Paris

Believe it or not, this is Paris. My dad visited me in London in April and so for his birthday I got us tickets on the Eurostar to Paris for three nights.

I have to say, April was a perfect time to visit, it wasn't too hot and spring was approaching so the parks were absolutely brimming with beautiful flowers.

Dad, as you can see, was enarmoured with France's vehicles.

Despite being afraid of heights Dad braved it up the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower (my second time up the tower which is really bordering on greedy for me) .We also visited the Sacre Couer, Moulin Rouge, Champs de Elysee, the Louvre and Notre Dame.

In Montmartre one of the French buskers began playing a Finn brother's song which was rather hilarious and appropriate at the same time.

Paris is one of the few cities in the world that I could return to again, and again, and again.

Barcelona

This is what I love about alleyways. You find cute boutiques (L) and you find the soul of a city (R).

Mel and I were very, very hungover on this day (we had spent the previous night in Ibiza). We spent several hours sleeping in our air conditioned room after getting off our flight and then set out for a long, long walk around Barcelona's streets.

After this photo was taken, a few paces away, a guy on a bike sped past an elderly woman and ripped the necklace off her neck.

Later, Mel and I went and got a sandwich from a local bakery and sat in a small square and people watched.

New Zealand

Put simply, this is my favorite place in the world. The only way I can describe it is that that when I'm at this beach my heart is happy.

Sydney

Evidence of my inability to sit still- going home for a two week holiday in New Zealand also involved a weekend trip to Sydney to see my little brother. I hadn't been to Sydney before.

Within half an hour of stepping off the plane Mark drove us to Bondi Beach.

I cannot exaggerate enough the pure exquisitness of seeing blue skies and beautiful beaches. I decided I was moving to Sydney about five minutes before this photo was taken.

Madrid

This is Cine Dore, an old theatre run beside Spain's national film library. My assignment was to go and take a few photos, maybe grab some pamphlets. It took me about half an hour to find the place and it was situated behind a high road in a somewhat suburban area which is always a pleasure to visit in another country (see if the grass is really greener).

Sadly, by the time I found the place I realised it wasn't open until 5.30pm. Still not realising I was actually visiting a theatre , I came back after a few glasses of vino tinto at a nearby cafe, to find a looong queue snaked around the building. Out of morbid curiosity I too queued up, not believing that this many people had come to see a library. And of course they hadn't. The filmoteque sold tickets to evening screenings of old films for two euro. Sensing a bargain of course I paid, only to find I was watching a Russian film with Spanish subtitles.

I ended up falling asleep (the wine had done me over), and only woke because my own snoring was so loud.

In my defense, sightseeing all day is really tiring.

Edinburgh

If there is anything I miss about New Zealand it's my best friends and wide open spaces.

This is Georgie and I at Loch Ness, after about six hours of driving through Scotlands's Highlands. Our tour guide was the bus driver and apparantely an unofficial radio DJ as he commentated the very minuate of our driving experience through the countryside, laughed at his own jokes and played Scottish music for the whole 12 hour tour. No silences allowed.

This is before Georgie and I took off on an unbeaten path around the lake (can you tell we're New Zealanders?) in search of Nessie.

If we look tired it's because we went to bed at 2am to rise two hours later for our flight. Luckily the beautiful weather had the endorphins kicking.

Vienna

Despite being a frequent traveller and a frequent writer, I very rarely collaborate the two. Rifling through my blog I've realised I don't actually write about any of my trips. In actual fact, I think I've subconsciously decided that writing about the minutae of travelling and exploring is boring. Which is ridiculous.

Tonight I ran a hot bath and bought two pieces of reading material with me- Lonely Planet's 'Tales from Nowhere' ( a collection of short stories). And the diary I kept while I travelled around the U.S and Europe last year.

Lonely Planet stayed on the floor.

So here is my challenge- pick a favorite photo from each of my trips and explain it to you. Not in a Times section , this is where we went, this is what we ate and this is how much it cost kind of way, but hopefully in a way that sets the scene and sums up what I love about exploring.

Here goes.

Oven mitts- embarassing unprepared travellers since Winter 2011. This is what I think of when I look at this picture. So my friend Renee, from Chicago, travelled with me to Vienna in late November this year. Renee tried explaining the temperature to me, but she was talking Farenheit so I failed to grasp that 30 degrees Farenheit was ZERO DEGREES.

So I had a small heart attack on our Easy Jet flight when the pilot introduced Vienna to us and I realised that it was going to be a cold, possibly snowy weekend. These mittens were a desperate purchase from H&M at Stephanzplatz which is the main shopping area in Vienna. I purchased the most obnoxious, warm looking mitts I could find.

Nevermind the fact that I had Edward Scissorhand type situations for a few days as I tried to pick things up with my mitts.

After this photo was taken Renee and I braved the cold through the swankier area where rich husbands were taking their fur-clad wives to buy jewellery at Tiffany and handbags at Chanel. To be fair, this trip was mostly about eating and each small walk or sightseeing venture was immediately intertwined with a trip to a cafe where almost every single waiter wore a suit and strudel and chocolate cake were lunch. So we went to a cafe after this and had baileys coffees and cake.

How to travel

There is always a story, a photo, a holiday package, a top ten through to 100 list there to make you feel bad about your own travel experiences. The friend who found frog's legs in France while you ate pizza every night, the yoga retreat you can't afford, amazing photography that makes your digital memories look childish and travel magazine bucket lists that surmise what you should want to see and disregard everything you loved but nobody has ever heard of.

