I’m still stuck in 2011

I always go on about books books books, so I thought it would be nice to write about something else for a change!

I am all for 2012… bring on the exciting future! However, I always feel a bit sad when another year passes… how will I remember 2011? What will stick out in my mind when I look back on it? I have a sneaking suspicion that if I don’t make a point of remembering all the ace things I did I might be tempted to dwell on all the rubbish stuff, like having no money and going to bed at 10pm every night for pretty much a whole year.

What I particularly want to savour about 2011 is all the great places I went to with friends and family. I hope you don’t mind if I take a moment to bore y’all with my reminiscing…

May: South of France Road Trip

In May my mom and I flew to Toulouse, hired a car and set off to see some really old stuff and some really big scenery. After spending a couple of hours trying to get the boot of the hire car open in the dark in the airport car park we finally set off! We went first to the medieval walled city of Carcassonne for a couple of days and then we drove down to Argelès-Gazost which is a town nicely perched on the edge of the Pyrénées. It was an amazing few days, some of the best mountains I have ever seen and some of the scariest roads I have ever driven on! Carcassonne was beautiful and bursting with history and character and the Pyrénées were breathtaking. We saw plenty of mad people cycling the famous Tour de France routes (literally cycling up mountains), we passed them lazily in our little car, occasionally stopping for a photo opportunity. The people were amazingly friendly as well! They spoke less English than we were expecting, but it was nice to not have everyone immediately speaking English to us, and made asking for directions a hilarious show of nodding and gesticulating wildly (neither of us speak French very well).

The view of Carcassonne from our hotel window

On our last day we decided to hop over the border to Spain for a couple of hours before we had to drive back to Toulouse. We stopped for lunch in this bizarre place called Luz-Saint-Sauveur which was pretty but full of flies! They were everywhere: settling on our lunch as we tried to eat, clouding round us wherever we went, it was very strange and a bit gross. So, after an hour or so we decided to get the hell out of there! Sadly, my mother drove into a wall about a mile outside the town and shredded two of the car’s tyres. This meant we had to go back to hellish fly town and await our fate which turned out to be a 2 hour wait and a €300 taxi drive back to Toulouse. Apart from the last few hours the whole trip was brilliant! Here are some of my favourite pictures from the mountains:

Shredded tyre

June: Devon with “the gang”

Every year my sister and brother-in-law (Anna and Si) go to the same caravan park near Woolacombe with “the gang”. I’ve kind of become a “gang” member over the last couple of years and this was my second year going to Devon with them. It is pretty much the most relaxing, fun, chilled week of the year. We just sit on the beach, go to the pub, go for walks and generally bum around taking photos and filming silly videos for 7 days. Perfection! Here are some of the photos from this year…

Sunset on the caravan park

Anna and Si asleep on the beach!

A pretty groovy cave

Filming a music video at sunset

Sunset and sheep

July: Last-minute trip to Seville

In June I decided really last-minute to go to see a friend in Seville for a week. The flights and hotel were cheap, and Seville turned out to be a beautiful city. It was sooooo hot though! I have never been so hot in my life, it was 40 degrees or more every day and over 30 at night! Thankfully they have amazing air-conditioning everywhere, even outside! I was so hot and lazy I didn’t even take many photos while I was there. Most days were spent lounging by the hotel roof-top pool and wandering the streets in a sun-drunk haze, seeking refuse in cool department stores.

If I could sum up the week it would be like this: sun, tapas, el corte inglese, spanish omelette, book shops, red wine, sushi, giant tuna, cocktails in a can and very generous measures of vodka in bars. It was great! Here are three random photos I took whilst I was there…

Are all tunafish this big?!

The Torre Del Oro

A book with my name on it!

December: Goa

Around October-ish a friend asked if I wanted to go to Goa with her and some friends. I ummed and ahhhhhed about it for a while, but in the end thought I’d be mad not to go! It was an amazing holiday, full of fun times on the beach, amazingly tasty food and fenny – a disgusting strong local spirit which tastes a bit like distilled sick. There were nine of us in total, which was perfect in the end as we could split up and do separate things without feeling bad but there weren’t too many of us to all go out together. Half of the group went on a two-day jungle trip where they got to ride elephants while the rest of us went to visit this great beach called Palolem and a really fancy resort called the Leela Palace. On the last day we all went on a trip to see this massive waterfall – this involed a 45 minute jeep ride through rivers and forests, it was pretty cool, if a tad uncomfortable!

The temperature was perfect, it was hot but not too hot, in the evenings it was warm but not stifling, and the sea was the most amazing temperature ever. The sand on our local beach was so soft it crunched underfoot like snow. If you took away the biting ants, mosquitoes and the things that stung you in the sea it was like paradise! The only unfortunate thing about the holiday was that a few of the group got quite badly ill which was a real shame and the second half of the holiday was a bit more subdued than the first.

I could spend a whole separate post talking about Goa but I don’t want to bore everyone too much. Here’s some photos instead!

I bet my friends I could fit in my suitcase!