Staycation; Stay Cornwall

Settling down to catch up on The Great British Bake Off (Yay! It's back!) means I can write all about the lovely time in Cornwall I had last week. Along with Alex and his parents we had our first holiday as a foursome in the lovely coastal town of Mevagissey in the southern part of Cornwall.

As it was our first one I was nervous that it was going to be a bit stressful and intense, but thankfully I was wrong! Despite having a 7 hour drive there, and an 8 hour one back because traffic is a nightmare and Cornwall is rather a long way away, I came away feeling entirely relaxed. I think it says many a good thing about a holiday that, even though it was book-ended by spending far too long in queues and trying to find ways to avoid the motorways, I still left feeling rather chilled. At first I couldn't quite put my finger on why this was the case, I wanted to figure it out so I can replicate it, but now I've decided it's because I knew what to expect and that's the beauty of a 'staycation'.

When abroad I struggle to completely and utterly relax because I have a great sense of 'I may never come back - must do EVERYTHING', and things don't fully work how I'm used to which can always scupper plans. However, I know how England functions, and there's a relaxing comfort to that simplicity. Also, though Cornwall is a long drive away, it being in England means I don't have the fear of never being able to do things that we may have missed so I'm far more content with a calm schedule.

The full days we had were spent visiting the Eden Project, Mevagissey's museums, the Lost Gardens of Helligan, Tintagel, Padstow, Truro and Falmouth. I would advise anyone going to Cornwall to visit all of the same places, they each had their own entertainment and charm.

The Eden Project is a place I visited the only other time I've been to Cornwall many a year ago, and if I lived closer to it I'd go regularly. When we were there the weather wasn't that great, but the mixture of indoor and outdoor areas at the Eden Project made sure that high winds and a spot of rain didn't negatively impact the day at all. We all had a lovely afternoon meandering through a fake Mediterranean forest, then a fake rainforest before finding a friendly bumble then heading home!

In keeping with the garden theme, we also visited the Lost Gardens of Helligan which were only a 5 minute drive away. The Gardens are essentially the grounds of a Victorian country house that was neglected for many a year before being rediscovered. The house has now been split into flats and sold off so can't be seen, but that doesn't matter really, the gardens are lovely and vast enough to take up a good portion of a free afternoon.

Another 'lost house' we visited was the ruins of the castle of Tintagel, the supposed home of King Arthur. Alex's dad was ready to tell me King Arthur wasn't real, but I point blank refuse to accept it and adored picking out which nearby cave would have been Merlin's magic home. I grew up on Disney, it's perfectly allowed. The ruins themselves weren't overly spectacular I'll be honest, but the views were stunning.

After history and naturing ourselves out, it was time for city visits. We went to Truro and Falmouth, pretty standard cities with all you'd expect such as cathedrals and museums. Both are definitely worth a visit for a potter. Padstow is also worth it for a stop off, there is very little there, but there is the National Lobster Hatchery! I adopted a lobster and named it Livin' La Vida Lobster. Obvs.

Now to prepare for the next adventure - my masters in Leicester!

Well I Guess This is Growing Up

I've been trying to formally construct this post since last night, but it hasn't happened yet and I think it might be too much of a struggle to. Therefore, please bear with this stream of consciousness as I try to make sense of all of the things and ultimately have a point.

In case you missed it, the Olympics are currently occurring in Rio! Not just because I'm a fan of sport, I really rather enjoy the Olympics. I think they're a great set of events that can teach you a lot about different disciplines, make you wish you had made more of an effort in P.E., and really bring together so much of the world. It seems to me that there have been two main focuses of these particular Olympics; controversies such as doping, and love. The latter has been particularly shown through there having been at least five engagements that have taken place at these games. In a world so full of hate, angst and separation such a focus on love is of course welcome, appreciated, and rather lovely.

Having said this, the focus upon the engagement between phenomenal athletes Laura Trott and Jason Kenny got to me last night, and rather irritated me. I agree that mentioning it and suggesting that they're now the most successful Olympic couple EVER is a lovely point to state, and is damn fantastic. However, I felt last night that their relationship was as much a focus as Laura and Jason's individual skills as the phenomenal athletes they are, and that just didn't sit right with me. There's a time and a place for everything, I feel the amount their relationship was gone on about was too much for during a night of competition. They have a wedding day coming up, could it not be saved until then? I even said to myself, if they get divorced are their medals going to be taken away from them? No! Then why are we asking cycling experts about how worried Laura's going to be about Jason's fault starts, and not explaining to those watching at home the ins and outs of why the start was declared faulty in the first place?

