12 days of Christmas day 1: Tips for having Christmas abroad

"On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me...a partridge in a pear tree"  This post is the start of my 12 Days Of Christmas series. This will be alternating between my blog and youtube channel and is going to take us all the way up to the big day!  This Christmas is my second living abroad. Last Christmas felt very strange and I was actually pleased when it was all over. This year I am feeling way more festive and I'm definitely going full festive cheer! I thought I would share some tips on how to have the best Christmas away from home.  1. Affordable Christmas decorations:  When you're travelling, the last thing you want to do is spend money you don't have on lots of fancy Christmas decorations but I do like to add a little bit of Christmas spirit in to my surroundings. This year I raded K Mart's Christmas section and found a few items to brighten my room on the cheap. A Christmas tree ornament, fairy lights and a festive candle and it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!  2. Embrace the changes:  I learnt last year that trying to recreate you're usual Christmas doesn't work and you can end up feeling a little down about the whole thing. I think the best thing to do is really experience Christmas the way the country your visiting does. This way you don't feel like your missing out an anything and you get a whole new experience. 3. Avoid Christmas specials: This doesn't necessarily apply to everyone but I remember feeling really sad last year while watching very British Christmas specials such as the Vicar of Dibley and Downton Abbey. I think I will be giving them a go again this year as I'm feeling much more settled in general but I would give them a miss if your feeling a little bit home sick.  4. Be with friends: This speaks for itself. Surround yourself with people you care about. No one wants to be alone on Christmas. If you happen to be in a new place where you don't know any people yet then what a perfect day to get mingling. Tis the season and I'm sure you will find a group of people happy to share the festivities with you. 5. Keep in touch with home (sort of):  We all want our loved ones to know we're thinking about them over Christmas and vice versa but when that turns in to 6 separate Skype chats mixed with a 13 hour time difference you can pretty much say good bye to Christmas day. I would recommend splitting them up over a few days so you can still chat with everyone without it being such a military operation. They all have plans for Christmas day too so it works out better for every body. You can send any cards and gifts you have well in advance so they still get a little something from you on Christmas day any way.  So there we have it. This may not be relevant to every one but I hope it can help some of you out. Make sure to keep following my 12 days of Christmas. I have lots of exciting things coming your way so make sure to follow along. See you over on my youtube channel tomorrow for day 2. 

Another country another update

I know I've barely blogged since my last update but as we have recently moved I thought it was time to fill you in on where we are and what we're up to.

After being in Australia for a whole year we have moved to Aukland in New Zealand. We managed to get a house share before we left Australia (there's a dog called Frieda who lives here and I love her) so we were ready to move straight in when we got here. We also have friends from Melbourne living here too so we had ready made tour guides waiting to greet us from the airport. Even though we thought we were quite organised in moving here we've actually had a little bit of a tough time getting set up here. We're both planning on working here which means we need bank accounts. As a word of warning to back packers, avoid the city banks, they are far too busy for any one on a working holiday visa and will find any reason not to help you. The suburb banks are much more helpful and I am pleased to say we have both finally set up accounts today with the help of a lovely guy who happened to be a huge Harry Potter fan who was asking us about the studio tours in London.  Steven has managed to start work, he always makes finding jobs look so easy. He's working with our friends from Melbourne and they all seem to be enjoying it. I've heard about numerous games of Pictionary and I have never, why have I never worked some where like this! I'm looking for work currently but think it could be the new year before I find anything so I am mostly filling my days with exploring the city in our car....ps. we bought a car! So far I have learnt that kiwis like to beep there horns, or they certainly like to beep them while I'm driving!  I hope this post doesn't seem negative. New Zealand seems very laid back and relaxed which is why I think we've found getting set up here a little bit more difficult but in the long term I know that can only be a good thing. We spent last weekend exploring Piha beach and plan to go to another tomorrow. That to me is what New Zealand should be about. All I've heard about is how amazingly beautiful this country is and I can't wait to get stuck in and see every thing. Be sure to keep following along with my blog and youtube videos because I think this year is going to be epic! Ps we now both have tattoos...but I'll save that story for another day ;)

