OMG SNOW - 28th/29th December

Well.

I'm going to start this entry by quoting my mother, shortly before my departure:

"One of these days your procrastination is gonna come back and bite you in the ass"

As it turns out, my mother is incredibly wise.

After being detained at the border for roughly 40 minutes, my first day in the UK was off to a great start. [Note: Either have a visa or a return ticket ready to show at border control. They're expensive, but better than being interrogated after a 25 hour flight]. I arrived at baggage claim to find that my suitcase had been taken off the carousel and left to stand unattended. With warnings blaring all around me about unattended baggage being taken and destroyed, I grabbed my suitcase and legged it to the loos, potentially planted drugs or bombs be damned. (You'll all be pleased to know that thus far I haven't found any cocaine or explosive devices in my luggage... Just a few kilos of meth and a stash of illegal weapons :p )

The underground was surprisingly easy to navigate, and the only issue I faced at all was lugging my 22.8kg suitcase up a few flights of stairs when it came time to change lines. The fact i had to do it three or four times didn't particularly bother me (eh Dad!), as I've decided that having ridiculously toned arms and a tight core is a fine pay off - besides, I've got my technique down pat by now.

Navigating the underground was, I must say, much easier than navigating the narrow hallways of my first hostel. It's a good thing I'm incredibly fit and buff, as despite the flat floor and roller wheels on my suitcase, I pretty much carried it the whole way to my twenty two bed dorm. The exaggerated breathing and panting that commenced as soon as I put the case down was all for show of course, purely so the other occupants of my room wouldn't feel threatened by my clear dominance.

After a short stop in the dorm to grab all my necessities and lock up my bags, it was off out in search of a phone shop. Alas, these were all closed (apparently retail workers at Vodafone get weekends off over here - some luck there!), so instead I found myself wandering towards the towering dome of St Paul's Cathedral.

Unfortunately St Paul's is closed to everyone except worshippers on Sundays, but I did manage to grab the obligatory tourist photo

- quickly followed by one of Paddington Bear, paused in his stride just before the Millenium Bridge.

Which, I must say, was rather more crowded than it appears in movies. Thanks a lot, Harry Potter, for giving me false expectations.

My short walk quickly turned into a touristy sight-see, taking me past the Tate Modern, Shakespeare's The Globe,

and almost unwittingly, The Shard (I didn't even realise I was next to it until I caught the reflection in some windows).

After my little tiki tour, it was back to the hostel, as it was getting dark and I was getting bloody tired! Spent some time catching up with family and friends, and emailing the girls from the plane to thank them for waiting for me at customs, and assuring them that I hadn't been deported.

By the time I'd finished, it was lights out - literally. Apparently I wasn't the only travel-weary occupant of our little room, as by about 5pm, six or so of the beds were occupied by softly snoring backpackers. I probably managed about ten solid hours of sleep (although the number of spelling mistakes in this draft would suggest less!), and woke in plenty of time this morning to catch my train from King's Cross (which I'll have to revisit at some point to get my free picture, complete with wand and scarf, at Platform 9 3/4. The line was probably an hour long, so I passed for fear of missing my train).

And now here I am, sat content on said train, which in the past five minutes has passed from hazy green fields to candy floss coated villages, covered in a fresh blanket of snow (SNOW!!?!?!!!?!?!?!). As if I wasn't already excited to go to Northallerton, I'm now about to spontaneously combust! (Which I suppose would keep me plenty warm in these freezing temperatures!)

Til next time, BRRRR!

Bri xoxo

Leaving and Landing - 27th/28th December

So. This is it. Here I am, in my window seat, waiting to see who I'll be sharing personal space with for the next 25 hours.

It still doesn't feel real.

I don't mind saying quite frankly that today has definitely been one of the most emotionally draining days of my life.

My phone's been blowing up all day with more supportive messages than I thought possible - the last from my dad came through a few minutes ago.

"Just to let you know. We love you more than you can imagine. We are so proud of you and not a minute will pass that we won't miss you. Have a wonderful time. Take care and be safe. Love mum and dad x"

(He must be really serious because he's finally managed to take his phone off caps lock, which he couldn't be bothered to do for the last month)

It really makes it that much more difficult to comprehend. Why on earth would I ever want to leave so many people I care about (in summer too I might add), to go to the other side of the world, in the depths of a freezing winter, where I barely know anyone?

Sometimes it really does make me question my sanity.

But the nice thing is, I'm not the only one.

