Split, Croatia

Bok all from Croatia!

First of all HAPPY 89TH BIRTHDAY to my wonderful, amazing, incredible Nan! I hope you have a great day and please know I'll be thinking of you all day and love you very, very much! Can't wait to see you again soon xoxox

This morning we got up about 6.20am, finished packing and then walked over the street to get the 76 bus to Waterloo. Here we got the easybus to Gatwick airport (which is advertised as London, but is actually closer to Brighton!!). We had a 'Bridget Jones' moment though, as it was raining a lot this morning. We were waiting at the stop in between buses and a bus drove past, speeding through a puddle and soaking us both. Jamie and I both screamed/yelled - was not funny at the time but it is now!!

Checked in and hung out at the airport until it was time to board. The flight took just under 2.5 hours and I passed the time by reading a fair chunk of my book. My favourite part was the views from the plane. It was a beautiful clear day down in the Mediterranean area, and the pilot was kind enough to tell us to look out the window as we passed Venice. Those of you who read my blog a lot know I love it when my trips cross over, and today was no exception. I stared out the window at Venice and pictured the self conscious, nervous 18 year old on her first trip in Europe. Mum and I visited in January 2011 and absolutely loved it, we had a fantastic time. I closed my eyes and I could still picture all the tiny streets, the squares and the great times we had. Made me miss you Mum xox It also made me realise I've come full circle, as we flew from Venice to London, and that was the first time I visited England. And now look at me! I'm very proud of how far I've come in the time since. 

As we approached Split, we began to see some of the 1000 islands that lie off the coast. Stunning! The water was a blue/green colour and was absolutely beautiful. We both started to get really excited about seeing and experiencing some actual summer weather! We stepped off the plane and immediately felt the wave of 30 degree heat (but it's nice here, not humid and awful like Brazil was!). Then we had to queue for immigration. It's funny travelling with someone with an EU passport. Jamie just sauntered on through with all the other EU people. Meanwhile I stood in an 'all passports' queue for a good 10-15 minutes. He got the suitcase while I queued though so it actually worked well!!

We got the bus into the old town and then walked to the cafe to meet the owner of the apartment we are staying in. She met us and was really nice, and showed us to the apartment. It's wonderful! Jamie did really well. We have an air conditioner (most important thing!!!!!), a lounge room, small kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. Perfect! We both find it pretty funny though when people ask where we're from - "I'm from Australia, he's from England. I live in England and met him there though". The lady just looked at me confused haha. 

After a quick rest we went walking through Split. My first impressions here are that it reminds me a lot of Italy in some ways, which makes sense as you can get a ferry there from here across the Adriatic. The little alleys remind me of getting lost in Venice, and the squares of any Italian town. But then you get to the water and the park areas and it's more like a jungle! We ventured aimlessly through the streets of Old Town (and had an ice cream!), set inside the Diocletian Palace which was built in the 300s by the roman emperor Diocletian. Today its walls look more like a fortress and form the skeleton or shell if you like of old town. We ended up walking along the water too which was nice. Then we started climbing up the hill for a view of Split, and we were not disappointed! The way up reminded me of Cambodia, with palm trees and insects making lots of noise. We sat up the top and admired the view then began our descent. I accumulated four mozzie bites at the top, but after the flea bites (which aren't itchy anymore but look horrific!), mozzie bites hardly even seem annoying. I'll survive!!!!

We had dinner at a restaurant recommended to me by Caitlin who I met in Greece last year called Fife. I had a seafood risotto (proud, Mum?!) and Jamie had some sausages. Was pretty reasonably priced and the view was nice. The Germans smoking all around us wasn't so much! Such is life in this part of the world I suppose. 

We wandered around and looked at the town at night. Stopped to get some groceries and got to the checkout, only to find out it's like France here and you have to weigh your own groceries, so back we went! I hate that. Have found quite a few people (including the lady on the register) to be rude so far. Hopefully that doesn't continue! Now we are chilling in the flat. Tomorrow we are doing a daytrip of Hvar and some other beautiful islands. So this evening and tmro evening are the only time we get in Split, but I think it's enough to be honest! Wouldn't mind longer to relax a bit but I feel like we will see everything :)

Love to all (and happy birthday again Nan!)

Claire

Xoxox

Back in London! Columbia Road Flower Market and the V&A

Hey everyone!

Sorry I didn't post yesterday, got home and was so tired after unpacking etc that I went straight to bed. 

Yesterday was pretty annoying to be honest. I was aware that First Great Western (who run the trains from Cornwall to London) were having a strike this long weekend, but had been assured by the man at the train station that the 8.15am service to St Erth (where I would change trains) was going ahead. So nothing could go wrong, right? ....WRONG. Rocked up at the station with about 50 other people. It got to 8.15....no train. After 15 minutes we pressed the assistance number and were told by a voice the train had been cancelled. Everyone was really pissed off and we then formed a queue and everyone borrowed my pen to write down what journeys they would have to take instead. I'll admit, yesterday was the first time in a long time that I've thought "sod it, I want to go home!" Doesn't happen very often, for the most part I'm having a great time. But after waking up four times because I was so itchy from the bites, I was not in the mood for a train strike. 

