Iceland Part One.

We decided to celebrate our two year anniversary with a trip to Iceland. Possibly buying too much into the idea that the snowy, natural hot pooled laden country was romantic, what with the impossibly beautiful Aurora lights dancing across a dark sky and all. When in actual fact, Iceland, is a beast; a wild and wonderful, brutal and sharp beast.

We took our opportunity to get off work over Easter and woke bright and early..... or should I say dark and early, to catch our flight into the capital of Reykjavik where we were greeted with rain and ice rather then mountains of puffy snow. After a brief lesson on how exactly to say "Reykjavik" (Rek-la-vick) we hired a car from a locally run family company and after a little down time snoozing and scoffing easter eggs in our lush hotel room, we gotsa exploring.

Starting with the local town. Reykjavik was instantly and very obviously an art strewn, style studded hub of activity and delicious dimly lit cafes. The boutique homeware stores, local designer clothing range and art galleries send me swooning. After pacing the high streets calculating a list of "must haves" in my head, I was rudely brought back down to earth, once converting it to the pound and left feeling gibbed with an albeit funky, lousy postcard (which I later found out converted to 8 pound!!?? Ouch). From here we checked out the misfits, vintage apparel, knock off goodies and fish markets (where you could also purchase shark meat), all under one roof at the weekend Flea Market down by the harbour. By then James had had enough, time to get out of the town, and by that he meant shopping, and start on the golden circle.

The golden circle is the THE tourist route about town. You can take, slightly over prices tours there, or in our case drive the 300km loop yourself and have a lot more freedom. It consists of a number of landmarks and naturals wonders. We made it to the Thingvellir National Park's rift valley, which is essentially a rather impressively rough and wild park in which you walk over constantly moving tectonic plates and through the space the past earthquakes and shift has left behind in the cliff face. From here we moved on to the huge and mostly frozen Gulfoss waterfall and then onto the Strokkur geyser. Strokkur is a geothermal geyser set amongst smaller bubbling mud pools and craters. Every 4-8 minutes with almighty power she erupts up to 40meters high sending out a rather delightfully hot mist if standing nearby which tingles your numb hands into a false sense of security.

By this point the weather had turned WILD. we scrambled, saturated back to our little bug of a car and stripped down our freezing layers, hanging in front of the car heater near naked, desperate to get a little warmth back in our bones.

We had booked (which is recommended if going at a peak time of year) into a session at the infamous Blue Lagoon. One of the many geothermal swimming holes around the country. We lost ourselves in the unruly and wonderful gigantic countryside of Iceland, eventually weaving our way down along the coast line and back up to the lagoon, arriving two hours later and just in time for our slot. The lagoon, strangely situated right next to smoking factories, is a luxurious feeling retreat from the cold. The ice melting around the rocky exterior and blackened country side seems polar opposite to the light turquoise natural and soothing tones of the bubbling hot water you immerse yourself into. Here there is a bar so you can enjoy a drink whilst floating away as well as a high end restaurant and gift shop. Around the outsides of the pool is free samples of their expensive and world wide acclaimed natural silica mud mask which comes from the silt from the Blue Lagoon. So with a white mud mask face and a drink in hand we sunk into the heat and let the day of ice cold exploring come to a beautiful end.

One of the MANY beautiful boutiques 

Down by the sea side 

Starting the morning right; all rugged up, local newspaper, fresh loaf of bread and coffee in hand. 

This guy. Happy anniversary to us!

Hiding out in the beautiful cafes 

Winding down to her rugged coastline 

Thingvellir National Park 

Malta + Gozo. The Rest Of.

By day three, we were bandaged up, on the mend and ready to set the trip right. We swapped the two scooters, for one car, which ended up been the price of one scooter, and finally begun exploring Gozo in all her beauty. We took to the maddening roads and explored tiny villages, gigantic dome chapels that protruded out far above the rest of the town, found little cobbled ally ways to get lost in, and enjoyed lunch in the sun.
Trying our tourists hat on, we visited the Ggantija temples. The temples date back to the Neolithic age of 3600-2500BC, which makes them more then 5500 years old and older then the pyramids of Egypt. They are believed to be the remains of a fertility cult and place of worship. Pulling down our sun-hats we wandered around the remains trying to grasp some sort of concept of how miraculous and, well, old, the pieces were while the heavy heat beckoned us to head towards the coast again. We headed out to Azures Window next, which is a giant natural limestone arch near Dwejra Bay.