While travel envy is always somewhat of a motivation to keep exploring it should by no means influence your own choices. The best part of travelling is that there are minefield of choices. Freedom of exploration and instinct.

My travel rules-

1. Don't make any major plans.
2. Walk everywhere.
3. Venture off beaten paths and down random alleyways. (Just not dark ones.)
4. Don't be put off by a lack of money, time or energy. Get up early, go to bed early, buy an espresso, sit and watch.
5. Don't go where everybody else does.
6. Don't pay to get in anywhere.
7. Take as many photos as possible but know when to put your camera down and stop living life through a lens.
8. Try not to make lists, be spontaneous and let your mood decide where you are going.
9. Don't be afraid.
10. Keep dreaming.

Stories about flying

Rather ironically, I've never been a very comfortable flyer. Take off and landing is always the worst but loud noises, strange smells, odd angles and dizzying heights will make my palms sweat and turn me into one of those crazies who scream at nobody in particular, "We are all going to DIE!"

In recent months my discomfort on aeroplanes has become dramatically worse. I blame it on a fairground ride a friend and I recently took in Hampstead Heath during which the ride literally malfunctioned mid-air, heightening my self-awareness of gravity and mortality.

After that episode, my first realisation that I was going to die on an aeroplane came on a flight to Barcelona from London. Cabin crew were brewing coffee near my seat and I told my friend that something wasn't right with the plane because it sounded to me like the engines were peetering out.

From Barcelona to Ibiza, at about 10pm, while many of my fellow passengers were dressed to the nines, ordering as much booze as possible on a 45 minute flight, I became irrationally angry as everybody talked over the safety demonstration and seemed glaringly oblivious to the fact that a freak storm was going to drive our plane into the ocean, like Lost. I literally bristled with anger, unable to read my magazine, because everybody but me was in such high spirits.

Again, Ibiza back to Barcelona, as the plane flew a half-circle preparing for descent, I became convinced that the plane was going to fall out of the sky... Auckland to Sydney I could smell petrol in the cabin and decided the plane was going to blow up once we got into the skies. Madrid to London and the plane seemed to be travelling too fast for landing so I prepared myself for the fact that we were going to slam into the ground and then probably overstep the runway and crash into a building. Or another plane. And so on.

So you see, I have become rather preposteriously paranoid and have even deliberated for months about whether or not I should jinx myself by writing about this.

However, in an effort to overcome what I perceived to be a major obstacle in mentally surviving a 24 hour flight to New Zealand I decided to do what any other slightly crazy person in my situation would do- I started watching Air Crash Investigation in bulk, late at night.

And, in actual fact, while this has brought home the fact that air crashes aren't usually a survivable feat, it has eased my fears somewhat. I've learned a few things.

Number one- planes don't really fall out of skies (my biggest paranoia). They just don't. And if they do, if the pilot is a smart cookie, he should be able to reverse a stall. Which brings me to my second point.

Number two- Planes don't crash. Pilots do. In every episode of ACI I watched, the reason for each crash was pilot incompetence. Every. Single. Time. So the mind boggling feat of how a plane manages to get up, and stay up in the air is negligible, compared to some of the mind boggling mistakes pilots make under duress or pure tiredness.

Which brings me to number three- if something does go wrong with the plane or the flight, the pilot has been trained to fix it. And if he can't fix it, he can contact ground team who can tell him how. Usually, if something goes wrong, there is generally plenty of time to be able to correct the problem and continue a safe flight.

So everytime I fly I now run these three points through my mind, over and over. To be honest, they don't help much. But memories of past flights do - in spite of my fears I have to admit I have had some amazing, life-changing experiences that have all begun with a flight. For example-

- Flying in a helicopter over the New York City skyline (incidentally, this helicopter later plunged into the Hudson River, killing everybody on board, including the Kiwi pilot, mere months after my trip).

-Flying from San Francisco to London for the first time. We swooped over the Golden Gate Bridge which was the perfect ending to my time in California, paving way to an exciting new beginning in London.

-Verona to London and witnessing a truly beautiful sunset from 37,000 feet high.

-Taking off during an electrical storm, Brisbane to Auckland. 

-After a week in third world-like Vanuatu, stepping onto an Air New Zealand flight with all it's high-tech gadgets seemed the height of luxury and reminded me of how lucky we all are to have the things we do. 

-Greece to London and because our flight was early we had to fly in circles above Heathrow for about 20 minutes, along with about five other flights. Absolutely bizaare sight.

-Leaving Auckland in 2010, after an emotional good-bye with friends and family, unable to stop crying, not knowing when I was going to be back, but very, very excited. And then landing at the same airport, exactly a year to the day later, feeling unbelievably excited to be back.

These days, my life seems to be all about the airports, the travelling, the flying. If I'm not departing Gatwick or Stansted, I am waiting for my latest visitor at Heathrow. The arrivals area is always the happiest part of flying. Which I guess is why I keep booking them.






Auckland to Brisbane, 2009




San Francisco to London, 2010




London to Marseille, 2011




London to Auckland, 2011



London to Verona, 2011

Vanuatu, 2009



EasyJet flight deck, Barcelona, 2011




London to Madrid, September 2011



Fear

On September 11 2001 I was at home, in bed, sick. Earlier in the week I had picked up some kind of stomach bug, I remember counting the number of times in one day I vomited- 13, if you're interested. It was a weekend and my younger brother came into my room to tell me some planes had crashed into some buildings in New York City. I remember thinking what a stupid pilot , how could he not see the buildings?