A little update

Well my little blog it has been a while, I'm very so for neglecting you for so long, how are you? If you've been watching my youtube channel then you'll have some kind of idea of what I've been up to but I thought it was a good idea to put pen to paper (so to speak) and let you know where I am and what I've been up to... We decided to leave Melbourne around a month ago. It's one of the greatest cities I've ever visited and I loved my time there but we were getting a little too comfortable. You can only work for 6 months in one job while on a working holiday visa and as our 6 months were nearly up we decided to have a look into doing our regional work so we could apply for our second year visa (all sounds a bit complicated...and it is) We had some friends who had already moved to a town called Innisfail in Queensland where they were staying at a working hostel who found regional work for you, we made arrangements to do the same but couldn't get in straight away...this led us to Cairns.  We stayed in Cairns for around five days. We stayed just outside the city and I had my first Air bnb experience. We had a room in a really cool house where three guys lived, they were all really nice and they had two lovely dogs, Sally and Rocky, so I had a lovely time. Another couple were staying there as well, they were really friendly and it's always nice to meet fellow travellers.  If I'm honest I didn't love Cairns. I think staying in Melbourne for so long had spoilt me. It was sort of just a big sea side town. There's nothing wrong with that and parts of it were very pretty but I think I may have been bored if I'd stayed much longer. One place that was very special, however, was Palm Cove, this beautiful seaside town was around 30 minutes away from where we were staying and was a very pretty place. We had beautiful weather on this day too and I had a lovely time walking around in the sun! After our time was up in Cairns we made the move to Innisfail. I'm not gonna lie, I was very nervous about what life on a banana farm might be like but I was trying to keep positive. My positivity faded when we hopped off the grey hound and where greeted with a girl called Sam from one of the hostels who was a straight up bitch! She dropped us off at one hostel called Walkabout and told us to wait while she picked everyone up from work. It has such a horrible atmosphere  (very lads on tour) and I felt so over whelmed that I had a little cry. We ended up staying in a 'hotel' called Queens. It was definitely still a hostel, we had a shared room with another couple and a guy. It could have been much worse as they were all really nice and seemed to enjoy the work they'd found. We had friends staying at the third hostel (Retreat) that was owned by the same people  so we hung out there on the evenings, we were hoping to get moved into Retreat because it seemed like such a close group there. It cost $200 each a week to stay at the hostels, this was for accommodation as well as finding work and transport to and from work. It turned out that most girls were waiting 2-3 weeks and were only getting a couple of days work and the boys could only get humping jobs (yes if you picked bananas you were a banana humper, unfortunate I know). Steven did a couple of days humping and found it very hard, I've never seen a muddier person come through the door at the end of the day!  After a stressful few days we decided against farming. Financially it wasn't going to work out for us and as we had only ever intended to use a few months of our second year visa we didn't feel like it was going to be worth it for us. I hope this doesn't make it sound like we gave up. If we had both been able to find full time jobs straight away and were able to save money like we'd planned then I'm sure we'd still be there. As it turned out it was probably going to cost us money for a pretty miserable time that wasn't as essential to us as we first thought. I definitely take my hat off to any one that manages to stick it out and I'm sure I'll be jealous when you're all still loving life in Australia while I've moved on. This brings us to now. We are currently in Brisbane and this is where we are planning to be for the rest of our visa. We really landed on our feet coming here. After a couple of days in a hostel we managed to find ourselves a room in a house with some really lovely people. I managed to get a job at another franchise of the spa I'd worked at in Melbourne and Steven also started work straight away. Not gonna lie it was a good feeling and immediately felt happy with my decision to move here.  As for future plans, turns out you can get a three month tourist visa for Australia for absolutely free so anything we don't have time to do on our current visa we can do then. We also have plans to spend some time working and exploring New Zealand and I plan on having an amazing time in Asia before heading home. All in all a very exciting year ahead and I can't wait. I always knew we'd make some mistakes whilst travelling and I'm lucky that they've been small so far. It's all about bouncing back and making the most of this experience.  Bring it on!  

