Long time, no see (again).

Eyup! Guess who's on her travels again?

The last time I posted was in August 2017 when I went to Canada so it's been a while! I'm not entirely sure how often i'm going to be able to write over the next few months but i'm at least going to give it a go!

So to catch up on the main 2 years; I graduated from LBU and went to visit Priya in Canada, when I got back I was promoted to Supervisor at LEGO, where I stayed up until last week. I'm now sat on a plane on my way to the USA for the summer to work at Camp Saginaw as their Dance Specialist.

It's pretty much going to be non-stop for me for the next 8 weeks. At camp i'll be on duty the vast majority of the time looking after the kids, so access to my phone/the internet is really limited! To be honest, i'm looking forward to a little detox, (i'm really gonna miss Instagram though).

So as for my flights, i'm on my 8hr flight to Atlanta now, then after a 4hr wait I board again for a 2hr flight to Philadelphia, where i'm staying in a hotel tonight to be then picked up for camp tomorrow. Next week is orientation and then we welcome the campers as they arrive for their 7 weeks!

After 8 weeks of what i'm expecting is going to be the most rewarding hard work i've ever done, i'm meeting my cousin Sam in Miami for 4 weeks of travelling up the East Coast and visiting Orlando, Washington DC, Atlantic City and ending in New York in time for his birthday, and our flight home. He's currently on his way to Camp Winaukee in New Hampshire.

Annabel

Rambling Post #9: The part of study abroad that sucks.

Doing study abroad has without a doubt been the best thing that I have ever done, and i've loved every second of it. But then there's the one part of it that absolutely sucks, and no matter how much you prepare yourself for it, it's still pretty shit.

After spending the past 5 months with the same people and becoming such good friends with them all, it's now time to start saying goodbye as everyone leaves to go back home. I've always had this in the back of my head, I knew everything was temporary and we would all eventually go our separate ways, but it doesn't make it any easier.
I'm lucky that i've met a few friends who also go to Leeds Beckett back home and i'll still hopefully see them when I get back, but there's a few that i'll be leaving here and in other countries around the world.

It's just all started to dawn on me recently and I kind of needed to vent this somewhere!
I guess the excitement of seeing all of my friends back home made me forget how sad it's going to be leaving all of my new friends here.

ᗩᑎᑎᗩᗷEᒪ♥

The Ultimate Bucket List.

Recently i've been thinking about all of the things I want to do and achieve before my time's up (I know that's a bit of a morbid thought). I realised that there's quite a lot of things that I want to do so I thought I would write them down. I'll probably end up putting these on a page so I can keep updating them as i hopefully progress through achieving them all!

I Googled different bucket lists and things a lot of other bloggers have on their lists and along with my own ideas I combined them all to make an 'Ultimate Bucket List' for me (and anyone else) to do, so here they are!

1. Go on a dogsled ✔︎
2. Ride a zipline
3. Swim in the Blue Lagoon, Iceland
4. Ride in a helicopter ✔︎

Me, Kiri & Louisa just before flying over the 12 Apostles, Australia [February 2016]

5. Swim with dolphins ✔︎

6. See Christ the Redeemer, Rio

7. Fly somewhere first class (Keep dreaming) 

8. See the Northern Lights ✔︎

9. Walk on hot coals

10. See the Colusseum, Rome ✔︎

Inside the Colusseum, Rome [November 2015]

11. Get a tattoo ✔︎

12. Hold a snake ✔︎

13. Experience zero gravity

14. Play paintball

15. Go go-karting ✔︎

16. Cuddle a tiger cub (They look so cute!)

17. Volunteer at an elephant sanctuary

18. Go on a crocodile river boat ✔︎

19. Work at Camp America (Planning to do this in 2018!)

20. Sail on a boat ✔︎

21. Ride in a hot air balloon

22. See a production on Broadway, New York

23. Relax in a natural hot spring

24. Float in the Dead Sea

25. Do a skydive

26. Get a piercing ✔︎ (I have 13)

This was taken just after I got my daith pierced (the heart one). I now have 6 piercings in this ear!

27. Publish a book

28. Get pelted with tomatoes at La Tomatina, Spain

29. See Ayers Rock, Australia

30. Go to the top of the Eiffel Tower, Paris (We almost did this in 2015, but the top level was closed. We're going again in December so fingers crossed!)

