Hola Santiago (Chile)

Just like with Australia and New Zealand, we hadn’t anticipated spending much time in Chile as we had heard it was so expensive, so had planned to literally land in Santiago, book our bus for the next day and then leave, but instead we stayed for 6 days because thats just the beauty of flexibility when travelling. There seems to be a running theme here in South America which is similar to SEA, that everything is compared to the cheapest countries, so in SEA everything is not as cheap as Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Here everything is not as cheap as Bolivia and Peru. What makes its way outside SA (South America) is that these places are not cheap in general! Which is definately not the case. If somehow getting a plate full of food that would feed 12 people for 4GBP is expensive, then please show me cheap!

Yes Santiago has its expensive attributes, but the standard of living is much better than that of cheaper countries and compared to SEA this is like home to us, if only we could speak more Spanish!! One thing that was evidently more expensive was the buses, but then this continent is 4 times the size of SEA and bus journeys are at minimum 7 hours to get anywhere and can be upto 60 hours!!!!!!!! Once again the standard of these are so much higher and for 25GBP you can have your own reclining leather armchair with footstand and plenty of leg room! Much better than 20GBP for Thailands ‘VIP’ buses or party buses as I liked to know them as, with bright lights and booming karaoke. Just to give a bit of a idea of the price difference, as for the next 6 months everything will be South American prices, so always good to set the tone.

The reason for our extended stay in Santiago was a mix of reasonable prices, plenty to do and a really great atmosphere at our hostel. The place we stayed was more like a house than a hostel and although it could have done with a little more revamp, it was a great location and staffed by a great Chilean guy named Ivan who owned the place and Jason who was British and had been working there for 10 months after travelling South America.

To follow suit from our great free tour in Sydney, we jumped straight on the one in Santiago so we could get to grips with the city and learn about where all the good free stuff was. As well as learning about ‘coffee with legs’ , please google it, lots of results will come up, very funny way to get people to drink shit coffee! Walking around Santiago made us feel very at home and although we lacked proficient Spanish, we didn’t feel intimidated at all, apart from when we needed to order food or drinks! This became quickly evident when we came to get lunch, but through the help of our phrase book and what we had learned in Spain in 2010, we managed to order ourselves a feast of steak and pork sandwhiches all for under 12GBP, but should have been well worth about 50GBP!! This became a reoccurent theme as we gained more and more in coinfidence in where we ate, which some of the best food (as always) came from the street vendors, including an ‘As Sandwhich’ which is exclusive to Santiago and is a big sandwhich filled with thinly sliced cooked beef and then SMOTHERED in guacamole, mayo, grilled cheese and tomatoes……….i know mmmmmmmmmm.

We decided to stop stuffing our faces with protein, since we hadn’t really had our fix for 6 months and burn some of the excess meat off by heading upto San Cristobal hill, which you have two options, a venicular train which takes you to the top for a small fee and takes about a minute or a leisurely stroll up the foot path and take in the scenery. Obviously we opted for the scenic route, which after 45 minutes of steep incline, quickly regretted our decision! However we saw the task through and made it to what felt like the summit of everest. On the top of the hill was the large statue of San Cristobal, as well as panaromic views of the whole city below in all its smog and glory.

On our way back from the HUGE walk and whilst eating our second As Sandwhich of Santiago in Belevista area, our attention was drawn to a very odd sight. Now street performers usually perform on the side of the street down shopping streets or in walkways etc. In Santiago they do exactly what it says on the tin and perform on the street when the light turns red, infront of all the waiting traffic! Then when they finish their performance, walk through the traffic and collect their donations! This can range from jugglers, gaucho dancers and a man who has a fake head attached to his crotch and shoes on his hands to make it look like a man doing cartwheels and……………just very odd is the best way to describe it and it needs to be seen to be understood.

Another part of Santiago and Chilean life is the constant presence of stray dogs. Now in SEA they are everywhere too, but they are sadly starving and possibly infested things. In Chile they are healthier than some pets i have seen and are super friendly, why is this?!!! Because the Santiagons (could be wrong!!) feed them, bathe them and get them their vaccinations. So essentially they are everybodys pets that roam free through the city and still have 2,3,4 maybe even 8 meals a day!!! Just nobody needs to walk them, instead if their doggie sense tingles and they know your going for a walk somewhere outside, they follow you as if they were your own.

I think its fair to assume that if the rest of South America is going to be similar to this, than we are going to get on justttttt fine…………..

