EXPLORING ORLANDO

Last week was quite eventful.  Aside from a full work week, we went for a random and impromptu night out on Wednesday after work, then Friday was my birthday, which was filled with skydiving (I completed my first level of AFF - getting my skydiving certification), going out for food and drinks with some coworkers, then celebrating in downtown Orlando until the early morning hours.  Needless to say, by the time Saturday rolled around, I was in need of a day off.  Having spent the night in Orlando, I decided to take a "me day" and go out and explore.

TOP 10 TRAVEL MOMENTS

First of all, it has taken me AGES to get this post put together because 1) to me, "moments" are specific points in time which eliminates putting down a trip as a whole, 2) it's really difficult to narrow everything down to ten specific moments, and 3) forget about putting those in any sort of order.  But I've finally done it.  Amanda over at Rhyme & Ribbons did a post on her top ten travel moments and it got me thinking of what mine are.  SO after many days of thinking this over and facebook-stalking myself for pictures, here are my top ten travel moments.

LONDON LOOP

I just discovered the London Loop.  I came across this link on Facebook, and after reading it and researching the route a bit, I'm actually really excited by the idea of walking the entire route - all 152 miles of it.  Hear me out...

EXPLORING MIAMI

The rest of Miami is coming to you now in one ginormous post.  I wanted to split it up between our visits to the Wynwood art district and the rest of our Miami explorations, but the Wynwood aspect greatly outnumbered the rest of my material, so here it is - one massive load of Miami-ness.

EVERYBODY'S GONE SURFIN', SURFIN' USA

I have been a bad, bad blogger.  I admit this readily.  BUT, my people/self/whoever is reading this right now (hi Dad), I have a good reason for the last week of no activity whatsoever.  My friend Angie came to visit me on Thursday and we spent all weekend together hanging out at Cocoa Beach, then going to Orlando and spending two straight days at Universal.  It was thoroughly exhasuting, ridiculously fun, and I didn't have my computer at any point throughout.  Hence the Cinco de Mayo post being posted on the 12th... better late than never?  (I think that's becoming my blog's slogan.  I'll try to remedy that because "Style to Stage: Better late than never!" just doesn't work.

FRIENDS IN NEW YORK

Here I am finally with the last day of our NYC trip!  It's been a week, guys.  But I haven't forgotten about this last post.  I just simply haven't been home or on my laptop in about a week.  Long time, no see, eh?

DAY TWO IN NEW YORK

Our second day in NYC was the only full day we had, in terms of not being on a plane at any point that day - short trip, I know.  We knew we had to make the most of it, and one of the most important things we wanted to do whilst in New York was see the 9/11 memorial.  When I was there last, it was still being built, so it was a first for all of us.  But of course, we also needed to hit up as many food spots as possible, so that's what we started with.

BERGDORF AND BROADWAY

As I mentioned, I recently jetted off to NYC with my mom and sister for my sister's spring break, and especially to go see Les Miserables on Broadway with Ramin Karimloo.  Of course, that was only the beginning of it!  And I must start off by saying just how frickin' COLD it was!  Cold is an understatement.  It was bloody freezing.  The wind was the worst part.  Ugh.  Spring clearly has not sprung in NYC - I've been spoilt by this Florida weather!

BOROUGH MARKET

Heyo, say hi to my sister in the first photo, because this post comes all the way from back in June of last year, when my sister came to visit me in London!  Yeah, I know, I suck at keeping up with stuff.  That is not new information, and to be honest, it likely won't change anytime soon.  It's who I am, so love it or leave it.  :p  Now, this is going to be a short and sweet post, though I assure you that Borough Market is anything but short and sweet.  Okay, it's sweet among other things, but my point is that you could spend all day there, and this post doesn't feel like it does that justice, but that's what I get for posting this about nine months late, sooooo...

CLEARWATER BEACH

I'm not shy to admit that I'm quite particular about certain things.  Some may call it perfectionism, some OCD, and others might just call me crazy.  But normally, when I post on this blog, I tend to write all the text together and follow it with photos.  All those photos are posted in an order that illustrates the story.  However, today, for this post, I'm going to switch it up and write bits and pieces between the photos - hence the perfectionism/OCD/crazy thing.  I like continuity, I like symmetry, I like consistancy... this new order of things is putting all that in the bin.  And that, folks, is crazy to me.  A change in routine, ahhhh!!  Anywayyyyyyy... moving on to the actual point of this post now, but for whatever reason, I felt the need to type out this whole first disclaimer paragraph.  Y'all probably don't care.  Right.  Moving on.