Later, I watched the news and for the first time in my life, realised what a horrible place the world is. The horror was just unimaginable. It physically hurt to think of the terror these thousands of people must have felt. For years afterwards I used to have nightmares about flying to America. In my dreams there were no crashes or terrorist attacks, but the idea of simply flying anywhere was scary to me. The risks seemed then, and still, impossibly frightening.

I visited New York for the first time in 2008. We visited Ground Zero and several church memorials. I expected to feel sad and sick, but truthfully I didn't feel anything for what, to me, was just a construction site. I had no emotional attachment to that place, it was only the images of people jumping from tall buildings that would make the hairs on my arms stand on end.

Being Thanksgiving at the time, the New York City police started issuing terror alerts. News reports warned us not to use the subway if we could help it, and to report any suspicious behaviour. Needless to say, coming from a small town in New Zealand, the warnings frightened me and I wanted to stay in the hotel. Australians on my tour just laughed- we get warnings like that all the time in Sydney and Melbourne they scoffed. You can't live your life in fear, or the terrorists will win. And so we do all continue to live our lives. We continue to ride the underground and take flights overseas.

I am still frightened of being a statistic. I look at people on the tube with backpacks and wonder if I should take a different train. I've sized people up at the departure gate and I jump at loud noises. But nothing will stop me from continuing to book these tickets, to embark on these adventures. Life is short. Health, money, ability and opportunity won't always be there tomorrow. Let's roll.

Where are all the other travellers?

I know very few people who share my need to keep moving. I know people who like holidays, people who like Paris and people who have been to lots of places. I don't know anybody who would spend their last 40 quid on a one way ticket to Moscow. Nobody knows what it's like to look at a world map and think, 'Well, I guess I better get cracking.'

The beauty of friendship is that sometimes people can point out things you can't see for yourself.

Today, after a particularly agonising week of dissecting my finances, re-writing budgets, looking at a map and then re-writing them again, somebody said to me something along the lines of, "I would think travelling is the key to becoming a travel writer." 

Which is kind of obvious really isn't it? But I've spent so much time trying to be responsible, squirelling away money and trying to put a lid on my overwhelming desire to explore Europe's best cobbled streets, that I've missed the point of it all- to write well, you have to write what you know.

Last week my favorite partner in crime, who is currently exploring Canada, told me she was going to keep travelling until all her money ran out. And my first thought was, 'thank god somebody else understands.'

That is, understands the complete indifference to owning homes, settling down with hubby and children, having a high paying job that pays for a home in Notting Hill and numerous trips to Dior but doesn't allow for any real time off.

When did vivir suddenly mean to become part of a rat-race, a statistic, a bore? When did we stop living and start dreaming, instead of the other way around? Where are all the other travellers?

History

London is a film with an ever-changing cast of characters and a new storyline every hour. There's the woman in her mid 40s with the glazed stare. She brings her own hair dye to the salon and sifts through garbage at night. The silver-haired man who sits in every shop window with a coffee and a newspaper. A tall intellectual type in a checked shirt, hair in a ponytail, with The New Yorker stuffed in his back pocket. The barman who does a famous whiskey sour and a bouncer with a scarred face. A bus that never arrives, a sliding door, a missed train, an emergency cab-ride, al fresco dinners, hot nights, burning buildings, boarded windows, screaming sirens. Someone exited in search of a better life and those left in the wake began questioning theirs.

Back to Black

After a reasonably cool summer the weather suddenly became stifling hot, the kind where the streets smelled like tar and dusk didn't settle until well after 9pm. As a result, West Hampstead residents dined later and later, meaning longer nights for shift workers and even later after-work-drinks with Jim, Moet and the sunrise.

Amy Winehouse died in a home a 10 minute cycle away, imposing an eerie kind of atmosphere where historians would remember Back to Black could be heard streets over and the normally edgy, slightly rough Camden town enjoyed a robust smattering of preppys and tourists hoping to see a ghost.

London continued to be a revolving door of old faces and new tricks, wistful goodbyes to old friends and hellos to ones dearly missed.


I enjoyed a brief period of waking up at sunrise and going out and enjoying London before the tourists and the traffic do. Predictably this didn't last long.

A one year anniversary came and went and everything was still the same, plans just grander.

In transit

I used to love airports. They represented exciting adventures, hellos and duty free. Now they shriek long waits, delays, goodbyes and odd hours. More frustratingly, airports now seem an obstacle or a barrier to the outside world rather than a gate-way. I was in Hong Kong recently but do you think I can tell you one thing about this brilliant city? No, I was stuck in the confines of the airport due to our neverending security measures these days.

According to a friend you can't tick a country off your travel list unless you've left the airport. So Hong Kong stays on the list. Today, however, I have had the pleasure of exploring a brand new city, one that wasn't on the list, and probably never would have been.

I'm currently laid over in Brunei, in transit between New Zealand and London, for 12 hours. My initial impressions of Brunei were limiting. On the plane we were reminded that drug traffiking is punishable by the death penalty. On the arrivals card I am asked if I have any jewellery, cigarettes or telecommunication devices. All of which I have, but for some reasons I am suddenly hesitant to admit to.

To my pleasant suprise though, Brunei airport offered a free two-hour city tour to visitors in transit from specific countries. With my electronics equipment on the blink a tour of the city offered an exciting reprieve from a 36 hour leg to London.

