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So some (ok numerous) have sent some serious hints that i havn't updated for a while....and even calculated it for me and let me know its been at least a month..oops...yes i do still live...did not go down a dark alley alone and am perfectly fine!
After leaving the Rivella and Chocolate country i came back to UK and met a school friend, Emily, in London who had been in America for the last 3 months. London never fails to suprise me and after only one night we escaped after being locked in a kitchen (with no utensils at all i might add) in a hostel in which a shower was in the middle of our room the the whole place situated next to a pretty dodgy and neglected graveyard (i was waiting for the zombies to come get us while we were sleeping...) The non utensiled kitchen meant we had to settle for the Tesco ready made meal of non peeled carrots in numerous quantities dipped in stingy amounts of hummous.
From London we decided to give the City of Bath a go..mainly because it was one of the few buses that had places to let us escape from the graveyard as soon as possible..and because the trusty lonely planet said it was a good idea..and we believed it until it took us an hour and a half and the directions of 9 different people (i'm not kidding) to complete the journey of less than 1km to our hostel. Turned out to be a really cute place..made friends with a swan when we went on a river cruise, did our yearly exercise and walked back (if you ask em..yes my directional skills were awesome) but didn't actually make it to the star attraction of Bath - the Roman Baths... well techinically this isn't true as we did do our best and tour the gift shop...the entrance fee was £12.00 each and this was a bit out of budget range (stop laughing everyone at home!) so we settled to looking at the Abbey instead which only required a donation-but was just as impressive and we even got to go down into this freaky tomb and saw a dead persons remains...lovely... Backpackers in Bath didn't have a kitchen- dinner for the 4 night stay; Hummous and carrots- thank you M&S.
Moving on from bath we decided we wanted to give Wales a go and this lead to a stop for a couple of nights in Chester-That was after a nice 5 hour stopover in Bristol where mum suggested we go find some nice cathedral she knew of but we couldnt find it and got to spend 5 hours in the bus stations (don't worry- we had carrots and hummous to keep us company...). Chester turned out to be pretty cute...old...stone pavings...but still had little bit of uniqueness about it...England decided to turn the summer off though so we instead tested all the bakery's and restaurants that lined the Chester streets...mmmm.... Lastly i made friends with a squirrel in the park which were so awesomely friendly it was almost (almost) as cool as making friends with the elephant in India...managed to split one cashew nut into about 1000 pieces to make them go further and lure in the squirells for longer...soooo cute... for some reason Emily got bored of it after 10 minutes and i now apologise for making you stay watching me for about 40....
Llandidno in Wales was the next stop of the trip- and don't worry if you're still trying to work out how to pronounce that because it took me about a week- note- if you grab your key board and just mush up all the letters like you're really angry then try to pronounce it you're basically speaking Welsh- and even more acurately spelling it correctly too- this is mainly due to the fact that vowels don't seem to be important in any words you see anywhere and have sadly been forgotten (see the photo's for my evidence..). Shouldn't be too harsh on Welsh though- was rather amusing to hear it in the post office while its telling me to go to counter two and i have no idea what's going on until the English translation finally kicks in- and if i learnt i i do think its a pretty language... Wales also gained points for the fact it's cheap...well cheaper than England anyway! And guess what- no more carrots and hummous! But to be fair that wasn't only because we could almost afford food anymore but the sight of a raw carrot and hummous at that point in time would have both made us sick...that saying..something about having too much of a good thing goes bad (excuse my lack of quoteness)..yeh its true...a month later i've only just recovered from my fear of raw carrots and have now accepted them into my life again....
Turns out Wales is not only really cheap but awesomely pretty as well- Llandidno, which is right by the coast was great as i was back living by the sea, even if i was too woosy to go for a swim in it- mainly due to the freezingness we generally felt the moment we stepped foot out of the door...every time... also learnt that umbrella's are necessary but totally useless and the wind will break it every time- good people watching actually if you're really bored...think we counted 5 flipped umbrella's in one morning once... Being adventurous we went walking up on to the hills right at the coast- absolutely stunning!- then walked along the coast all the way to Conwy (by the way-whoever told us it was 3 miles- you're wrong..it wasn't...it was like 30!)...but anyway we got there and saw the famous castle from the outisde which i've got to say was quite impressive (price may have come into factor again for the reason we couldn't observe it from the inside as well but no worry's!).. On our last day we attempted to go to pklkjkljl fhfhylyl lhlhlk (i actually can't remember what its called but it looks about right..).. after waiting an hour for the right bus (on the wrong side of the road) then another 40minutes on the other side in the pouring rain while asking every bus driver that came along if it was the right one, we had no success and ended up going to the movies instead which i've got to admit was one awesome splash out... (a whole £7.50 to watch a film i think it was...but it was worth it!)... So wales gets the big tick for a nice place even if i can't understand what the people are saying (when speaking welsh and english) and truly is pretty... impressive number of castles.. impressive lack of vowels... impressive price of non carrot hummous food- Wales won me over!
Bank accounts in mind me and Em then headed up to my Grandparents house in Kirkby Lonsdale in the Lake District for a couple of days which was sooo relaxing... home cooked food and free beds (in my favourite little attic room with a house so full of every book you can think of i reckon it's going to burst one day!)! Grandad took us on a walk up on the hills where we had a nice geography lesson and learnt about limestone pavements (which at any age are suprsingly fun to hop along...). Also managed to stretch out a planned walk around the town about 10fold when i insisted i bring a plastic bag incase i found any blackberries... needless to say when we returned home at 5.30pm we had 700g worth and made into the awesome dessert of crumble yet again (this english berry thing is really getting me hooked!).
I'm now back in Ilkley and working again! Will be awesome tommorow when i can look at my new bank account (which i'd like to point out is really hard to get in England because you have to prove you're not a terrorist first- i'm not kidding) and tommorow hopefully i'll get my first paycheck! I'm working full time, 5 days a week, at the Crescent Hotel which is about a four minute walk from where i live. I do four days on reception/bar and one day housekeeping which i enjoy...nice being back in routine and to have a home again... and don't tell my parents but i actually don't mind cleaning or the housekeeping part at all....except for brass... if ANYONE has brass in your home you're nuts... ALL of the hotel has brass door handles...and after i spent about twenty minutes polishing the first one a customer opens the door and his fingerprints are all over it- i almost cried!!!! I'm also doing 1/2/3 nights at a restaurant waitressing at a place which is literally like 15 seconds walk from where i live so super handy! Pretty posh but aweomse again to get the extra money...i might not have to live off rice all next year as i thought i would!
Thanks for all email/ SNAIL MAIL and even packages! They're awesome! (especially mum's who's uaully consist of the very practical and useful thermals...awesome!).
Hope you're al lwell
xx
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