Turtles!

Thank you so much for visiting whilst I was away. I am very pleased to report success!

I saw two turtles! Both in the middle of laying nests:

So fantastic to see them in the wild, being all natural and stuff. And getting to touch them, however briefly.

And I also saw a hatchling!

Just one, but I saw a baby!

I struggled through the heat and humidity and was rewarded with live turtles around me. Maybe not as many as I had hoped for, I certainly didn’t waste my time over there.

Regular updates will resume soon 🙂

Fly, fly, fly away

I am always startled by how many views I get even when I don’t publish something.

I mean, look at that. In the last week I have published a grand total of two posts (one about dragons and one length one about writing) and yet I still have three days where I have 40 plus views. And yes I am aware that views and visitors are different, but this still means a whole bunch to me. To know that people are out there, and they are coming along to this little blog of mine.

So thank you.

The reason I haven’t been posting anything lately is because I’m going on holiday, and I’ve been panicking slightly. Okay, more than I realise. I think I’ve got everything I need, the last few bits are drying on the rack, I’ve packed an excess of books and printed off all the bits of paper I might need to wave at people.

But I am nervous. It probably isn’t going to go wrong, but there’s always the possibility. Lost luggage, missed connections, and since this is a solo holiday, I’m leaving behind the partner and friends.

Of course, I reckon as soon as I get out there and see some turtles in real life, I’ll be fine. That’s what I’m doing by the way, going out to Costa Rica to volunteer with a turtle sanctuary. But between now and turtles I have to get to the airport, catch two planes and between them cross 5,340 miles. I’ve done a lot of travelling in my life, so I know what I’m doing. I can’t quite explain why I am so nervy, but I’m just going to roll with it. In all probability the worst thing that is probably going to happen is misplaced luggage, but the airline I’m with is pretty good.

So, I catch my coach to the airport rather late tonight, my flight is at stupid o’clock in the morning tomorrow, and by the end of Wednesday, I should be in Central America. Long flights across the Atlantic are long.

What this does mean for the blog is that I am going to be in a place where internet is, at best, patchy. I’m going to try and schedule a couple of posts during today (all hail the technological marvel that is scheduling) so that the blog doesn’t just go dead for a couple of weeks, but you’ll next here from real time me when I come back and want to share a lot of photos with you all.

Until then, I hope that whatever you are doing for your summer, you’re having a good time.

Amsterdam

Hello my lovely readers!

As you have probably noticed, I’ve not posted in a while. This is because I was on holiday! I should have mentioned it…nope, no I didn’t. Oh well. I was on holiday, and it was good!

Day 1: Arrival at Amsterdam after an ungodly start (4am in the morning does not a happy princess make) but we did a canal boat tour, and then a walking tour of the red light district. It was really interesting actually, from a historical and economical point of view. Legalised prostitution lowers crimes rates, lowers those kinds of diseases and provides a good level of tax for the government. Although I was surprised the first time I went past a window, since I had no idea how it worked before we actually went there. The river boat tour is good as well, since there are loads of canals. Not as many as Venice, and all man made, but lots of water around the place.

 

Day 2: We went to the Zoo! Just me and my partner. Oh yeah, it was a holiday with my partner’s family plus other halves. It was really good, and there was a planetarium, but it loses something when you can’t understand the presentation. Lots of animals, such as Lions, Zebra’s, Giraffe’s, monkeys, small mammals, red panda’s, and lots and lots of tortoises! So many tortoises, I was so happy. I like tortoises as well, my can actually see them favourite animal. Although it did rain a lot right at the end of the day. A really goo zoo, especially for an inner city one.

 

Day 3: The Rijksmuseum. A musuem with lots of dutch things in it. It was pretty interesting and took us most of the day to go around all of the collections, stuff about the house of orange, trade, history, collections. All that kind of stuff. Amsterdam is full of musuems.

Day 4: A quick walk around a market, and some shopping for souvenirs. I came away with a delftware tortoise and a couple of dragon statues (naturally). We then visited The Amsterdam Musuem, which had a fascinating exhibit called DNA Amsterdam, which was the story of amsterdam itself, including these little questions where you would pick a short animation from a selection to do with the time period, and at the end you got your Amsterdam DNA. I was 60% Creative and 40% Freedom of Thought. Most interesting fact: the musuem was the civil orphanage until 1950.

 

Day 5: The last day, it was a week (as in the weekdays) long trip. We woke up, went to a film museum called the Eye, which was kind of cool, but we only did the free bits. Me and then partner then went to the Maritime Museum, and he got to play on a life sized model of the ship called The Amsterdam. I had no idea he liked ships so much until we went to a place filled with them! But there was a whale exhibit, navigational tools, atlases, and even an interactive experience that I managed to break, whoops! Fun time though, and then we came home, on a delayed plane. Obviously.

Now I’m back in Norwich! And there will be more posts to come, but I thought you would all like to know what I’ve been doing 🙂

Day 30: Your dream for ‘tomorrow’

I’m one of those people who has very little idea what they’ll be doing in the next month, maybe six months, let alone in one, two or five years (it’s my most hated question in an interview).

I hope that my doctor’s appointment at lunch today goes well and we can sort out a plan for how to deal with my low iron reserves (read anemia).

Tomorrow I shall be going up to Manchester, so I hope that I have a good morning at work, and that we then make excellent time whilst traveling, since it’s going to 4-5 hour journey anyway.

I hope that I have fun this weekend in Manchester at the Spring National that I am attending.

Little over a week away from Easter break, which also involves empire, and I am so looking forward to the first event of the year.

In three months I shall be moving out of my current house and into a new one with my boyfriend, I hope that we find a nice place within our budget which is near to our friends for socializing purposes.

I hope that I will be able to renew my contract when it runs out in July, or find another job here because it’s lovely and I like my co-workers.

A dream for the future is to become a web developer, and have a job which I like and doesn’t stress me out to much and feels very fulfilling (I’m asking a lot, I know).

I dream of traveling to various places in the world, I really want to go to Yellowstone park, and I’d love to go on a tiger sanctuary tour.

I dream of becoming a published writer, this one would be really good to achieve and is probably the one closet to home at the moment, since I am working on my novel right now.

 

I guess I do have some dreams. I’m doing lots of little things to work towards them, but I think as long as I continue to work towards them, then that’s all good.

And that concludes this 30 Day challenge. It only took me three times as long as it should.

Next up: AtoZ in April.