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

What i'll miss & what i'm looking forward to.

Hello! It's been a while. I've had a lot on my plate recently and i've just been either too busy or had no motivation to write anything, but the excitement of a new year and an upcoming adventure has spurred me on to write again.
Recently i've had millions of thoughts whizzing through my head about little things i'm going to miss whilst i'm away and other things that i'm really looking forward to. I thought it might help clear up my head to write them down, and writing on my blog somewhat calms me.

What I will miss.
1. My family: I think that's probably the most obvious. We're so close and it'll be very strange to not have them a stones throw away (i'll miss my sister the most but don't tell my mum and dad).
2. My friends: another obvious one. I'm lucky enough to have no shortage of them and i'm going to miss every single one of them so much. I've been begging them all to come and visit me at some point!
3. Mum's cooking! If you haven't had one of Pip's homemade meals, you haven't lived. And if you know me then you'll be aware that i'm no Jamie Oliver in the kitchen. I can make pasta and that's about it.
4. My cat: He's a right little bastard sometimes but i'm going to miss his cuddles!
5. My car. This is such a first world problem but i'm seriously going to miss being able to drive myself around for 5 months. Back on the peasant wagon!
6. My double bed: Another first world problem - I have a single bed in my new apartment!

What i'm looking forward to.
1. Meeting new people: making some Aussie friends!
2. Living on my own: hopefully it will finally teach me to be tidier.
3. Living near the beach! Do I really need to explain this one?
4. Being surrounded by a different culture: one of my most favourite things is getting to know other cultures. When I went to Rome I was fascinated in how erratic and busy the Italians are.
5. Improving my Australian accent: (i've been practicing).
6. Getting out of Leeds for a while! There's a lot of people I know that hate living in Leeds, and whilst it isn't my favourite place in the world, it's still home. However i'm very excited to get to know another big city.
7. The gorgeous weather: even though when I get there it will be in the transition from summer to winter, it's still going to be pretty damn hot!
8. Visiting Sydney at Easter: Harbour Bridge, the Opera House (that's the plan anyway).
9. Learning to be independent: it's about time.
10. Writing letters! A few people have called me strange for this one. I thought it might be nice to send my friends and some family letters whilst i'm away. It would be a nice change to sending e-mails or messages and I love getting things through the post.

I'm already feeling better after jotting these down! Everything is set in stone now; flights booked, accommodation sorted and enrolment accepted. All that is left to do is pack and go!
I'll try and keep more blog posts coming, as soon as my exams are over i'll have a lot more free time to think of new things to write about.
𝕒𝕟𝕟𝕒𝕓𝕖𝕝
Ps. I sincerely hope I come back with an awesome accent.

November.

The penultimate month of 2015 is already over. What the HECK?!

The first week of November was a weird one. I had an essay due on the 7th and I hadn't started it as I had been so busy previously (see October's round up). I was also pretty ill and that added to the stress had a really weird effect on me and I was barely sleeping or eating all week. I've never really been super stressed about University work before so I think it was a bit of a shock to the system; i'm often too laid back to care about grades (for example see my GCSE results). This meant that Bonfire Night (if you're not from the UK, Google it) was spent writing my essay, however I did leave my blind open so I could watch the fireworks at the same time. Multitasking at its best.

Anyway, the week after my deadline, it was finally time for my 21st birthday present from James.

We stayed over in Manchester the night before as our flight was at 6:30am, and having to be at Manchester airport for about 4am means waking up in Leeds at about 2am. No thanks.

When we got there, the phrase "Rome wasn't built in a day" was bouncing around my head. I saw how true this statement was. All of the buildings are so beautiful and detailed and in the taxi journey from the airport to our hotel, I just couldn't stop looking out of the window.

My personal favourite of the attractions: The Trevi Fountain.

Every time a new Hunger Games film has been released, my best friend Charlotte and I would go see the double/triple bill at the cinema. But this year Vue decided not to do a quadruple bill and instead they only did a double bill of Mockingjay. Bit rubbish right? It was also the week after I got back from Rome and I had about £5 to get me to payday, so I couldn't go. So my friend Viv suggested we make our own quadruple bill. We fell asleep halfway through Catching Fire so this failed epically.

Things started to concrete over for Australia too. I bought my travel insurance and my VISA got granted. It's all becoming real, it still hasn't hit me yet!

My Mum got me and my sister these awesome Christmas jackets because I got a first in my placement year and my sister did something good in Spanish (I can't remember what it was).

One of my friends from work had his leaving do on the 30th. I'll be so sad to see him go but he's going to South Africa which is pretty damn cool. So for his leaving party we all went to his house and had a Disney night in. I know right? Amazing. We were watching Disney movies from 2pm until half 4 in the morning (we also watched Ghostbusters because Nathan was 'a bit bored' of cartoons...weirdo).