Stepping outside the airport into the muggy heat (it was 30 degrees at 7.30am) seven of us were bundled into a small, air-conditioned mini van as our lovely tour guide (who didn't look a day over 12) educated us about Brunei life. And what a life it is.

The city itself seems ridiculously clean and so, so green. Luscious, colourful plants grow everywhere (75 percent of the land here is covered in forest), the vehicles are new and many of the government buildings and several of the sculptures gifted to the city from the Sultan are coated in gold.

The average salary is $2500 a month, all of which is take-home pay because tax isn't imposed here. In fact, it's hard to spend anything around here. Gas is about 30 cents a litre. Education is roughly $25 a year (for the cost of textbooks etc), healthcare is free bar a small registration fee of $1. If you are very sick and you can't be treated in Indonesia the Sultan will fly you anywhere in the world to be treated, along with one family member, "so you don't have to go alone."

Lunch was at a local market. A can of diet coke, five spring rolls and a meal of beef stir fry with rice cost $2 (and I was very kindly shouted by a fellow tourist as I didn't have any local currency on me). We were even treated to a paparazzi style police motorcade as the Prince of Brunei was shuttled to his palace through a big traffic jam. 

Maybe it was the euphoria at being let out of the airport but I could almost begin to see sense in such strict penalties on drug smuggling. These people seem to have a wonderful way of life, their country is rich and their Sultan is very well respected. What's the saying? Don't look a gift horse in the mouth? Crime rates are a very low five percent and it's easy to see why- in a country where the people are given so much, why would you feel the need to rebel?


That Sultan sure is swish- gold coated palace



Tales from nowhere

"To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world."

Freya Stark.

"We've all been Nowhere. It might have been in the middle of Borneo or Beijing. It might have been in a Mayan mountain village, along a time-worn trail in Tuscany, or an isolated South Pacific island, or under a desert moon in Mali. Nowhere is a setting, a situation and a state of mind. It's not on any map, but you know it when you're there." Lonely Planet.

I'd made several crucial errors when I left Venice on a sunny Wednesday morning. Accustomed to purchasing last-minute train tickets to random destinations I decided to get on a train to Florence. I'd spent a day in Verona and a day in Venice and decided it would be criminal not to pay a visit to neighboring Florence, a mere 90 minute train ride away.

I love train rides. I love peering out the window and listening to music and marvelling at my location. I would happily sit on a train all day. It's so peaceful.



I failed to buy my return ticket until I arrived in Florence at lunchtime. To my dismay the only ticket left was on a three-hour overnight train that didn't arrive back in Venice until 1am. Which wasn't a massive problem- a long, exhausting day in Florence is a better day than anywhere else in the world- the problem was that the arrival destination wasn't Venice central. It was a half hour away from where I had originally left.

Me being me I decided I wouldn't worry about it until I had to. I figured there was a bus, or a cab. At 1am. On the outskirts of Venice. Surely.

Eerily beautiful, Pont Vecchio

 I was travelling alone for the first time in awhile. My contiki trips were brimming with people and I'd made several trips to Ireland and France with girlfriends I'd met in London. I'd nearly talked myself out of spending four days in Italy alone, before realising that moving to a foreign country alone was surely more frightening then travelling independantly for four days. Common sense prevailed. But I was still a little bored with nobody to talk to in Florence. Literally nobody, because I didn't speak Italian and the Italians didn't (or didn't want to) speak English.

I bought a map at the train station and spent the day meandering around markets, the magnificent Duomo, across Pont Vecchio to beautiful Giardino Bobolo where the freshly cut grass sent me straight back to New Zealand. Bizaarely, posters tacked around the gardens warned visitors that a young tourist had mysteriously dropped dead there the year before, putting an eerie cloud over the day.

By around 8pm it was starting to get dark and cold and after being on my feet for eight hours I decided to call it a day, have some dinner and head to the train station for my 9.30pm train. I had been weary about spending such a long day in Florence but I ended up marvelling at how quickly the day had gone and how well I had managed to do on my own in terms of ordering food and even managing to score a free glass of red wine and an espresso at two seperate eateries.

I was ready for bed though, and by the time I had found my platform at the station I was looking forward to another peaceful trip back to Venice.

I was taken aback when I boarded the train. It was an overcrowded sleeper, meaning most of the couchettes were beds, booked for overnight travellers. There were a few cabins with regular seating but they were so full that people had taken to sitting on the floor in the aisles. And then my second mistake of the day prevailed- my phone died, leaving me without my most revered type of entertainment- music.

I managed to find a seat in a couchette of six people. None of us knew one another and according to some ensuing phone conversations, Italian and French were the only languages spoken. The man sitting across from me took up most of the leg room but I was mostly aware of his iPad, wondering if I could summon up enough courage to ask if he had an Apple charger I could borrow.

The trip was long and boring. It was pitch black outside so I couldn't even admire the Tuscan scenery. The couchette was quiet and I didn't have a magazine. With little to distract me I began to disect the problem of how I was going to make it back to Venice once the train pulled in. It began to dawn on me that it was entirely possible that there were no transport links at that time of morning. Without my phone I couldn't even google the problem online.

While an Italian announcer would occasionally mention what stop we were due to arrive at, the pitch black night outside made the place names nonsensical. As far as I was concerned I was in the middle of nowhere, alone.



