Day 1 - Gobble, Gobble, Gobble

The unfortunate thing about travelling as far as somewhere like Turkey from London means despite having an early flight, the duration of the flight combined with the time difference means you’ve wasted a whole day on travel which meant Emma, Paul and I didn’t arrive at Istanbul airport until late afternoon. We wandered around for a bit trying to find a cheap way of getting into the city since we’d unfortunately flown into the Gatwick of Istanbul rather than the more convenient Heathrow version. Not surprisingly we found some other kiwis at the airport who were trying to do the same thing as us so we combined our lira powers to get a taxi together into the city. It was quite a hairy ride with the driver speeding along the motorway inspecting his map whilst speeding along the motorway so as a distraction we chatted to our fellow passengers, only to discover that randomly we had a friend in common – Renee. But I guess it's bound to happen since we were converging in a country on the same weekend as another 3,000 odd kiwis.

Paul directed the taxi driver to our hotel using our Beige Brigade map we had been provided with and when we checked in we were pleased to discover we had been put into a room with three beds rather than me having to pair up with someone else on my tour like I’d got the impression I was going to have to do.

After dumping our bags we headed across town to find the bar where we were to meet up with our tour to get the run down on the proceedings for the morning as well as pick up our free drink and ANZAC hoodie. Unfortunately that didn’t go so well as we were late to which meant all we could find were drunken Aussie and Kiwis already donning their ANZAC hoodies and no “guides” in sight. We asked a few people what the low down was and they informed us that there would be a wakeup call at a respectable 4am, breakfast at 5am, leaving at 6am so we were quite happy to opt out of the drunken evening that was unfolding at the bar in favour of finding ourselves a Turkish dinner before heading to bed. Once we’d satisfied our stomachs with delightful Turkish meals and apple tea we wandered back to our hotel via the Blue Mosque which looked stunning lit up in the darkness.

Refreshed Love of all things Kiwi

I found it quite unsettling going home for seven weeks over the NZ summer as it evoked a lot of memories about things that I hadn’t realised I missed. Obviously you have the odd moment here and there where you have a longing for the Coromandel or real vogels bread or your close friends and family but those moment do tend to get fewer and far between the longer you away. That is, until you return to New Zealand and you realise just how much you have missed the little day to day things that make New Zealand home and gives it that comfortable snugly blanket on a winters night feeling.

There are definitely things I knew I missed like the beach and bbqs and having a proper summer but there were quite a few moments during my holiday that I rediscovered my love for things that I had forgotten I had. They included moments like being at Muriwai and watching people dance about as they try not to scald their feet on the hot sand, listening to George FM and being able to hear the deafening cicadas through the mike, going out for brunch and having an array of delectable cafes to choose from that all have fantastic food and coffee, driving out to South Head, going riding at Woodhill, walking the bays of the North Shore admiring views through the flax, and just being in Ponsonby.

We really are very lucky to come from such an amazing country as NZ and despite it being a completely different pace of life to London and not having the ease of access to Europe it is pretty damn hard to beat. Prior to my visit home I’d been dreaming up scenarios which would enable me to stay in Europe for as long as possible but I’ve definitely had a change of heart since then having accepted the fact that I won’t be over here for forever and now have managed to get quite excited about the thought of returning to New Zealand (semi) permanently. It did help a lot that not only did I have an awesome holiday but all those memories that I had come flooding back reminded me just how much fun I was having prior to me leaving the first time around too.

So I guess the long and the short of it is that I now love New Zealand and what it has to offer more than ever, fortunately, since I’ll be returning to it's sandy shores soon(ish).

Best Year Yet...

Well, well, after all my grand travel blogging plans, haven't I just turned out to be absolutely rubbish at it since my month in Spain. I blame my silence on the fact that I never have any spare time these days which means blog writing tends to get pushed to the bottom of my to do list and then before I know it, a whole six months has passed without a single post.

