Frolicking like a five year old

Having tried to write a few failed sentences and half put together words about snow falling, and how beautiful it was ( can somone say cheesy!), Nobody really cares about my words, and with reason since the images are just so much more! I should however highlight that the title of this post does actually reference me back to Saturday night where I had experienced snow falling for the first time and may also have  had  a few glasses of wine in me too. This entire experience that night however did not make the taste of Fabrizio's 1 euro noodle box taste anything remotely like noodles (mostly just noodles doused in soy sauce)

Back to Berlin

After two glorious weeks back in my home country of South Africa, the time has come for me to return back "home". What an incredible experience it's been coming back here with a fresh set of eyes and a whole new perspective of the world. I met some incredible people during my time here, and also re-kindled old friendships that felt like I had seen just yesterday. I can't wait to share all the photography and video shots I took with the rest of Berlin, and further intrigue everyone about my Beautiful South Africa

An eager beaver and beach burn

 After all the rain we had been experiencing the past couple of days (seriously, three days non stop), I leapt at the opportunity to visit the beach on seeing the weather report read anything other than rain.

 

The train from Bergen op Zoom to Vlissingen is about a hour away, and a leisurely stroll to the beach town's boulevard from the station. There was a nice cool breeze blowing,  cooling the day of. This however concealed the fact that it was actually sweltering hot, and as I lay on the beach ( thinking I'm getting a sweet tan), I was in fact being scorched.

 

However,my body's reddened (or lobster like)  appearance didn't last very long. Overnight I managed to become tanned once again after a whole year of missing out on summer and it's safe to say I am no longer a pasty European.

 

ANTWERP TAKE TWO

I managed to fit in a sneaky bike ride to Antwerp from my new town of Bergen op Zoom this past weekend. It's a mere 38 km by bike and went by somewhat quickly (it takes about 2 hours along the bike paths) . The bike ride on my journey back was a different story though. Biking against wind is not an ideal condition in my eyes and I suppose you could say I am still recovering from the trip. Regardless, I feel quite chuffed at the few photos I managed to take of Antwerp in full swing of spring

HELLO BARCELONA : PART ONE



Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would be writing about Barcelona, but here I am, blogging about what an amazing city it is and how it managed to steal my heart in only 5 days.

After waking up on the morning of Friday the 18th of October and preparing the boys' breakfasts and school lunches, I did a bit of last minute packing into the smallest hand luggage bag ever. Iv always travelled with a substantial amount of clothes, so this was something I had to get used to. The weather forecasts for Spain read in the mid twenties, so in I packed skimpy shorts and dresses, this made the process a lot easier as these don't take up too much space. Myself and the girls took the train to Eindhoven, and from there the bus to the airport which is so small in size it only has 1 terminal. We checked in, took toilet breaks in turns and finally had a chance to sit down and relax before our flight. A friendly girl, Derya, sat down by the table next to us and we ended up striking a conversation with her, she too was headed off to Barcelona. Lone behold, she ended up sitting next to me on the flight and we spoke about South Africa, Sweden  and listened to Swedish rap.

As we touched down, I could already start to feel the heat from outside. We yanked our hand luggage out the compartments as fast as we could and sped into the Spanish Sun. We purchased our bus tickets into Barcelona and because I couldn't resist the heat in long pants anymore, I sneakily changed into my short shorts on the bus.  We exchanged numbers and full names with Derya before she headed off into the city to meet her boyfriend. From there it was our turn. I must admit, we got slightly lost and had to ask for directions in a nearby café' only to find out we were a mere block away from our hostel.

We waltzed into The Black Swan Hostel only to be greeted by the front desk girl demanding us to get our bags out the way. I wont lie when I say she was not the happiest clam I have come across. Regardless, she appointed us to room 110.

We explored the streets of Barcelona for what seemed like a good 3 hours when our hunger pains got the better of us. In true Spanish tradition, we sipped on tall glasses of sangria at Maka Maka, whilst conversing with the Australian and South African lads sitting beside us.

We managed to muster up enough energy to traipse home and slumped into our lumpy hostel mattresses, completely exhausted from all the traveling our first day had presented.