It then struck me that my reaction to this was actually a projection of my own feelings. I'm a bit all over the place at the moment, even more than usual if you can believe it. Having just earned my degree I'm very much aware that the world is my oyster, I'm on the cusp of forever, and that is all very exciting. However, it's also absolutely terrifying and intimidating. I look back on my time at Keele and I see how much I've grown, but then I also see myself still making mistakes and needing to mature. Due to that, I think I've become very protective over what I've achieved and outright done well in an attempt to compensate for still making mistakes. For example, my degree is mine. I 110% accept and appreciate the help and support I received from friends, family, faculty and faith, but that certificate has my name on it because I achieved it, and the thought of that being taken away from me or being overshadowed by a relationship is rather scary right now. This is probably because I'm still too young and immature to be fully secure in my independence whilst being attached, but I'll learn I'm sure, I want to.

I said at the beginning I hoped I'd manage to make a point with this stream of consciousness, and to be honest I'm struggling with concluding this post. Perhaps that's the point though, this is all part of growing up and that is a continuous process that can't concluded really. I'm 22 years old and still very much trying to figure it all out and establish my own identity, which means of course mistakes are going to be made and insecurities had, but that's ok. I think I just need to chill out and have some patience, which is something I'm telling myself constantly. I feel I've definitely progressed from my time at Keele with a solid team from there and continued from home that seems to be willing to be there with me while we all figure it all out together, and that's fantastic, I could not be more grateful. And despite taking issue with when it seems individuals have been swallowed by their team, it is definitely better to have a team that not.

Thanks for making it through this post, it's much appreciated. I hope it made some sort of sense.

Californiaaaa, There I We-eee-ent

I got back home on Thursday morning, but jet lag is still in full on disorienting, being a bitch mode. Grrrr. I think though that this is the perfect time to write about the wonderful two weeks Alex and I had in California to remind me that the jet lag is totally worth it!

As I mentioned, Comic Con tickets didn't happen for us, but this merely altered our holiday as opposed to ruin it. We flew from Manchester to San Diego, with a stop over in New York, then visited Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Yosemtie and then flew home via New York from San Francisco. I'm going to detail it all place by place and try to keep it as concise as possible, but bear with me please! There's a lot to talk about.

We arrived in San Diego at pretty much bed time, so it wasn't until the next day we got any kind of sense of the place. Our hotel, the Wyndham Bayside, was in the perfect location. We woke up, walked out of our hotel and were literally right on San Diego Bay. The place was stunning.

This picture was taken from the deck of the USS Midway which was about 7 minutes walk away from our hotel. The Midway is an aircraft carrier that was used against the Japanese in the battles in the Pacific during the Second World War. Now, Alex and I are both history fans and like to nerd out on holiday, but I'm more taken with 'people' history, whilst he's into weapons and strategies etc. This was evident in the fact that while we watched a film about a particular battle in the war that saw one group lose all of it's members bar one, Alex managed to admit it was incredibly sad but focused on the strategy and facts, while I cried that so many people died. War is a terrible thing, but it was wonderful that in a park, view-able from the deck, is a statue of the famous nurse and sailor kiss, reminding all around of love. It was from that statue that we walked along the bay, passed the convention centre that was hosting Comic Con (there were almost more tears), through the lively, cultured Gaslamp Quarter to the Hard Rock Cafe for some lunch. We then pottered through a nearby mall and I bought some trainers - a must do thing as American branded trainers are super cheap compared to English one, same with Levi jeans but more on that later. Unfortunately, we then found out we didn't have enough time before our flight to travel round the bay to the sea lion island, so we went back to our hotel only to discover Southwest airlines were having issues with their systems and our flight to Las Vegas was cancelled.

4 hours later than expected, after being put on standby for a later flight than we were initially booked onto, we arrived in Vegas! And let me tell you, bright lights city set my soul on fire.