After we spent the afternoon touring around some of Europe's few sandy beaches before heading home to light the BBQ and enjoy a few beers as the sun eventually faded.

The next day we made a bee line for the port to catch a 10 euro (round trip) boat over to the infamous Blue Lagoon on Comino Island. The ferries only run through certain hours each day, meaning the island much quieter after hours. The usually sandy bays leave the pristine clear water sparkling and offer breathtaking visibility. We wandered around the island, trying to escape the wild tourist crowd and thumping banana boat music by the wharf for a little solitude and beach space and found ourselves following the edge of incredible limestone cliffs that sheltered the bright aqua waters, which added to their clarity. The island offers a few trashy food trucks for the many many UK folk and an up market resort on the opposite side. There is beautiful abandoned barracks and a church just north of St Mary's watchtower which is made of limestone and overlooks sea.

The final day, we set aside for Malta underestimating her size and how much there was to see and do there. We booked a car online finding this was actually our cheapest option and picked it up once arriving. Starting at "Popeyes Village" near the harbour, which sat on the edge of a truly incredible green bay before making our way to the beaches of Ghanjn Tuffieha and Golden Bay for lunch. Afterwards we made a truly painful journey to try and find the all natural St Peters Pool which had been recommended by some friends and quickly found that the maze of the island without any map can become time consuming and rather stressful. The huge dusty sand stone cities spread themselves widely across the island and we found ourselves bouncing along one after another, desperate to escape some crazy traffic and hit a highway. We eventfully found ourselves circling the city of Cottonera.

Although the tension levels were somewhat high, having been trapped in the mysterious and maze like city I couldn't help but find the place whimsically beautiful. We eventually gave in to her wrath, found a park and took a walk around down by the harbour before looping back up through the stale muggy one way streets of stacked cutesy buildings. The harbour walk was very beautiful and showcased a postcard worthy view of the capital Valetta across the channel. We found ourselves hanging over the railing people watching as the locals sun baked and took a dip down on the rocks. Along the coastline were big concrete pools that enclosed sea water into a pool like setting and smaller insets of concrete squares trapping the sea water, which almost looked like little spa's to enjoy. Finally, as time got away from us, we jumped back in the car, and made our way out to, what we thought was, St Peters pool, for a much needed dip off the rocks at 6pm while the jagged cliffs arched over us capturing the evening sun.

Our final few hours found us in Valetta walking the old town. Valetta has to be up there with one of my favourite old town quarters. Almost completely closed off and bustling with atmosphere, shops and restaurants every which way. After scouring many menus we finally found a sweet wee Maltese style kitchen and enjoyed some delicious cuisine before heading to the airport and saying our goodbyes.

Over all, with all the mishaps included, Gozo and Malta proved themselves well worth the effort. The mind blowing waters, wild terrain, unique dusty dome filled cities and most of all incredible company made our trip a VERY memorable one. So goodbye and thank you to that heavenly place, and to our friends; see you again soon, for our next joint adventure- Turkey. x

The dream team on our final dinner in Valetta 

Flowing away, Blue Lagoon love

Popeyes Village, Malta. 

The lady herself in Valetta. 

Azure Window and her wild coastline

The view of Valetta from Cottonera and myself taking a moment to appreciate the beauty.

Those cuties, along the winding streets of Gozo and the green bays of Comino

The stunning waters of the Blue Lagoon

The rugged coastline of Comino Island and our St Peters Pool. 

Malta + Gozo. The Beginning.

The trip had been long anticipated, four nights in Gozo, a tiny wee island just off of Malta in the breath taking Mediterranean sea. We were to fly from London, leaving home at 3am, and meeting my very best gal pal and her new husband on their five month honeymoon around Europe.