Alone in Florence, March 2011



Bologna at around what I guessed was midnight (no clock) and we stopped for what felt like twenty minutes. Scores of passengers left the train. It was quiet. And then the unmistakable smell of McDonalds. And voices speaking a familiar language. Thick accents cut the air as crudely as the smell of fries as an obsese American family boarded the train and found themselves in the same predicament I had been in two hours earlier- tiny couchettes, nowhere to sit.

It quickly became apparant to me that the foreigners I shared the couchette with understood English, as their lips started to curl up in tight smiles as we all listened, held captive, by the ensuing conversations in which the family (made up of two teenage girls, dad, grandpa Joe, stepmom Vicky and another married couple, apparantely a friend of the family's) set up camp in the aisle and began passing down bags of cheeseburgers and fries to each other as they cursed not having taken a flight instead of a midnight passenger train. Dad and Vicky went to painstaking lengths to ensure the entire family were comfortable, particularly Grandpa Joe, who at the ripe old age of about 70 should have been sitting on a seat, instead of the floor.

"We'll laugh about this one day," they chortled as the train took off again. The entertainment had apparantely arrived and I took great pleasure in observing a reality episode of Full House. They talked about their neighbour who had won the lottery, they talked about their vacation to date and their plans to fly to Paris, they talked about where in the heck were they anyway because it was so dark they couldn't make out any of the station signs that we were flying past. To my relief, eventually, they discussed how they were going to make it from the final train station to Venice.



We were in the same boat I realised. They didn't know it, but that dose of Americano in the middle of a midnight train to Venice was all I needed to realise that by no means was I ever travelling alone.

Why we do it

"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move."
Robert Louis Stevenson.

A close friend of mine is getting ready to depart on a big trek around Europe. She's never been before and she'll be gone for 40 odd days so for her birthday present I'm making something that I hope will be useful to her. (I won't say too much more in case she's reading.)

I feel like giving her an arsenal of advice and then I feel like telling her nothing at all. It's no secret that travelling is exhausting and riddled with hiccups and rude awakenings. It's tiring and unforgiving. No two experiences can be the same. So why do we do it?

"Travelling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things- air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky- all things tending toward the eternal or what we imagine of it."
Cesare Pavese.

For as long as I can remember I've loved to travel. The mere idea of going somewhere new is addictively thrilling to me. It's not just the destinations that excite me, it's the travel itself that resonates. I love road trips. I love airports. I like trains. I love being in the middle of nowhere. I love challenges. Most of all I love memories.

25 July 2010, Paris

"Well the Rouge was not what I was expecting. The general rule of thumb while you are travelling I've realised is to forget everything you see on the movies... The three course dinner was fantastic, plus we got copious amounts of white wine and champagne. After the show (which was kind of like a talent variety show complete with minature horses and talking poodles) things get a little hazy because we went to an English bar 'O' Sullivans'. Yes, I broke my own rule of not getting drunk while travelling (because a, it's a waste of money and b, you're likely to ruin your following day, which is pretty much what happened).

I felt fine early in the morning but my mood and health quickly deteriorated on the way to the perfumery Fragonards. Literally I walked in, grabbed Mum and I a selection of mini perfumes and ran out again. Took a taxi back to the hotel for a two-hour rest after which I promised myself I would continue the day, like it or not.

And so I did, though rather precariously. I grabbed a baguette to line my now empty stomach (the most delicious thing I've ever eaten- ratatouli with camembert and smoked salmon) and made my way to the Louvre. I've been reading the Da Vinci Code so I kinda wanted to see the museum but I really wanted to see the Mona Lisa. I managed to find her, but so did 1000 other people. It's pretty cool to say I've seen her though. I didn't stay for anything else.

The following day was my last in Paris ... so I was determined to get up the Eiffel tower, which I did after a very long wait, but the photos came out well. No proposals though (for me, or otherwise). Spent my final few hours lunching, again on the Champs d'Elysees, walking along the Seine and then resting my feet in a park.

Overnight train to Rome was fairly horrific but something to look back on and laugh. First the train was delayed two hours, then we boarded and realised we would be sleeping in sardine cans. Then we went to get "dinner" and realised all they had for sale was pringles and gum. 16 hours of a non air conditioned sleep later and we made it to Rome relatively unscathed. Our tour guide picked us up, took us to the hotel for a shower and then we headed to the Vatican. St. Peters had closed but I had a look at the Sistine Chapel which is very awe inspiring. It took him three years to paint which sounds about right as it's massive.... "

25 July, 2010 - Moulin Rouge, Paris

Ibiza

Every summer vacation, after spending two weeks at the family bach, coming home was always something of a suprise. My room always looked bigger, cleaner. My bed comfier. Life seemed better. A mark of a good holiday that, when you come back feeling better than when you left.

After six months of travelling and exploring each new destination to the point of exhaustion, Ibiza was a welcome reprieve. A week of nothing but eating, sleeping, drinking and swimming in the crystal clear waters of the Medditerranean.

Armed to the teeth with water, sunscreen, umbrella, ipod, camera and reading material, Melissa and I only budged from our sunny spots on the sand to cool off in the warm water, or to indulge our bottomless stomachs with three course dinners and jugs of Sangria.

Back in London now, rain and storm out my window, it would be easy to fall victim to post-holiday depression. However, I still feel so god-damned relaxed that nothing could trouble me at this point.

Thank you Spain, I will be back.