31. See the Opera House, Sydney ✔︎

32. Go on a cruise

33. Win a hula competition ✔︎ (I did this in a theme park in Wales of all places when I was around 10 and was pretty much famous for a day)

34. Go snorkelling ✔︎

35. Meet someone famous ✔︎ (I also met James Bourne from Busted in a bar in Leeds)

Me & my best friend Mary with Dan Smith, Bastille. Apologies for the terrible quality photo [February 2011]

36. Go on a safari 

37. Ride on a Skidoo ✔︎

38. Take a mud bath

39. Go to Holi Festival, India

40. Visit Stonehenge, UK

41. Drink at an ice bar

42. Do a bungee jump

43. Sign up to be an organ donor ✔︎

44. Visit the Chichen Itza, Mexico

45. Climb the Harbour Bridge, Sydney ✔︎

Val, Me, Priya, Louisa and Michele half way up the Harbour Bridge, Sydney! [March 2016]

46. Go to a Traffic Light Party ✔︎

47. See Buckingham Palace ✔︎ 

48. Walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco

49. Visit the Grand Canyon, Arizona

50. Go skiing

51. Learn to surf ✔︎ (I tried, I was terrible. I'm still counting it)

52. See Niagra Falls, Canada

53. See the Hollywood Hills, LA

54. Go to the top of the Empire State, New York

55. Give blood ✔︎ (I fainted the first time)

56. Go to Disneyland Paris ✔︎ (Going again in December 2016!)

Disneyland Paris [August 2015]

57. Visit the Valley of the Kings, the Sphynx and the Pyramids, Egypt

58. Go to Disneyworld, Florida

59. Gamble in Las Vegas

60. See my favourite band play live ✔︎

Arctic Monkeys at Manchester Arena [October 2013]

61. Drive a jetski ✔︎ (I was also very very bad at this)

62. Wrestle in a sumo suit

63. Visit all 7 continents (So far 3/7)

64. Go on a tram ✔︎

65. Have my palm read

66. Go to Oktoberfest, Germany

67. Go on the London Eye, UK (I had a panic attack on the Yorkshire Eye which was a fraction of the size so wish me luck with this one)

68. Ride in a Gondola, Venice

69. Stand on the equator

70. Go to a book signing ✔︎

Me & Nick Frost (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead, Paul) at his book signing [October 2015]

71. Learn to speak another language (hablo un poco de Español en el momento)

72. Have a white Christmas (fat chance)

73. Go skinny dipping

74. Get a degree (1 year to go!)

75. Raise money for a charity ✔︎

76. Swim in the Great Barrier Reef ✔︎

The Great Barrier Reef [May 2016]

77. See the Taj Mahal, India

78. Climb to the top of a ski slope (yes, climb) ✔︎

79. Scuba dive

80. Drive a segway (not a swegway)

81. Fly solo on a plane ✔︎

82. Go on a glass bottom boat (again)

83. Walk across Abbey Road, London

84. Do a mud run ✔︎

My Auntie Yats, Me and my cousin Harriet crossing the Pretty Muddy finish line! [June 2015]

85. Go to a Guinness Brewery, Ireland

86. Walk along the Great Wall of China

87. Visit Hobbiton, New Zealand

88. Ride a camel

89. Have a campfire on the beach

90. Swim in an infinity pool ✔︎

91. Make a wish in the Trevi Fountain, Rome ✔︎

The beautiful Trevi Fountain just after it was restored in 2015.

92. Sleep under the stars ✔︎ (I did this from 5am-6am in a field next to a campfire on a pile of soot)

93. Hand decorate a wall in my house with paint

94. Drive a convertible

95. Have a Harry Potter marathon in one day

96. Have international friends ✔︎

97. Send a message in a bottle

98. Go on a random midnight drive ✔︎

99. Celebrate a birthday on a different continent

100. Go to a boat party ✔︎

I'm going to tag my bud Thomas to do this post and tick off what he has done so far. Along with this i'm also interested to know what anyone else has done so if you are reading this, either copy and paste the list and tick which ones you have achieved or just type them out in a comment!

ᗩᑎᑎᗩᗷEᒪ♥

Tips To Help You Pack For A Trip

Co-produced by :Rebateszone & Annabel Riley

Tips on beating jet lag.

Before coming to Australia I was really dreading the jet lag. I didn't really want to make a habit of napping through the day and missing out on what was going on. Through some divine miracle, I didn't really suffer any when I got here, so I thought i'd write up what I did to avoid it in case it helps anyone else!

