100 Days, 100 Things: Days 81-100

Wow. At the time this post is published, I should be in Iceland. It seems both ages and no time at all since I started planning this and it still doesn't quite seem real. I managed to freak myself out towards the end of last week wondering if maybe I was just imagining the whole thing and come Monday it'd be back to work as normal. Don't ask - I was half asleep at the time.

Anyway, here are the last 20 of my 100 sometimes interesting, but more often mundane things.

81. Tuesday 24th May - envelope stuffing
Yes. That's how thrilling my day got. I spent the day stuffing envelopes with our apprentice. Fun fun fun.

82. Wednesday 25th May - venison sausages
Because once again, food is the most interesting thing in my life. Seriously, though, venison sausages are delicious.

83. Thursday 26th May - invigilating
Which lead to me being overly amused that it's a decade since I took my GCSEs. Aww. Also, I finally managed to offload the Chomp bar that's been sitting on my desk for the last seven months onto Molly. FINALLY.

84. Friday 27th May - ESTA
Following the successful application for my Canadian eTA last week, I tackled the USA's equivalent. It asked me whether I was planning on engaging in terrorism and I was oh so tempted to click yes just to see what happened. Don't worry, I resisted the temptation.

85. Saturday 28th May - Shakespeare overload
My sister and I took a weekend trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, home of the Bard. Two plays in a day - Cymbeline and Hamlet, plus the first time I've eaten Thai food at a restaurant. Very nice. Also, Stratford is pretty.

86. Sunday 29th May - sunshine
Second day of our trip to Stratford mostly consisted of me buying a few bits for my trip (mosquito net, finally!) and then enjoying the sunshine outside the theatre. Amy got sunburned.

87. Monday 30th May - surprise surprise...
Family farewell lunch which my dad had intended to be a surprise until my mum, not knowing this, accidentally gave the game away. Nice though, especially the amazing cake from Patisserie Valerie.

88. Tuesday 31st May - tech support
My grandad is finally attempting to join the internet age. Unfortunately for him, his router isn't behaving and my mum volunteered me to have a look at it. My usual ability to fix basic tech things failed completely, but I'm going to blame the old line he has instead of my inability to work out what was wrong with the damn thing...

89. Wednesday 1st June - lunch with Wendy
Wendy effectively managed me in my previous office and since she's away at the moment, we thought we'd best meet up before I left. That is all... see how my life is thrilling right now?

90. Thursday 2nd June - minor freak out time!
Today I realised that I will be in Canada in three weeks' time. Oh good god. I also discovered my phone is not unlocked. Fuck.

91. Friday 3rd June - "smells like weed"
Molly tried my oolong tea. I love oolong. It's lovely, but it does have a slightly unusual taste and smell. As demonstrated by Molly casually stating, in the middle of the office, that it smells like weed. I hadn't really noticed the similarity before but thinking about it... maybe.

92. Saturday 4th June - even more Shakespeare
Toddled over to Manchester to see my mum and catch yet another play - this time King Lear. Very good. In other shocking news, I bought clothes. Not just any clothes. I bought shorts. It is a well-established fact that my legs are not just white, they are blindingly pale, so this may turn out to be a bad decision.

93. Sunday 5th June - Nandos and puppies
I'd never understood the appeal of Nandos but I've been a few times now and I think I'm falling in love. Yummy chicken. The afternoon was spent lounging in the sun, attempting to get some sort of colour onto my aforementioned blinding legs and watching the dogs pretending to be hot dog sausages because it was just so warm.

94. Monday 6th June - umm...
It looks like nothing interesting happened on this day. Second to last day at work? Uh... nothing booked. Nothing interesting cooked... yup. Supremely normal day.

95. Tuesday 7th June - last day
My final day at work, most of which was spent either in a minibus or at work's Skegness site invigilating another GCSE exam. 3 and a bit years I worked there and that's the first time I've been to the Skegness site. Hm.

96. Wednesday 8th June - WASH ALL THE THINGS!
Yeah... I probably didn't need to wash everything, but I did. Because... oh, I don't know. The washing frenzy was followed by a lovely evening with the folks from my previous office, eating tapas and then toddling on down to the pub for a pint and a quiz.