Other then flying home to New Zealand three months earlier for their wedding, there had been some serious lack-age of hang times with this beautiful lady, and for many MANY years we had lusted over traveling such idyllic places together. It was hard to believe we were actually about to fulfil that dream.

And then it happened, again. Two days prior to go time, I became seriously unwell with a rather delirious gastric flu. Each day that passed (although of course it felt like many more then two), I was growing more and more eager about making the flight, given I still couldn't hold food down. The night before, desperate for some magical sleep, where I would wake up glowing and hungry, I instead, cried and shook and tossed and turned and moaned the night away, weighing up the need to check myself into hospital rather then onto a flight. 3am rolled around and with a very determined boyfriend waiting with my bags, I limped to the hour long taxi out to the airport holding a plastic spew bag and the long journey began.

It went like this; Taxi to the airport, nearly pass out in the line at check in, get a wheel chair and embarrassingly get rolled through security and on to my gate by a lovely fellow named Ian, as I hid behind my hair and clutched my stomach. Normally, a very nervous flyer, due to my fears of lack of control and claustrophobia, I was not in my element. We took flight, and three agonising, sleep deprived hours later ( in a different row to James might I add, which added to the horror given my condition) we arrived at Luqa airport in Malta. The sun was shining and as soon as it touched my oh-so-white newly British skin, I felt miraculously better, but not really. Here we waited for the other half of our party, for another two hours with me curled up on a hard park bench in the car park trying to sleep while James tried to force feed me. But then they arrived, and it was wonderful, albeit with slightly less jumping around and squealing then I had pictured.

From here we caught another taxi for 40 minutes to the furthest point away, the harbour at the other side of the island, equaling a mere 35 euro, which helped ease some of the pain at least. On to a half hour ferry, before arriving in Gozo, where we took ANOTHER cab, to our dreamy destination.

It was 4pm, but we were there, and it was worth it. Our accommodation was located in a very local orientated village on top of a hill called Xaghra and was a 400 year old farm house through air b&b (and Victoria's connections).

Our first impressions of Malta and Gozo were of amazement. The sand stone houses and temples were incredible and in Malta, it seemed as if they went on forever. Driving through Gozo felt peculiarly like driving through the middle east post war- in the very best of ways. There were few people around, many abandoned building and a gnarly rough roads. The tiny streets had you weaving all over the place, dodging cats, cars and potholes like a mad man and painfully driving around in circles with no real bearings or landmarks to speak of. But once you made your way out of the maze of the villages and down the hills they were situated on the land spread out flat, presenting many of their proud vineyards.

Our house was like an absolute dream. Closed off from the street by a big surrounding sand stone wall, you entered through a beautiful old wooden door, and into the sizeable courtyard. Over flowing gardens greeting you head first, with ivy growing up the surrounding outside walls. The house had a very summery outdoor flow, each room was entered from the outside and connected by a outdoor hallway of sorts framed with big arches and pillars. The rooms upstairs along with the roof top pool and second balcony. The foundations were all original and the dust on your feet as you padded to the kitchen in the morning very much set the scene of where we were. I was immediately reminded of the beauty of Tuscany while we were sitting in the courtyard eating meals with the stray cats coming to say hello.

After exploring the complex I slept the afternoon away, while the gang went exploring and came home with two scooters and a few bags of groceries from the local store. They forced my first meal in days into me and I hit the pillow soon after for a blissful nights sleep.

