A Girl Abroad

Looking to share my experience with whoever is willing to read.

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Just because we’re waiters doesn’t mean you get to be rude to us. Red wine after a shitty shift dealing with even shitter people who apparently know so much more than me

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Time sure does fly when your having fun! N and I are settled into our new jobs and are so excited to save for our next adventure. Here’s a flick of me exploring the nature park near where we’re working.

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Sorry it has been so long since I posted! There has been a lot of stressful things going on with our travels at the moment.

Coming away I wasn’t prepared for this. Not at all. I know know that I wouldn’t be able to do it without the support network I have at home.

I encourage anyone who is having a stressful or lonely time to get in contact and we can work through it all together.

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I have been using some film cameras to capture special moments during this holiday. I cant wait to get it developed and see how they look. It’ll be a little treat when we get home

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Drinking frozen Daiquiris pool side while listening to Vance Joy. I feel like my life has paused and I don’t have any responsibility. For me, this is a really scary feeling because when the responsibilities do come back will I be able to handle them?

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Being in Spain is like being in a dream. The sun, the view and the company. I am completely and utterly in love.

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We were off again, this time to Spain. Thursday 24th of May.

N and I have almost been away for 2 months and we’d be lying if we said we didn’t miss home and thought of coming home every day. I think that’s why our time in Amsterdam could’ve been better spent. Home sickness is tiring in my experience. Your head spins out thinking of all the things you’re missing back home. When you fall asleep you fall asleep thinking of family, you dream about them and wake up almost disappointed at the fact you’re not there.

Of course we’re grateful for the experience that we’re having but every day that passes we miss our families even more.

I guess we wish we could be home to hug our families and to tell them we love them again, then we could further or adventures without the sadness of missing home.

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The skies in Amsterdam are incredibly beautiful!

We’re so lucky.

Unfortunately we didn’t get to see a lot of the sights as they were booked out however we did get to walk around and see it all. It was beautiful, walking along the canals, the lights the people and the water.

The red light district was very different though. Walking through I felt as though I was in a night club and every time a guy would look at me or any other girl for that matter it was in a predatory manner. We were walking around and I felt a man come very close to me. I was holding N’s hand tight and holding my bag the same. I could feel this man getting closer and closer and all of a sudden his hand was on my body and sliding further and further down. Before I knew it he was pushing past us to his next victim. I didn’t really realise what happened when it did because I couldn’t really remember if in that split second I thought maybe it could’ve been N being playful but when I saw his hand never left mine. I felt sick. I wanted to leave straight away. I always wear bike shorts under dresses and I’m so glad I did that night because if I hadn’t who would’ve know where they would end up.

Sometimes holidays aren’t as perfect as the pictures but we need to make sure that we talk to people when things like this happen.

Thank you N for being by my side when that happened. I love you.

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We are off again, this time to Amsterdam.

2 days in Paris and we’re here. In this beautiful City.

A week off exploring, culture, food and cocktails were a head of us.

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Our decision to travel was an easy one.

We realised that everything that had happened over the last month made us not want to settle down into jobs and do what we came here to do. See the world.

I had been to Paris two years before, I had almost forgotten the beauty that it held.

I loved sharing this experience with N.

We walked around all day seeing the sights, we had lunch in a cafe by the Eiffel Tower and saw the sunset over the Norte Dame. We drank wine and ate crepes and every other touristy thing imaginable. It was perfect.

For the first time in a while we were both truely happy, even though the hotel we were staying in was very very average, we didn’t care.

We were so excited and hopefull for the next few weeks to come.

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We moved on quiet quickly from Hungerford.

Guess where we ended up.

Paris - The Eiffel Tower May 15th 2018

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A glass of red wine and a misunderstanding is why we left the pub.

N poured me a drink when I finished work one day and gave it to me. His intentions for me to pay were unclear and unfortunately the bosses daughter took this and ran. Calling him a liar and saying that he was stealing from the business.

He believed for a few days this would get us fired. The bosses daughter who’s name is also G, treated him quiet poorly for the rest of our time before we quit. So did her father. Watching the both of us like hawks they waited for us to do something wrong and if we did it was as though no one had ever made a mistake before and we were the first.

Trying to settle the situation I spoke to G, trying to get some perspective into why we were getting treated like this. With no other answer than “he’s just not trying” I went back to N with no solution.

Later that evening N gave our one week notice.

That last week was what we wanted it to be like the whole time, everyone was so lovely to us even G mellowed out and her and N actually became friends.

Our last night was so much fun. The chefs made a killer punch and we all stayed up and saw the sun rise.

What an experience it was working there. It was one we will never forget.

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We thought we’d give work another go.

We went to a small pub just outside of Hungerford, which we loved.

S and A the couple who worked there, they were kiwis and we’re so lovely. A week after we started they were off to travel. It made the idea of us traveling so much more exciting.

The owner of the pub M, owned another pub in town and told us that because we had no form of transport we were going to be moving there once we were trained up. He said the pubs were so similar that we’d love it just as much. We were excited.

