Dance Show

Hiya!

Wow, it feels weird to be back after such a long break!

How are you all? It's strange, I used to write every day, which became every two days, then a week, two weeks, and now...now it's been too long. I'm kinda missing it, though I feel like the pressure's on now for me to write something at least decent!

Haha, don't expect much...

Anyway, I'm pretty excited to talk about this - I was in a dance show last month! It was near the end of February, and it was AMAZING! We spent a full week doing rehearsals before the show, and had a professional photographer in to take photos of us in our full makeup and gorgeous costumes.

I am now a pro at winged eyeliner, and a master of the art of liquid eyeliner without needing makeup remover. Oh, the many many times I had to do it in a hurry... ;)

The show itself was a blast - the slight nerves before each dance, the adrenaline once you're on stage, then the exhilaration after - it was all so perfect. Of course, not all the dances went as well as they could have (ha, let's not mention my matinee tap dance...), but we had so much fun regardless. It was just awesome seeing little toddlers in 'alien' leotards, and the older dancers in neon pantomime costumes, somehow pulling off 2-inch false eyelashes with green glittery tips...

Honestly, this was one of the best things I've done recently. After the show I came out starry-eyed and on a sort of hyper rush, yabbering on about it to my friends and parents. I swear, I wasn't drugged! Just probably drunk on excitement and happiness :D

I loved it, so so much.

♥

I love you

xxx

MY SUMMER 2014 HOLIDAY!

Yay, I'll be going on holiday in the summer! So usually, my parents book our holidays really early in advance, sometimes even one year earlier, but this year we didn't have a holiday for the summer, which was sad. But...OMG I'm so excited...today, we booked a cruise ship holiday!

It's going to leave England and go to Norway and around the fjords there, I've never been before, so that makes it even better! But the most exciting thing is that it's a massive ship with basically everything you could ever wish for on it! There's a library, theatre, casino, spa, sports areas (for example golf course and basketball court), multiple swimming pools, bars, lounges and tons of other cool things. There's even an outdoor swimming pool WITH large screen, so it's like a swimming pool cinema thing! I'm so so so so so excited! And I'm going with my friend, so that's even better! It's going to be a whole week of pure bliss... It's even better than Venice, where I've always wanted to go and used to be my perfect holiday destination. 

Anyways, I'll just stop talking about it before I just can't even... I'm going to go start hyperventilating now...

Love y'all, bye! Xxx

TURKEY ADVENTURES DAY 2: TROY AND THE ACROPOLIS

I LOVE TURKEY!! (Well the parts I've seen, at least). It's so gorgeous here and the sunny hot weather is such a large contrast to Britain's grey skies and rain! Although I hate sun lotion with a burning passion and with the jet-lag and stuff, I'm absolutely shattered!!! And the walking we've been doing did not make it any better...even if I did have a bit of sleep/daydream time on the 7-8 hours we spent on the coach in total... Today, I woke up at 6:30am...early right? But of course, that's in Turkish time, so in England that would be 4:30am...not funny!

Firstly, we travelled to Troy by coach (of course) and I was so excited because I've read a book called 'The Song Of Achilles', which is one of my favourite books, and my favourite adult book. It's about the Trojan War, so of course it's set in Troy, as well as other places such as Greece. And even though  Troy is just ruins now, it was so much fun and an amazing experience!!! The feels!! All the time there I was just thinking 'omg Achilles and Patroclus and Hector and Paris were here!!! *fangirls*.' I loved it.

Also, whilst we were walking back to the coach, I saw the most adorable little terrapin (a type of tortoise) on the path!!! Well, actually I kinda nearly squished it, but after my friends and I made a huge fuss about it, others started coming to see what was happening. Someone even picked it up - sorry the picture is terrible, it's actually a picture of a picture... But anyway, it's all to scale and the little cutie is so adorable!!

A few hours later, we stopped in a tiny village, and were told to find lunch on only one of the roads...in the end we couldn't find anywhere to eat so we ended up buying bread rolls, Dairylea cheese, chilli Doritos, Snickers, and bananas to make our own picnic! And lol it was hilarious, sitting in the burning sun whilst trying to smear cheese with our hand-sanitised fingers and slip Doritos into the bread roll...fun times... And this image makes it look disgusting, but it was actually really tasty!!

After that very messy makeshift lunch, it was another coach journey, this time to the acropolis!!! Athens is most famous for their acropolis, but actually, an acropolis is just the highest part of a city. So we went to one in Pergamon, and we had to take a cable car up and down!! Even so, we still had to walk tons once we were up there. But anyways, the view was AMAZING!!!! I'm not even lying when I say that I didn't put my camera down at all, I was taking photos left and right, the view was just gorgeous, this picture definitely does not do it justice...

At the acropolis, there was a really steep-sided theatre (the Greek/Roman sort) and we had to walk from the top of it to the stage, which in my opinion was amazingly fun, but most of my friends were terrified. We later found out that the side of the theatre was 70°, almost vertical!!!!

Now back to the coach!! I swear, half the time we've spent in Turkey has been inside a coach This time, we were going to our next hotel, thank god. Still, the coach journey was about 3-4 hours, so we stayed on the coach for about the same amount of time as yesterday...it's a pain in the butt, literally. However, after ignoring the painful bum and the need to go to the toilet, it was nice, I guess. We got to see flamingos in a lake, they were really pretty, and we also saw shepherds with their sheep. And they were proper shepherds too, with their staff/hooky-thing, sitting in the middle of their sheep. It was so cool!!!