The next day, feeling groggy but determined to Be better, we decided to go out exploring on the scooters and find a nice beach to relax at. Quite confident on scooters, having driven them all over Europe and Asia, we jumped on and began weaving through and maze of streets. We had no map, but none of us could care less, loving the wind in my hair, smiling wide we leaned this way and that, feeling right at home. But before we really even knew what was happening, James and I were sliding, the bike was gone, we had almost perfectly in sync flung around 180 degrees and were sliding down the steep hill on our stomachs, our light summer clothes and skin breaking the fall. We came to a halt in the middle of the road, and after checking on each other for major injuries James jumped straight up to retrieve the scooter from across the other side of the road before it got hit by oncoming traffic. I sat, stunned and shaking trying to process what had just happened, hesitantly checking for something broken until the other two arrived and took me off the centre of the road to assess. "Fuck dude are you ok?!" they panted.
"Are you ok" those three words. Anytime you are not ok, they are sure to be there three words that'll make you crack. I burst into tears unsure if I was in fact OK. But thankfully, I was, we were, and once realising this, between sobs and shaking I started laughing, slightly confused as to how the hell we had managed that. With a bruised, swollen and bloodied knee and calf, bloody forearm, hand, wrist and hip and cuts across my thighs, we slowly scootered back to the house to clean ourselves up and assess the damage further.

Luck, so far, was not on our side, this trip around.

Our Beautiful Abode "Dar Rahal"

The beautiful sandstone cities of Malta. 

I will play this video 2,000 times in the next 5 years

Very exciting news for myself, James has been working away at putting together our 5,000+ photos into quick fun videos from our three months traveling Europe this past summer. We have divided them into each country so heres the very first... Croatia. I guess it wont mean as much to you as it does to us (and its not too amateur, we are new at this movie making business) but hope you enjoy anyway, even just a little bit.

xx (ps. sorry its pretty bad quality on here, better if you don't "fullscreen")

Heres to the dreamers...

Do you ever feel like you should have done life differently? Surely you do. I feel like everybody must. Even when we shouldn't. I shouldn't I know that, really I do. But theres always something we could have done differently. Some might be little like not letting that break up get you down so bad, or leaving that job that made you miserable sooner. Some bigger, like what you may have studied, how long you stayed trapped in a bad relationship or who you may have married. We all have something.

This word regret doesn't really sit well with me. I use to say, that I don't have any regrets, as a believer in fate, you must accept that everything happened for a reason and lead you to where you are now. The people you met, the corners you turned and moves you made. They needed to go that way. And in truth this is still something I believe in. But its hard sometimes to properly accept it. 

At the ripe age of 25, and on the cusp of coming into my 26th year it might sound insane to even be pondering such matters. I guess as a classic sensitive scorpio, dreamer, and lets face is FOMO these are things I often consider. I theoretically spent the last five years of my life, either saving to travel or travelling and yet the more places I go, the bigger the list grows. It seems to be a never ending battle. And moving every year (at least) for the last eight years can get pretty exhausting. But still the list of ambitions, destinations and goals continues to climb heights I fear I will never be able to reach. I do try hard to channel these thoughts into appreciation and reflection of the places I have been luckily enough to go to, the things I have been lucky enough to experience, but my wanderlust is stronger then my reason. 

Currently, living and now working in London, I have a love hate relationship with the big ol smoke. There is definitely some beauty in the place but mostly its just a resource to get me from "A to B", or should I say "Q to S". And so, the place itself, doesn't seem to rub off on me quite right. The longer I'm here, and I'm talking day by day, I find been surrounded in the rat race and highly consumer driven environment to be slightly upsetting. 

I dream instead, of a much simpler life, one where each day is a new and unknown adventure, sunsets admired from a beach in Nicaragua, aching legs from a hike in Venezuela, visiting villages in Uganda and biking around the streets of northern Thailand. No end date in sight, no need or must, just to be. I guess its this dream that keeps me here, its this dream that i'm working on, its the one with vegetable gardens, chickens and puppies, big kited out kitchens, beach strolls, books removed from their boxes and sitting together on one big wall and just ONE place to call home is the dream that makes me ready to go home. 

In spite of all this longing and dreaming, lusting and wondering, and maybe London restraining, heres some dreamy pictures of silent abodes around the world. 

Happy Weekend. 

 

This World is Whack

I’m not sure if social media marketing is been creepy and sending a whole heap of tree-hugging, animal activist, peace on earth groups and mantras to my accounts and side bars of late or if it truly is becoming a more talked about, read about, acted upon topic. I certainly hope it’s the second for more reason then one. But, either way, something seems to be a-changing.

