Birthday Celebrations and Peterborough Adventures

Hiya!

The next few posts are going to be in a strange order. I've got events from over two weeks ago to write about (and most probably bore you with), but if I do them in chronological order I won't be able to talk to you about the most recent stuff, which I feel are the most important. It makes me think we can connect more if I talk about things that happened a few hours ago rather than a few weeks ago... I don't know, it might just be me.

But I do want to tell you about my past weeks because they've been really fun and exciting. Though at this rate, with all this blabbering, I won't even be able to finish this post...

Today is my friend's birthday! We celebrated yesterday by shopping and having dinner in a restaurant which played We Are Young four times in 2 1/2 hours. Good song, but a bit too much maybe?

Though the restaurant's obsession with that song was nothing compared to the 'classiness'  of our eating. We had straws in wine glasses, knives in sundaes, and the remaining content of our mocktails tipped into various empty bowls to try to reach the blueberries.

We were dining like cavemen. Thank goodness there was no one around except the waitress, even though I think it was us ourselves who were responsible for keeping the people away. 

Anyway, as well as it being my friend's birthday, I also went to Peterborough today with my parents. Just a day trip, adventuring in another city. The journey was long and not so pleasant, to be honest.  There was an incident with our train tickets and a couple of terribly rude men, which nearly resulted in us having to turn back. But we didn't do anything wrong, so whatever.

In Peterborough, we did loads of shopping, had dinner in Pizza Express and explored the city's cathedral. We weren't allowed inside, but it was really pretty from the outside regardless. 

Annoying scaffolding >:(

Just added this in for the wonky window /=/=/=/

It's late now and I'm tired so... 

I love y'all

Toodles! 

EXPLORING BEIJING (01/09/2014)

Hiya again.

How are you? I'm all right, I guess.

Did you know that 'all right' is the proper way of writing 'alright'? Because I did not! I technically always spelt it wrong then, until just then when I typed 'alright' into Google to see if it was a word and it gave me 'all right'!

Mind-boggling!

Anyways, before I get to the main bulk of this post, I just wanna say...

OMG ultimate fangirl moment! And I'm not fangirling over a hot celebrity crush or whatever...I'm fangirling over Greek mythology! Nerds unite! In Latin today, my teacher was going on about how the Greeks hated not burying bodies after death, and how they thought that if a body wasn't buried, the spirit would wander around like a ghost. And OMG I just thought about Patroclus (The Song of Achilles - it's an amazing book) and the feeeeeeelllllsssss! And then that reminded me of the time I was in Turkey on a school trip, and we buried our other Latin teacher and he said 'I feel like Patroclus entombed'! I love my Latin teachers!

Anyways, onto the actual post...

So if you had read my last post, you would know that I had been sick whilst in China. Thankfully, it only lasted one day, which I'm so glad about because that meant I got a chance to explore Beijing!

In the morning my dad was doing some business stuff with a few people, so I decided to go out myself to do a little exploring of the surrounding area near our hotel. It was quite fun - I took my camera out and took a few photos:

A busy road. typical

[Insert quote about life and happiness here]

Aww how cute! I'm such a creep!

Beautifully foggy and smoggy - the view from my hotel room :D

Afterwards, I had lunch with some of daddy's colleagues who apparently know all about me...a bit strange! Not really, they were nice - I don't know who they are, but they seemed nice enough...

"I've heard all about you..." *evil smirk*

In the afternoon, I carried on exploring, this time with my dad. We acted like typical tourists, me with my camera hanging off my neck, him with a map in his hands. We first went to a sort of hilly park place with temples on the hills...I honestly don't know what these places are called, which is embarrassing...

Then we explored another park, which was massive and had a huge white tower thingy in the middle, surrounded by a lake. We walked around the whole park, plus going to the middle area, which must have been miles. My feet were hurting a lot after that, especially since I was wearing my sandals.

And finally, we went to Tiananmen Square (I remembered the name! Although it would be shameful if I didn't remember, basically everyone knows this place...). We arrived coincidently just in time to see the flag being lowered for sunset, which is a customary thing they do every day. At sunrise, the flag comes up, and at sunset, the flag goes back down. It got dark really quickly after that (duh, me! The sun had just set!) so we just wandered around the front of Tiananmen Gate to take photos...

