How To Fund My Next Trip

Firstly I'd like to say I don't actually know where i'm going to go, maybe back to camp in America and travel afterwards, maybe a trip round Europe or potentially further.
Whatever I choose to do i'm going to need money and after travelling in America with almost no money and missing out on things because I just couldn't afford it was pretty awful. So I don't want to be in the same situation again.

1. Live at home -  I could probably afford to move out into a 1 bed flat and live by myself, however that would mean all my money gone. I'd have nothing left for meals out, drinks, clothes etc... let alone saving. I think this is a standard one now on most people saving lists.


2. Transfer half my pay check to savings - if it's not in my current account I won't spend it, also when I look at my account and see that I don't actually have that much money in there it'll make me think twice before spending on things I don't need.

3. Be minimalist - just cut down on things, I don't need new books when I have loads I can re-read, I don't need another pair of shoes that are pretty similar to some i've already got and I don't need a going out top i'll wear very rarely.

4. Make full use of student/ work discount -  I have 3 year NUS card with about 2 years left on it, and while 10% discount isn't massive it's still something and I will be using this at every opportunity. Also after 3 months of working at my current job I will get a rather large amount of discount on the business products and it will make a massive difference as it's products I use every day multiple times and things that can get pretty expensive. The also included cards such a nectar and advantage points.

5. Drive carefully - recently I made a massive mistake and got caught speeding, so that £91 gone on a driver awareness course! So firstly no more of that, by driving carefully I also mean driving economically. Petrol is a massive out going for me especially with having a boyfriend that doesn't live in the same city as me so the less I spend on petrol the better.

6. Pack lunches/ snacks -  where I work there are so many food options in the building, 2 Starbucks stands, a Costa shop, a cafe and the company store meaning it'd be so easy to buy breakfast and lunch every day. A packed lunch will sae my budget and my waist line.

do you have any other ideas for me?

Exploring London!

Recently I travelled down to London to visit my boyfriend who lives there and as I am going again this week I thought it was time to write about my first trip! My boyfriend has just recently moved back so this was my first of many visits.

Right off the bat I made a massive mistake; I drove. Never ever again will I be driving down to London. He lives in South London meaning not only did I have to travel all the way down the M1 which was actually ok, I then had to drive through central London and it was the worst experience of my life. It took hours to get virtually no where! It was so so frustrating being that close but it taking so long. This was me being a bit too confident and not listening to the advice I was given to not drive! Well lesson learnt and the train is going to be my new best friend from now on.

The drive did put a big downer on the start of my trip as  arrived frustrated and about 2 hours after I thought I would but luckily it did improve!

That night I met his family for the first time and we had a family dinner, which was a little overwhelming as my boyfriend has a family of 6. Meaning it was a lot of people to meet and talk too!

 On my first full day there we went into the centre of London! I have visited London several times before with school, my parents and an ex but always with a set plan for example school trips. So it was nice just to wander, I had no idea what I wanted to do so we started off at Buckingham Palace and just walked around from there. 

We went down the mall to horsegaurds parade as I am an avid horse rider and owner and for those of you that have read my other blogs will know I went to live in New York for 3 months to teach horse riding. 

We then had a mandatory pub stop before going to Trafalgar Square. There where several bike races happening that day so the roads where cordoned off making it a little more difficult to get around than it usually would have been. However later on the bike races did pay off for us.

On out way to china town we stopped for the most amazing lunch! London is expensive so when we saw a lunch menu at Steak & co for £7.95 we didn't think twice! My boyfriend had the steak which you cook yourself at the table on a hot stone and I had incredible chicken and bacon mac & cheese. We then had pudding as well in total it was under £20 each which is a bargain for 2 course and drinks in central London.

Loving the identicalness of these 2 photos including my boyfriends hiding behind his drink in the background 

We then headed to Leicester square and went in the Lego shop and M&M world, I have never seen so many different coloured M&Ms the walls where lined with them! 

We finally made it to China town where we had been heading before lunch where we saw the famous bubble wraps which I definitely plan on going back for on my next visit, then to another mandatory pub stop.