When I look back at all that I managed to jam into 2008, it's not surprising that time wasn't often available for blogging and also why it was my best year yet. Although it wasn't my best year in a career sense, it was definitely off the scale in the amount of fun had and experiences enjoyed. First off I left my one and only job since leaving high school before I did the big move out of my flat and waved goodbye to all my friends and family to head off overseas.

That's where the experiences began with a week spent in Melbourne and a month travelling solo around Thailand where amongst other things I passed my dive certificate. I then visited London briefly before moving to Haddington in Scotland, where I had two temp jobs and saw various parts of the country, a majority of it during a road trip in the Highlands. Following my three months in Scotland I travelled for a month through Spain and Portugal. Since then I've spent the last six months living in London where I've had about four different temp jobs and lived in three flats.

The six months that I've lived here have been the busiest, with me trying to make the most of the London Life. I feel like I've made a good attempt at making the most by doing lots of the must do things like the London Bus Tour, visiting Portobello, Spitalfields and Borough markets, nights out at Shunt, Fabric and Ministry of Sound, eating curry on Brick Lane, going to the Wimbledon tennis, having Devonshire Tea at Harrods, attending live gigs, shopping on Oxford Street, going to a Roller Disco, spending weekends in Belgium and Paris via the Eurostar, completing a 12km cross country running race, going to the theatre, ice skating outdoors, and spending Christmas in Prague. There was of course a whole lot of drinking and partying time in between/during all those awesome experiences too.

Thanks to everyone who made it a killer year, lets hope 2009 is just as good or even better! It's definitely off to a great start with six weeks of NZ summer coming up which will be a welcome escape from the dreary London winter. Bring on the beach, bbq's and sunshine (and of course all my lovely friends and family who I've missed so much!).

Day 30 -Final Day Missions

After my blowout the previous day of having spent the majority of it feeling revolting and barely being able to get out of bed, it meant that my last day in Spain was to be manic fitting in all the last things I wanted to see. This meant I had to set off fairly early to a.) beat the heat and b.) have enough time to squeeze my two days worth of sight seeing into just one day.

First stop on my mission was Casa Batlló (House of Bones). The building was owned by Josep Batlló Casanovas and he originally commissioned Gaudi to demolish the building and construct a new one but he changed his mind, instead asking Gaudi to refurbish the existing structure that had been built in 1875-77. The rounded edges, glittering colours and delicate facade detailing makes for an impressive sight - although the trees on the footpath outside don't make for an impressive photograph of it unfortunately.

Next stop about 20mins walk on is the infamous La Sagrada Familia is probably Gaudi's most famous work on show in Barcelona. Gaudi worked on the enormous Roman Catholic church for 40 years, the last 15 years of his life completely dedicated to it, and it still isn't finished to this day. The cranes working on the amazing stone structure are a permanent fixture, at least until 2026, the date of its scheduled completion.

Nico and Kelly had recommended I check out the hospital just up the hill from the Familia so I headed up to Hospital de Sant Pau and it was certainly well worth it. The hospital was designed by the Catalan architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Definitely the most amazing hospital I've ever seen and probably will ever see!

The final Gaudi mission of my day was to visit Park Güell where Gaudi has really outdone himself by creating a huge garden complex boasting incredible stone structures, beautiful mosaic tiling pieces and interesting buildings. Due to my time constraints I did speed around the gardens a bit (despite the killer heat) but was I was in complete awe of the place the whole time. The thing that surprised me the most was how people don't recommend the park anywhere near as going to see Sagrada Familia where I felt the gardens were something so incredibly different and amazing they are certainly a must see in Bareclona and I was glad I'd managed to make my way there despite my previous days efforts.

After a morning of traipsing around the city in the intense heat it was time to head down to the beach to meet Nico and Kelly for a last tan top up and a last frolic in the sea before waving goodbye to Spain. Our afternoon was very enjoyable and we had one last fill of olives and cheese and tomato baguettes before we had to drag ourselves away from the sunshine and head off in order to make our flight.