That time we missed our flight to Spain

The first trip I took Far Away was three years ago. I was so excited I made mum take me to the airport four hours ahead of departure. I was also slightly panicky about some last minute hitch and I figured four hours was plenty of time to forget and re-remember something, to take care of any last minute failures (I once dreamt of getting to the airport and realising I didn't have a passport).


Somehow though my punctuality and organisational skills have tapered off , leaving much to be desired. This latest trip was no exception. Despite the fact that Melissa and I were planning a birthday trip (to Ibiza no less), the thought of planning, researching and booking made me feel like taking a big nap. So Mel took care of the major details like booking flights and accommodation. Me? I took it upon myself to book airport transfers. It seemed like an easy enough task with little room for failure.


Boy was I wrong.


My first niggling feeling that I'd Fucked Up Big Time was when I told my boss that I'd booked an EasyJet bus to leave Baker Street at 3pm, to arrive at Stansted Airport at 4.20pm. (Ticket counter opened at 4pm, flight left at six.)


"You realise it's going to be a rainy Friday afternoon right? There'll be lots of traffic on the motorway," he said.


I looked at him indignantly. This was the man, who only weeks before, had missed a flight to Holland because he though it was fine to rock up to the check-in desk a mere 40 minutes before take-off.


"Yeah, they're also doing roadworks along that route," chimed in another colleague.


With this information in mind I decided we'd catch a different EasyJet bus- one that left 15 minutes earlier, and should get us to the airport at 4pm on the dot. That way, even if we were late, we should still be there by 4.30pm. Problem solved, I figured.


Well, we missed the bus. It seemed like 100 other panicky travellers had the same idea and so the earlier bus was packed before we'd even had a chance to queue. As Mel and I stood in the rain I cursed myself for not booking an earlier bus. As I had had work that morning booking anything earlier wasn't really an option. I cursed myself again for deciding to work right before a flight. Mel seemed nonchalant about the situation, reassuring me that EasyJet wouldn't have posted a 4.20pm ETA if the odds were completely against it. "We'll be fine," she said, over and over.


Our 3pm bus arrived early (thank god) but the driver seemed agitated. Something about traffic and accidents on the motorway. We all clambered aboard and buckled our seatbelts quickly, eager to get moving. Not long after we did , a middle aged Italian man in the front seat chided the bus driver. "Why are you taking this route? It would have been faster to go the other way. You know I took this exact same bus last week and I missed my flight because of you."


Mel and I gasped at this last sentence. It was akin to saying "bomb" on a plane.


The driver, even more agitated, explained that all routes were going to be slow at this time of day (bad) that this route while slow (bad), was the most direct and that if we had all allowed ourselves three hours before the flight he could guarantee we would get there on time (worse.)


The more traffic we encountered along the way (practically standstill) the more Mel and I tried to calculate exactly how late we would be and Plan B. We decided it was too late to get off the bus and get on a train. We calculated that once we got on the motorway it would probably take another 40 minutes (and the motorway was still another 40 minutes away). The latest we could arrive would be about 4.55pm and even then we would have to sprint for the check-in desk which was due to close at 5pm. The slower the traffic became and the harder the rain poured the more grim our Plan B became. We'll take another flight we decided, even if it doesn't leave until the next day. We began to laugh about our predicament as I mentally totalled up how much a last minute flight to Barcelona might cost.


4pm came and went and we weren't on the motorway. The Italian man scowled, shook his head impatiently, sighed loudly. Kate phoned. "There's a crazy man on the bus saying we're all going to miss our flights," I whispered into the phone as the crazy man in question eyed me suspiciously. "Oh yeah I heard the traffic was pretty bad," Kate said cheerfully.


The bus driver took to overtaking traffic in bus lanes (we weren't technically a bus, making the manouvre slightly illegal.) I couldn't decide if I should feel glad that the driver was pulling out all the stops to get us to the aiport as quickly as possible, or if I should be panicked that he felt the need.


"We'll laugh about this in Barcelona tonight," Mel said as we tightened our buckles.


4.30pm and the airport was nearly in our sights except we couldn't figure out if the signs were in miles or kilometres. One would be detrimental to our calculations.


4.45pm and we were in airport territory but we were tailing a Very Slow Driver who seemed oblivious to our plight.


4.50pm and we discussed tactics. We agreed as soon as the bus stopped we would run for our lives. First out the door, first to the luggage and run, run, run. "Don't stop running, even if you can't hear me behind you, just go," I encouraged, stopping short of dramatically saying, "Save yourself."


At 4.52 we unbuckled our seatbelts as we careened through a roundabout, sitting on the edge of our seats, ready to bolt out the door.


4.55pm and we were out of our seats before the bus had stopped.


"Excuse me, we're running late," we shouted haphazardly as we threw everybody's luggage out of the boot and onto the ground as we searched desperately for our bags. Mel found hers first.


"Run! Run! I'm right behind you!" I screeched like a mad woman as I threw little jazzy to the ground and snapped up the handle.


Embarassingly we ran in a complete circle screaming while onlookers stared because we couldn't find the gate out of the carpark.


Once we did, we were off. As I had anticipated Mel was a much faster runner than I, even though she had a 20 kilo backpack attached to her, making her sprint resemble that of a sumo wrestler (and still a faster runner than I.)


On we forged, me overcome with giggles at Mel's gait and at one point apologising to a woman whose foot I ran over with jazzy. (Okay that's a lie, I didn't have time to apologise.)