As mentioned before there where lots of bike races happening and as we entered Piccadilly circus the final 3 laps of the women international was going so we stopped to watch the finish! I know nothing about cycling but it was fun to watch and the atmosphere was great!

Our last stop was green park to sit and relax for a while before heading home! Overall it was a really nice day, very relaxed and it being sunny and warm helped as well!

Have you visited London? Any ideas of what we should do next time i'm there? I'd love to visit the natural history museum 

What to do in Berlin!

Last weekend I was away in Berlin for 3 days and had an amazing time!

My flight went from East Midlands Airport at 6.30am meaning a very early start. As I was travelling with my boyfriend we paid for airport parking. Splitting this between us made it cheaper than public transport to the airport.

We arrived in Berlin at 9.30 and made our way to out hotel via the Tier Garten, We stayed at the Fjord hotel Berlin and paid £243 for 2 people making it £40.50 a night. The hotel was lovely to say it was on the cheaper side. We dropped our bags off as we where too early to check in and then when we went back they had been taken to our room which was a nice bonus. There was free fruit and infused water daily. Also extremely friendly staff which really helps. I'd 100% recommend this hotel.

After going to the hotel we headed out to join a free walking tour from this company: https://originalberlintours.com/tours/free-original-berlin-walking-tour/

Our guide was great and showed us all the main sights such as the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin Wall, Cathedral and The Palace as well as a few places that we wouldn't have known about such as the site of Hitlers war bunker. I love walking tours as you can really get to understand the history where as by myself I may see the building but I wouldn't know the story behind it. Such as the 2 domes in the Gendermarkt, one French and one German. The Germans where angry that the French finished their dome first so the Germans decided to make theirs 1 meter higher to get back at them! He also showed us where the burning of the books happened at the university library which foreshadowed the start of the war.

We left our tour at the Brandenburg gate and went for a much needed sit down in a cafe at this point we'd been up 14 hours and where pretty tired. So we decided to head back to our hotel via the supermarket where we picked up breakfast and snacks for our trip to keep our food costs a bit lower. After checking in we went to our room to unpack and shower before heading back out for dinner.

Our hotel was close to Potsdamer Platz where there was lots of restaurants so we headed there and ate at Que Pasa. As you can probably guess from the name it was a Mexican. We shared nachos for a starter then I had a burrito and my boyfriend had tacos as well as 2 cocktails for me and 2 beers for him. The bill came to €56 which we thought wasn't bad!

On our second day we headed out early to the Topography of Terror (Berlin Wall), we spent hours reading all about the history of the wall and the wars. I was really interesting and definitely a must do for anyone heading to Berlin. 

After that we made our way towards Check Point Charlie stopping at an italian where I had the best spaghetti Bolognese i've ever had! Unfortunately I don't know the name of this restaurant but this was the best meal I had while in Berlin.

We then headed to the Check Point Charlie museum. We where actually pretty disappointed in this one, it was all very cluttered and didn't seem to follow any real plan. There was lots and lots of information shoved in random places and covered everything from World War 1 to Korean Torture camps. I think they had tried to cram too much into a small space and it just left us confused and a bit bored.

After leaving we headed to Fassbender & Rausch a famous chocolate shop in Berlin. They have models of Berlin landmarks such as the Reichstag made of of chocolate and weighting 300kg! There was also the Titanic, a plane, the Brandenburg gate and a volcano erupting chocolate! We bought a small things to sample back at our hotel.

We headed out again that night for a nice meal, this included us getting dressed up a bit! We went to a restaurant called Meredo. The service here was pretty poor it took a long long time for our drinks to arrive and then our food. Luckily when the food actually arrived it was really good! I had a chicken caesar burger which came with an amazing salad and was in fresh ciabatta bread with rotisserie chicken. My boyfriend had a traditional beef burger. The food did redeem the restaurant a bit but after waiting so long I don't think we'd go back there.