97. Thursday 9th June - towel of doom
Ah yes. The fabled towel of doom has made a reappearance in my life. It looks like it's had a body wrapped in it, courtesy of 3 years of red hair dye stains. I found 3 bottles of the aforementioned dye in the top of my wardrobe and figured, what the hell, I'm going to dye my hair again. Took all three bottles because either a) I missed quite a bit or b) the dye's that old it wasn't taking properly, but I think it's sorted now...

98. Friday 10th June - I drank how much?
Actually, I didn't drink that much. I went out with the most recent set of work colleagues and had a couple of pints of cider (not a problem). Unfortunately, I also had a JD & coke and a shot of sambuca and that was enough to make my stomach hate me.

99. Saturday 11th June - WHERE TRAIN?!
Even with the slight hangover from the above night out, I managed to drag myself out of bed early on Saturday morning to go and see Flying Scotsman with my dad. Unfortunately for us, the timings given last week turned out to be no longer accurate and as we were walking up to the track we saw steam billow up above the houses. No glimpse of the fabled Scotsman. Most pissed off. Somewhat made up for this with cheap but yummy breakfast at Tesco's cafe...

In other news, my phone is now unlocked. I think. Huzzah.

100. Sunday 12th June - DON'T PANIC!
AAAAAAARGH. Actually, I haven't done much panicking. Which is nice. Dad had to drive me to Doncaster, but aside from that my trains all ran on time and I got to spend a lovely afternoon in London with Claire. Claire, who has gifted me this lovely little koala called Harold, crocheted by her own fair hands.

Someone pinch me?

Oh good god. What am I doing?

The Grand Tour: Packing List Time!

I packed yesterday. Somehow. Still not sure how I managed it. Here's all the stuff that I planned on taking.

And here's my finished packing.

Out of that first image, here's the few pieces I decided not to take.

Because, really, when am I going to need a sort-of-smart jacket, another 3 notebooks (there's already 4 little ones distributed through my bags), so many pens, yet another jumper and 4 extra pairs of socks (just in case).

The big bag is 65l, so it's not huge - only weighs about 11kg, so it's also well under my luggage allowance for my first flight. The smaller bag is 25l and can fit everything in it that I'd need for an overnight trip, plus most of my electronics and my camera and associated oddments.

I'm most impressed with myself. I made myself a packing list and I've near enough stuck to it. Some bits have come off it, some bits have been added but I think I've ended up packing about the same amount as I originally intended. For those interested in the whole packing light thing, here's what's in my bags.

In the 65l rucksack:

• Sleeping things:

• Compact sleeping bag
• Mosquito net
• Earplugs

• Clothing:

• Enough underwear for 2 weeks
• Swimsuit
• Plimsolls
• 3 t-shirts
• 3 vest tops
• 1 thermal shirt
• 1 long sleeved shirt
• Walking trousers
• Shorts
• Maxi skirt
• Micro-fleece

• Health & toiletries

• First aid kit
• ~2 months supply of anti-malarials (Doxycycline)
• Diarrhoea management kit
• Sun cream
• DEET
• Water purification tablets
• Toothbrush
• Toothpaste
• Shampoo
• Body wash
• Deodorant
• Moisturiser
• Nail clippers
• Travel wash
• Travel towel
• Flannel
• Lip balm

• Electronics:

• Assorted charging cables for phone, iPod, tablet and camera
• Travel adaptors - one worldwide, one for South Africa & Namibia

• Other odds & sods:

• 2 small notebooks for keeping accounts and journal things
• Torch & headtorch
• Laundry bag (because, ew, smelly clothes)
• Shoulder bag 

In the 25l bag:

• Waterproof jacket
• Phone, iPod & earphones, tablet & keyboard
• Camera, tripod & lenses
• Woolly hat
• Gloves & arm-warmers (I get cold wrists...)
• Scarf
• Sunglasses
• Water bottle
• 2 more notebooks and a few pens
• Spork (a gift from my sister)
• Small box for food or assorted random bits
• Painkillers
• Stickers (because hostel kitchens never have enough to label your food)
• Wallet full of important travel documents

I don't think that's bad going, really. As far as I can tell, it covers everything I'm likely to need and anything that's missing I can pick up along the way. Even if I end up needing more anti-malarials, I'll be able to find somewhere to pick them up. As it is, it feels a bit like I've become the walking pharmacy I so dreaded before I went to New Zealand. And yet, somehow, my bags still weigh significantly less than most people would take on the typical holiday. Go me and my amazing packing skills!