Our last hours spent in Barcelona were spent sitting in the airport cheering for our new comrades as Spain thrashed Russia in the euro2008 quarter finals, enabling us to end what had been a fabulous holiday on a high even if we knew we were having to head back to London.

Day 29 - Sick as a Dog

I awoke feeling ok and got straight up to get ready since we'd planned to get a reasonably early start to enable us to see all Gaudi had to offer in Barcelona. Well things started to go downhill pretty quickly for me once I reached the bathroom and started getting changed. I started getting the sweats and was feeling pretty dizzy so got out of the confined toilet space thinking I'd feel better in a bit of fresher air. This was not the case unfortunately, just making it out into the corridor before I collapsed in a heap on the floor just as one of the Spanish guys from the previous night was coming past. I couldn't see for a few moment and was feeling like I could be sick meanwhile the Spanish guy is trying to get me to get up and go to our dorm room (and kindly picked up my underwear from the floor that I'd managed to drop while I was having my slight episode). I eventually managed to gather up enough strength to make it back into our dorm and that is about all I could manage for most of the day.

I sent Nico and Kelly off to go and see the sights without me but every hour or so I'd feel like I was feeling better so get up to go check the net or get a water and each time the effort was so much that I'd have to head back to our dorm after a few minutes so I could collapse back into bed. It was not a fun day I can tell you, and the strangest thing was it wasn't even like it was a hangover as a.) I don't really get hangovers and b.) I hadn't drunk THAT much the previous night to warrant me feeling so horrific.

Eventually at about 5pm I managed to suck it up enough to head outside and meet up with Nico and Kelly for a bite to eat and a few drinks before we made our way back to the hostel to watch the Euro quarter finals between Germany and Russia. I was feeling much better and managed to hoe into a bottle of wine in preparation for our second night of fiesta with the Spanish boys.

Our fiesta ended up being heading down the Playa Barceloneta and drinking on the beach while the boys had wrestling matches, swims, kisses with 15 year old girls and other such shenanigans. It was a good laugh and I was glad I'd managed to perk up enough to make it out for our last night in Spain.

Day 28 - Free Tours & Funny Times

We'd decided that a good way to see the sights of Barcelona was to do a free walking tour of the Gothic quarter of Barcelona. The tour included seeing on of Gaudi's first commissioned pieces, two candelabras (lampposts) placed in the Plaça Reial, a building with gun holes chipped out of it thanks to it once being an execution wall, the impressive La Seu cathedral and the area in which the Jews were built into in order to "keep them from spreading the Plague" despite them being cleaner than a lot of the Spaniards who would only wash twice in their lifetime, at baptism and when they died so that people could identify who they were by washing the grime from their faces! The tour was very valuable in learning some interesting facts about the city and we were more than happy to tip our guide at the end of it, which he then returned the favour by buying everyone in our group a round of drinks. While enjoying our beers we noticed that they had €2 dinner that night at the bar so we made a mental note to return there since our wallets were getting a bit light having neared the end of our trip.

We bypassed the markets on our way back to the hostel so we could get some usual lunch goodies and once we'd eaten Nico and Kelly went into a bit of a food coma but I wasn't having any of this lazing about business so I went on my own mission up to the top of a hill near our hostel which had nice gardens and a good view out across the city. I was a little dodged out by some of the characters lurking about around the place though so didn't spend too long wandering the paths, but I did make a stop off at a skate park on my way back so I could take some snaps of some awesome graffiti art decorating the concrete jungle. I'm slightly obsessed with graffiti art it seems.

After my walk it was about time to head to back to the pub for our €2 dinner. The place absolutely heaving with backpackers, unsurprisingly when a cheap dinner is on offer. We managed to find ourselves a spot at the bar to enjoy the buzzing atmosphere of the place while downing a few jugs of sangria. The dinner wasn't anything amazing but it was an interesting evening spent watching the dynamics of the bar staff and backpackers that filled the place.