—ACastling—

Sydney Short Stop Off

After a lot of thought and weighing up our options, which were either spend a little bit longer in Australia or have a whole lot longer in South America due to costs. We decided upon spending as little as time as possible in Australia mainly because we wouldn’t be able to do it any justice with the time we had and the very little funds. Se we opted for a short 2 day stop over and in that time planned to just stay in Sydney.

Although we had very little time, we still managed to squeeze a fair bit in, slightly haltered by the fact we arrived in a miserable rain storm, we did what anybody would do in the situation, go get our hair cut and mooch around shopping centres, woooo! It was just nice to be able to walk around without chaos and not understand what anybody was saying, almost like we went home for a litte bit, especially with the shitty weather.

On our second day however the sun was out but it was still only 18-20degress, which although this sounds insane for a notherner to say, it was f#@king cold! After spending such a long time sweating everyday and waking up in 35-40degree heat, our bodies must have adapted to the heat and we had become accustomed to that kind of temperature! We joined a free walking tour, which is something we would not usually go for but it actually turned out to be one of the best things we have done. I learned so much about British-Australian history and even more history about Sydney itself. I would highly recommend anybody to do this tour, local or tourist, as i will certainly be huting the London tour down when i next visit.

After spending the full day walking around on our tour, we headed to circular quay for some drinks with a Spaino, who we haven’t seen in almost 4 years! It was a quality catch up and a lot of conversation was spent persuading us on switching for the aus expat life. It was a shame we couldn’t spend longer with Spaino as after 4 years, there is a lot to catch up on and a few hours on a school night, is not the best time to do it.

Our stop-over in Sydney had also been very well timed as the Vivid light festival was on, which is a light display that utilizes famous buildings and landmarks around the Sydney harbour, coming alive on a nightime. It was only until we spoke to a few Sydney locals that we realised this was a huge event for them and we were very lucky to arrive when we did.

 

—ACastling—

Travelling Highlight of the Week. (w.b 14th Jan)

As we were passing a coffee place at Thapae Gate, Chiang Mai. An American with a heavy red-neck/hill billy accent and a big bushy beard (containing some remnants of food) resembling Chuck Norris was talking very loudly on a phone and caught our attention.

“…..if you don’t give me the money you can put all your possessions in a bag and you give them to me…”

Although this seems a threatening statement, the thick drawl of his hill billy accent only made the situation more entertaining.

Would we f**k with him? Not a chance, he was massive. But happily giggled from a far, and moved on.

Chiang Mai- the beginning

We are up in the northern part of the country, in Chiang Mai which is known as the second capital of Thailand. Arrived early afternoon on the 7th January, again got ourselves sorted and went for a walk around to get our bearings. We instantly fell in love with the place and quickly compared it to Bangkok, just calmer. Bangkok without steroids.

Chiang Mai is separated into new city and old city. Most of the touristy things to do are in the old city which is enclosed within old derelict walls (like York, if anyone has been) which is a big square, in which all the traffic flows around in a one way system.

We got stuck straight in, and our first full day there we went to Tiger Kingdom. Here you can go into an enclosure and spend 15 minutes with a tiger. There a lot of places like this is Thailand and we have heard that the tigers are chained or drugged, or both and it is not a pleasant experience, but this one isn’t like that. The tigers are just well trained. When we walked in, we were shown the packages you could pick, there were the smallest, small, medium and large tigers. You could pick one, or all 4. We went for the smallest (4-6 months old) going on the theory that they would be playful and more fun than the bigger cats that generally lie there… and they are less scary! We made the right choice, we went into the enclosure and there were 5 cubs being fed, playing, sleeping. We were shown to one which had just been fed, hence quite sleepy and were able to sit with it, stroke it and tickle its tummy. Then a particularly excited cub felt like playing with our one and they began to play fight right in front of us. Very sweet and very exciting. Unfortunately the keepers felt they were getting too playful (can cubs be too playful, surely its their nature?) and separated the two of them so the excitable cub wouldn’t excite our more sleepy cub. However, the excitable cub didn’t agree and kept coming back and became more interested in us and our feet. I was lucky enough to get my toes licked and Adams ankle got a nibble. We got told off, but not the cubs, as we tried to play back. The keeper asked us to move as we were antagonising the cubs, and making them more excited (again, isn’t that what they do best? And isn’t that why we went in with the cubs in the first place?)

