SAD GOODBYES! (02/08/2014)

Hey, peepsicles! I'm going to China in a few days! I feel as if I haven't even finished the cruise and I'm already going to another place. Oh well, that's life I guess...

So on the last morning on the cruise, I had to wake up at 8 am, Norway time. That's frickin 7 am in England! Way too early to be up in the holidays let alone on a holiday.

It was a really sad morning, not only because I was leaving the ship, but also I received some kinda tragic news. My granddad passed away, my dad found out on that morning. What a way to end a holiday... It's so shocking to know that whilst we were having fun on the cruise, he would have left the world. As sad as it is though, I'm really excited to be going to China again to see my family, and truly appreciate them.

Well, enough about that.

We said our last goodbyes to the ship, and then began our way home. It was quite a relief to be breathing British air again, I missed it.

Now from this point down, you're going to be face-palming a lot. I suggest you get an ice pack ready. These are all the stupid stupid stupid things which we stupidly did, or let happen, whilst we were gone. And the consequences.

When we were dropping off our friends back to their house, we realised that their porch door hadn't been closed! They had forgotten to close (one of) their front doors! Luckily, their neighbour had placed a brick in front of the door to at least give the appearance that the door was closed.

After dropping them off, we arrived back at our own house and found that one of the downstairs windows had been open. Very wide. It was also the window which opens into the little side alley we have, which is surrounded on one side by a high wall and on the other side our house's exterior wall. Very dodgy...

I, being hungry like always, then proceeded to open the fridge door...get ready for your biggest face-palm you've ever done in your whole life... I opened the fridge door, and nearly died from the nasty smell that came out of it! I then realised the disgusting truth...the fridge had been turned off for the whole week. And, as the fridge and freezer is one big unit joined together with the same power supply...yeah, the freezer also died. All the foods that we dumped into the freezer because we couldn't finish them, such as yoghurt and cheese, were all...eugh...

Luckily nothing seemed to be missing and we got our fridge up and running again (and threw out the mouldy food).

Anyways, at the end of the day, I had an amazing time during the whole cruise holiday, all of it lived up to the high expectations I had placed after reading about it on the Internet. It truly was one of the best holidays ever!

And that's the end, I promise there will be no more blabbering about the cruise (maybe) from now on!

I love y'all, and goodbye! xxx

NOT JUST ANOTHER SEA DAY... (01/08/2014)

Hey, ya'll! What's crackin? Recently, I've been absolutely loving the song 'Skinny Love' by Birdy. Omg, it's like angel music! It literally gives me goosebumps all over it's so ahhhh... I've been listening to it on repeat for the last three days or so. I LOVE THIS SONG SO MUCH!

As the title suggests, I spent the first day of August in the middle of the sea, pinching and punching myself. We had breakfast in the restaurant Verona, and then went straight down to the Playhouse to watch a Headliners Theatre Company interview, where the entertainment manager asked questions to some of the dancers and vocalists in the company. They talked about the auditions, life on board the ship, quick costume changes, and the other stuff which you guys probably don't even care about.

After that, my friend and I watched the film 'Robocop' which was on in one of the bars. I may or may not have cried just a little...it was quite a good film. I was expecting it to be one of those crappy films you can watch for on YouTube and no-one cares about them, but 'Robocop' is surprisingly good.

We then watched another film after lunch, 'Rio 2'. This was on the seascreen, so I could have been swimming or in the jacuzzi whilst watching it, but there were too many people so I didn't. 'Rio 2' is so cute. I haven't watched the first one yet and we missed the first ten minutes of it, so it was a little confusing at first, but I got really into it! I especially love the turtles! 'High five...'

After the film, I decided to go to the gym and burn off some fat I must have gained from the whole week of food binging. I did the usual - one mile on the treadmill and then a bit of rowing. I love how the rowing machine has that fish game where you have to eat fishes and try not be eaten by sharks, but I always end up just sitting there and only move my arms so...not the best workout :/

As that was our last day on the cruise, we had to start packing our stuff ready to leave bright and early in the morning, so we did that before dinner :(

Then after dinner, we watched the final theatre show in the Playhouse. It was truly sad, the theatre company is amazing and knowing that it might be the last time watching these little 'after-dinner' productions was depressing. That night's theme was Broadway and West End musicals, with the title of 'Curtains up!' This was another favourite night, there were musicals such as Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables, Joseph, Billy Elliot, and West Side Story. There were others I'm pretty sure, but I...I can't remember *guilty face*. Anyways, that was another amazing show, and also the last. It was very sad indeed.