Nathan fell asleep so we played Buckaroo.

On the last day of November I decorated my room for Christmas. I couldn't wait any longer. In the process I managed to impale my foot on one of the hooks that I use to hang tinsel up. That hurt. A lot.

Nice and festive!

So that's it for another month! I'm so excited for December (I always am).

Rambling Post #6: I'm actually terrified.

Recently whenever people have been asking me about moving to Australia they usually ask "how excited are you?!", and don't get me wrong, I really can't wait to go, but i'm also absolutely terrified.

I've never lived away from home before so going from my comfort zone in Leeds with all of my family and friends around me, to the other side of the world where I know absolutely no one makes me a little anxious. Knowing that I won't have my parents as a safety net whilst i'm out there is probably what scares me the most. But that's life. I've got to leave them at some point. I think i'm not that good at making friends, it always just happens by a happy accident. I'm not the kind of person to put myself out there in a new group of people and i'm actually pretty quiet when i'm getting to know people. It's only when i'm comfortable with someone that you start to realise i'm actually quite loud and never shut up.

Then there's the snakes. And spiders. And crocodiles. I've been watching I'm A Celebrity this year and every time I see one of the huge spiders it just reminds me that they're probably just a typical 'house spider' over there. I can deal with the usual British 50p sized spideys but hell naw to the spiders down under. I think the first things I will buy when I get there is a fly swat and a shit load of bug spray.

I feel like i've lived in my comfort zone for 21 years now and it's about time I did something that scares me, because staying in my comfort zone isn't going to get me anywhere.

But yeah, growing up and doing scary things sucks, but moving 10,053 miles away is also hella exciting.

𝕒𝕟𝕟𝕒𝕓𝕖𝕝

Rambling post #5: Be yourself.

During High School, and even into 6th Form and the beginning of University, I had a pathological fear of what everyone thought about me. Throughout the years it started to get a bit ridiculous: I would be getting dressed for the day and I would be choosing what to wear judging it on what the people I would be seeing that day would think of it. I know it's important to take pride in your appearance, and I do (most of the time), but this obsession was rapidly becoming unhealthy.
I'd start to change my opinions about things in discussions with friends just so I didn't sound weird or different to everyone else. "You like Dubstep?! Me too!" Bullshit.
I know it sounds unbelievably cheesy and too much of a cliché, but it's true when they say to be happy you need to be yourself, and it's only been recently that i've been doing this and i've realised just how relaxed and happy I am as a result.
There are people in the world that are going to judge you no matter what. It's taken me 21 years to realise that if people are going to judge me anyway, i'm at least going to get judged for the things that make me happy. Live your life for yourself. If you obsess over making others happy, what happens to you? Who cares what anyone else thinks? Why do their opinions matter?
I feel that when you reach your twenties you need to be selfish and do things for you. I need to start living my life for myself and no one else. Don't get me wrong, I don't exactly want to make people miserable whilst i'm loving life.
I'm always going to be one of those people who cares about others. I'm just going to be someone who doesn't really give a rats ass about anyones opinion anymore.
All I want is in 70 odd years (fingers crossed), I can look back and not regret a thing.
𝕒𝕟𝕟𝕒𝕓𝕖𝕝

G'Day Mate!

So i've been keeping this quiet on social media until now (i've pretty much told everyone I know in person though, I was too excited to keep it to myself).

I'M MOVING TO AUSTRALIA!

People i've told have been like, "erm what where the hell did this come from?"
But in February 2016 i'll be moving to Melbourne COMPLETELY BY MYSELF to study at Victoria University until June.

Honestly, i'm absolutely terrified. Australia has always been that one place that i've always said i'll never go on holiday (you know, spiders etc), but when I got nominated by my current University to go here, who the hell would say no?! I've never done anything this big before and it's probably the most terrifying and brave thing I will ever do, yet funnily enough, I can't wait!

I still can't believe that I will be calling this place home in 3 months.

If i'm completely honest, the thing i'm most excited for is decorating my new room.
I feel kind of ready for a fresh start. It's not that i'm upset with anything here in England, I'm perfectly happy, I've just never done anything as exciting as this and I can't wait to meet a bunch of new people.

But don't worry, i'll still be keeping you updated on all of my adventures whilst i'm over there! (That's if I have any). My course leader told me last week that whilst I usually take 3 modules and have 2 assignments per module at Leeds Beckett, at Victoria i'll be studying 4 modules with 4 assignments per module. Goodbye social life. The positive is that the grades I get whilst on Study Abroad don't count towards my degree, so all I have to do is pass. Brings a teensy bit of pressure to this semester though, now all my Semester 1 assignments count for my whole second year.