After our time had finished with the cubs we had a walk about to see the other enclosures and the other people going in with the bigger cats. In seeing these we definitely made the right choice, the bigger cats were laying around more and more intimidating. Some of the small-medium cats were also play fighting with each other, which was re-assuring to see that they weren’t forced to lie down all day and mainly only when they were tired! Which was also scary in a way. We also found the newborn area where you could see all the real littleys in their ‘creche’ sleeping away. Very sweet.

If anyone wants to do this, i recommend this particular place in Chiang Mai, as the animals are treated well without drugs or chains. A truly fun lighthearted morning.

Moving onwards and upwards

The new year hangover came and went and we left Bangkok on the 4th January. We got an early train to Ayutthaya which is 2 hours north of Bangkok and a very pleasant train journey. Once we arrived we got the 3 baht (Thai currency) boat across the width of the river and on the other side a third party decided to join our group uninvited, a lonely dog who decided to lead our way. For a while we thought maybe she instinctively knew where we were going and was leading us, as every so often she would look back for us to check we were still there! But after a while of carrying our 12 kg backpacks in the heat, the joyous and child-like idea of following the magical dog to our guesthouse wore off. We eventually found our guesthouse via an extremely knowledgable motorbike taxi driver.

As we only had 1 day in Ayutthaya, we quickly dumped our bags, got a map (only written in thai) and rented some bicycles as by the looks of the map it was easily manageable. The map was not accurate, as we are finding with many free tourist maps, and the distances even though on flat road, were very far away. It took us 1 hour to cycle to our first temple, Wat Chaiwatanaram, which is a mass of ruins dating back to the Ayutthaya period (I believe.) Very pretty, it overlooks a lake. I just wish we had more information so we really knew what we were looking at (you may sense a theme throughout Ayutthaya!) We then cycled to Wihan Phra Mongkhon Bopit which houses the biggest buddha partially destroyed by fire and reconstructed again. It was a big buddha. Again, more info would have been great. We then became intent on finding this floating market (as we never got to go to one in Bangkok), so we saw a sign (the only one in English so far) and followed it. We followed these signs for around 5km, and never found it. I recall during our ride we got a bit bored and decided to have a race, during this race I believe we rode right past it without noticing! By this point we had limited amounts of energy and enthusiasm and cycled the 5km back to our guesthouse.

We had a lovely local dinner that night from some very friendly and happy owners and left our guesthouse in the morning, happy only having to spend only 1 night there.

Advice for people who may want to visit Ayutthaya, do it in a day trip from Bangkok, it does not warrant an overnight stay.

We moved on to Sukhothai in the morning, planning on getting the train. We arrived at the train station at 8.30am and found there we no available trains to midday. After asking around we were told to get a coach, which would take 5 hours and cost less. So we did, and it was a comfy short journey where we got to stop at a petrol station and have a good, cheap, freshly cooked and tasty service station lunch! Nothing like the pap you find back home. We arrived in Sukhothai late afternoon and got a songthaew (its a mass taxi which is a converted pick up truck with benches down the side, can fit about 10 people comfortably) to our hotel and got settled in.

We went for a wonder for some dinner and came across this big night market selling clothes and lots of food! We picked at lots of different delicious things; chicken on a stick, thai omelette with prawns and thai savoury pancake with lovely sweet minced beef/pork/something or other inside. During our walk around we found a stall selling fried bugs. Adam looked on, toying with the idea, do I? Don’t I? am I guna be that white guy tourist who buys the bugs and doesn’t eat them? Luckily, he didn’t have to decide as a man with a big bowl of them offered him one to try, “are you sure?” Adam asked, “yes, yes very nice” he replied as he popped one in his mouth. Adam peered into the bowl and found the only cricket out of a sea of cockroaches and swiftly popped it in his mouth and crunched down, “hmmm…crunchy…and salty” was all he could muster. We said our thank yous and goodbyes and Adam walked away a very chuffed man.

As we were located close to the old city of Sukhothai, it was very easy and quick to get there in the morning. We rented bicycles, bought our tickets to get into the national park, and we found that we could rent audiotapes describing each landmark, just what we were looking for after a very uninformed time in Ayutthaya!

We had a great day, we learnt so much and had a lovely time cycling around the beautiful national park which was full of dilapidated wats and ruins and buddhas. It was good to actually know what we were looking at and understand it.