What I Should Have Packed - Part Two

When I left to travel the world I packed a big bag and as it turns out I packed it badly. In fact I packed so badly that I had to write two whole posts about it. If you would like to read the first part (which I suggest you do) then click right here. This time I'm talking more about the clothing items I wish I'd brought...

1. Warm things: Turns out, Australia isn't always hot...who knew! I came away with two very thin and very casual jumpers. I didn't bring any hoodies or nicer jumpers and I didn't bring any blazers or jackets for evenings out. Melbourne has very mixed weather and there have been times when I've just been plain cold! 
2.  Nice tops: I brought t-shirts and then last minute one nice topshop cami (and thank God I packed I did because I've barely taken it off) In general I'm not a t-shirt girl so I don't really know why that's all I brought. I think I thought I would forever be on the beach....I actually live in a city with mixed weather.
3. Shoes: I obviously fetched some shoes but it was minimal. The one pair I wish I had are my Topshop boots, unfortunately these are rather chunky and would have been too big to pack but there have been multiple times that I've wished I had them with me. 

4. Leggings:

I'm actually not a massive wearer of leggings usually but I keep thinking how much I wish I had a pair with me to go underneath things. I have a really nice pair of wet looks that I wish I had too. These would have been so easy to bring with me and would have been a little bit warmer than all the pairs of shorts I have with me. At least leggings are usually cheap to buy so I can always pick some up. 

So there we go...I have actually done a little bit of shopping recently and filmed a haul about it which you can watch here. There's still a few things that I'd like but I'd rather spend my money on more travelling and fun things so I don't know if I'll end up buying anything else. 

I hope you enjoyed today's post. Make sure to follow me to see more! 

What I should have packed - Part one

When I was planning my big trip what to pack was quite a difficult decision. I had done some research but as it turns out it definitely wasn't enough as there are so many things that I wish I had brought with me. I think I assumed Australia was a constantly warm and laid back beach party....it isn't! I am a few months in to big city life in Melbourne and there are some things packed away in my English home that I really wish I'd thought to bring with me. In fact so many that I have decided to divide this post in two. These are all the beauty bits I wish I had brought......ps yes I'm hoping that my mum reads this and decides to send some of them over!
1. A tried and tested cleanser:  Hey Robyn, remember when you gave away all of your spare products and decided to buy and pack a brand new cleanser that you'd never even tried...not your best idea was it? Me and the Bliss fabulous foaming face wash didn't get on..to be honest I don't know what made me think we would. It irritated my skin and didn't remove my makeup well leaving me looking like a red, pimply mess. Unfortunately by the time I realised this I wasn't in the position to buy a another cleanser until I accidentally (genuine accident) left this one in the showers whilst camping. I would have been much better bringing my Elemis balancing lime blossom cleanser which I knew I loved, I would however have been devastated if I'd left that in the showers.   
2. The Urban Decay naked palette.  Why I decided to leave this at home I'll never know, broadcasting the fact that I left it at home means that it's only a matter of time until my sister decided to "borrow" it. I even remember leaving this out after packing all my other makeup away and then still deciding to leave it at home. I used it every single day and somehow thought that I wouldn't use it whilst I was travelling. It's not ever big and would have been easy to take away with me. I am a fool and that's all there is to it!
3. Make up brushes. I fetched about 4, 2 face and 2 eyes. Face wise I'm happy but 2 wasn't enough eye brushes. I actually managed to leave some of the ones I used the most. This was probably because I only brought 2 cream shadow posts with me,  another mistake. 
4. Perfume. I fetched one half used sample sized perfume....it lasted about a week. I know a lot of perfumes can be bulky but I had a set of benefit minis which would have been really easy to take with me. I used them all the time at home and they would have been perfect for bringing away but no...again, fool!
5. Hair appliances. I didn't bring any of these. To be far they're big so it made sense not to bring any. Plus, I had a vision of returning with amazing, long and healthy hair...this wasn't happening, I was just a frizz bomb. I have since bought a hair dryer and a tiny pair of straighteners, I picked them both up for really cheap and now I can actually style my hair before nights out rather than going for the unintentional wet pony tail look. I would quite like some curlers but that will only happen if they're super cheap...Target has been home to every other cheap yet brilliant purchase so far so I'm hoping. 
So there we go. I realise I'm being a little bit dramatic and I am obviously managing just fine without my hair curlers but sometimes you just miss your home comforts. As I mentioned at the start, there will be a second part to this post which will be all about clothes I wish I'd brought....it's likely to be just as dramatic. 