For our final day the heavens opened and it rained a lot! So instead of heading to the zoo as we had planned we went to the spy museum via a watch tower left from the Berlin Wall. Unfortunately because of the rain we where not able to go into the tower. The rain also meant the queue for the spy museum was huge! However, it was well worth the wait once we finally got in. It was the best museum we visited by far. There was so many interesting things to read about and lots of spy artifacts to look at such as cameras, modified umbrellas and suitcases. We also received money off vouchers for their cafe when we paid for our tickets so after spending a few hours walking around the museum we had hot chocolate and lemon cake. The hot chocolate was incredible to say it was a small museum cafe. I'd recommend going here just for that.

After the Spy Museum we headed back to Fassbender & Rausch to buy some more chocolate! We bought hot chocolate and a mix of their different types of chocolate. We then made one last stop before heading back to our hotel and that was Dunkin Donuts. We don't have these in England so we wanted to try it! We got a box of 6 doughnuts for €7 which we thought was pretty good value and meant we had breakfast for the next day.

As we where running low on money we headed to Pizza Hut for dinner haha. It was close to our hotel and cheap so after eating pizza and chicken sticks we headed back to the hotel for an early night as our flight was at 9.30 am the next day meaning leaving our hotel at 6am.

We got up at 5.30am and left our hotel at 6am to walk to the Berlin Central station for the train to the airport. We attempted to make our way back through the Tier Garten as we had done the first day only to find it all fenced off meaning we had to go all the way around. This may have taken us a long time but meant we got another look at the Jewish Holocaust Memorial, Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag which turned out to be a nice little send off for our weekend in Berlin.

Have you been to Berlin? Would you like to? Let me know in the comments!

Wekend Away: Pickering

This weekend I visited Pickering in the North of England. It is a small country village near Scarborough. 

My boyfriend and I arrived in Pickering before our check-in time so we wandered down to the main street which was full of local shops many selling antiques and collectables and then various local business such as butchers and cafes. At this point, after being roasting hot and sunny during our whole drive north it decided to chuck it down! So we had to hide in some shops for a while before heading back to check in.

We rented a cottage in the centre of Pickering called Bramblewood cottage, it was a gorgeous stereotypical quaint English cottage with lots of interesting features like little windows and cubby holes but also had all modern features including a huge shower and a beautiful garden.

After power naps on the sofa we headed out for the evening and worked our way down the pubs on the high street, due to Pickering being so small we found it difficult to find a place to eat as everywhere was fully booked. However, we then stumbled across an Indian restaurant called Cilantro and had an amazing meal! The food was great and we ordered way too much which meant we ended up coming home with a doggy bag. I had a chicken and chickpea curry in a tomato sauce which was great but along with our rice, sides, nann bread and starters I couldn't finish it. The great thing about Pickering being so small is that it is only a few minutes walk from anywhere in the village to our cottage.

On our second day we headed to Scarborough the closest beach to our cottage, the day started out scorching hot again so once we found parking we headed to the sea front and walked along the promenade. This included stopping at a fudge shop which had all kinds of flavours in the end we settled on, Mint Chocolate Chip, Oreo Vanilla and Mango. The fudge was disappointing not quite the melt in your mouth fudge you can get but it was ok. However, no one apart from me liked it at all so I've been working my way through all 3 bars since! We then carried on along to the pier where we sat and took in the beautiful view on the pier!

The big attraction in Scarborough apart from the beach is the castle. Which like all castles is on the top of a hill so we started our climb up many many steps to reach it. As you can see from these photos the view from the top is pretty amazing!

After the castle we headed down the hill to a fish and chip shop which is a British seaside classic and we had an amazing lunch. The cod was great covered in thick crispy batter. I really wish i'd taken a picture to show you how good it was. Before heading back to our cottage we wandered to the beach and sat on the sand for a while which resulted in us getting a bit sandy and wet as we didn't go prepared with towels but it was all good fun as well as getting to stroke the cutest donkey called Marvin who was there to give children rides.

The sun and walking had tired us out so we headed back and ended up having a nap before eating dinner in the cottage and getting ready to head out to one of the pubs we had visited the night before which was holding a quiz. We had a few drinks and did the quiz which which somehow managed to win getting 32/40 questions right! It was a great end to our weekend.

For anyone looking for a quiet weekend away Pickering will be perfect for you!

Do you have any trips planned? Tell me in the comments!

I'm off to Berlin on Friday