lying about your age, I'd go with 27.

(13 going on 30)

6 More Weeks!

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells . . .
Er, yeah it is a bit early. But I'm so excited it is only 6 weeks until Christmas holidays and I get to whizz over to Austria for my second Contiki extravaganza! Christmas in the snow, can't wait. It may even make the oncoming Christmas onslaught of toy adverts and hearing the same songs over and over again bearable.
Fingers crossed I can remember how to snowboard and no injuries please (2 broken arms is enough for anyone) and I shall get myself some new wintery pictures of self, this one is soo old!
Anyway, that's all just wanted to gloat a little! Hugs and kisses xx

NYC – Big lady statues, disco fries, Geordie accents in America and tall buildings at night

So it’s almost over (until next time, more on that later!). The last night in DC closed in and the following morning we packed up and loaded up the gold bus for our final journey to the big apple.

Our first stop on this journey was in a place called Annapolis where we stopped at the United States Naval Academy. Those of us who had booked went on a tour of the facilities where we saw where the cadets trained and lived. The regime is so harsh, they get hardly any time off, have to do so much work, I wasn’t sure whether to admire them or think they were crazy. Our tour guide was very very boring and talked a lot. Not great since we were all a bit worse for wear and it was super hot (as usual on this trip). On a plus point we stumbled across all the cadets marching to class in their little white uniforms. Sailor boys <3.

How excited were we when we saw this???

We rebussed after the tour and headed onwards to the city or Philadelphia, home of Rocky, the liberty bell and philly cheese steak sandwiches. Our first stop was the Rocky ‘steps’ at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. No, I did not run up them, but I did walk up very fast (there are a lot of them!). There is also a statue of rocky outside the museum which you could take a picture with.

Whilst in Philly I passed on trying the infamous cheese steak and instead hit up the Liberty Bell (it’s a bit bell . . .) and saw Liberty Hall. Quite nice to see some real American History, especially after visiting Washington.

De de de de de de de de de de . . .

So onwards it was to NYC. We arrived late afternoon and got dropped off at the Contiki hotel and it was a bit of an anti-climax as we just kind of dispersed. There were plans to meet later thankfully. I headed off to my hotel, the Pod Hotel. It was about 10 blocks away so I got a cab. Check in was super quick and easy and it was a great hotel, such a good location. I did however start to feel lonely. After a month of having a roomy and constant companionship I was alone. Hard to get used to :(

That night I decided to walk to the bar to meet the others (concierge – 15 minutes walk, actually 40 minutes walk!) and happily lots of people had made the effort so we got a chance to say goodbye. My ex-roomy Erin was there and upon hearing how bad her hostel was, convinced her to take the extra bed in my room, I was no longer alone! I then directed a bunch of us to Times Square (since I went to NYC a bazillion time with Virgin) and saw the lights etc. We also checked out BB Kings, which was dead and no where near as fun as in Memphis. I then headed back for an early-ish night and arranged to meet Naomi the next day to sightsee!

NYC's finest (and me looking tres rough)

Day 2 of NYC Naomi and I decided to see lady liberty first. I had previously been over there but was more than happy to go back! We went down to battery park and with our tickets followed to massive queue, took 5 mins just to get to the end of it :( In the queue we saw Mark and his sister Vicky so we cheekily pushed in. Still was going to be a long wait. As luck would have it, a worker saw a couple of the guys had NYC City Passes which gives you a q jump. Mark and I didn’t but he said it would be okay, so what would have been a 2 hour wait became a 20 minute one. Happy days! We boarded Miss Liberty and headed to Liberty Island, got some photos with the lady and souvenired a little and then got back on the ferry and checked out Ellis Island, the place where thousands of immigrants first set foot on American soil. You can practically taste the history.

Post lady Liberty we did an emergency clothes shop ( 4 weeks in same clothes = bad) and visited Macys, Tiffanys and build a bear workshop where I treated myself (watch, necklace, statue of liberty bear!).

Trend setters!

Me and the statue of liberty bear!

That night I headed to the Contiki hotel and met up with a bunch of people. We got some dinner at an ‘Irish’ bar, where the menu included the interested, but ultimately gross Disco Fries and then hit up Times Square again. We then headed to the Empire State Building and went up to see the views at midnight. Very fun, there were quite a few people up there and no queues, and we bumped into some more Contiki’s! I called it a night at about 2am – no partying in NYC, Jill was partied out by now!

Strike a pose!

Last ever group shot at the top of the Empire State

The next day, Naomi wasn’t feeling great so we took it easy. We visited Wall St, the ground zero area, Century 21 and China Town. We then went to the TKTS booth at Times Square and waited in a ridiculous queue. We made a short list of shows and when we got to the booth plumed for Billy Elliot based on cost and what we hadn’t seen. Still cost $70 each for restricted views, Broadway is expensive!!!