Any tips on packing light? Do share!

The Grand Tour: The Final Countdown

Wow. Just 10 days from now I'll be getting on a plane to Iceland to start my round-the-world trip. Time to get the last few bits of preparation sorted.

Visas

Technically, I don't need to apply for a visa proper until I get towards the Australian leg of my trip. I say technically because while I don't have visas to apply for yet, I have had to apply for an eTA for Canada and an ESTA for the USA. The perks of being a British citizen! Surprisingly, both applications were pretty straightforward although I had to laugh at some of the questions on the US one.

"Are you coming to the USA with the intent to engage in terrorism, espionage or genocide?"

... because, yes, of course, if I was planning on doing any of those things, I would declare them on my ESTA application in the interests of honesty. Umm...

Vaccinations

A few weeks ago I got stuck full of needles. Hep B, Hep A, Typhoid, Yellow Fever... nice. Fortunately, I managed not to have any serious reactions to any of them and they came in a lot cheaper than I had expected. I'd rather have to pay a bit and face my dislike of needles than catch some sort of nasty while I'm away.

I also have a nearly two month supply of anti-malarials. Also much cheaper than anticipated and again, I'd rather have them and not need them than not have them and catch malaria.

On a similar note, my mum has kindly donated her diarrheoa management kit, so I'm fully stocked on rehydration sachets and the like.

Basically, I'm turning into the walking chemist I so disdained before I went to New Zealand...

Communication

In addition to the aforementioned diarrheoa kit (isn't diarrheoa a funny word?), my mum has also given me her old tablet, so I can keep up with the sporadic blogging and more importantly I can book hostels and flights and all the other things I'll need to book while I'm away.

My mobile phone is also going with me. I plan on using local SIMs in it if I'm in a country for more than a couple of weeks (looking at you, Canada). Good plan, yes? Should save me some money, yes?

Yeah...

Naively/stupidly, having read all the bumpf I could find online about whether Virgin Mobile lock their handsets, I came to the conclusion that my phone was more than likely unlocked and I could just pootle over to Canada and slot a nice cheap Canadian SIM in it. No worries.

Which means I left it until yesterday and 11 days until departure to actually test this theory. Take a guess at what happened when I put my sister's SIM into my phone?

Ooops.

This should be pretty easy to sort out, thinks yesterday's me. I'll just go to the shop in town and ask them to unlock it. They say, no, you have to ring customer services and kindly put me on to them. Customer services man goes "uh..." a bit and does some tapping on his keyboard for good measure and then tells me that while the number belongs to me, the phone is still registered to my parents' account and that therefore they'll have to ring Virgin to get my phone unlocked.

My parents. Have to ring Virgin. To get MY PHONE unlocked.

This is ridiculous. Whoever came up with this system is a fucking genius.

So I might just be without a phone for the first couple of weeks in Canada. I'm sure I'll cope - I barely use the thing anyway aside from for tinterwebz.

Other bits and bobs

I have currency. Hurray. Actually, I'm planning on using my cards as much as possible, but there's always going to be times I need physical cash. So I've got a small stash of Icelandic krona and Canadian dollars to keep me going. I fear the dollars will mostly be spent on Tim Hortons... you'll probably hear more about that in a future post.

Shopping has been done. I am now the proud owner of a very compact mosquito net, travel wash (yeah) and a new pair of shoes which I am frantically trying to wear in so they don't eat my feet while I'm away. Woop.

Anything else? Had a farewell lunch with the family. Plans are in place for work leaving do (both current and former offices). And then... well, then next Sunday I get on a train to London and from there...

Adventure awaits.

To the land of ice and fire

Overdramatic title, much.

Anyhoos, holiday officially starts today. At 4:30pm. When I escape from work to get a train to Gatwick. Nevermind the fact that our flight isn't until tomorrow.