Lucky for me I ran into the girl who had been sleeping in the bunk above me the past two nights, and it turned out she was heading back to London too. So we spent the remainder of the day working as a team to run to platforms, secure seats on the very busy trains due to the strikes and secure luggage space. She even leant me a jacket as - unusually! - it was very cold on the train. It wasn't until we finally arrived at Paddington at 3.30pm (about two hours later than we thought we would) that I realised neither of us knew each other's names. Funny how you chat all day sitting next to someone and don't know the simplest thing about them! It turned out her name was Alana. She was on a two week trip and came from Canada. I was so glad of her company yesterday, she made my day bearable!

Got back to Paddington and got the tube and bus back to the flat. It's strange how quickly seven weeks went. I remember leaving feeling like I was never coming back, and here I am already! Cecilie met me at the flat as she had been staying the last two and a bit weeks, and gave me the keys. I did fairly well. Three lots of people have rented my room over the last seven weeks and the only thing missing was my top sheet. Bit weird, but never mind! That's pretty good considering! Everything else was still where it should be. 

I spent the night doing two loads of washing, cleaning everything, vacuuming and unpacking all my stuff back into my room. So by the time 9.30pm rolled around I was absolutely wrecked and watched some TV in bed. Then I crashed about 10.30pm. I only woke up due to itching once. Mark gave me a huge bottle of aloe vera which I doused myself in as well as the steroid cream, and I placed some frozen peas on the worst areas before bed. 

Woke up at 8.30am and lay in bed for a bit. I was in a wonderful predicament this morning - what should I do?! As itchy as I am and sometimes I do feel homesick, I must say it's pretty bloody amazing waking up in London and trying to pick what off of my London List I should do. Life is so hard ;)

The weather said cloudy but no rain, so I chanced it and didn't take an umbrella. My first port of call was the Columbia Road Flower Market, which runs from 8am to 2pm on Sundays only, about a 20 minute walk from my flat. The market probably stretched for about 100m, and I walked down the road taking in the sights, sounds and smells. There were lots of sunflowers, hydrangeas, orchids and heaps of other flowers. The hydrangeas reminded me of the ones in our backyard at home! I had a chuckle to myself at the vendors all shouting over each other in their 'Norf London' accents - "free for £3, two for a fiver!" 

I then walked via Brick Lane market to Aldgate East station, where I caught the district line to South Kensington. I watched 'The Young Victoria' movie and learned quite a bit about Queen Victoria the other week whilst in Wales, so I was keen to finally tick the 'Victoria and Albert Museum' off my London list. Affectionately called 'The V&A', is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, and houses over 4.5 million objects! From the movie I know that both Victoria and Albert loved art and design, so this is a very fitting museum!!!

The museum is huge - 12.5 acres to be exact. I found the best way to explore was by walking around aimlessly, and this seemed to work well. I started off in a section about the history of fashion, dating from 1750 to today. It was interesting reading all the blurbs and seeing how all the fashions have evolved. My personal favourite was the 1920s, and I loved looking at those dresses and picturing the likes of Mary and Edith from 'Downton Abbey' wearing them. 

I walked through lots of galleries, seeing designs and sculptures from all over the world - China, Southeast Asia, India, Israel and the Middle East, Europe. My personal favourite were the two cast courts. These two rooms contained huge plaster reproductions of statues and sculptures from Spain and Italy mainly. These were popular in the 19th century around the time the 'V&A' came about, as people couldn't really afford to travel at the time so coming here and seeing Michelangelo's 'David' for example was the closest they would get to Florence. I also liked the 11m long glass blown chandelier adorning the main entrance!

After a great couple of hours (I love the free museums here!) I went walking. First I walked down to Green Park and past Buckingham Palace. Now it makes sense why Victoria's statue is out the front - she was the first monarch to live there! I'm so excited for September 13 when I get to go inside the palace. Watch this space! I continued on to Big Ben, and then walked through to Trafalgar Square. It made me feel a little sad walking through all these areas and seeing all the places I visited with Erika, Brendon, Mum and Dad. But in Trafalgar Square there was a fantastic group busking and playing popular songs on violins! I kept walking up to Oxford Street, and here I popped into Primark to buy a new top sheet, and then did some grocery shopping. 

Whilst trying on a shirt in Primark I caught a glimpse of my bites and they've actually gotten worse :( Must admit they look so awful that I got a bit of a shock and had a bit of a sook. I think I just need to accept that at least for the near future I'm going to be itchy and sore on my legs, arms, back, hands and feet. It's just not fair that it happens just before I'm headed to Croatia for the first proper summer weather I'm going to experience since February. Can't be helped, guess I just wear my summer clothes and not care when people look and whisper (which, no matter how much I tried to tell myself otherwise, kept happening at the 'V&A'). Can't be helped, time to toughen up and push on!

I walked back and now I'm in the flat packing for Croatia. I'm so excited!!! Jamie will be here later (he's been in Sheffield this weekend trying out for the Europe AFL team, but didn't get in :( ) and we are catching a bus to Gatwick Airport tomorrow morning. 

See you all in Croatia - it's forecast to be 33 and sunny all week!!!!

Love to all

Claire

Xoxox