After a chill out at the hotel (much needed!) we med at the theatre and had fun watching Americans try and do Geordie accents, with varying degrees of success! It was pretty amazing though and we were only about 7 rows from the front, only couldn’t see a foot or so of the stage on the left hand side, well worth it it seems! Afterwards we headed back to Times Square (AGAIN!) and had some famous NYC cheesecake at Roxy Delicatessan, yummy but HUGE uneatable slices. With that, my last night in the states came to a close

The next day, I did some last minute shopping and met Naomi for Lunch at Olive Garden and finally got myself a paper hat at Hershey World (the best freebie ever!). I then said a sad goodbye to Naomi, who had been my constant companion that past month. I am reasonably confident we will meet again soon (private joke ‘Omi!).

My trip ended with a long journey to Newark airport, a thankfully decent flight back to LHR (and nice people sitting next to me!) and a hop up to Newcastle – and funnily enough Erin was on my BA flight to NCL.

So that is it. Over. Kaput. Finale. Or is it?? Come on, this is me!! Miss Itchy Feet herself. I’m off to Austria at Christmas and will be hopefully touring Europe next year. So this blog will continue and I hope you will continue to read.

As always, I am seeking a life less ordinary.

Love, Jill xxx

DC - Definitely Cool :)

So it was out penultimate driving day and it was fairly long. The traffic into DC was really bad and we also got caught up in the tropical storm again (the one that had been following us from Miami!). We got to our hotel in the afternoon, we were staying in a place called Cheverley, about 30 mins outside the city centre. Of all the hotels we stayed in this was the one with the worst location. But more on that later.

The first night we had an included meal at a restaurant next to our hotel. Hands down, worst food I’ve ever had. Some kind of over salted chicken dish and vegetables that looked like they had been nuked. Thanks for that Contiki. We then got drove into DC for a city tour. DC has a law that you can only do tours if you are a registered guide, which Justin wasn’t. So we had to pick up a lady to guide us and she was the worst tour guide I have ever seen. Kept saying, err and umm and had no charisma or charm and a complete inability to guide people which meant our tour totally overran. However, it was a great intro to the city in that we saw a lot. Went to the capitol building, the Lincoln memorial, Jefferson memorial, Korean war memorial and the Vietnam memorial. DC is such a pretty city at night, it’s built on a grand European-style scale. The buildings aren’t tall but the roads are wide and there is lots of lovely architecture. My favourite one was the Lincoln memorial – reminded me of Planet of the Apes : )

Me and Abe

That night some of us headed to a local bar which was soo busy, but we still had a fun night. We then got to deal with a taxi driver getting us home. No taxi drivers knew where out hotel was, they were all a bit useless. It ended in one of the guys putting the address in the cab drivers sat nav and we made it home eventually!

Next day, we hopped on the bus once more into DC. Our first stop was Arlington Cemetary which is where the military are buried. Anyone who has served in the US military can be buried there, and it is HUGE. Saw JFK’s grave and also the gaves of the unknown soldiers which are guarded 24 hours a day. We then headed to the Iwo Jima memorial, it’s the famous one where the soldiers are raising the flag which is pretty impressive. We then went into the city and Naomi and I pounded the city streets, we visited the Holocaust Museum, the National Archives (saw the declaration of independence and had a National Treasure moment) and managed to get ourselves to a mall and buy new clothes and make it back to the bus on time, yay us!

That night we were free to do our own thing, so a bunch of us headed into an area of town called Foggy Bottom (great name) and had dinner at a pretty awful restaurant (flies in the drinks!) and then went to meet the others in another bar. So that night I had way too much (the lovely Bruce decided to buy me a ridiculous number of drinks) and stayed in a club until we got kicked out – lights coming on and all. Then we got back to the hotel and the taxi’s dropped up off at the one place and we all had to climb a 10 foot fence with spikes on the top of it to get back to the hotel. To this day I do not know how I got over that fence.

(On a side note our group had so many taxi dramas in DC. One group were in a taxi when it got hit by another car and got stuck while they waited for the police. Another guy got dropped in the middle of nowhere when the taxi driver got lost, and another couple had a really scary experience in a service station. If you ever go to DC, stay in the city!).

I think this picture sums it up nicely

The fence

So, following day I woke up on time but made an executive decision that more sleep was needed and passed on the bus ride into town. A bunch of us got the subway into the city later and decided to have lunch at the classiest place – hooters! I had a ‘Strip Cheese Sandwich’. It was pretty gross but the name was brilliant! We then hit a few museums, Air and Space was first – lots of similar stuff to NASA, then very brief stops at the American History museum and­ National History Museum (where night at the museum is set!).

That night consisted of a lovely dinner at a pub in Arlington followed by a gold bus party in the basement of hotel. I learned how to play some interesting aussie card games, witnessed some very drunk boys wrestling and injuring themselves (and then fighting later resulting in a hospital visit : ( ), the very stupid decision to set off firecrackers and fireworks at 2am outside the hotel (you know who you are!) and general mayhem that makes me surprised we weren’t banned from there!

Arggh!

DC was great, would need at least a week to see everything. Next leg is a trip to the naval academy, a pit stop in Philly and the big apple.