10 things I love about Melbourne

I've been in Melbourne for a few months now and I'm planning on staying for a while longer while we make plans and try our best to save (that parts easier said than done). It's one of the coolest places I've ever visited and I thought I would share some of my favourite things about the city with you.

1. The view from my room. 

Living on the 50th floor of a building right in the middle of the city definitely has it's perks and the view from my balcony is definitely one of them. You can see for miles and miles and it's incredible. Almost worth feeling dizzy from the journey in the lift.

2. Queen Victoria Market
Queen Victoria market is just down the road from where I'm staying. It is absolutely huge and is full of incredible food as well as clothes and trinkets. We've been buying all our fruit and veg from here as it's cheaper than the super markets, you can also buy some really delicious treats for lunches. 

3. The graffiti walls

Melbourne is full of amazing graffiti. There are streets that are dedicated to graffiti where you can watch the artists work. I think it must be legal here because it is so common. I'm sure if I was more creative I could do an amazing look book around here....only time will tell. 

4. The cat cafe

I've written a whole post about this place but I thought it was worth mentioning again. I've only been twice but it's nice to know it's there for when I'm really missing my own little balls of fluff at home. The cats that live here seem so happy and it's really lovely to see. 

5. Trams

Trams are just cool. Ignoring the fact that I can't work the time table and ended up going miles in the wrong direction the other night (alcohol may been involved), they are cool. 

6. The cafes

Melbourne cafe culture is a big deal and for that I am grateful, I have strong feelings for cake. Every little suburb has some of the most beautiful cafes I've ever seen, some of the best ones are hidden away down little side streets. 

7. The food

Maybe it's because I've never lived in a big city before but I have never been somewhere where you can get every type of cuisine under the sun. I live right in the centre of the city so it's all on my door step. You can be as healthy or as naughty as you like and it's all really reasonably priced which makes being a poor backpacker a little bit easier. 

8. Bikes

Bikes are a big deal here and I have a bit of a thing for them. I'd probably be too much a scaredy cat to ever ride one but I think they're gorgeous. Vespers and Harleys seem to be the big thing as well as lots of beautiful push bikes and quite frankly I want them all. 

9. The parks

I've written a full post about my time at the Botanical gardens but there's lots of other beautiful parks here too. Melbourne's very mixed weather (it's honestly crazier than England) means that plants grow really well here. You only have to wonder a few miles in any direction to find a little patch of paradise to wonder around. 

10. The river

The Yarra river is the centre of the city and it's pretty spectacular. I think walking down by the river in the evening is great. Street performers, amazing restaurants and lots of people watching, life is always good by a river. 

So that sums up my favourite parts of Melbourne so far. I still have a some time left here so I'm sure I'll discover even more great things about the city. I have to say that the people I've been spending my time here with have been a huge part of what's made it so special, you're all super cool people! 

Melbourne Botanical Gardens

When you're travelling money definitely starts to become an issue and the more free things you find to do, the better. Staying in a city as cool as Melbourne this isn't too difficult. One of the coolest things we've found was the Botanical Gardens. It's only a short and free tram ride away from where we live and it's honestly beautiful. The weather was definitely on our side the day we went and we had such a nice time wondering around and chilling in the sun. 
I can't wait to go back another time. We really want to hire some bikes next time and bring a picnic, I think it would be the perfect summer day out.