I hope everyone is impressed with my ability to pack five days' worth of stuff into a carry-on bag. I am the queen of packing. Oh yeah. Let's ignore the little voice in my head insisting that I've forgotten something. I haven't. I triple checked my packing list.

Moving on. As with New Zealand, let us have a shortlist of things I'm most looking forward to.

• Geological geekery
• Aurora Borealis
• A final relaxing afternoon/evening in the Blue Lagoon

To be fair, that covers most of what we're doing, but there's also the two so far free days that we've not booked things for. There's plenty of little museums and galleries and whatnot in Reykjavik to explore, so I'm sure that'll be awesome too.

Currently, the Met Office says that in Reykjavik it's 0° and feels like -6°. It's also going to snow. Oh hurray for thermal layers...

Now to stop worrying about the train...

AAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH

I think the title is fairly self-explanatory. :D

We're going to New Zealand today (actually, I have to ring for two weddings first, with Zoe in my ear going 'WE'RE GOING TO MISS THE PLANE!!!!!') and then we're going to Birmingham and the weather will be glorious and the traffic will be shit (Something about 1.2million people flying out of British airports today, or somesuch waffle) and then we'll get on a plane and Zoe will be an insomniac and Claire will (hopefully) survive and it will be long and dark and they won't stop feeding us (If Emirates are anything like Qantas) and then it will be Monday instead of Saturday and we will be in New Zealand and SNOW. Or at least COLD. YAAAAAAYYYYY!!!!

(Are you noticing a theme here? Zoe's posts are much better put together than mine, I'm just like WRITE ALL THE THINGS!!!!! TELL THE PEOPLE ALL THE THINGS!!!!!)


Zoe's just told me I'm brilliant at blog writing and that when her fingers are tired, I can do it. YAY. Also, she described my blog writing as just BLBLBLFLERGHGHGBLERGH, or something.


Also, I think that the 2 days to go blog should have been a group of things that happened in twos, like the number of times I had to go through my stuff and take stuff out, the number of spare pairs of shoes I have, the number of jumpers I sacrificed to get necessary stuff in my case... The list goes on.

Just popping to the other side of the world (That almost said pooping), brb.

Amy x

1 Day To Go: "Why are you cutting the money?!"

Sooo, this time tomorrow, we will (hopefully) be on the plane to New Zealand. Please ignore the following madness.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!

Right. Anyways. The packing is done. My poor old bear is stuffed uncomfortably into the top of my rucksack. He is not impressed. Amy had a stupid moment and struggled to sort her packing until she realised that her bag is expandable. Div.

I managed to mislay my dollars for a while despite Amy having thrown the packet almost at my face. In my defence, I was busy sorting out my new (massive) memory card for my camera and didn't actually notice that she'd thrown it at my face.

In cutting into the packaging for said memory card, Amy had another silly moment and thought I was cutting up my dollars. Oops.

Even given that mine and Amy's rucksacks are almost full, they're still both massively under the weight limit for the flight. We are the queens of packing. I'm assuming Claire is in a similar situation. Hurray for efficient packing (apart from grumpy teddy bear).

Things left to do: find my flight socks. I forgot to put them on my list of things, so no doubt I'll end up having to buy some in the airport. Ugh. I also need to leave my dad a nice long list of things that need looking after in the garden so that I can come back to a bountiful harvest. Oh yeah. Priorities.

One more sleep till flight. Given my past experiences on long haul flights, probably one more sleep till New Zealand. Ahhh, flight-induced insomnia.

Right. I think that's enough babbling. Prepare for the ridiculous amount of photos which will no doubt be incoming over the next 3 weeks. HELL YES.

In the meantime, have a little slice of silliness in the form of Aussies taking the (gentle) piss out of the Kiwis.

2 Days To Go: Packing? What packing?

2 days to go. Lots of printing has been done and now the useful information folder is sort of bulging and in danger of bursting. I have a functional iPod again, which is wonderful because it means I won't go absolutely insane on the flight from lack of sleep. I am currently much more interested in this than sorting out my packing. Obviously.

So, for 2 days to go... let's have pictures of possibly the two best birds in New Zealand. Because they're cute and fuzzy and generally awesome and I want to see them.