And that's all folks!

I love y'all, and gooooodbye! Xxx

THE LITTLE TOWN OF BERGEN (31/07/2014)

I am so annoyed with myself! Why am I such a fail? Whhhhhhyyyyyyyy??? *mental breakdown whilst I contemplate my existence*. I am so annoyed that I can't even do something as simple as writing a post every day. And so far, I haven't done anything worthwhile in the holidays. Forget about enjoying the sun, I haven't even changed out of my pyjamas yet. Since three days ago. Yeah...

Bergen was our final stop in Norway. It's a fairly large city, has loads of shops. So of course, wherever there are shops, there's also my mum. We went shopping in the most Norwegian shops we could find...such as Accessorize and Mango!

These buildings are dangerously wonky!

Siri's new part-time job ;)

I just want to steal this gazebo and put it in my garden it's so pretty!

On your own head be it!

Spot the girl who's totally not about ten years older than the other kids...

He's the one! It was love at first sight...

Ok, the story behind taking this picture: I originally wanted to take a photo of
the man in the orange apron because of his moustache, which was AMAZING.
It was properly groomed to curly tips and everything! But then this guy walked
in front of the camera and OMG his face! Lol I love it he looks like he's about to
murder someone...he looks like a true villain :)

Anyone want to try saying this?

Well, shopping's all we did in Bergen, and didn't actually buy much as everything was too frickin expensive! So we returned to the ship to have lunch, where after a couple of hours of delay, the captain told everyone that we had to leave two people in Norway because they didn't make it back to the ship on time! I don't know if they were actually left behind or not, but still, that's tough!

When we were leaving the port, there were loads of seagulls...and some flew very close to us...but that was maybe because of the biscuits my dad was eating...

They're literally staring right into the camera...giving us all THE EVILS!

I'm so annoyed that I didn't have my camera on a faster shutter speed or on
sports mode because this would be amazing if it were sharper :(

Now, you wouldn't know this, but I'll tell you. Every day whilst on the cruise, I would write a couple of words, a short note, so that I would be able to remember what to write about later, such as a time like now (I'll show y'all the notes I made for this post at the end). After 'Two people left', I had noted down 'Read a book', yet I have no idea what I was going on about. Oops... I don't remember reading anything, to be honest, so I don't know how that fits in...but, in case y'all wanted to know, I READ A BOOK.

After reading this mysterious book determined to play Hide-and-Seek with my mind, I may have...err...gotten...err...seasick. Yeah...not fun...it was horrible...I didn't actually spill my guts, but I nearly did multiple times. Thankfully, I wasn't the only one though. Myself and my friend, along with many other people were stumbling around the ship looking a nasty 'puke' green. In the end, we were told it would be better for us if we sat outside, so we went up to one of the top decks and sat on the chairs around the pool. It was so cold, however, that I literally would have died from hypothermia before dying from puking myself inside out. We found some blankets there and swaddled ourselves up into cocoons, which helped greatly, as long as we didn't think about the fact that they were damp and were very stinky. And so long as we avoided the weird looks...

After a while, we were feeling much better, luckily, and so we went down to dinner. Have I mentioned yet that the dinners on the ship were perfection? Well, the menu was half in different languages, so that was a bit dodgy, but the food was top notch. And after dinner, we visited the Playhouse, as usual, this time to watch Elio Pace, the Italian pianist.

And finally, it was bedtime.

I love y'all, and goodbye! xxx

My notes:

• Bergen
• Shopping
• Back to ship for lunch
• Two people left
• Read a book
• Ship moving tons both myself and my friend were seasick
• Went outside to seascreen but was freezing so we found some blankets and got wrapped up like a cocoon
• Slightly wet blankets
• Getting weird looks
• Felt better
• Went back inside and got ready for dinner
• Pianist Elio Pace again
• Sleep

CLIMBING MOUNTAINS (30/07/2014)

Hey my lovely peepsicles! I went shopping again, with my mum this time...to be honest, shopping with my mum is so dreadfully boring...so I wrote all of this whilst out! Yay fun...I'm tripping over everything whilst also getting clothes chucked at me every few seconds :/

Anyways...

On the 30th July 2014, if you had stalked me, you would have found me in Skjolden, Norway. Skjolden (pronounced as Skiolden - 'j's are pronounced as 'i's) was an...interesting little town.

Firstly, it was raining the same way it does in England - one moment spitting, the next pouring down heavily, then the next it was sunny and clear. It was confusing. Secondly, there were loads to do as marked on the town map, but realistically there was really not much.