Unfortunately we left Sukhothai the next day, but we could of spent another day there at least. We caught the bus from the old city and began the 6 hour journey up to Chiang Mai, this time with no stops, only a few toilet breaks and the driver doing questionable manoeuvres and speed limits for the age and condition of his bus!

Happy New Year!

       

Ever since we decided to go travelling, one of our major tick offs (bucket list) was to spend one new year in Bangkok, and the next new year in Rio. So since about August time we have been looking into what happens in Bangkok on NYE.

After lots of searching and re-searching we finally decided we wanted to spend it on one of the tallest buildings in the city to get a rooftop panoramic view of the fireworks . We had the choice between Lebua (where Hangover2 was filmed), Banyan Tree (beautiful hotel), and Bayioke 2 (tallest tower in Thailand). We ended up going with Banyan Tree due to prices, location and quality, and we definitely made the right choice!

We took the lift to the 52nd floor and bought our tickets, costing 2,500 baht each (about 50 quid)  for all inclusive drinks all night (choice of nice beers, large range of cocktails, spirits and wine) a DJ and amazing views of the city. We found a spot at the balcony to look at the scenery and sip our drinks (mine a Lychee martini and his a Singha beer), and throw in a bit of people watching and we had a good start to our night. As the drink began to flow, as did the amount of people and by 9pm it was packed, the staff were a bit overwhelmed but the drinks kept coming, as did the offering of packets of cigarettes?!

We started chatting to the people around us, including people from America, Singapore, Korea and Germany, all lovely people with interesting stories and generally good crack, even the Germans! (lols) We saw in the New Year with these lovely people, spraying silly string and lighting sparklers and clinking drinks all round whilst watching every inch of the Bangkok night sky light up with fireworks. (and of course Katy Perry ‘Fireworks’ was playing, but ignored!)

As the night progressed. Adam became the target of a group of gay men (nothing new then) who continued to compliment and insult him at the same time, “from the ankles up your well dressed. Are you sure your not gay?” Which was met with nervous laughs as he left the toilets backwards. On the dance floor we were dancing away to the wee hours with these great people around us with the continuous question of, “are you sure your not?!” Then they watched him dance and figured it out for themselves that he was most definitely not gay.

So to put the night simply. Great location. Great drinks. Great people. Great music (people go crazy for Gangnam style.) Great choice. Defo got our moneys worth.

We would do the night over and over again in a heartbeat. But with different shoes.

P.S A hangover in 30 degree heat is no mean feat especially with no Nandos hangover cure 😦

Merry Christmas from Bangkok

Hi all,

We arrived in Bangkok on the 22nd after a 5 hour mini bus and boat ride from Koh Chang. When we arrived unfortunately Expedia had kindly declined to let the hotel know we were coming, however to our relief, the hotel were happy to help and put us up in the 4 star sister hotel for the night, which was a true taste of luxury. We then returned to our original hotel/apartment the next day and for our troubles the room was upgraded…….win.

Bangkok is truly an amazing city and there is far too much to do within the space of 10 days, which is why we decided to tick off as many things as possible in one day and get as much done as we could in the short space of time we had.

Our first tick off was courtesy of an old Uni friend who is now working and living in Bangkok and showed us around one of the many shopping complexes ‘MBK’. We then went over to Khao San road via our first tuk tuk, which is known as the backpacker epicentre of Bangkok. If you imagine the Zante, Malia strip and the west end of Ibiza all in one place, this was it!! Touts louring you into every bar, small kids selling flowers, stalls selling fried scorpions, cockroaches, maggots, grasshopper, you name it and looky looky men selling dvds, sunglasses and watches, were just some of the sights you could see along the road. We headed for some local food first to line the stomach, before hitting the strip and getting ourselves involved in the action. With the large Chang’s (big bottles) and cocktail buckets having defeated us, we headed our way home, via break dancers and locals dancing in groups to gangnam style. As great fun as it was, i am not sure i could handle staying in Khao San for longer than a night out, as there are much nice areas to explore.

After a day of tirelessly roaming the vast 8 levels of MBK, the next day (christmas day) was tourist time. Starting with the Marble Temple (Wat Benchamabophi) where we saw a lot of buddhas and set some turtles free in the river. We then moved onto the Royal Throne Hall (Anantasamakhorn) where we saw the Thai equivalent of the crown jewels, just with a lot more Gold and bug wings. We then headed over to the worlds largest teak mansion (Vimanmek) where there was ALOT of wood, surprise, surprise! Then we had a break from buddhas, royal ness and fancy jewelry and headed to Dusit Zoo to see lots of interesting animals, which mostly inhabited parts of Thailand. Which given the size of some of the snakes and spiders, Cheryl was very thankful we weren’t visiting those parts!