Every day I find myself reading (maybe been unemployed currently should be added to those options above also) about world wide equality, saving the snow leopard, Rhino week, global warming, the Ebola epidemic in Africa etcetera, and today was this…

So How Fucked Are We

Now I like to think I’m a pretty do-gooder kinda gal. In fact I’m quite sure some people regard me as a more hippie trippy character but this is one thing I hate to admit I suck at. I quite like to jump on the band wagon, spread the word of better practice and believe I’m doing my bit but at the end of the day there’s a hell of a lot more I could be doing. Yesh I don’t even know how to recycle properly. It’s sad but true! I’m quite embarrassed to admit it! James is constantly pulling things out of the wrong recycle bin as I biff it in a semi confused, semi pretending I know fashion or picking something out of the regular bin that can be recycled and all I really do is give a little shurg and an “oops”.

I like to blame it on other reasons; “if I had my own house I would have a scrap bucket, and environmentally friendly appliances. I really want my own chickens and would LOVE to grow all my own vegetables. But I live with other people, I have no jurisdiction over what toilet paper we use, I cant make people turn their lights off” or “but I’ll re-use this bottled water container”, “ I cant afford to buy those cleaning products/clothes/alternatives” and “I NEED new clothes and those shoes are so cute.” I also like to tell myself that there are much worse people then me in this department.

It is time for a change. Which is why I am admitting to my rather disgusting ways and challenging you to do the same. You don’t need to write about it and bore everyone like I am, but you could make a mental note (or physical one, list writing is fun!) of the things you do currently and all the things you can do more of. Having a little reflection time on your input to this global issue and your effect on the world is something we should all do. I’m sure we all mentally assess how we are doing at work, or our gym regime so why not take into account the bigger picture too. You might surprise yourself, maybe your already fantastic without even knowing it and you can pat yourself on the back.

 I know what you are thinking too, that you’d rather not think about it, you don’t want to know, admit or confront your crappy efforts, it wont help, I’d rather sit and watch the Kardasians to feel better about myself. But seriously I challenge you.

Here’s mine; I have added every little thing that I think helps the cause, because at the end of the day, as this great website suggests, every little thing DOES help!

•         I live a relatively vegan lifestyle. I don’t eat meat or dairy products and I keep my eggs free       range
•        I am pretty good at saying no to plastic bags, combing buys into one bag if needed, or putting them in my over sized hand bag or backpack
•         I’ve recently started biking (and will be biking to work as of next week) to save on transport money, time and get some exercise. But it helps a heap with my carbon foot print too and that feels pretty good. 
•         I like to shop vintage and second hand. I love finding great cheap finds at op shops and when my draws are busting full I make sure I take everything unwanted to an op shop.
•         I like re-using bags, brown paper ones will be used to death.
•         I love my keep-cup.
•         When I can I do grow my own herbs and veges
•         I like to walk
•         I buy organic foods when I can
•         I turn off lights, t.v.s etc (usually)
•         I don’t use vege/fruit bags at the supermarket
•         I usually use a cold wash

-        

Things I am going to do better:

•         I’m going to find a local vegetable market I can hit up in the weekends. London is sure to be a great place for it, the food will be so much tastier, healthier and hopefully cheaper, plus it seems like a cute idea and getting in the habit of eating seasonally is great practice.
•         I’m going to ensure I take bags to the supermarket each time and say NO to plastic bags ALL the time.
•         I’m going to try try try to stop been such a big consumer, get a little more minimalistic on it. This talk by ‘The Minimalists’ I am going to soon should help a lot with those guilt’s.
•          I’m going to get a clue about recycling and actually use them properly.
•         I’m going to buy more plastic containers for the kitchen in an attempt to ditch the gladwrap

I know it can be an overwhelming topic and you can feel pretty small in the scheme of making a change. I definitely feel out of my league on these kind of topics. But if we all pull together, in the same way we are being useless idiots then there’s hope yet. Its time to start owning our decisions and consequences. No one is asking you to do anything radical like sell your car or ditch large food distributers  (although wouldn’t it be awesome!?). You are been asked to help yourself and the beautiful world around you by holding your groceries or flicking off a switch. I sure do hope people can be smart enough soon.