The information in this post is based on my flight time, but how you deal with jet leg depends on the time of your flight/duration/time change between destinations. 

My flight details:

Manchester Airport Terminal 1

Flight departure 8:30pm

Dubai Airport

Flight Arrival: 7:45 (local time)
*2 hour wait*

Flight Departure: 10:15am
Time difference compared to back home: +4hrs

Melbourne Airport 

Flight Arrival: 6:35am (local time)

Time difference compared to back home: +11hrs 

1. Start as you mean to go on. Because the time difference between England & Australia was +11hrs, this meant that I was pretty much sleeping the complete opposite of what I do now. The night before I set off I tried to sleep as much as I could so I could then stay up all night on the plane the night after.
2. Adapt your sleeping early on the plane. To get a real good head start on beating the lag, I decided that on the plane I would sleep Australian time instead of British. This meant that straight away on my 7 hour flight to Dubai I had to do an all nighter. The excitement helped to keep me awake, and the TV kept me occupied for a good few hours. I tried to keep myself doing different things so I wouldn't get bored like watching a movie, then reading a chapter of my book, then watching an episode of one of my favourite TV series, then maybe write up a blog post or speak to people back home on Facebook (yes that's right, I had WiFi on the plane).
3. Walk around a lot. You should also do this to avoid deep vein thrombosis, but getting up every couple hours or so to stretch your legs, even if it isn't for the toilet, helps you stay up. 
4. Drink a lot of water. Keeping refreshed and hydrated is very important, and luckily the drinks on board my flight were free, so I just kept myself stocked up with water and it really helped to keep me awake.
5. Plane food sucks, but eat as much as you can. Keeping your energy up will help to keep you awake so try and eat as much of the nasty plane food as you can.
6. When it's time to sleep, sleep. This might have been a lot easier for me had there not been a screaming baby for 80% of my second flight.
7. Keep yourself busy. When I arrived, I had plenty to be sorting out and didn't really get chance to sit down and relax. I was up walking most of the day sorting out my phone contract, bank account and shopping for my room essentials. At around 4pm I went to sit on campus to use the WiFi and let everyone know at home that I made it here safe. After half an hour I could feel my eyes getting heavy so went for a walk around campus then back to my room to unpack. I finally let myself sleep around 7pm and slept right through until 8am.

Other people might have more tips/find that the complete opposite of some of these works for them! But after finding I didn't suffer with jet lag at all, I thought i'd share what worked for me. I'll be re-testing these on my way home in 3 and a half months.
𝕒𝕟𝕟𝕒𝕓𝕖𝕝

Travel Diary

Probably my biggest goal in life (sounds cheesy but idc), is to travel a hell of a lot. I love going to weird and wonderful new places and learning the perks of different cultures. I feel like when i'm old and grey I know that i'll have lived my life to the full if i've seen as much of the world as possible.

My all time favourite poster on my wall is my scratch map. They're around £15 on Amazon and you essentially scratch off a country as you would a scratch card once you have been there. If you're a massive fan of travel like me, you'd love one. I get way too excited to come home from a holiday just so I can scratch a country off!

My aim is to be able to scratch a place off a year, however this may be a tad difficult so I may go for 1 every 2 years. We'll see how my bank account stretches.
So far the places that have been scratched off are;

Mallorca, Jamaica, Finland, France, Menorca, Spain, Belgium, Mexico and Italy. I'm not planning on Antarctica - that would be a bitch to scratch off!

I'm incredible lucky to have been to the places that I have already, but to me it just isn't enough! There are still so many things I want to do and places I want to visit!

I want to cuddle a tiger cub in India, go on a safari in South Africa, visit many many locations in the USA like Florida (Disneyworld), New York, Miami and LA, see Christ the Redeemer in Rio in Brazil, bit of a depressing one but I want to visit Auschwitz in Poland, walk on the Great Wall of China, I need to see Hobbiton in New Zealand, go skiing in Switzerland or Canada, visit Mexico again and see the Chichen Itza, go to the pyramids in Egypt, sunbathing on the gorgeous beaches of Greece, see the Taj Mahal in India and also visit Portugal, Amsterdam, Ireland and Thailand. I could literally go on for hours with all the places I want to visit.

If travelling were free I wouldn't be in England right now. Fingers crossed I win the lottery!𝕒𝕟𝕟𝕒𝕓𝕖𝕝