At the top of the escalator (which I ran up with jazzy lifted over my shoulders) I realised for a frightening second that I had lost Mel despite my encouragement of her to run on. I stopped, looking around in circles for Mel and her giant backpack bobbing furiously. No sign. I couldn't see a departures board either to direct me towards the check-in desk.


Game over, I realised sadly, panting for breath.


Then I spotted her, Melissa waving furiously from a queue slightly to my left. The EasyJet check-in desk. We had made it. We high-fived. And we laughed about it in Barcelona that night too.

Hey you...

Yes, you. It's me, Kelly. Yes, I know I look a little different. I'm about seven kilos heavier, with long, dark hair (a year ago you would have cried at the thought of this). The complexion is probably a little paler, but ultimately much clearer. The clothes are different, the accessories are better. Your accent is sounding ridiculously British.

It's definitely still you underneath though. On the occasional night that you cook it's always pasta, because that's all you can really succesfully do. You still swear like a trucker and you will watch Sex and the City when you're sad. Taste in men is still crap- taste in best friends is still particularly excellent. Sleeping patterns are still shite and you love nothing more than being in bed- eating, reading, sleeping, whatever. Bed is where it's at. Speaking of which, your room is obviously different. Yet strangely, it looks and feels like you've been there forever. The duvets are white and purple, there are photos all over the walls. There are aromatherapy oils and candles for relaxation and a huge stack of Vanity Fair and Marie Claire. There's a massive window which catches the sun and you still don't put your clothes away, despite having tonnes of space for which to put them. Yep, I would say you very succesfully managed to transfer your childhood bedroom into your London home.

So, we are introduced.

I can almost imagine what it felt like to be in your shoes a year ago. As a matter of fact, I've just re-read your first blog post. I can smell the excitement- get.me.out.of.here. There are whiffs of defiance and determination. The whole thing screams Classic Kelly - Fuck you, I am going to do this, and I am going to do it well.

Well kiddo, you did it, and you did it well. In fact, you are still doing it. Without giving the game away too much , there were some words that were ringing in your ears for weeks before you left and indeed the entire time you've been gone.

"You'll learn a few things.." said rather ominiously during a meeting with a notoriously accurate psychic. It wasn't a sweet, generic statement. It was said with a slight sigh and a shake of the head. The underlying currents of "your rough times aren't over yet sweetheart" was emphatically heard.

Well dear, this is what you have learnt.

That the grass isn't always greener. That life's problems (no money, shit working week, boredom, sickness, insomnia) will follow you wherever you go and nothing will ever change except your ability to deal with whatever life throws up.

Life will throw up. Time and time again. Your wallet will get stolen, you will get sick while you are on holiday, your landlord will put your rent up, the guy you are seeing has a girlfriend, your work hours will be long, your to-do list longer and your weight is at an all time high. Shit gets overwhelming but in the grand scheme of things it 'aint all that bad.

Friends and family are, and will always be, more important than boyfriends. And believe it or not, the social circle that you formed in high school will not always be your social circle. In fact, it probably shouldn't be.

Life works in mysterious ways. Lots of luck and coincidence is always at play but sometimes things work out so perfectly that it's hard to deny the fact that you're probably meant to be exactly where you are. Which for you is a strange thought because up until this point you have spent most of your time whiling away the hours, daydreaming about where you would much rather be.

Lastly, but most importantly, you have learnt your passport number off by heart. No longer do you rummage through your bag looking for these elusive details as a year's worth of travel has permanantely engrained the number in your brain.

Nothing was more fun learning than this.

West Hampstead

The first time I clapped eyes on West Hampstead, I was smitten. Love at first sight. Within minutes of clopping down the leafy streets in my tired heels (job interview that day), I had decided that I didn't care what the room looked like, I wanted to live in West Hampstead.

After finding a 'Bombay Bicycle' on the main street (the name of my hometown) and realising the name of the street I would be potentially living on was the same as my best friend's home in New Zealand, I decided these 'signs' were gently nudging me along.

We've been deliriously happy ever since.

Located in North West London , serviced by one underground and two overground links, West Hampstead lies more modestly adjacent to the commonly known area of Hampstead. The high street, West End Lane, conjoins with the famous Abbey Road (of Beatles fame) and is dotted with a variety of eateries, boutiques and coffee shops. The town's sole library was erected in 1940 and at the very top of West End Lane is West End Green, West Hampstead's own patch of grass, aside from neighbouring Kilburn Grange and Hampstead Heath parks.

Dusty Springfield was born here, The Rolling Stones recorded here, and Emma Thompson, Stephen Fry, Bill Nighy and various Peep Show stars still live here. The earliest streets were paved in the 1800s, consequently meaning the roads are notoriously tiny with vehicles having to pull to one side to let each other through. Dotting the streets are rows of beautiful Victorian homes. During the winter the trees that line the small streets become bare and glisten with snow, when Spring arrives so do the flowers and the area has a pleasant jasmine scent that lingers well into the night.

West Hampstead's history dates back to medieval times. During the reign of Henry VIII the area measured 18 acres and 40 houses large. One of it's earliest mentions, in 1665, notes, rather bizaarely, that nobody there died of the Great Plague that was sweeping London and killing hundreds in neighboring villages.

"It was so peaceful that the striking of Big Ben could be heard and, indeed, the owners of West End Hall were sure that in 1815 they had heard the sounds of the cannon at Waterloo,"(The Streets of West Hampstead, 1992).