I'm hopefully signing on to this International Orientation trip before the semester starts in Melbourne, Basically all the international students go on a trip for 3 days and we learn to surf, visit a zoo and go on some sort of hike (ew).

My plan for the Easter Holidays (if I can afford it and if it can be done), is to go to Sydney for the first week and climb the Harbour Bridge and go see something at the Opera House, maybe try and find where Dance Academy was filmed. Then for the second week I want to fly over to New Zealand and go see where Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit was filmed. Then at some point in all of the madness, i'm going to grow a pair (i'm terrified of sharks) and go snorkelling in the Great Barrier Reef (my GoPro will be perfect for this!).

So there you have it. Probably the biggest news I will ever have (until I eventually get to the proper adulty stuff like babies etc. But that is a loooong while off).

October.

So here I am, procrastinating from my first University deadline of the semester with less than a week to go to get this essay done. So naturally, this is the time I decide to get a blog post written as I haven't in a while! I can't believe it's November already. It's nearly my favourite time of year and I almost can't contain my excitement! But we're not there yet. Here's what I got up to in the hallowed month of October.

I met Nick Frost! Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead are among mine and my boyfriend's favourite films and when I saw that Nick was doing a signing at my local Waterstones I didn't hesitate to get me and James tickets.

Cornetto?

I LOVE fancy dress and will pretty much use any excuse to dress up, so when my bestie Charlotte invited us all to her house for a pre Halloween party, I couldn't wait to make my costume.

My sister went as a zombified Sleeping Beauty and she also looked pretty awesome.
I wore a long black skirt and black top, with a long black cloak that my mum made for my sister when she dressed up at the Woman In Black a few years ago. I bought the horns from a fancy dress store and put in light green contact lenses.

My Maleficent make up!
(Please excuse the emoji's on my head they were not part of my costume)

I then made the staff out of white piping and stuck a polystyrene ball on top, then covered the whole thing in black tape. I did the make up myself, sprayed my hair black and then I was good to go!

Everybody's pumpkins! I think from this picture it's pretty obvious that my friends and I are massive Disney fans.

Close up of my pumpkin! Maleficent the dragon!

October is always a pretty hectic month for me. Those of you that know me well know i'm a dance teacher from February - October every year, with the annual show taking place in October half-term. This usually makes me slightly busy, but since this year I was actually in the show too, this made me very busy. On top of that I was working 2 days a week and at Uni for 4 other days. It's a good job this only goes on for a month because if it did any longer, i'd have probably had a mental breakdown.

My oldest group practicing their lift before opening night!

We had some amazing feedback about this years show and i'm so proud of everyone that helped and took part. It got pretty stressful at times but all in all I had such an amazing week performing and it sounds like the kids did too!

Interval madness.

That's all that really happened last month. Pretty much most of my time was spent preparing for halloween and the show so I didn't really have time for anything else. This month i'm going to Rome so my next monthly round up post will be a little more exciting!

Rambling post #4: Writers block.

Here I am attempting to complete my first assignment for my second year at University. It's due in on Monday and I currently have 138 out of 2,500 words written.
Back in 6th Form and even First Year I could whack out a decent essay in 1 or 2 days, this doesn't seem to be the case.
This essay was set in my PR module around 4 weeks ago, which was 2 weeks into the semester at Uni. This raised the question, "how can they expect me to write an essay on a subject I have never before studied in my life?".
As a result, I left it for a couple of weeks until I had been to a few lectures and seminars to familiarise myself with the subject. I'm a little more clued up to the subject, so why am I still sat here with only 138 words of an introduction?
I'm not usually one to stress or get upset about school or Uni work, but theres a first time for everything. This is definitely stressing me out. Big time.
Usually once I have the basic gist figured out and I have something to start on, it just flows out of me. This time i've written and re-written the essay plan at least 6 times, and it's pretty difficult to write about something when you're not even sure what you want to say.
I'm hoping i'll have an epiphany soon or a textbook will fall and open on the exact page that I need for inspiration, but right now, there is absolutely nothing working in my brain.
If anyone has any tips on writers block, it would be greatly appreciated.
Also if you made it this far, thanks for listening to me whinge.
𝕒𝕟𝕟𝕒𝕓𝕖𝕝

September.

Another month down. Only 3 to go and it's 2016! This year is completely flying by and it seriously needs to start slowing down!

So the beginnging of September wasn't actually that exciting. It started off with a lot of after holiday blues following a brilliant week in Mallorca. Mostly because I was poor, I didn't really do much for the first couple of weeks.