I was utterly surprised by how much I liked Vegas. I mean, it's tacky as tacky can be, it's too hot (44 degrees minimum during the day) to really go anywhere without walking through air-conditioned hotels and casinos, and it's pretty expensive. However, I think the fact that it is the original tacky is probably why I just got on with it and enjoyed. The place is outrageous, and it owns that fact, so you may as well just enjoy it. A personal highlight, and a bit of a dream come true was seeing the Blue Man Group live - incredibly entertaining! We also went to a gun range because, as the Olympics is proving, shooting can be a sport, a skill, merely hitting a target, like archery or boules, it doesn't have to hurt people. Just saying.

After three wonderful nights at the marvelous Mirage hotel, it was time for Los Angeles. As expected, L.A. for me was a soulless sh*thole. It really didn't appeal to me as a place so much so that it is now my least favourite place ever and London has been bumped up to second least favourite. Everything there is rather spread out, and it's difficult to get your bearings and feel completely comfortable. It all felt rather bland and pretentious, not for me I'm afraid. Having said that, I'm glad I went and saw the landmarks, another box ticked off the list of things to see. I did quite like the walk of fame, and feel you can tell a lot about a person by which stars they take pictures of - I took many a picture to be fair, here's one of my favourites.

Dick Wolf is the creator of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit which stars Mariska Hargitay as Detective Olivia Benson who is to adult Laura what Gina Gold was to young Laura; goals. I didn't realise he had a star on the walk of fame so it was a pleasant surprise, and the whole road, though heavily congested is a definite must-see. My other must-see of L.A. is Warner Brothers studios. This gem was in the downstairs of the building that had Harry Potter items upstairs a.k.a. heaven.

I'm Batman('s ancestor).
The tour was fantastically run, and even is you aren't a fan of Warner Bros. films or T.V. shows, it would entertain most.

Our next stop was our first visit to San Francisco. We stayed near the Port of San Francisco and had this beautiful view of the Bay Bridge within 5 minutes walk from our hotel, the Harbor Court hotel.

During this first visit we used City Sightseeing tour buses to see as much of the beautiful individual of a city as possible, as we have used in many other places with great success, and we used in Los Angeles on this trip. Unfortunately, it seems that Big Bus are the more effective tour operators in San Francisco as they had more buses meaning less waiting times at stops. It didn't affect our trip too negatively, but forewarned is forearmed as they say.


From San Francisco we drove to the stunningly impressive Yosemite National Park. I say we, Alex drove as they add on very expensive insurance to hire cars for every driver under the age of 25, and as he is a more experienced and confident driver than myself, it made sense. We stayed for one night in the Yosemite Lodge which is just outside of the park. I would advise staying there or staying within the park, every other option is some distance away, including gas stations so top up your tank before you hit the park. Then you won't have to pay extortionate amounts, or worry about running out whilst you're absorbed by the incredible views Yosemite provides.

You could look in any direction whatsoever and have your eyes widen in awe. The whole place is beautiful, a really scared area of unspoiled nature.

Two days and one night in serenity later and it was back to San Francisco. Whilst there we were disappointed with the fact that tickets to visit Alcatraz prison island sell out at least a month before the date, so we had no chance of getting any. Instead, we had relaxing days visiting the original Levi factory and store, then buying discounted Levis, exploring Fisherman's Wharf where our Zephyr Hotel was located, and visiting other hubs of San Fran; Union Square and China Town. During our first trip to the city we had a delicious dinner at a great Chinese I'm infuriated I can't remember the name of...I'll fill it in as soon as it comes back to me. We also tackled the infamous fog to travel the Golden Gate bridge.

It was completely worth it, and the difference on the other side was spectacular.

 There is also an adorable little place called Sausilito on the other side of the bridge. It had a very European feel to it, and even more stunning views from its shoreline.

I'd say, though I feel I'm not a California girl, for the views alone San Francisco and Yosemite are worth a revisit. I also am still desperate to go to Comic Con, so San Diego I will return, and I will visit the sea lions! Whilst over that way I may drop by Las Vegas for some fun, or tag it on to a Grand Canyon trip which we didn't manage this time as it takes up a full day and we were only there for 3 days, each filled with plans. L.A. however...it's not me, it's you, I don't think we'll be meeting again...

Ultimately, I am very grateful for the time I had away, I fully appreciate I'm a very blessed young person to have seen so many sights and had so many experiences. Until the next one!