We climbed a mountain and became soaked hallway to our destination, a viewpoint, even though it was beautifully clear when we started. It was really rocky and the path was small, made even more dangerous by the wet ground. All in all, it was not a fun climb. Well, at least the view made our climb worth it:

Next, we decided to explore the 'Llama Safari', one of the attractions listed on the map. However, we were sourly disappointed. We were so disappointed it actually became kinda funny. The 'safari' was a little field of around eight llamas which was also off limits. I think it was supposed to be a llama farm...but anyways, we couldn't even see the llamas properly it was so far away. What a way to get tourists to wander around aimlessly trying to look for a safari!

The 'Llama Safari' in all its glory! Can you see it?

After that most annoying traipse around half of Skjolden, we called it a day, deciding to ignore the misleading map and walk along the fjord towards our ship. The fjord, as usual, was gorgeous and made some very picturesque pictures... Along the way, we were also skipping stones, something that I've embarrassingly never done before. My dad could skip it three times, and never let us forget it...show off :)

Anyways, we went back to our ship, and I had my precious beauty sleep. The dinner type was formal again, so it was worth the nap I guess. I went through the usual routine of doing my makeup, hair, and sorting through all the bits and bobs to get me looking at least slightly put together. For once.

Dinner ended, and we were ready to hear some singing and dancing. That night the theatre company presented us with their 'Reel to Reel' performance, songs from the most popular British films. That was probably my favourite night, mainly because I actually knew most the songs... There was Bridget Jones' Diary, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Oliver Twist, Mamma Mia, Slumdog Millionnaire, to name a few. The finale was James Bond, complete with fancy lighting and fire spurting out of the stage. It was awesome, and the vocalists/dancers were so talented.

And that was the end of the night.

I love y'all, and gooooodbye! Xxx

WE FOUND THE GLACIERS! (29/07/2014)

Hello my dearest ones! I've lost track of which day this is...I think it's the fourth...?

We merry ol' group went to Olden that beautiful day! Olden is a very small village, but it's also home to a glacier! I would tell you the name of the glacier, but frankly, I don't even know it myself. We had to take a little minibus to the start of the glacier-viewing 'centre' which was basically a souvenir shop and a cafe, and from there we walked up the mountain to get to the lake right at the bottom of the glacier. The view from the minibus of the fjords and waterfalls were perfection, so I took a few photos...

The walk up the mountain was uneventful. There was a section where we had to cross a bridge right next to a huge waterfall so we all got sprayed and drenched, and there was a little area where they had goats which I fed, but that's all really.

But oh my the lake beneath the glacier! The water was so clear, it was turquoise! It was cold as well, but that's to be expected seeing that the water had just melted off from the glacier about 20 metres above. It was so beautiful! Norway is so beautiful! The glacier itself was a bit of a disappointment...I didn't know what to expect, maybe my expectations were too high, but I was a bit dumped that it was a block of kinda dirty looking ice and snow on a mountain. I thought it would be pristine and sparkling... Oh well, Norway is still amazing!

Due to having a time limit which we had overrun, we had to run all the way back down the mountain...it was so fun! We weaved in and out of strolling couples and families, saying 'excuse me' and 'sorry' every few seconds. It was crazy!

We reached the bottom in time for the minibus to take us back, and the driver even let us jump off halfway for a few minutes to take photos of the completely unbelievably beautiful view:

Upon arriving back in the village of Olden, we still had a little time left to buy some souvenirs. And once again, can I please reiterate how expensive everything is! My gosh how do Norwegians live? If they came to England, they'd be millionaires or something!

After returning back to the ship, we had lunch, and then my parents had their typical afternoon nap whilst I was chilling on the balcony. Literally. It was freezing and I was wearing shorts as my jeans were wet from the waterfall spray. Hours later after freezing my butt off, I went exploring around the front and back of the ship. I'm sure they have technical names, but all I know is 'starboard' and I don't even know where that is on a ship...

And finally, the time of our beloved dinner had arrived. That night, we had to dress semi-formally (or 'smart'), meaning it was halfway between formal and casual. I'm not exactly sure where it lies - I wish there was a scale - but anyways I dressed slightly more formally just in case. Here's my outfit!

After dinner, there was a comedian act in the Playhouse which I didn't go to because, in all honesty, I don't really care for stand-up comedians. I mean I care for them...that sounded very bad before. I just don't care for watching them. So instead I went back to the cabin and had a much-needed early night's sleep.

That's all! I love y'all, goodbye! And goodnight for some! Xxx