Andrea goes exploring again!

Today marks another milestone in my year off as I'm currently on a train down to London ready to pick up the keys to my new flat tomorrow. It'll take me a little while to say I'm a full London resident again as next week I'm reversing the trip I took in August last year where I went to drop a load of stuff off at my Mum and Dad's and will be going back to pick it up! Hence easing myself in gently, as it'll be the train trip back next Friday which marks the completion of the move. It's worked out perfectly as my cousin is over from Ireland then too and so I'll get to see her and her family for the first time in years!!  This move back to London all feels a bit weird though and in a way, it's like it's happening to someone else. I know I'm doing it but it feels more like I'm going through the motions rather than fully participating. That's not to say I've not been being active in the move. I have changed a multitude of addresses (wh...

Today marks the start of the last month of my career break. In  May 2017 I remember chatting to a colleague and she said that my year off would be over before I knew it, and whilst I balked at it, I also knew that she had a point; one that today, with only 31 days to go until I'm officially back at work, seems all too real! Today also marks the 11th anniversary of the start of my Round The World trip. I wrote a blog for that trip too and sometimes return to it and reminisce about that wonderful time that I had. I find that travelling alone teaches you a lot about yourself and about life in general and so throughout this trip I tried to remain conscious of the lessons I was learning and I wanted to share them with you. Don't be dismissive of young people. Their exuberance and lack of prejudice is refreshing and we can learn a lot from them. This I learnt from day one in South America. I was old enough to be the mother of many people I met on this trip and in Buenos Aires ne...

Before I headed out on my trip to South America I asked for suggestions of songs to enable me to generate a playlist for the long journeys I had ahead of me. Thank you so much to everyone who 'wrote in' with their tunes! I'm not going to say who sent what, but to let you know I included every recommendation. Along the way I also received some suggestions of good songs, I also thought about some songs I love and wanted to add and so below is the soundtrack that accompanied me on my Latin American Adventure... 1. For once in my life: Stevie Wonder 2. Don't cry for me Argentina: Evita Soundtrack  3. Get me away from here, I'm dying: Belle and Sebastian  4. Por una cabeza: Fablo Hager sexteto  5. Have a nice day: Stereophonics 6. How you remind me: Nickelback 7. You've got a friend: James Taylor 8. Arms open: The Script  9. Something big: Shawn Mendes 10. Cannonball: Damien Rice 11. Mr Blue Sky: ELO 12. Tequila sunrise: Eagles 13. Blue skies: Stan Getz (instrumental...

The final destination of my South American adventure has been Rio de Janeiro. Everyone who hasn't been there warned of the dangers of the city (there's even an app that lets you know the areas where there's been a shooting!) but everyone who has just said what a fantastic city it is and how much they'd enjoyed their visit! Having been here for 4 days, I'm in the same camp as all the others who've visited!  I arrived on Wednesday and ordered an Uber from the airport. You do have to keep your wits about you as even before I'd ordered the cab I had three people come up to me and tell me they were my Uber driver! Anyway, I arrived safely at my hostel and spent an hour or so chatting to Grace, another girl in my dorm room before heading out for food. Thursday was Corpus Cristi here which is a public holiday and in the morning I headed down to the beach, I think along with everyone else in Rio! I have been staying in Leblon in Zona Sul, just along from Ipanema and...

So my visit to Puerto Iguazú and Foz do Iguaçu didn't just include visits to the falls, turns out there is other stuff to do there too! After my Argentinian falls visit, I headed back to the hostel and then had dinner again that night with Noam, David and Wun. Noam was heading off early the next day and David and Wun were heading over to the Brazilian side. Friday was the 25th May which is a public holiday in Argentina commemorating the start of the war of independence against the Spanish (makes a nice change for it not to be against the British!). That morning they had a service and then a parade in the main square  and later in the day there were bands playing although when I headed down there later there were only about 30 people standing watching! I spent most of the day in the garden at my hostel reading my book and generally relaxing. In Foz do Iguaçu, the evening of the falls visit, David, Wun and I went to see Star Wars!  Word of advice to those planning a cinema trip ...

When writing my blog posts I often start by choosing the photos that I want to include. I aim to get them down to around 25-30 as any more just makes the post way too long. This time, it's just gonna have to be a long post, I have tried to remove those I'm not that bothered about showing you but I really feel like I've pared them down as far as possible! So, I start by apologising for the length of the post but hope that I have your forgiveness when I tell you this post is about Iguazú or Iguaçu falls depending on if you want the name in Spanish or Portuguese. I've purposefully combined two places in this post, Puerto Iguazú and Foz do Iguaçu as I saw the falls from both the Argentinian and Brazilian sides so you'll get all the pictures associated with the falls. The non-fall stuff I'll put in a separate post. I flew into Puerto Iguazu from Salta as the bus would have taken around 24 hours. After a minor delay to my flight of around an hour, I got to my hostel a...