10 Things for London

It has come to my attention of late, that I have been thinking about Asia a lot. Maybe a little too much considering I currently reside in London. Europe and Great Britain, among other continents are at my feet. And so its really not very fair to be flying away to far of places, rather then appreciating and experiencing the new ones that I am in, now is it?

Therefore, I have decided to write a list (cause I really do love lists) of ten things I love, so far, about England as a little introduction to writing, loving and being here, in London.

1)    Firstly, she’s an oldie, but a goodie; the travel. How easy and cheap it is. I have just finished three months around Croatia, Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal and already I have firm plans in place for Wales in November and Morocco for New Years, as well as weekend trips around UK. Not bad.

2)    Followed by a simpler pleasure: flowers. London seems to have a lot of flowers around, peoples rose gardens for example. Plus there is literally corner or just street side pop up stalls with people selling beautiful fresh flowers every day, and for a great price. Hell in a few weeks I am going to a flower market in east London, how blissfully dreamy does that sound

3)    The various conferences and festivals. So far on my calendar is a talk about creating a minimalistic lifestyle and its benefits, and an annual ‘vegefest’ festival with nutritionists, chefs, naturopaths and doctors on vegan and vegetarian living. Ermmm drool!

4)    Transport. Now let me clarify this one. Albeit I understand that the bus systems and underground is somewhat amazing. That it is in fact bloody handy to be able to casually travel an hour to go out for dinner or to visit a friend. Back home you would never drive from Auckland to Hamilton for a lovely dinner out. Here the trip is really quite reasonable. But I still can’t say I love it. What I do love is that you tend to walk a lot. You can walk to most things you need, and even still there’s walking to the tube stations or bus stops and around your destination. Back home there’s a very drive-down-the-road mentality which I’ve never liked. If I can walk to it, I’ll usually opt for that.

5)    Shopping. Oh I hate that this has made it to my list, but it really is painfully amazing.

6)    The Marc Darcy’s and hipsters. You know the honest to god lovely, down to earth, lover boy Marc Darcy type. They really do exist and I just want to give them a big hug and plant one on their cheek. And then there’s the juxtaposition of the hipsters, who I can’t deny to love too. Their funk, style, attitude problems, tattoos, creativity and the fact their normally down for a vegan burger. Sold!

7)    The bookstores. Oh me oh my! The bookstores! Back home we seem to be lacking severely in this department, and I really can, and often do, spend absolute hours pacing the shelves, oooh-ing over the covers, stroking the spines, reading every cover and blurb and taking notes on my phone. Sitting in a silent corner and breathing it all in. Plus 12 pound for a book!? Don’t mind if it do.

8)    The parks. We have parks in New Zealand and I’m sure they are very nice. I just can’t say I’ve been to many of them. And I think if you ask most Kiwis you will find they say the same. The beauty of that is, that we don’t really need them. We all have a big back yard with a deck and barbeque, its common culture to have one of these at the beach too for those blissful summers. Oh that’s the other thing, the beaches. They are also everywhere with wide open public spaces. But, here, you do need a park, and they are quite lovely. A lot of people head there, even when the weathers not so flash, and there’s something magical to be said about having a picnic in the park or even just going out, to go to a park and wander around with all the other fresh air seekers.

9)    Bike culture. I have wanted an adorable old school Rayleigh bike for longer then I can remember, but in a country, who drives everywhere (see no. 4) there’s not a lot of point to spending absurd amounts of coin on a classic bike that are bloody hard to come by. But by week two in London I picked up a sweet new second hand ride and today I picked up a sweet cane basket to add to it. In the weekend my partner and I went for a cute wee bike date and it was actually a lot of fun and made getting from A to B in London seem a lot easier. We have both decided to bike to work too, transport can be very time consuming and expensive and there’s not a lot of time either side of work for exercise. Lets hope the summer warmth sticks around for a little while longer yet.

10)  And finally, getting to spend every night in bed snuggled up with James. This is the first time we have lived together, and its pretty dam special to have that guy around all the time.