After all of 30 seconds I've already made friends with the two girls sitting next to me. Emma and Kate are friends from Thames, around my age, and this is also their first big trip overseas. Bonded by mutual fear and excitement, we've spent the first half of the journey alternately talking about our plans, attempting to sleep, and completely losing our collective shit upon catching sight of the Hollywood sign.

I have to say, it was nice to have people to go through US customs with - as much as you think you've prepared yourself for it, US Border Control is a surreal experience. I've never seen such organised chaos, or such a contrast in attitudes from the officers. Clearly there's an element of 'Survival of the Fittest' to their screening process, because the guards on the floor directing people are intimidating, no-nonsense, and somewhat disdainful towards all the poor confused travelers wandering about like lost sheep.

(I guess if you make it to the desk you're deemed fit to at least try and enter the country)\

The guards at the desk however, are seemingly all in good cheer, and will even crack a few jokes while they take electronic scans of your fingerprints, and a quick photo for their records. Officer Song and I had some great banter about the two minutes it had taken me to fill out my (in the end, unnecessary) declaration form (this is apparently slow and I should be aiming for 30 seconds in the future).
*A word of advice to anyone heading through US Customs any time soon - for god's sake, wear slip on shoes and a dress. By the time I'd managed to identify and remove all the articles I was wearing that could potentially offend the metal detector (shoes, watch, jacket, belt, laptop in a separate tray, jackets in another, bag on its own), I was told by the (lovely and very patient) customs lady "you're killing me here sweetheart". Clearly filling out declaration forms is not the only area I need to speed up in!

After the process that was getting through immigration, we found ourselves in the monster that is LAX. Unsurprisingly, the ooh's and ah's we let out as we made out way through the terminal were not directed at the soaring roof or modern design - they were very much reserved for all the stores we passed! Fred Segal, Burberry, Coach, Bulgari, Porsche, Victoria's Secret :O!!!
Even though I blatantly couldn't afford anything (and didn't have any US currency anyway) I was desperate to look around. Unfortunately, due to our short transit stop and an urgent need to freshen up, we didn't have the time or opportunity (and almost missed our connecting flight altogether when Emma left her wallet on a couch, and spent a frantic ten minutes running the length of LAX to find it!). See Dad, I'm not the only one likely to do this - I was the responsible one here!

Fortunately we did end up making the flight in plenty of time, although without the water we were so desperately craving (that recycled plane air really gets you!). After a solid dinner (plane food really has improved a lot from the first time I tasted it eight years ago) and as much water as I could ask for without royally pissing off the flight attendants, I managed a rather more solid sleep, and woke up around 7am London time (or 8pm NZ time - my body is so confused) this morning.

Got Kate to snap some quality photos of the sunrise as we neared the Irish this morning (just look at those colours!), and then enjoyed a hearty-but-very-sweet breakfast (the americans put sugar in EVERYTHING) as we flew over the edge of the Atlantic. With an hour to go until we land at Heathrow, it's finally starting to sink in.

Look out London. Here I come.

Santa, Suitcases and Sentimentality

So packing is not my forte.

I am not a neat person by nature. I hoard things, I'm notoriously lazy, and I don't mind a bit of mess.

My family however, does.

They mind rather a lot. It goes without saying that they haven't been the biggest fans of the hostile takeover that's been occurring in our lounge this week.

 I think my dad is also about to blow a gasket over the appearance of our hallway, where all my 'crap', as he describes it, has resided for the last month and a half, since I moved out of my Wellington flat. So with Christmas tomorrow, and my departure looming three days ahead of me, it's crunch time. I now have to reduce my belonging to 23kgs worth of stuff, that will fit into this suitcase.

Only slightly daunting.

I think the issue I have with throwing things away is that I'm a very sentimental person. All my belongings, even the stuff that other people would consider 'junk', has memories or emotions attached to it. For example; do I need five different travel journals (when I'm also planning to keep a blog)? Probably not, no.

Am I still going to take them? Of course I am. They were all given to me by close friends and family members, and all of them have touching, loving, handwritten messages in, that I want to take with me. The logical part of my brain says that I could simply take these pages out of their respective homes and just take one journal, but then I would feel as though I were playing favourites, and the decision would just be too hard.

So now you see my struggle. I'm having a breakdown already, and I haven't even packed anything wearable.

Right. No more procrastinating. Down to this packing business.

Although I am quite hungry...

Right, okay, grab a quick snack and get on with it.

...As soon as I've mended this little hole in my dress.

And actually, these rice crackers are pretty dry, I definitely need a drink.



Okay, half an hour later, here we are.

So.

Where do I start?