The next day (boxing day) was again jam packed with wats and buddhas. Ours plans were to ride the sky train to the southern most ferry port and tour up the river. However the tuk tuk driver and his friend decided to take us on a tour of Bangkok and try and drop us at the port where his mate ran £44 boat tours instead of the 10p boat ride we planned to get. Luckily we had our wits about us and kindly declined, but thankful for the tuk tuk only charging us 30p given the distance we travelled, obviously thinking we would fall for the boat tour scam. Once back on track and we found the legit port, we headed upto Wat Arun which had lots of steps and was very steap and provided great views of Bangkok. Then after a boat crossing we headed to Wat Pho, home of the giant reclining Buddha. We then planned to head to the Grand Palace/emerald buddha, however the sarong i had been given from the royal palace was for ladies and they wouldn’t let me go in! So, alas it was to be seen on another day.

The same night we headed out to Siam to visit the various shopping malls with their Christmas decorations and various stalls with live bands on, organised by different beers and spirits, each trying to outdo the other. We opted for the Absolut vodka showcase in the end and treated ourselves to a glass of vodka which came courtesy of a vending machine with a difference…..there was a man inside pouring the drinks! Interesting to say the least.

As they were the more upmarket malls in Bangkok, we decided to head over to Siam Paragon and Central world for a browse. Topped off with a visit to the Siam Ocean World, southeast asias biggest. Which was great fun and we got to see the otters, sharks and penguins being fed. Last night we went for a stroll around Patpong, which feel free to google if you want to learn more, i will leave it at that………very eye opening!

Today we headed over to Chatuchak market on the underground (MRT), which was absolutely crazy, as always, very little organisation and more a free for all with maps that make no sense. We managed to snap up some Bargains and see some very cute little animals, which sadly were being sold in their masses (thankfully not as food!).

Bangkok is an amazing city and i would highly recommend anybody to come and visit, especially if you stay in the Silom area (where we are), which is like a Thai canary wharf. Time to have a little relax now and kick back with a beer, Chang of course.

Bangkok has us now……….

—Stay Classy World—ACastling—

Ban Kwan Elephant Trek

On Saturday 15th December we booked in to do an elephant trek in the north of the island at Ban Kwan. Koh Chang is known as the ‘elephant island’ as there are so many here, but the other treks and other companies do not treat the elephants as well, they live on the roadside next to a very busy heavily trafficked road, are made to do tricks and they do not have as good quality of life

But in Ban Kwan the elephants still live within the jungle with a small community living around them. Each elephant has its own mahout (said “ma-hoot”) which is a person who has sole responsibility for that elephant. They feed, bathe, train, care and build a special bond with their individual elephant.

So, we got one of these funny open truck taxi things that I have explained about earlier, and it took about 25-30 minutes of driving facing sideways along bumpy steep winding roads. All a very uneventful journey until one child became a little bit travel sick and projectile vomited all over the taxi and the people surrounding him. Lovely. Luckily we were just round the corner from the Ban Kwan so we only had to put up with the smell of hot sick for a few minutes.

We arrived under the jungle canopy and instantly it felt cooler. We were offered water and pineapple and then we went on a short walk, following an elephant, to a little river. The elephant went in with his mahout for a little dip, and another smaller elephant joined us. “You can get in” a woman told us and we all slowly, a couple at a time, braved the cold water and swam over to the elephants. We were told we could climb up, which is not as easy as it sounds! Adam was surprised when he put all his weight on, that the elephant didn’t even budge. I climbed up after and was shocked at how prickly they are. I imagined tough leathery skin but it was actually covered in short bristly hairs. Once aboard, we were able to give her a good ol’ scrub and wash her down, and then when she had enough she sunk down into the water and we fell off.

After bathing we walked back up and all formed a queue upon a high elevated platform ready to climb onto an elephant. Somehow we got one of the smaller elephants and a Mahout that looked about 12. But he was lovely with his elephant, singing away to it, and not using his claw like contraption that others seemed to use quite exuberantly. Which we were thankful of. We went for a trek through some thick jungle, up an down steep hills and slopes, which feels even steeper when sitting upon the back of an elephant! We also found that our mahout was a chatty little thing and he asked us lots of questions about us, and we found out that he was actually 15 “same, same” he said, pointing to his elephant. So he was the same age as his elephant!

