Come on grab your friends, we're going to very distant lands...

Okay, new itinerary! I did spend a while on it only to look at last year's itinerary and realise it was a much more sensible format! Oh well, it'll at least give you something to puzzle over!

Just in case puzzling isn't your style, I'll type a quick itinerary below. 

At this point I'm actually excited but still sticking my head in the sand so I don't have the worries of buying cat food or travel insurance, let's just leave those to a last minute panic! As our old pal Pinkie Pie would say, I'm nervouscited, which at this point is a huge upgrade from my usual state of pre travel terror. I don't usually do excitement, I usually worry and tell myself I'll be excited when I've finished worrying (a trick that never works), travel is usually an exclusively terrifying ordeal (which brings me to another point which will need a whole other blog post!) with no excitement whatsoever! 

Anyway, without further ado, here is my itinerary! 

Fly from London - 7th March

Arrive Wellington - 9th March

Leave Wellington for Auckland -17th of March

Move from Auckland suburbs to city centre - 20th March

Fly to Sydney - 23rd March

Fly to Melbourne - 27th March 

Fly home - 1st April

Arrive home - 2nd of April

My Layovers are in Singapore which is a fantastic airport sporting a butterfly garden, cinema, koi pond, and apparently the biggest slide in any airport in the world... So they say. 

Are you thinking that you know someone who went to Australia, they went out there and worked or cleaned a hostel and they stayed 6 months or a year, they made so many friends out there, they came home a different person, full of confidence and with friends for life. Are you wondering why I'm only going for 9 days? Well that's because I'm not that person who goes for 6 months and cleans hostels and makes magical friendships, I'm just doing the best I can and I feel ashamed I'm not that person but I'm really not. I'm the person who can't catch a bus into town anymore, I'm the person who is scared of loud noises, open spaces, the cold, the wind, the rain, buses, heavy doors, you name it. So 9 days is better than nothing because I really could be doing nothing, it would be so much easier, but I'm not, I'm doing this. 

Anyway, I hope you didn't think I was moaning or ranting, I wasn't, that's called honesty. 

More to come, have a great day! 

The world is not in your books and maps, it's out there.

It's hard to watch my very favourite story unfold and not find myself drawn to the words within it that seem to strike to the heart of many of the issues I face. How am I not to fill with tears and a little guilt when Gandalf urges Bilbo to go out and live his life, when I hide behind my fears so readily. I would sooner read a hundred books, study maps and learn pieces of new languages than step outside for a moment to experience the world that created them.
Watching the Hobbit yesterday I felt particularly like I was being targeted when Gandalf says to Bilbo: "You'll have a tale or two to tell when you come back."
"Can you promise that I will come back?" Asks bilbo,
To which Gandalf replies: "No, and if you do, you will not be the same."
How could such lines not strike such a chord when I am sitting, 11,000 miles away from all that I love, knowing I heard those very words from a hundred people before I left. I was saving this post for my return, but I will admit now that I am still the same. This trip hasn't made me stronger, braver, happier. It hasn't "made me into a woman" nor has it made me fall in love with New Zealand (although I may have a little crush on Wellington, don't tell anyone!). But I can't say nothing has happened. This trip has made me aware, that in my most humble opinion, I won't ever change or find what I'm looking for until I learn to let go of my fears. I will always have unreasonable expectations and will move my boundaries to make sure nothing ever meets them, because I couldn't dare let my guard down. I know now too that I am still to afraid to really enjoy things in the way that other people seem to. The best experiences become nightmares when I suddenly panic over what could happen back home, or weather I even HAVE a home anymore. And when I do feel happy, it feels so fragile and I know any moment I could be crying over spilt milk. Lastly, and I hate to admit to this one, I feel lonely, I just don't feel right on my own. I don't know yet whether I will grow out of it, or whether I will always need someone to share things with, but at this time in my life, I do. This trip has been amazing. Not always happy, in fact I think I may have cried every day bar two, but I am adult enough to see adventures are not all good, and the line between great and terrible is very fine. It HAS been an amazing trip, but the next one will be better, because now I know more about ME, and where I need to change. (But not how quite yet.)
I did see the Hobbit in the Embassy Theatre, where the world premier took place, I did see it in 48fps, and I will see it again if there is any way to; it is MY trip and if I want to be a nerd then I will!!
It was glorious I am happy to announce and I look forward to it's release on DVD next month.
I will leave you with this most wonderfully quaint yet sincere quote from The Hobbit,
"Bilbo had many hardships and adventures before he got back. The wild was still the wild."

Let me put it this way....

I don't like it.
No, I REALLY don't like it. I am 1 spider in my bed away from walking back to Wellington/on to Queenstown, or preferably swimming to Britain. At least Britain never left spiders in my bed.