Ghosties, how not to drink 1L of alcohol, and pretty cities where maybe I’m not so bad at karaoke?

So next stop, St. Augustine! (Where I hear you say? East coast florida at the top of the state). It was thankfully a short ride from the Kennedy Space Centre to our next stop and we arrived in time to relax a little before dinner. Our hotel for the night was another motel-type arrangement but not so bad. It was arranged around a quad, with a big tree and tables under it and there was a pool (more of that later).

We had an early ish dinner that night as we had to stagger with the white bus. It was a pizza buffet at a cheap and cheerful place, one of the better meals we had. How sad that I can say pizza was one of the better food options on the trip L

After this we headed into the town of St Augustine which is a very pretty, old town. It’s one of the oldest places in the US (about 450 years old) and has lovely cobbled streets and old buildings. There is also an old Spanish fort on the sea front and lots of old cemeteries! Whilst in the town we opted to do a ghost tour, where a local dressed in olde-worlde clothes took us on a tour and told us some spooky stories about the past. It was pretty fun but I did zone out a few times and it also started raining at one point which wasn’t great (only I could go to Florida and get so much rain!). No, I didn’t see any ghosts.

Ghost tour lady and the rain!

After the tour we headed back to the hotel to watch and wonder at the inaugural NZ vs AUS drinking competition! (The back story. My lovely friend Naomi had decided it would be a good idea whilst a little inebriated in Miami to berate our kiwi friend Mike about his drinking abilities. Needless to say this did not go down too well and resulted in the formulation of a plan to hold a drinking competition to settle the argument). The rules of the game were that each party has their own 1 Litre bottle of spirits (!) and they will drink at their own pace until someone gives up/is sick etc.

The contenders! (before of course!)

We arrived back at the hotel and took over the pool area and the competition began. I was Naomi’s ‘coach’ so did my best to help her pace herself. There were bets placed and they were about even! The, yes you guessed it, it started raining again! Not one to let a little rain get in the way of things I toddled off to my room to pick up the poncho I had purchased in Miami – a rather fetching green plastic number. I decided though, that since I was wet I may as well go in the pool! So I donated it to Naomi – who by this point was so wet it didn’t make much difference. Me being an idiot, I’d also left my camera on a table by the pool which resulted in a blurry screen and foggy pictures the rest of the night. Thankfully it did dry off a few days later!

What a lovely poncho! Wherever did you get it?

The pool party ended after midnight when we were asked nicely by the security guard to leave the pool (getting used to that sort of thing) and we moved the party to the Jonas brothers room. The rest of the evening saw an ambulance, a fire engine and a police car called when one of the girls fell and hit her head (not anyone who was with us may I add!), far too many drinks being consumed, sustaining ourselves with pringles, a wrestling match that ended in a broken window and the competition being declared a draw (but Naomi won actually!). And I lost my white haviainas. Damn.

So that was St Augustine, fun fun fun! Out next stop was the beautiful city of Savannah, Georgia. Always wanted to visit here and have a ‘Gone With the Wind’ moment. Its such a beautiful place! We got there around lunch time and we headed to a local park to take our group photo. Considering how much alcohol some people had consumed the night before, it came out pretty good! We then walked through city and Justin gave us a tour/bit of history. Savannah was the only southern city not burned by the Union army during the civil war, general Sherman gave it as a gift to president Lincoln apparently. Thankfully they didn’t. The city is made up of parts and squares, in a similar way to London. Everywhere are beautiful trees that have moss hanging from them. We visited the square where Forrest Gump was filmed and got told a bunch of other stuff I have forgotten (whoops).

Say cheese!

We then went for lunch and those of us who had signed up did a trolley city tour. Did I mention it was RIDICULOUSLY hot and humid? So we were tired, feeling fragile and as sweet as out tour guy was, boy was he boring. The tour consisted of telling us who lived in every house we passed (or who had lived there, or who built it etc etc). He showed us a few movie spots like where Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was filmed, but I hadn’t seen the movie! When it was finished, we found finally got out room keys and Erin and I chilled for a little which was nice!

We opted not to go to the optional dinner as it was a pricey $40, no drinks included! Instead we headed down the riverfront and found a cheap and cheerful bar to visit and had some generic American food and had a minor bitch fest. Only marred when we realised we had been sitting next to a table of white bussers most of the time. Oops.

We then headed to Wet Willies (part of a chain, was one in Memphis too) home of slushy cocktails. I tried ‘the strongest one’ but it really wasn’t that strong. Or my alcohol tolerance had build up by now? We watched some of the guys do karaoke and then Justin took us to another place (also doing karaoke – Tuesdays must be popular for that in Savannah!) where I met a English barmaid who had lived in the states for years which was kinda cool. I also got in the karaoke spirit and sang a few numbers – not too badly I was told. Highlight – Walking in Memphis, as I now know what the words mean and the gold bus crew singing out bus song ‘In My Head’. Muchos Fun!

So Contiki is getting closer to the end, how sad. But we still have a pitstop in NC, Washington x 3 and a twist of NY city to come!