Kelly was starting to feel a bit wobbly on her stool so we headed back to the hostel all ready to call it a night but then before I knew it I was being invited out with some Spanish guys from our dorm room which I was quite pleased about as those jugs of sangria's were making me want to keep going, not get ready for bed. So off I went with the boys and had a very funny night trying to converse with them in broken Spanish and English. I even got bought red roses by one of the guys and then somehow we ended up climbing on top of a bronze cat and having a bit of a photo shoot. It was certainly the kind of nights out I'd imagine I'd have in Spain but hadn't really experienced until then, so I was pleased to have found myself some crazy Spanish friends and we made plans to go out for an even bigger fiesta the following night.

Day 27 - Market Goodies

Having barely had any sleep throughout our overnight ferry ride we weren't exactly all that keen to explore Barcelona upon arriving. I think the fact that we were coming to the end of our trip didn't help either as our enthusiasm was waning somewhat. We did however manage to summon up enough energy to do a bit of a wander up the infamous Las Ramblas which was buzzing with countless tourists, performers and stalls. Amongst the chaos we stumbled upon yet another amazing market, this one having endless fruit stalls selling ready to eat fruit salad and juices. My idea of a perfect breakfast!

While Nico and Kelly lazed about for the afternoon I did a bit of job hunting in preparation for heading back to London and once I'd got bored of that I made a trip back to the markets in search of some goodies for lunch. Unfortunately I was a bit late so missed out on all the pre prepared pasta salads that we had admired earlier, instead having to settle for our usual baguettes with cheese and tomato and I got some ingredients to create our own version of the pasta dishes for dinner instead.

As you can see the main focus of our day turned out to be food as we didn't really achieve much else but eat all our market goodies. After such a pitiful day sightseeing wise we were all pumped for a day of exploring in the morning.

Before bed however, Nico and I were determined to squeeze some sort of achievement and being the night before Sant Joan meant Barcelona was alive with fireworks. We'd been invited to join the fiesta down at the beach but after a few minutes of wandering the streets the both of us became quite uncomfortable with the atmosphere as young kids were everywhere throwing double happies and other similar fireworks at one another and anyone that happened to be walking by. It meant that it wasn't much of a relaxing walk about town as we were constantly on edge watching out for any incoming explosions, especially after one hit Nico on the side of the head, thankfully not injuring him. We discovered once we got back to the hostel that some had not been so lucky with quite a few people getting burnt from the fireworks. You can see why double happies and the like are banned in NZ!

Day 26 - Exploring the Island

Being our last day on Ibiza we'd decided to hire a car to enable us to explore the island a bit in hope of finding some beautiful beaches that I'd been promised Ibiza had. We certainly weren't disappointed as it delivered not one beautiful beach but numerous stunners and even inland was amazing too.

The first cove was only fairly small with quite a rocky beach but the crystal clear waters and lack of houses surrounding it is what made it special and the fact that there were barely any people there helped too! Beach number two, Cala San Vicente, was where we chose to stop for lunch and it was just the kind of beach we'd been looking for with stretching golden dunes, clear blue water, nice and sheltered and it even ha a few waves crashing on the shore to make it a bit exciting. It was probably a good thing it was our last day on the island or we would have been wishing we were staying there rather than in our crappy area. I'd definitely say to anyone who was going to Ibiza to stay there as it doesn't seem to be somewhere that would get to packed out and the town isn't too tacky, also it is within a reasonable taxi fares distance to the clubs which means you get the best of both worlds. The third beach, Cala Llonga we didn't find as nice as it was a lot busier and there was a bit of a wind blowing but I imagine take away those two factors and it'd be just as stunning as San Vicente. We did however manage to put those downers aside and manage to fit in a siesta on the sand without too much trouble.

