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Showing posts from April, 2015

Accidental drinking and a good hangover cure

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Last Friday night I met up with Bex and Kim for a long overdue catch up.   After wandering round Kings Cross for what felt like hours, we ended up in B@1 - mainly because they do a great happy hour until 8pm. slightly drunk eyes on the left... We (I) made full use of this, consuming many cocktails in a short space of time and as expected I was pretty hammered.  Requests to go to Rockaoke turned down (we shall return!), we headed home at a respectable 10pm with a pit stop at McDonalds, where I decided to pretend to the packed facility that it was my first time there ever as I had just escaped from living in a bunker, and was asking people what they recommended.  And also for some reason I answered to the name of Gupta. After a sleepless night of making myself vomit and getting the drunken sweats, I uttered the ever repeated, meaningless words "I'm never drinking again" and got up early for our 8 mile walk round Box Hill. I have a new love of hiking and the outd

A miscellaneous list of 10 things

I got a bit over excited with my last post and posted twice in a week so now I don't have much to write about now. Here are some things that have happened.  Some of them I am really scraping the barrel with. 1) FRANCESCA AND DAVID ARE COMING BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  This was the best thing I have heard in a very long time.  I don't really understand why but some weird passport issue has meant that they're coming home to meeeeeeeee. I feel really gutted for them that their adventure has had to be cut short and through no fault of their own and very unexpectedly, and sad for Amy that she isn't going to get the pleasure of their company any time soon, but also super super super stoked that I get to see them again.  The downside is they're then off again straight away to do Land's End to John O'Groats but at least they're in the same country as me and I can try and see them on weekends if they're in sensible places - or maybe we could have a big party in Jo

A very emo motivational message: the year of do.

I'm feeling more confident than ever. I am writing this on the bus as it suddenly hit me and made me happy. (It also might have something to do with the fact I am quite possibly high on a big dose of max strength cold and flu medicine - the stuff is magical!)  I am often plagued with self doubt and insecurities so wanted to record how I feel right now. (No doubt tomorrow I'll not feel like this and read this back and laugh) For once I feel happy I have friends over the world, instead of feeling lonely and left behind, I feel happy that my friends are happy on their adventures and they miss me enough to want me to come and visit.  I've been trying to book a group weekend break to Florence since the beginning of the year.  Rather than be annoyed with people that they don't want to come on adventures with me, I'm understanding that my friends have different priorities and it's not personal, it's because they can't afford it, or are busy, or jus

America observations/general ramblings

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Blindfolded at the Grand Canyon Cripes I have been back nearly a week and it feels like I never left and it was all a dream.  I was very lucky and had no jet lag - I like to think it was down to my meticulous planning.  I had a night flight (9.30pm) that arrived at 4pm UK time the following day.  I went straight to sleep on the plane (missed dinner and everything) and then woke up about 4/5 hours later.  Then when I landed, forced myself to stay awake (to be fair it wasn't that hard) until 10pm that night. Low and behold - no jet lag! I mean I have felt tired this week, but no more so than I normally would on 5 hours sleep. This post is just going to be rambling about America and stuff in no particular order.  I've got into the swing of things again (sort of) but when I first got back I did feel a bit bereft - it's really nice having someone drive you places and tell you where to go and what to do and where to sleep and how much you owe when the bill has been split

Trek America Day 20 & 21: Death Valley and LA

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Ahhh the final two days.  Sad times. They were a bit of a blur and I was struck down with illness (drama) so this post may lack detail, sozzles. We drove through Death Valley on our way to our campsite making some stops on the way. It's a pretty dramatic landscape - parts of Star Wars (original movies) were filmed there.  It's the lowest and driest part of the USA and also holds the record for the hottest recorded temperature in the world - 57.6°C in 1913, yikes!  In 2001, they had 154 days where the temperature was above 38°C. We took a break at a ghost town which had a population of 5,000 in the 1920s until the gold dried up and everyone left, it was a bit eerie.  We stopped at Badwater Basin, so named when an early explorer tried to get his mule to drink from the lake.  It refused so he assumed it was bad water, and the name stuck.  The mule refused because the water is very salty - when the lake dries up, what's left is a large salt pan.  Badwater Basin

Trek America Day 18 & 19: Las Vegas

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My Vegas trip in a nutshell: drank, partied, gambled, saw old men in mankinis, had a hangover, got stuck in a lift, slept a lot. We had our last Walmart stop of the trip so I bought some sweets for back home (sorry guys you're all getting American candy) and a salad and ate in in the car park.  As we ate a guy drove up to us asking if we knew Greg Gibson.  We shook our heads, he cursed and sped off.  Ten minutes later he returned with a photo of Greg (who happened to be a really old man) but we still didn't know him, so he cursed and sped off again.  Bit weird. We stopped off at the Hoover Dam which was pretty impressive, it looks like you could slide all the way down.  I think they're missing a tourist trick there. We also stopped at a town on Route 66 that Radiator Springs from the movie Cars is based on.  It was very weird and just seems to be filled with shops cashing in on the Cars fame, the street is lined with old American cars made to look like the char