In the dark.

At the end of the day, we were so tired, and we got back to the hotel kinda late - at 11:30 pm. Needless to say, I fell asleep really quickly. Though that's also because the beds were so comfortable. I'm not joking, but every time you lie down you literally sink down and it feels like you're floating.

Bliss

Anyways, that's all for today, I love y'all,

And goodbye! 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

EXPLORING STAVANGER... (28/07/2014)

Hey, peepsicles! I've decided to start watching Supernatural! I'm going to be so scared! I'm not going to sleep! I'm going to die! Yay! Anyways yes, I watched the first episode of Supernatural today, it was freaky but not too bad I guess...*shivering in the corner with lights and torches surrounding me*. Yeah...I'm not scared at all...haha...ha...ha.

Well, I'm just going to get on with it now! And may I now present, the third day of my cruise adventure! It's a shorter post by the way, but with more photos to make up for it ;)

After the sea day the day before, we finally reached Norway! The first stop was Stavanger, quite a big town compared to the other stops we were going to make during the week. We stayed in Stavanger for around three hours, just walking, taking photos and shopping. My friend's mum had left her toothbrush at home in the UK, so she needed to buy a new one...and it cost her the equivalence of £4 in British pounds! Everything in Norway is so expensive! That one little toothbrush which would usually cost about £1 cost FOUR TIMES as much in Norway!

There were LOADS of these posters and banners in a shopping centre...!
'SAVE THE QUEEN!'

Anyways in Stavanger, we mainly just walked about exploring - there are two parts: New Town and Old Town. New Town has all the shops and businesses, whereas Old Town is the main residential section. To be honest, even though Stavanger is beautiful, it was kinda boring...it was just picturesque street after picturesque street. My feet also hurt a lot by the end of the trip as I had stupidly worn my sandals, which weren't good for walking in. As I said before, I'm going to mainly put up photos. I guess a photo does say a thousand words...because if I was going to tell you everything I did that day, we'd both be here for hours. 

'I want love to grab a hold of me and bite me walk right up and fight me
leave me dying on the ground' - wall

There were actual oil rig parts lying around...and kids were playing on them
as if they were a kids play area :/

You see, this is a part of the 'kids playing area'. There's graffiti everywhere
(some very inappropriate) and it's all rusty! That's not safe!

We returned back to our ship Azura for a late lunch/afternoon tea, and after that, I daydreamed on the balcony whilst my parents were taking an afternoon nap. And by 'daydream', I mean taking photos and listening to Panic! at the Disco...

My parents then woke up, we all went to the gym, and then we had dinner...our first dinner. The buffet restaurants were doing an oriental style buffet for dinner, so we decided to eat some of that, as well as going to our usual proper dinner later. Yeah...we're such pigs.

But, before going to our second dinner, we decided to further explore the large expanse of the ship, and navigate the upper decks! After getting lost, we finally found ourselves at the very front of the ship, where I was inclined to reenact the scene from the Titanic. I was going to, but decided I didn't really want to be whisked away by the great gusts of wind which were blowing strongly. 

We next went to the sports court and played some 'flying basketball'. It's a game exactly like standard basketball, but when you play the wind is so strong that the balls end up swerving due to the wind. And this is when my friend's mum sailed her way to victory when she won against my dad...is 'sailing to victory' even a thing? I've been over it in my head for so long it kinda feels right...but at the same time wrong...

After the aforementioned second dinner, we, as usual, enjoyed a show in the Playhouse. This time it was again the theatre company, where they danced and sang to us songs in a production called 'Blame it on the Boogie'. It was all those sorts of songs you would have in discos and parties. 

And finally, after the show, we had a quick look in the bar restaurant Manhattan (also where our muster station was if the name rings a bell) as my dad had heard there was a disco there... There was, but there were only five people dancing... We decided not to waste any more time there, and retired back to our cabins to go to bed. 

Anyways, that's all, I'll talk to you tomorrow

I love y'all and goodbye! Xxx