Heavy stuff that's liable to move should probably go at the bottom, right? That seems sensible.

Alright! That's done. Good start.

Now... I should probably go with... Shoes next?

But wait. Shit. Which shoes am I wearing on the plane? Because I can't put those in yet. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna wear the ones I'm getting for Christmas. Which isn't til tomorrow. So I could just pack my other shoes... If I hadn't just waterproofed them and put them out to dry.

Okay, so not shoes then.

...Got it! Travel hair dryer. BAM. Sorted.

So the rest'll probably go in order of when i'll need it. I think.

Oh my god this is so stressful, I think I need a break.

...

A short interlude later and I've actually made some progress. But now I'm really struggling. My major dilemma is...

How many socks is too many? Because I'm currently sitting on 18 pairs and I can't decide if that's excessive or just cautious.

Hmm. Having weighed up my options (but not my bag - yet), I've decided to throw caution to the wind - or the opposite in this situation. The socks stay, but I am most definitely going. It's only kind of sunk in these last few days that I'm really going. The trip I've talked about since the age of 13 is finally happening, and - while I'm scared absolutely shitless, I'm pretty proud of myself for following through.

So while my efforts at blogging these last few months have been absolutely abysmal, I hope to keep my vast audience (of roughly three people) entertained much more thoroughly for the next year or so.
Tell your friends, tell your families, and most of all tell them not to get their hopes up.

In the spirit of the season - a Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

xx Bri

Bays for Days

So. After a well-deserved (read; completely unintentional and unnecessary) hiatus, I'm back. I'd love to give a valid excuse as to why I haven't posted in almost three months but. I don't really have one. So we'll just crack on and pretend like this never happened, yeah?

I am notoriously lazy. I will spend large amounts of time at home; in bed, on the couch, in other people's beds, on the floor, essentially anywhere within the confines of my flats four walls in order to feel comfortable. I hate being pressured to do things - the more you bug me to do it, the more I'll resist (hi dad - I know, I'm working on it). And recently, I've been horrendously sick. All factors that should (and almost did) prevent me from doing anything particularly interesting or noteworthy with my time.

However, I have some amazing best friends. Despite my best protests, Soph and Meg badgered me to come "on an adventure" with them this afternoon, and after realizing that the alternative way to spend my day was cleaning my room, I happily caved and agreed to join them.

At about 12:45pm, after bandying around ideas for the better part of an hour, we settled on a ferry trip to Days Bay, just across Wellington Harbour. Following a quick check of ferry departure times, we cobbled together a couple of pizzas and half a block of chocolate, then took off at an impressive pace towards Queens Wharf with our makeshift picnic safely packed away. Grabbing our tickets and shuffling onboard, we quickly commandeered a couple of benches on the upper deck, and settled in for a scenic, yet freezing, ride across the harbour.

[I should mention here that, on a whim, I decided I would attempt to film todays adventure, and try to throw it together into a wee montage of memories. I will link the finished product below, however as I chose to forego cleaning my room in order to participate in todays outing, I was without my camera, so video quality is predictably terrible. You've been warned.]

After an enjoyable ferry ride that was over far too soon (all three of us were in agreement that it felt amazing to be out on the water again), we docked at Days Bay and disembarked to find a picturesque pebble beach that begged to play host to an impromptu picnic. We made ourselves at home, nestling down amongst some driftwood and wolfing down our pizzas. Sophie and I, rather foolishly I might add, decided to shuck our shoes and paddle along the beach, until the sand ran out and we were forced to retreat to the safety of the footpath. At which point Meg had a thorough giggle at us as we moaned and groaned our way over sharp stones and driftwood, and were then forced to walk barefoot all the way round into Eastbourne as we waited for our feet to dry.

Upon rounding the point into Eastbourne, we were faced with more of the beautiful beachfront houses that were visible from the moment we docked. Although these are all very much 'beachfront' properties, the native bush in this area has been beautifully preserved, and many of these light, airy homes are nestled snugly in amongst the trees. There was some definite home envy going on during our stroll along Eastbourne beach, that's for sure.

We had been planning initially to investigate the large, rickety looking pier at Eastbourne, that we'd spied while disembarking at Days Bay, however upon further investigation, it became apparent that it was closed to the public as it was considered a safety hazard (we actually only found this out after Soph climbed round some boards up onto the pier, and then realized that, actually yes, the whole thing was meant to be inaccessible, and we probably shouldn't be there).