Crazy cat lady paradise

On one of my first days in Melbourne I was told there was a cat cafe. This is what told me Melbourne was going to be one of my favourite places. I've recently learn that lots of cities have cat cafes but I've never ad the chance to go to one before and since leaving my own fluffy babies at home I couldn't wait to go and have a cat cuddle.
The Melbourne Cat Cafe is home to 14 lovely cats who have all been re-homed from shelters. They are all based in the cafe permanently now so they don't have to be re-homed again which is great news. The Cafe is basically in a converted house so you just feel like your sitting in a living room. The cats have the run of place with loads of rooms to explore and cat beds and climbing frames in every room. They also have a separate room that visitors aren't allowed in where the cats eat and can get away from every one if they chose to. I think I managed to see all 14 of the cats during my time there and they all seemed very happy and very sleepy. 
The Cafe does serve some food and drinks but it's definitely more about chilling with the cats than the dining experience. There is an entry fee which is common in most cat cafes, this goes towards food and maintenance of the cats which I certainly didn't mind paying.

If you live in or near a big city I would definitely give it a google and see if you have a cat cafe near you. I had such a lovely time and think I'll definitely go back before we leave. It definitely still miss my own little cats a lot but it helped fill the void for a while.

A little catch up...

So due to a lack of Internet and a little bit of hostel living it's been a while since I've last blogged. I thought I would do a bit of a picture heavy catch up so you can all see what I've been up to since I first landed in Australia.

Sydney

Sydney was the first place we landed in Australia. I think it's probably one of the first places every one thinks about when you think about Oz but to be honest I'd heard very mixed things about it and really didn't know what to expect. I was also feeling a little bit nervous about my first shared dorm, hostel experience. I really had nothing to worry about with the hostel, it was a real mix of people in my room but everyone was so nice and we were chatting with every one straight away. 

For me big parts of Sydney were just like any other big city. That's not necessarily a bad thing, I really like big cities but it wasn't anything really exciting that I hadn't seen before, it actually reminded me of Glasgow. A part of the city I absolutely loved was Darling harbour, this was the part that felt really special. I sent my birthday evening sat at the harbour eating pizza and it was simply lovely. 

Camper vanning

After our week in Sydney we decided to head to Melbourne. We booked a camper van for a week and decided to head along the coast so we could take our time. We stopped off at loads of amazing places on the way. It was literally beach after beach. We also met some really interesting people, all of the people that ran the camp sites seemed so passionate about where they lived and couldn't  of had more recommendations on what to see and do.  One of the places we stopped at was Jervis Bay, it's known for having the whitest sands and bluest sea, the best place for a picnic. This is where we went to watch the dolphins. We managed to see quite a few and some had babies with them, they were incredible, it was definitely a highlight for me. We had missed the wales by a few weeks but we're planning on going to see them next year when they start to come back, I can only imagine how amazing that will be. 

Melbourne

We're planning to stay in Melbourne for a while, we'd already decided this before getting here but it just so happens to be a pretty amazing place. We started off staying in a hostel for a few days, it was actually the same chain of hostels we'd stayed at in Sydney called Base, I would definitely recommend them. This was in a place called St Kilda which is right by the beach and has some amazingly quirky cafes and bars. We've since moved into the CBD (basically just the centre, I've no idea what it actually means) which is very different from St Kilda but is equally great. It has amazing shops and restaurants and again seems to have lots of quirky and different areas. I'm currently looking for work here and I'm having lots of fun exploring the city during the process. There's a cat cafe round the corner from where I live and I can see me spending most Sunday afternoons eating cake and stroking a moggy.

So, so far so good. I'm feeling very lucky at the moment and I know I have so much more to see and do. I' already feeling like a year just won't be enough.....