Kiwi

Kakapo

And in case you haven't seen it, here's a video of Sirocco the Kakapo. He's famous.

If I get to see either of these I will be so ridiculously happy. ARGH 2 DAYS.

3 Days To Go: "So Evil They Named It Twice"

What the title says.

ARGH! After so long in the planning, take off is just 3 days away. This time on Saturday we'll be at the airport. I will be having my usual worry about getting earache when we land. Believe me, I will start worrying about this before I even get on the plane - landing earache is painful. I will also be strongly resisting the urge to make highly inappropriate remarks about what might be in Amy's luggage within range of Security.

A soundtrack is also in progress. Mostly consisting of musicals and Howard Shore and Disney and general ridiculousness.

So, 3 days to go. Let us attempt to get Amy and Claire involved in the blog. 3 things we're most looking forward to?

Zoe:

• Hobbits
• Kiwis (the birds and the people and possibly the fruit)
• Catching up with an old friend from uni

Claire:

• Kayaking
• Whale watching
•  Sand boarding

Amy:

•  SNOW!
•  MOUNTAINS!
•  MORDOR! MORDOR! (so evil they named it twice)

Note that Claire has the only serious answers. Coming up in the ever-awesome world of this ridiculous blog: 2 days to go. Also, Beak is excited to be jetting off. Obviously.

"You may as well just take the chemist with you..."

We're approaching the one week countdown for take off. For me at least, it's not quite sinking in. There's just a few little things left to get sorted, cash currently being the most pressing one. And travel insurance, which I thought might have been fixed by now...

We also have the issue of packing. Well, I say we. Claire and Amy seem to have more concerns about this. I was just going to sling everything I need into a bag and be done with it. Y'know, clothes, toiletries, my old bear Marmalade who goes on every holiday even though I'm almost (oh god) in my mid-twenties... Apparently it's not that simple, because there's an assortment of other things that we might need and we need to work out who's taking what.

First aid kit and various medications would be one. Anyone would think New Zealand didn't have plasters and paracetamol. I am told we should take these with us. Plasters, fair enough - I always take them with me because I'm an idiot and I injure myself on stupid things like dead trees (see this post from Australia). But apparently we also need to take paracetamol and imodium and all sorts of other little things. Seriously, we might as well just take the pharmacists with us.

Anyways, that rant aside... what else is happening? Much route mapping. I don't trust sat-navs, so I've let Google work out all the possible directions we could need and printed them off so I can laugh when the sat-nav goes wrong. Which it probably won't but after that time a friend's tried to send us through a very deep ford... yeah.

I need to start making a New Zealand playlist in preparation for the flight. Well, I need something to keep me sane. It will involve lots of Lord of the Rings soundtrack and probably some Crowded House because we discovered they're pretty much the only New Zealand band we've heard of.

"Can you take your really warm face off my knee, please?"

Last few bits of booking completed yesterday evening. Last hostel, buses for the last few days, the last couple of trips. Oh my.

Sooo... only... just over 3 weeks left until we fly out. Hurray! Pretty much everything booked apart from a couple of things we're going to look at doing when we get there. Dependent on weather and such like.

Speaking of weather, I was overly amused to discover that the New Zealand Met Service tells you how many layers of clothing you should be wearing depending on the temperature. Yay. Currently it says 4 layers for Queenstown, so I need to stock up on more t-shirts.

The itinerary now includes the following:

• Planes, trains and automobiles. And a ferry. And some other boats. And a few buses.
• Whales, dolphins and glowworms
• A variety of oddly named hostels, including The Lazy Shag.
• Kayaking
• Glaciers, mountains, stupidly long beaches
• All the geology
• All the Middle-earth references

It may also include:

• Jetlag
• Loud, out of tune singing in the car
• Navigation errors
• Claire and Amy threatening to leave me by the side of the road
• Sore feet
• Sore arms
• Not enough sleep
• Long days
• Late nights
• Seasickness
• Random injuries
• Snow chains
• Cider
• Taking photos of ALL THE THINGS
• Cheesy MySpace photos
• Not wanting to come home

Most importantly, it includes three weeks of amazing views, amazing experiences and amazing memories. Obviously.

3 weeks to go.