And finally, our hotel. It's really good - 4 star. The room is slightly too small and cramped, but it's really nice and there's a balcony so that's cute! Anyways, I'm tired now, so bye!!!! Xxx

TURKEY ADVENTURES DAY 1: IN THE AIR, OVER THE EARTH, AND ON THE WATER

Hello peepsicles!!!! So today has been absolutely amazing and so much has happened since this morning... I woke up at around 4am because I was too excited, then I couldn't fall asleep again, so I guess it's literally and figuratively been a long day today... Anyways I was super excited and hyper, on the coach to Heathrow Airport, I kept on jumping and wiggling up and down, I just couldn't keep still!!! I haven't been to turkey before, so going somewhere with all my best friends was so exciting! When we finally got to the airport (late, may I say) we had to hurry straight to check in our bags and then security. And OMG security at Heathrow's north terminal is absolutely terrifying!!! They have huge machine things which look like a glass cylinder cages which scan you, and you have to stand inside with your hands up as if you were surrendering...ugh and I got beeped and had to go inside...never again, please!! In the end, nothing was wrong, grr...but I guess they were just doing their job. Finally, after going through admin and etc. we started boarding the plane...

There really isn't anything interesting about the plane or the flight, it was just a normal British Airways passenger plane which we had to stay on for about 3 hours...it was fun and we could watch Saving Mr Banks if we wanted to. But anyways, the food they served was amazing!! It was proper hot food with 2 courses(ish) and it was only for a 3-hour flight! Although for some reason they didn't have a vegetarian choice, which was kinda stupid, so I gave my vegetarian friend a few of my potato pieces, because I'm just such a wonderful friend. But, carrying on, after the roast chicken & veg main and salad side, there was dessert. And OMG, BLISS!! It was banoffee cheesecake in a little pot, and it was so good!!!!

We also got to have a drink (of course), plus either coffee or tea. And, being the most loyal and patriotic British, my friends had tea, unlike me, who had coffee...oh well, I like coffee more, and don't judge me for it...

However, one thing I didn't like about the flight was the toilets...and I'm sure I'm not the only one who hates aeroplane loos... Ugh, they're seriously scary...when you flush it, you could literally feel air blowing in, which I don't understand, because shouldn't flushing a toilet suck things out, not blow things in?!

Well, enough with toilets, it's not a particularly nice subject to talk about. So once we finally arrived in Istanbul, I was so excited, and even more so when I realised I was going to get a visa, which meant a stamp in my passport!!!! I had never got one before, that I could actually remember, at least. So yeah, I got excited again (I'm very easily excited, in case you didn't realise) and was so happy when I got a stamp AND a sticker!! This excitement was short lived though when we decided to queue up for passport control - we had to walk about a mile or something to find the end of the queue...and to actually start queuing... All in all, it was VERY long and VERY tiring.

After taking my first breath of outdoor Turkish air, we got into a coach which was adorned with broken rusty seat-belts which were so bent and deformed...though thank god the rest of the coach wasn't quite so disused and disgusting. Even so, staying in a coach for 4 hours (and we were told it would be only 2 hours) - even longer than in the plane - was not something I was looking forward to. The view, however, was something to die for. Istanbul is gorgeous!!! There are the typical clayish-red houses which you can only find in places like Greece and Turkey, apartments and shopping centres a huge contrast, and in the background, there's the sea, which was so beautiful and calm today. So frickin gorgeous!!

All too soon, as you can probably tell from the pictures, The sun had set and it started getting darker...so no more pictures I'm afraid... Anyways, after about 2 hours of driving, we stopped at a service station where we were harassed by stray dogs and made to pay if we wanted to go to the toilet... I didn't have any change on me, so sadly I had to cross my legs and hope I could keep everything in...and laughing didn't help at all, not that I didn't love the laughs and giggles we shared! Anyways basically I was kinda really tired before, but then one of my awesome friends started talking about Hetalia and turning our own female Hetalia characters we made into male versions, and lol we were then talking about the pros and cons of being a man...and lol the fun times!!! On the subject of fun times, my friend also bought some mini salty fish-shaped crackers, a bit like Oddities, from the service station, which for a short time we actually thought were cat biscuits... But anyways we 'manned up' (lol) and decided to try them. And it tasted like cardboard!!! It was literally flavourless crackers, which was supposed to be salty... And, when we looked at the salt content, we found there was only 2.2g of salt per 100g...which is even much less than the amount of salt in bread (which is about 6g)!!!!!

After hours of nearly peeing my pants on the coach, we finally, at 11pm (Turkish time, 9pm English time) got onto the ferry and started crossing the bay, or whatever it is. It was one of those ferries which you drive the coach straight on, one of those (no offence) ugly ones. And I still had to keep my pee in, because apparently, the ferry toilet was rank...my poor bladder... But we were on the coach for 5 OR 6 HOURS, so it was good to finally get some fresh air. Also, even in pitch darkness, it was still pretty, the water was really dark but the lights of the city and towns in the distance looked amazing. This picture really does not do the view any justice, but it was the best I could get...the black areas are basically windows, and the lights going across are the lights of a town or something - underneath is the water and on top is the sky. 

Still...we're going to reach the hotel at about 12 midnight (Turkish time of course) and we haven't had dinner, and to be honest, no one is going to be there to cook us anything. So I don't think we're going to have dinner...I'm sad :(

So it's later on, and it turns out that yes, we did get to the hotel at around 12, but no, thank god we did have dinner...and a mighty nice one I must say!!! It was a kinda buffet, and quite nice!! I'm shattered now though, so bye!!! Xxx