Towards the end of the trek, whilst we were still moving, he points to me and says “you drive?” In which i freaked out a little and pointed to Adam. He told Adam, “stand up” whilst the elephant was still moving (?) and climb over the bar to the elephants head and to sit himself down onto its neck. Adam did so very wobbly, but managed without falling off, which I was very impressed with. Then the young lad explained to Adam how to steer the elephant with his feet, what to say to make it stop or go. He did a great job! He steered it all the way back to the platform where we were to get off.

Once off, we got to feed them bananas. We were able to get so close, putting the bananas in their trunk and stroking them. On a whole it was a truly unforgettable experience. I would do it again in a heart beat.

As we walked away to get back in the taxi thing, I said to Adam proudly, “you were a mahout!”, in which he replied lazily, “yeaaa I’m a reet hoot.”

Newcastle to Koh Chang (Thailand)

So…we have arrived!

We left Newcastle at 6pm and flew to London Heathrow first for a quick stop off, then boarded our flight to Bangkok at 10.30pm. The flight took eleven hours, in which I slept for 5 of them and Adam watched 3 movies instead! We landed at 4pm local time (7 hours in front) and made our way to our hotel in Bangkok for one night before we headed off in a mini bus for the 5 hour drive to the port and then the 30 minute ferry to Koh Chang which showed just how impressive the island is with the green mountainous view we were welcomed to as we docked in. We boarded back upon the mini bus and made our way to our resort.

For such a little island, there is a hell of a lot of traffic, going up very steep hills which they cannot seem to manage very well, our bus went up at a snails pace, without the driver attempting to drop out of 3rd gear (?) There are also a lot of scooters, motorbikes and what they call ‘taxis’ but are actually pickup trucks with seats nailed to the bed of the truck and metal bars going all the way around. A lot of traffic for a place with no pavements!

We were shown our beautiful cabin by the loopy owner, Maus, who very enthusiastically showed us everything, and we instantly loved it. But whats not to love? A beautiful pool side room surrounded by lush green gardens with little kittens running around. You can’t not like it.

So far we have just explored the area we are in, Kai Bae, which is a small strip of the beach with a busy road with bars, hotels, market stalls, places to eat and a tesco! Bizarrely enough. But what is worse, its green! The food is amazing, trying a different place each night, which costs about 200 thai baht which is about £2. Not bad. Even better, beer comes to the equivalent of 50p. ‘Mazing!

Treated ourselves to a Thai massage, and we are soon to go on an Elephant trek into the jungle! Very excited and will let you know how it goes.

Until then, much love xx.

The finish line is insight

14/08/2012

So since i last blogged, as lot has happened. I have been back up home to Newcastle and spend some quality time with my nearest and dearest, watched the Opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics, been over to Isle of Man to visit Cheryl and her parents, watched a lot of Olympics on the TV, came back to then watch a lot of Olympics in person (wow) and then got to see the closing ceremony as well. All in all it hasn’t been a bad 4 or so weeks.

We still have a few more hurdles to get over including the Carnegie Challenge Cup and Leeds Festival being over the same weekend, which we brand the whole of Wembley for the CCC Final and send 150+ volunteers and interns over to Leeds festival. Alongside that we still have the Olympic internship to manage and the Paralympics to see through. Although its been a daunting task, its certainly been worth every minute. I will certainly look back at this summer as one of the greatest, including all the high and all the lows, the people i have met along the way and the opportunities that have now came along.

Although it is still 5 months away, travelling feels much closer now and the more i keep thinking about it, the more it is really starting to settle in that we are really doing this, which is quite scary. Leaving the world behind and essentially shutting off from everyting!!! So i am now into the final sprint (yes i am dropping Olympic puns) and with only 4 weeks to go of the Olympic internship, i am quite sad that we are so close to saying bye to this place and these people. I will then only have 2 weeks left in the office before again i find myself saying bye to yet another place of memories and finally wave Leeds Met goodbye after 5 and a half years of service (including being a student). The final hurdle will be in November when me and Cheryl finally wave goodbye to our house and to Leeds, potentially for a very very long time.

—Stay Classy World—ACastling—