Then my best friend, Tom, at work had his leaving do. It's weird and sad that we'll never work together again (i'm pretty sure everyone else is glad that Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee have been separated), but he's moving to University so i'm also super happy for him.
So anyway, back to the leaving do. We went to Roxy Lanes in town and had 2 rounds of bowling. Never drink and bowl.
Ever.
Before you know it bowling balls were flying all over the place and people were racing to take each others goes. I'm pretty surprised no one broke their foot to be honest (Dayle was throwing them backwards). After that some of us moved on to Tom's house where more drinking and fun and games continued. I remember it took around 2 hours to order a pizza and have it delivered. I don't think i've ever been so angry at pizza before. The next morning was the typical walk (or taxi journey) of shame in last night's clothes. Classy.

Another weekend I went to an 18th which resulted in a spontaneous trip to town. Which then resulted in another walk of shame the next morning after staying at my other bestie, Mary's house.

Then it came to starting University again. Here we go with second year. Before I know it i'll have no social life and will be permanently glued to textbooks and writing essays.

It's not been the most exciting of months, but with my dance show being next month, October should be more interesting!

Get To Know The Blogger

Recently my pal Thomas (mentioned quite a few times on this blog) tagged me in a questions post located here for me to answer.

1. Do you have a middle name? I do not. I'm usually quite reluctant to tell this story but I want to answer these as truthfully as possible. When my sister was born, I was a very jealous 6 year old because my new baby sister got a middle name and I never had one. I know, how rude. So I decided to make up my own. Annabel Star Riley. My Mum tells this to everyone we meet so naturally, I get called Star a lot.
2. What was your favourite subject in school? I loved Art. I've always been very creative and get my drawing skills from my Dad. I'd spend hours drawing in my sketchbooks and adding things to projects. It's the only thing i've ever received an A in.
3. What's your favourite drink? Wine. Unless it's none alcoholic, then it's more wine because that's ridiculous.
4. What's your favourite song at the moment? I hate this question. I can never pick one song to focus on. I usually have a top few but at the moment i'm liking a lot of different things.
5. What would you name your children? It's kind of a Riley family 'in' thing, but my Granddad used to love birds, especially Robins. I absolutely adored my Granddad and ever since he died 5 years ago it's always been a thing to see a Robin and know that Granddad's looking out for us. It's because of this I want to name my first girl Robyn.
6. Do you participate in sports? That's hilarious.
7. What's your favourite book? Nope. Impossible. You can't do that to me.
8. What's your favourite colour? Purple. My room looks like Barney threw up.
9. What's your favourite animal? I really like Dolphins and Tigers. For as long as I can remember it's been my #1 dream to swim with Dolphins. I finally got to do this in Mexico a few years ago. Next on the bucket list is to cuddle a Tiger cub.
10. What's your favourite perfume? I've been using Thierry Mugler's Alien for a while now and I love love love it, however in Duty Free on the way home from Mallorca last week I treated myself to a bottle of Marc Jacob's Violet which i'm quite liking right now.
11. What's your favourite holiday? Definitely Christmas. I'm one of those sickeningly happy people that get way too excited when the Coca Cola advert first screens in November. And I still can't sleep on Christmas Eve.
12. Have you graduated from High School? I have indeed. Just under 4 years ago.
13. Have you been out of the country? A few times yes. I've been on holiday to Jamaica, Mallorca, Menorca, Lapland, Paris, Belgium, Mexico and Spain. I've never lived or travelled abroad, but I'm planning to do both of those in the US when University is out of the way.
14. Do you speak another language? Not fluently. I know quite a bit of Spanish which I try use as much as possible when i'm on holiday there. I'd love to be fluent one day though.
15. Do you have any siblings? I do. She's my favourite human and the bane of my life, Emma.
16. What's your favourite store? Either River Island or Waterstones.
17. What's your favourite restaurant? I could eat at TGI Fridays every day of the week. I got pretty close to this once. I felt like I had to work out for months afterwards though.
18. Do you like school? I didn't like High School. I was bullied towards the beginning so that wasn't fun. But I really enjoyed 6th Form.
19. Who are some of your favourite YouTubers? I really don't watch YouTube videos that much. Just the likes of whatever pops up on Facebook. I'm subscribed to Tom Fletcher from McBusted who seems to pull out a classic video every month, and I also quite like Zoella's videos.
20. What's your favourite movie? Jurassic Park. Hands down.
21. What are some of your favourite TV shows? The Big Bang Theory, The Vampire Diaries, FRIENDS, Sherlock and Game of Thrones.
22. PC or MAC? I love my MAC more than I love myself.
23. What phone do you have? iPhone 5s in gold (debating getting the next iPhone when it's released though)
24. How tall are you? This is pretty much the same answer Tom gave but my situation's the same. I think i'm 5'8" but Mum tell's me i'm 5'7" so ok.
25. Any pets? I have a demented cat called Freddie. I'm convinced he is the spawn of Satan.

There you go, now you know me a little better! I now nominate Emma.