Hello, neglected blog

I haven’t logged into WordPress for 8 months. I don’t even know who is still reading this blog (the last time I checked, it was my boyfriend’s mom). But, it’s a new decade, I’m doing some exciting things this year, I’m taking better photos, and I’m unemployed so why not start blogging again!

I spent several weeks trying to find the perfect blogging platform, the perfect theme, and the perfect blog format, but at this point I feel like I’m overthinking all of this and am going to just write what I feel like.

Today’s my third last day of work. I’m sitting in my living room, surrounded by moving boxes and clutter and some agents have come around to show the flat as we are moving out in 2 weeks and flying to Cape Town, South Africa to start our year of travelling, kicking off with a 55-day group tour.

Things we have done already to get ready:

• booked flights and accomodation for everything up until May
• booked activities for Cape Town since we are arriving a week before the tour officially starts
• gotten vaccinated
• purchased malaria tablets
• purchased travel insurance
• applied for and received an East African Tourist visa for Kenya and Uganda
• posted some of our belongings for sale to the neighbours and on Gumtree

Things we still have to do:

• receive our single-entry visa for Malawi (hopefully this should happen on Thursday)
• the moving company has to come pick up our stuff
• sell or give away the stuff we aren’t shipping back to Canada
• buy some of the items on the packing list that we don’t already have, eg. walking poles
• miscellaneous things related to moving countries, eg. changing addresses
• book activities for the extra week we’re staying in Kenya after the tour ends

It’s a lot but as long as I have check lists, I feel like it’s do-able. Also Branden has been off work starting this week so he’s able to make a dent in some of these tasks while I’m at work.

Anyway, I think I just did the written equivalent of “diarrhea of the mouth” but I’m planning to have write some more posts that have an actual point with useful information, such as about how we went about planning this trip.

I’m off to continue watching The Bachelor season premiere. I’m behind by a week, but I’m going to miss most of the season anyway as I’ll be off the grid.

Floreana and Isabela Island Camp

Day 4

The following day, we took a speed boat to Floreana island to visit a Giant tortoise breeding center.

Giant tortoise

We were also taken to a spot where there were pink flamingos.

Quito and the Galapagos – San Cristobal Island

Over the Easter weekend, Branden and I went somewhere I had been wanting to go for years — the Galapagos Islands. Ever since I learned about Charles Darwin in high school biology (or was it first year university?), I wanted to check out the exotic, endemic animals on the islands.

Lisbon, Porto and Sintra

Back in November, I went to Lisbon to go to a tech conference called Web Summit. TBH the conference was kind of disappointing for multiple reasons, but I’m really glad it gave me an “excuse” to go to Portugal.

The first few days, we stayed at a hotel a little outside Lisbon, near Oeiras. We rented a car but found that we could Uber quite easily, since driving and finding parking was a little crazy. Someone actually double parked in front of us on purpose, and left a note with his phone number so we could call him to get out -_-

Long weekend Edinburgh and the Scottish Highlands

This past weekend, I went to Scotland with Branden and 2 of our friends. We left on Saturday morning and flew to Inverness, which is the main airport in the Highlands. Taking the train would have been scenic, but it would actually have cost more than flying.

The flight was only an hour long and because we were still in the UK, airport security didn’t even ask for our ID, let alone our passports.

Day 1: Horseback riding & castle hotel

The first thing we did when we left the airport was go horseback riding. The trip was hardly planned at all so we actually booked the horseback riding in the airport while waiting to pick up the car.