We pushed on through the beautiful countryside of the island which is very dry with a lot of pine trees, whitewashed houses and olive groves. Last stop was out on a peninsula which is home to the lighthouse and had views across to the Ibiza old town where the sun was lowering over the hill giving it a golden halo. All in all, our car hire day was well worth it as we got to see the Ibiza that I'd heard the good things about which is worlds apart from the tacky tourist areas that most people who visit Ibiza only see. I was glad that I could head away from the island knowing that there are beautiful parts to it that I would even consider visiting again when I have more time to explore.

We only had time to quickly find something to take on the ferry for dinner before the gates closed on us which turned out to be a bit of a bummer as we didn't get to explore the old town at all or prepare for the overnight journey on the ferry. Crucial! We positioned ourselves on the lounger chairs on the partially open deck, even though the engine noise was a little deafening but we thought at least we'd have somewhere to lye as we attempted to get some winks later in the evening.

It turned out to be an interesting evening all in all as we had a reggae dj play a set next to us, we watched a group of boys play football on the deck of the boat in pretty much complete darkness and finally we froze ourselves as we attempted to sleep away the hours. Not a very pleasant nights sleep by any stretch of the imagination, in fact it made the train journey into Portugal seem like heaven in comparison.

Day 25 - Doing Not Much

After our late night out we weren't really keen for much of an action packed day, although I did manage to drag myself out of bed in time to go and join Nico for the last half of the All Blacks vs England game being shown at a pub down the road. That was about all the excitement for the day though as we just opted for another day of lazing in the pool on lilos. Best way ever to spend the day recovering after a night out!

We did manage to get ourselves together in the evening and go out for a meal at a Chinese restaurant on our strip. I decided to go for a green curry and this turned out to be not such a wise idea as it wasn't so much as a Thai green curry but a lovely fluro green coloured curry type thing, not very appetising looking believe me. It was made bearable by the fact that we had a nice setting on a balcony that looked out to sea and we were able to watch as the sun set across the water. Aww.

Day 24 - Pacha Time

The unfortunate thing about Ibiza is that to get to any of the decent beaches you pretty much need to hire a car. Since we'd decided to leave the car hiring till our last day we had to settle for soaking up the sun on San Antoni beach. The 'beach' consists of a man made strip of sand with knee deep water netted in before the marina starts behind it. The worst part though is the hoards of hungover brits lining the beach talking about how wasted they were the previous night and competing as to who got home the latest. The one positive was that the promotion girls and guys doing the laps of the beach seemed to avoid us and we deduced that this could be due to the fact that we actually had tans, setting us apart from the rest of the beach and therefore possibly making us look like we were semi local.

Eventually we'd had enough, instead opting to ferry back across to the hotel and try out the pool although not before we'd been and purchased our tickets for Pacha that night. €37 later we headed back across and spent the afternoon by the pool which turned out be quite a nice way to waste away the afternoon, floating about on lilos and listening to music from the hotel's sound system before sprucing ourselves up and hitting the vodka redbulls in preparation for our big night out.

Pacha was pretty impressive I have to say with its numerous rooms and levels of dancefloors and the standard of dress from everyone far surpassed what expected with no bikinis or shirts off. Our first stop was the Funk Room where we thought we'd get a drink before things started to warm up on the main d floor. Our one and only drink it turned out since they were a whopping €15 each. The night was an interesting and enjoyable one as we danced away to Freddie Le Grand on the decks and will.i.am on the mike till the small we hours. We'd stationed ourselves next to the VIP area which became filled with models and their entourage shortly after and this provided us with much of the entertainment for the evening as we witnessed them go downhill very quickly, starting off looking like respectful girls, soon to be making fools of themselves the more Veuve Clicquot they skulled from their endless supply of bottles. When they reached the point of grinding one another on couches Kelly and I had reached our threshold as to what we could bare to witness anymore and decided to move away from our spot in order to not have to witness their antics anymore.

Not having alcohol to fuel us through the evening meant by 4:30 or so we'd or more precisely our feet had had enough and we hobbled out to one of the hundreds of taxis waiting to take the partygoers home. Although the club was impressive in its size and layout I don't think it was as amazing night out as what you'd expect for on of the party capitals of the world!