WELCOME TO FLORIDA

Well, I made it to Florida!  The time from after Jerry Springer ended to the day of my departure absolutely flew by in a flash.  A LOT happened in that week or so, not least of all the SUPER BOWL!!!  But that's another story.  I digress...

GLASGOW

So just about three months ago now, I was in Glasgow - my final destination whilst still in the UK.  I had found a ridiculously good deal on a flight direct out of Glasgow, and having only ever been to Edinburgh, I decided to go up a day early and spend some time in the city.  I have to say, Glasgow felt much more quintessentially Scottish than Edinburgh.  I think that Edinburgh, like London, is such a culturally diverse city that while of course there are those great bits of Scotland that you would expect, there are also a lot of aspects that make it seem just like another UK city, not particularly feeling like a different country.  Glasgow was less like that.  The Scottish accents were much more common within Glasgow, and the city itself definitely had a different sort of vibe.  It was a bit more natural and relaxed in the sense that it wasn't as touristy as Edinburgh.  Don't get me wrong, I loved Edinburgh as well, but the two had very different feels.

DISNEY, UNIVERSAL, AND A PUP

Before I knew about the awesomeness of skydiving, Florida meant three things to me: my mom, sun, and Disneyworld/Universal Studios.  So obviously since my sister was coming down this time as well, we HAD to go to the theme parks.  I needed to introduce her to the magic that is The Wizarding World of Harry Potter!  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

CANADIAN SKI-CATION

As I mentioned in my last post and have showcased on Instagram, I spent a long Thanksgiving weekend at Silver Star Mountain Resort in Canada with my extended family for several days of skiing, eating, skiing some more, and eating some more.  It was really fun to see my cousins and aunt and uncle, and to hang out all together with them and our grandma.  It isn't often that we all are able to get together since we live six hours apart and we're all at ages where we each have our own stuff going on, be it school, work, or in my case, being outside the country half the time over the previous two years!  So getting together for American Thanksgiving at Silver Star was really a treat.  

LEAVENWORTH

If a gingerbread village were to exist in real life for real people to walk about in, it would be Leavenworth, WA.  Shockingly, and quite unfortunately, I had never really spent a proper amount of time in Leavenworth.  The only times I had been was whilst passing through on the way to and from visiting my cousins in the mountains.  But today, Carmen and I made a spur of the the moment road trip and drove the 2+ hours to this central Washington town.

POLAND PT. II - WARSAW

So I meant to post this following the Auschwitz post, but then I had my final night in London, a train ride up to Glasgow (in which I had feelings and opted to post about leaving instead - in the moment and all that, ya know), and a day there before flying back to Seattle.  I've now been back in Seattle for a few days and getting my bearings, so here I am again to finally post the final part of my Poland trilogy - Warsaw!

AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU

One of the biggest reasons I've fancied traveling to Poland was my desire to visit Auschwitz.  I'm not entirely sure why I've wanted to do this so much, but it was one of the two main reasons for coming to Poland, specifically Krakow.  So on Wednesday, day two in Poland, I journeyed to the town of Oswiecim to take a tour of the largest and most famed concentration camp.

POLAND PT. I - KRAKOW

I've always wanted to go to Poland.  Maybe that seems a bit random, an honestly, it kind of is.  Most people's responses upon finding out I was going to Poland was "Why Poland?"   Well, for starters, every photo I've ever seen from Poland has been stunning.  Like, really, really beautiful.  And the photographer wannabe in me has been aching to go photograph that beauty for myself.  Also, I've always really wanted to go to Auschwitz.  Depressing as that may be, I feel like it's an experience I needed to have.  And it was, but that's a whole other post.  So anyway, I finished at the Globe and had a couple weeks still in Europe, so I thought I would travel.  

A LITTLE EXCITING, AND MORE THAN A LITTLE SAD

The sad news:  This was my last week at the Globe.  I'm officially done working there.  The end of season has arrived, and the past two days have been filled with Globe time, watching the closing performances of three shows, and the fourth and final one later this afternoon.  Friday was my last official day working, and while I still have some duties to carry out between shows, this weekend is mainly about enjoying the final bit of time there, watching a lot of great theatre, hanging out with work friends, and tonight, partying it up Fright Night style in the theatre with everyone else from the entire season.

WINDSOR & ETON

On Monday last, since it was a bank holiday, my friend Jessie and I took a day trip out to Windsor and Eton - the second exciting thing I did last weekend which I meant to post about much earlier than this but oh well I'm going to stop trying to keep a semblance of a timely manner because let's face it I still have photos from June when my sister visited which I'll get to one day probably next year and.... what was I saying?  Windsor.  Right.