Grey, wet, cold, busy, smoky, unfriendly, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful London! I've never loved this city as much as i do right now. Restaurants from every corner of the earth with all their menus written in English. Public transport that more or less functions despite being packed in like a sardine. Cab drivers who know exactly where you are going, even when you don't. Beautifully spaced out queues of people. Cool, fresh weather - not a drop of sweat in sight. They have a thing called pavements here, which are these areas on the side of roads where no cars, motorbikes, trucks, horses, donkeys or cows can travel along making it safe for the humble pedestrian to go about their business - it's bloody genius!
And don't even get me started on the delights packed into my beautiful, beautiful flat. Double beds with the softest mattresses, clean linen, rooms with as many power sockets as you could ever possibly want... Wardrobes. Oh, a whole wardrobe full of wonderful, wonderful things. Heels, belts, bags, jeans, dresses. A dressing table with make up, perfume, moisturisers, hairbrushes, hair dryers. Oh my god, it's like my own personal beauty salon... A bathtub. a real life, clean, white, bathtub stocked with shower gels, soaps, shampoos and conditioner - I don't think I've ever been this clean in my life. I smell like fresh flowers and my skin feels like a dolphin's. I put on real clothes, high heels, make up and I even brushed my hair and when I looked in the mirror I felt like one of those women off a Trinny and Susannah makeover show. It almost brought me to tears. I've been reunited with my music collection. I will never listen to Whitney or the Bee Gees again. Best of all though are the toilets! Gleaming porcelain beauties with seats, flushes, tissue paper, soap, running water. Now I understand why they call it a throne, I could sit on that fresh smelling thing all day... I mean just look at this before and after shot:
Yes, that's right. Squat toilets with no doors. I mean seriously Beijing, are we animals?!
There's also this thing called a kitchen in here and it has everything you possibly need to turn raw stuff into food.. Look at how I transformed these eggs and bread into breakfast:
A miracle! And not a noodle or a grain of rice in sight. Joy of joys!
In all seriousness though, I'm surprisingly happy to be back. I'll try really hard to not write a million soppy cliches but there's no other real way to describe this than as a sort of rebirth. Everything seems new and exciting and I can appreciate things that I would never have thought twice about before. I am relaxed and happy and the best part about it is that I have 1001 incredible memories that will last me a lifetime. There aren't really any words to describe the past 6 months. I've been dreaming about them since I was a teenager and they have lived up to and far surpassed any expectations that I may have had. People ask me what my favourite places were and I usually give them the easy answer which goes something like: "Bolivia and Laos. China and Malaysia were amazing - all of it really except India which I didn't massively enjoy" but really it isn't that straight forward. It's not so much the places that you visit that makes a trip it's the experiences you have there. My favourite places actually are the tops of mountains, the bottom of oceans, the middle of jungles, the beginnings of friendships... Rooftop bars with glasses of champagne, greasy little backstreet restaurants, beach bars with fire breathers, trains and buses with multiple landscapes flickering through their windows, nightclubs at 4am ... my house packed with great friends, my lovely soft bed (not packed with great friends). I could rabbit on and on but I've already blogged about it all so if you've read it you already know what my highlights are. Even India which may not have given me the greatest experiences taught me something about myself and something about the world, so whilst I am not in a rush to go back there, I am actually happy that I went.
Anyway, I want to thank you all for reading my rambles about my rambles. I'm heading home to Gibraltar on Wednesday so I think I can manage one last post in honour of my beautiful home town but other than that, my everyday life is sadly just not all that exciting so if I don't think of something else to write about, Kate will no longer post. What I will say to those folks who go on about how jealous they are is to stop being jealous. I didn't win the lottery or get some magical travel invite, I just saved up some cash, quit my job and booked a flight. Seriously, it's that easy. Obviously if you have financial commitments or a family please don't go and bankrupt yourself or give your children abandonment issues - make do with a week off here and there. But if you can do it and you want to do it, just go and bloody well do it! Please!
PS. Errr... Anyone out there want to employ me? I'm kinda broke... :D
And don't even get me started on the delights packed into my beautiful, beautiful flat. Double beds with the softest mattresses, clean linen, rooms with as many power sockets as you could ever possibly want... Wardrobes. Oh, a whole wardrobe full of wonderful, wonderful things. Heels, belts, bags, jeans, dresses. A dressing table with make up, perfume, moisturisers, hairbrushes, hair dryers. Oh my god, it's like my own personal beauty salon... A bathtub. a real life, clean, white, bathtub stocked with shower gels, soaps, shampoos and conditioner - I don't think I've ever been this clean in my life. I smell like fresh flowers and my skin feels like a dolphin's. I put on real clothes, high heels, make up and I even brushed my hair and when I looked in the mirror I felt like one of those women off a Trinny and Susannah makeover show. It almost brought me to tears. I've been reunited with my music collection. I will never listen to Whitney or the Bee Gees again. Best of all though are the toilets! Gleaming porcelain beauties with seats, flushes, tissue paper, soap, running water. Now I understand why they call it a throne, I could sit on that fresh smelling thing all day... I mean just look at this before and after shot:
Yes, that's right. Squat toilets with no doors. I mean seriously Beijing, are we animals?!
There's also this thing called a kitchen in here and it has everything you possibly need to turn raw stuff into food.. Look at how I transformed these eggs and bread into breakfast:
A miracle! And not a noodle or a grain of rice in sight. Joy of joys!
In all seriousness though, I'm surprisingly happy to be back. I'll try really hard to not write a million soppy cliches but there's no other real way to describe this than as a sort of rebirth. Everything seems new and exciting and I can appreciate things that I would never have thought twice about before. I am relaxed and happy and the best part about it is that I have 1001 incredible memories that will last me a lifetime. There aren't really any words to describe the past 6 months. I've been dreaming about them since I was a teenager and they have lived up to and far surpassed any expectations that I may have had. People ask me what my favourite places were and I usually give them the easy answer which goes something like: "Bolivia and Laos. China and Malaysia were amazing - all of it really except India which I didn't massively enjoy" but really it isn't that straight forward. It's not so much the places that you visit that makes a trip it's the experiences you have there. My favourite places actually are the tops of mountains, the bottom of oceans, the middle of jungles, the beginnings of friendships... Rooftop bars with glasses of champagne, greasy little backstreet restaurants, beach bars with fire breathers, trains and buses with multiple landscapes flickering through their windows, nightclubs at 4am ... my house packed with great friends, my lovely soft bed (not packed with great friends). I could rabbit on and on but I've already blogged about it all so if you've read it you already know what my highlights are. Even India which may not have given me the greatest experiences taught me something about myself and something about the world, so whilst I am not in a rush to go back there, I am actually happy that I went.
Anyway, I want to thank you all for reading my rambles about my rambles. I'm heading home to Gibraltar on Wednesday so I think I can manage one last post in honour of my beautiful home town but other than that, my everyday life is sadly just not all that exciting so if I don't think of something else to write about, Kate will no longer post. What I will say to those folks who go on about how jealous they are is to stop being jealous. I didn't win the lottery or get some magical travel invite, I just saved up some cash, quit my job and booked a flight. Seriously, it's that easy. Obviously if you have financial commitments or a family please don't go and bankrupt yourself or give your children abandonment issues - make do with a week off here and there. But if you can do it and you want to do it, just go and bloody well do it! Please!
PS. Errr... Anyone out there want to employ me? I'm kinda broke... :D
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