Things were finally going our way. Pay was good, tips were good and most important the people were amazing. So full of stories and life experience. So willing to listen and offer advice.

Our week trial was over and we were off to the new pub, new people, similar way of working. J and G were the sort of managers here. The were young and kinda thrown into the deep end while working here. They were off traveling too. They had a different work ethic to S&A they liked to do and not teach. I understand that because when you’ve never been in a position in hospitality to teach, it’s hard to know how. I commend them for giving it a real try.

This pub was different, gone were the days of working autonomously. No more owner coming in once every few days for half an hour. He was around and so was his daughter.

It started going down hill from there.

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April 18th 2018 - Saint Paul’s Cathedral

Saying goodbye to someone is never easy, especially when you know it will be the last time you get to say goodbye. The last time you can look them in the eye and tell them that you love them, the last time giving them a hug. That’s how I felt when I left for this holiday. I knew that Pa didn’t have long left. And that every time I saw him was coming closer to the last. Being here, in London, has given me a knew outlook on (I hate to say this as it’s so cliche) life. How, when someone does go it’s sometimes a good thing. In Pas case he was so overwhelmingly excited to be with nana again the one true love of his life, that he could welcome death with open arms. It makes it easier. As sad as it is to lose such an important man in so many of our lives knowing this makes it feel as though we’re not losing him at all.

After nana passed when I was just twelve years old, I didn’t know how to cope. Not only did we lose such a selfless lady but our Pa had to live in a world in which he was missing a part of himself.

April 18th is not a day of sadness as I truely believe the sun shone a little brighter as two lovers were reunited after years of being apart. You will be missed Pa but we will now celebrate that you and Nana can be together forever.

Lots of Love from London -B xxx

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Tuesday 17th of April.

I think we left for this holiday a bit unprepared, but then you can’t really prepare for things not working out how you thought they would. You especially can’t prepare for losing a loved one, even when you know, you can’t know how you will feel when it does actually happen.

When we arrived back in London we didn’t know what the next few days were going to hold. Every time my family called my mouth would instantly get dry. I didn’t want to hear what I knew they were going to tell me.

We actually took the time when we came back, to sit down and enjoy what we were looking at. To take everything in.

As funds were running on the lower side, it was time to look for work or to book flights home - neither of us wanted too- the day we arrived back to London we had job interviews for a hotel which for London had incredible pay rates, discounts and benefits.

April 18th, the day of our first shift, at around Lunch time I missed a call from my father. When I called him back I knew, before he even said anything I knew. I could hear it in breath. Dad passed the phone around to my siblings as we all cried. I felt even further away from them, more than I already was.

My older sister, who I have always looked up to told me to keep my head held high and to cancel the job trial. She then passed me onto my older brother who agreed and said “go to Saint Paul’s and light a candle for Pa.” Even though I felt so incredibly sad it was a happy day, I know it was. He was at peace and out of pain. It didn’t mean that we couldn’t feel pain. We had someone so special in our lives that it made it so hard to say goodbye.

I’m so lucky have the family I do. I wish I could’ve been there, to hold you and for you to hold me. If I didn’t have my partner with me - I’ll refer to him as N from now on - my sprit would’ve broken. I’m so grateful for him.

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I guess I should probably start from the beginning.

We arrived April 5th 2018 full of excitement for what was to come.

We were starting work on the 7th in the Isles of Scilly, this was apart of a small group of islands of the coast of Cornwall. We were so excited to go there and work because it had been so talked up by my sister who worked on a different part of the Island earlier in 2017. Her and her boyfriend worked there for 6 months and loved every bit of it.

We got to explore London for a few days and absolutely adored every part of it, for us it was so much like home (Melbourne) that we didn’t get a chance to feel overwhelmed by the distance between us and our loved ones.

The few days that we were there were fleeting and it was time to set off on our adventure to the Scilly Isles. A 7 hour train to Penzance and a 20 minute plane ride later and we were there. A place we thought we were going to be spending majority of our time.

Although the island was beautiful we new straight away this island wasn’t for us. In the 2 short weeks we were there we learnt a very important lesson. Working holidays is not one size fits all. What someone else finds extraordinary there is a chance that you most likely won’t.

Shit happens in your life and at the end of the day your happiness is most in important. For me, I left when my Grandfather was extremely sick. My family and I knew that when I left it was going to be the last time I got to say goodbye. He was excited for me to go on this adventure and when I saw him to say goodbye he said “I love you and I’ll see you at Christmas.” I’ll never forget the look in his eyes. They were filled with so much love.

Our happiness was the reason we left the Isles of Scilly, nothing else. Despite what some on the island may think.

I’m glad we did go though, that was when our real adventure started.

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Welcome to A Girl Abroad. I’m 20, Australian, traveling in Europe and wanted to share my adventures with the world. So what better way than to start a blog and write my experience to anyone that is willing to read.

This is not just for others, it’s also for me. In a few years time I want to look back at the adventures that I will be taking in the next few months and remember the feelings I had at that time. Good or bad.

I hope that you enjoy what I have to say and if sparks some sort of feelings for you. Whatever feelings you may get.

I can’t wait. -B xx