Christopher Wade sums up rather nostalgically, "You can find sunflowers in Sumatra Road, ferns in Mazenod, dragons in Inglewood and Woodchurch. As for the street names, they range romantically from Gascony to Parsifal, from Agamemnon to Narcissus and, suprisingly, from Skardu to Weech."

Life and death

Friday we celebrated a wedding. Kate and William got married and four of us dutifully rose at 5am to claim a spot in Hyde Park. Even if you're not a fan of the monarchy, or weddings, the mass hysteria was hard not to get caught up in. By 8am we were drinking Pimms from paper cups and by the time the ceremony started the bubbles were flowing. There were 'a-ha' moments. The realisation that life is never going to be this amazing again.

Saturday came news of a death.

Peter Moss came into the cafe everyday. A skinny cappuccino, a good book and a laugh with the waitress. He would show me photos of his volunteer stints in Africa and I would constantly kick myself for not asking how his life was so effortlessly cool.

He was in a cafe in Marrakesh when the bomb went off.

It's moments like these when you realise the world is a scary place and that New Zealand is a long, long way away. I want to go home, was my first thought.

A few weeks ago Peter told me he would rather die on a mountain at 50, than in a nursing home at 80.

The irony was not lost on me and his candle burned in the cafe for a week after.

Marseille

Ahhh, I forgot how completely self-indulgent blogging feels.

So, mid January Melissa and I set off for the idyllic Provence- a highly anticipated trip, the first of (hopefully) many in 2011.

Me being free spirited and spontaneous (or lazy) , we had no plans for Provence other than to show up at the train station and do a few journeys to the twee little Provencal towns we had heard so much about.

Aix en Provence didn't disappoint.

Cobbled lanes, fromageries, perfumeries and enough cafes to feed a third world country, Mel and I frolicked about like the tourists we love to be. (Secretly, we were both high off the vitamin D overload- sorry London, nothing compares to blue skies and sun.)

Best bit? Taking the train out into the countryside and revelling in the feeling of being in the middle of nowhere.....

Eight months

Nothing scares me as much as a time frame.

It has become glaringly obvious to me that my time in London has gone particularly fast. Tomorrow marks my eight month anniversary away from home, in four months I will be back in New Zealand to visit family and friends, before returning to London to finish out the remaining year of my visa.

It is only in recent weeks that I've begun to marvel how ridiculously comfortable I am in London. I have friends, friends that I feel I have known for years. A job that I have loved more than any other. A life that will never again be so free of responsibility, so much fun, so many prospects.

You and Me

You and Me
The Checks

Well you're dancing all through my mind like a girlfriend should
And my eyes are taped to you like I knew that you would

Oh take a picture and a bucket of tears and help yourself to the rain dear

Oh take a picture and a bucket of tears and help yourself to the rain dear

You got me caught for awhile, and I don't see no love
You made me cut back and smile, and I don't see no love

You and me
You must be all that I'm taking

Well you're dancing all around my room just like a girlfriend should
But it never amounts to truth like I knew that it could

Oh take a picture and a bucket of tears and help yourself to the rain dear

She don't dance
She don't dance
She don't do

Even when there's nothing to write about

And so it is that time of year again. When promises are made, resolutions are formed, old habits are momentarily curtailed and new beginnings start to take shape. As a result, for about two weeks now I've been trying to figure out exactly how I feel about 2010. Why? Because until I do, I'm not entirely sure how to approach 2011.

People around me have been labelling 2010 as the best year of their lives, and so they enter 2011 with the same amount of gusto as they would as if they just knew 2011 was going to be the same. I, on the other hand, have a morbid fear of making grand statements like, 'Last year was the best year Ever.' Or, 'My life is Perfect.' Because it implies that my life has peaked in some way. That things are never going to be this good ever again. I'm more of a evaluate, re-evaluate, make goals, make new goals kind of person. Life is just boring otherwise. It stands still.

And so without further ado....

My first new year's resolution is to stop being such a friggen insomniac, so as to at least try and wake up before noon. My whole life all I ever wanted was a job that let me wake up without an alarm clock. Now I have one and somehow in the blink of an eye entire days are being wasted. Entire days in London are being wasted. As good as my skin is looking with all this beauty sleep, I miss waking up at an hour when the day still has potential.

Speaking of potential, my second resolution- travel more. Well, to be precise, travel a lot. My goal is to see a new city every month for the next six months. I also have some romantic notion of saving up some money, packing a bag and seeing where I end up. I always found that the most memorable places and events were the ones you kind of stumbled upon when you were lost somewhere. I want to get lost more often.

Which brings me to my last resolution.

A few weeks ago a friend of mine and I went and saw a psyhic for a laugh. Located in a New Age bookstore down a little alleyway near Leicester Square, this 70 year old man looked at the lines on my hands, stroked his beard thoughtfully, then pulled out his little diary, it's pages scrawled with tiny handwriting. He gestured at his notebook as he explained that I should start writing everyday, even when I have nothing to say.

To really bring home his message, when I tried to find my blog online (yes, terrible, I had to go searching for it) I found a url very similar to my own which lead me to ... another Kelly, Living in London. And evidently living in London better than me. She went to Dublin too. And to the Guiness factory. She even took a photo of the shamrocker they etch in your Guinness. Just like I wanted to but my camera failed to capture.

So, here is the first entry, albeit 3 days late, for which is sure to be 2011's greatest challenge- write something every single day, even when you think you have nothing to write about.

Game. On.