So after that slightly disappointing slog we decided to head back to Days Bay to grab a coffee before catching our return ferry home. The sun was disappearing fairly quickly at this point and we were all starting to feel the chill, so were disappointed to find that the first coffee shop we came across was closed. We pressed on, and just as we were sure we would all freeze to death, we came across the Days Bay pavilion (also the home of their famous wood fired pizza), which we had previously mistaken for a school! Thankfully, they sold hot drinks and no algebra was necessary to get them, so it was a banana milkshake for me and two hot chocolates for the girls (which Soph promptly declared to be the best she'd ever had). Then we ambled over to the waterfront and settled in to watch the sunset while we waited for our ferry.

After about five minutes, we spotted our vessel on the horizon and realized that in our haste to get warm, we'd made it back in time for the preceding ferry as well. Cue a bit of um-ing and ah-ing over whether to catch this one, and just as we'd got our butts into gear, they took off again (the Dom Post Ferry waits for no man - or woman. Or anyone really, they were pretty unforgiving). What followed was half an hour of attempting to entertain ourselves whilst not freezing to death - a difficult task involving plentiful selfies, a short dance break, and one instance of Meg almost ending up in the water (courtesy of Soph of course - I said pretend to push her!!).

Unfortunately, our 4:55pm ferry was on time, and with its arrival it was time to say our goodbyes to the wonderful settlement of Days Bay. It's not often that you find such gems when you live in such a busy city, and I know we were all incredibly grateful to get away from the hustle and bustle for an afternoon. Our final view was of the coastline bathed in a golden sunset glow, that made for a beautiful (if absolutely freezing) ferry ride home. Thanks go to Sophie and Meg of course, without whom I would likely have spent my day stuck inside, finding any excuse possible not to clean my room and generally being massively unproductive. Days like today remind me why I enjoy traveling (whatever distances I cover), and what I have to look forward to come December.

Until next time, stay sweet!

Briana xx

(for some reason the video wouldn't embed but here you go!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw9X18JSNMc

Reservations about Running

I am not a runner. I imagine that this is glaringly obvious to those who know me in real life, and to anyone who has witnessed my occasional struggle along the Wellington waterfront. But in the interests of total honesty with you, the lovely people of the internet, I feel that this disclaimer is necessary. So. Where was I?

Ah yes. I hate running.

So it was with some trepidation this morning that I set off on my first run (read: run/walk/embarrassingly public struggle with my own body) in a few weeks. And for the first few minutes, I felt fine. Sadly, the first few minutes were also spent warming up at a brisk walking pace. What followed was roughly twenty minutes of humiliation, where my limbs moved with all the grace of a newborn foal and my face did its best to imitate that of a rabid animal. The experience was unpleasant, to say the least. And I'm not sure if I've ever felt more relieved than when I finished, rattling breaths causing people to look behind them in horror as if hearing a Dementor approaching. But for some reason, this is something I want to do again. In fact, I've even decided that I'd quite like to do it on a regular basis. (WHY???)

The thing is, fitness is in my blood. Not literally of course, otherwise a run that totaled 27 minutes wouldn't have been so hard for me. But genealogically. You see, I come from a family of fitness freaks. And I don't say this lightly. My parents are a personal trainer and a fitness assessor. It is literally their job to be fit. Somehow, my body missed that memo when I was living at home. After injuring my knee at the tender age of fourteen, I pretty much stopped playing all sports, and had only the occasional trip to our gym to keep me in what should have been tip top shape, but in all honesty was more the shape of a Tip Top ice cream (I suspect this was a result of how many I ate). And the gym was fine. I loved the cross-training aspect, and it was incredibly social, even introducing me to one of my now best friends (hey Tyler). But when I moved away from home, it all of a sudden became a lot more difficult to motivate myself to train. Particularly when I didn't have anything to train for. (The lack of a personal trainer breathing down my neck was likely also a factor). But I digress.

I've attempted to run many times over the years. Usually (and I'm not proud of this), my 'running kicks' will start when I'm being an absolutely miserable slob, marathoning tv shows or movies, and one of the cool main characters goes out for a run and all of a sudden gets their life in order. (I will admit that after recently seeing Divergent, the amount of runs I went for did increase for about a week, as did the number of Ellie Goulding songs on my running playlist). But I want to reach a point where this isn't the only thing that motivates me. So, in the spirit of my last blog post, I've decided to set some goals, and the first one is this:

To compete in and complete the 2014 Wellington Tough Guy and Gal Challenge, in a time of less than 90:00.

Why this event? Well. In 2008, my friend Paige asked me if I'd be interested in competing in this challenge with her family. In the interests of getting out of New Plymouth for the weekend, and showing my dad that I was totally capable of running 6K, I agreed, and eventually went on to complete the race in roughly an hour and fifty minutes (I think). I've always wanted to see what my time would be like if I were to attempt this event again (especially given that I walked much of the distance the first time round), and after suggesting to my flatmates that we enter together, I decided that, even if they wanted to back out, I wouldn't. So as of this week I'll be signing up for 6K's of mud, sweat and tears (ha! see what I did there? Ahhhh... apologies, I waited this whole post to work that joke in), and beginning some serious training, in the hopes that I don't make a complete fool of myself come the 27th of July.

(Although as the recipient of the 'Most Likely To... Make An Idiot of Herself On Stage' Award at my high school graduation, public humiliation seems to be something of a given for me).

Anyway, having voiced my good intentions here on the internet, we'll see how this public accountability works in helping me train.

Until next time folks!

Biting the Bullet

I've always been a dreamer. Not the kind of person that is particularly great at accomplishing things, but the kind of person who is great at thinking of things that she would someday like to accomplish. For example, in sixth form, I, on a whim one evening, ventured into town and dropped $80 on the 'Lonely Planet: Europe on a Shoestring' guide, under the slightly misguided impression that I was going to go backpacking around Europe by myself upon graduation the following year. I spent hours devouring the first 100 pages, earmarking and highlighting and generally telling anyone who would listen about all these wonderful places I was going to go.

Three guesses what happened.

I didn't go. In the end, I succumbed to peer pressure and the overwhelming fear that I didn't know what I was doing with my life, and I did what every authority figure in my life said I should do; I went to university instead. 

Now don't get me wrong, university was brilliant, and I absolutely loved the year I spent there. I have no doubts that had I not moved away from home for that year and met the people I did, I would definitely NOT have been ready to go traveling, especially not by myself. While paying off the student loan I accumulated over that year hasn't exactly been fun, ($8,289 to go!) the experience and insight I gained was invaluable, and I don't regret a single penny. 

But even after that year at university (which I promptly dropped out of in order to go traveling - the beginning of a vicious cycle), I still didn't really have any direction for my life (although I had One Direction in it, but that's another story). I spent six months in my hometown, working at a cinema, and considering my options (read: working part time in a dead end job, wasting my money on frivolous things and generally getting no closer to paying off my student loan). While the whole idea of me moving home had been to save money and find stable employment so that I could get out again as soon as possible, it was very easy to fall into the same monotonous routine I had stuck to in high school, and I could feel myself settling for a very mediocre life. In an attempt to combat this, (and out of a terrible longing for my uni friends), I started making regular trips to Wellington (my uni city) to try and get some variety back into my life. It was on the way back from one of these trips that I had my first bullet-biting moment in a very long time. I decided to move back to Wellington. 

The whole reasoning behind my moving away in the first place had been that Wellington was too expensive, too tempting, and I would undoubtedly spend more than I would save. But New Plymouth (my hometown) had very few job opportunities for unqualified teenagers like me, and the fear of becoming too settled there was suffocating. So I saved some money, sent more CV's out than I dare to think about, and moved to Wellington with no job and a few hundred dollars to my name. 

And things went well. After about three weeks, I found a job that I loved, with really cool people, making pretty good money. But through poor money management, ever poorer rent negotiation, and being a bit too generous, I found that I was still struggling financially. Some weeks I was barely making enough to pay my bills, let alone pay off my student loan. So, once again, I fell back into bad habits, and no progress was made. 

And then, one day, things kind of just started clicking. Over the summer I'd moved into a much cheaper flat that was much more central to where I worked, started buying more cost-efficient food, and working a few more hours each week. In one particularly productive month I managed to pay almost $1000 off my student loan. A few weeks later I took a new job, one that paid better, and met (and said goodbye to) some amazing people who inspired me to bite the bullet once again. 

So I did. 

On the 27th December this year, at 10:45pm, I leave Auckland for London, with no return ticket in sight. I haven't planned further ahead than the 4th January, and while this thought is kind of terrifying, it's also hugely exhilarating. I worried and worried for so long about whether I'd ever make it overseas, because I had so many things that I had to do first - but in the end, giving myself a final date by which all these things have to be accomplished, is the best thing I could have done. 

While clicking that final button was probably the most terrifying thing I've ever done (only just ahead of calling my dad to tell him), it was the push I needed to stop being just a dreamer. It's all very well and good to sit and think and plan for days, weeks, months, even years on end, but when it all comes down to it, sometimes you just need to bite the bullet and do it.