The Past Nine Months

It's been rather a while since I wrote something here, huh? I've honestly no real idea were to start, or if it's even worth trying to do an update on what's been going on for the past almost-year. Maybe whenever I get around to updating this thing, I'll just ramble about whatever I feel like, instead of feeling like I need to keep it updated on every single thing I've been doing, which is quite clearly not possible, as staying up to date on things like this is just not something I'm good at. We'll go month by month, for this time.

January:

That was the last time I wrote anything, wasn't it? Goodness, I can hardly remember what I was doing then. Went to Oklahoma for a long weekend, which was very lovely. Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum was incredibly well done and very moving. I remember Oklahoma as very flat, which made going up what I was told was a mountain rather awesome, as we could see out for ever and ever.

Pretty awesome view, yes?

February:

David got back from Oklahoma in mid-February, which did wonders for my sanity levels. I also took a trip out to Tahoe with my host family, which almost ended in an attempt to put me in skis, but fortunately for us all, my arm was still not recovered from my last incident with strange things strapped to my feet in cold stuff, so I escaped unscathed. I did get a day to take a bit of a look around some of Nevada as well, including a look at the State's capital, Carson City, and an old little touristy mining town, on the way to pick Hannah up from a friend's house.

Tahoe is really rather pretty.

March:

I don't think I did all that much travelling in March. Had an Open Circle retreat out in Santa Cruz one weekend, which was very awesome. Met a ton of awesome people, and had a great time. I also had my first ever manicure, which was an interesting experience. I got them done in what I decided to call "TARDIS Blue", because I am a nerd like that.

April:

April was a busy, and incredibly exciting month. My dear Susan came to visit me, and we had many fantastic adventures around the place, seeing some of San Francisco and Monterey, and generally getting up to all sorts of mischief. I also took a four day trip to Vancouver with David, which was definitely a highlight of my travels thus far. Very beautiful, it is, and one of the only places I've been on my travels in North America that I could actually see myself living for a while. April was also the month that I decided to stay in the US for another year, which was a fairly huge decision, and one that I'm still very happy with. I miss home hugely, but the opportunity for travel (not to mention the bribery on part of my host mum) was just too much to pass up. I'm not quite finished with America yet, and I need a little longer to get as much out of it as I can.

May:

In May David and I took a roadtrip. The plan was to go a few hours south to Big Sur and camp for a night, but upon discovering that all the campsites were booked up we ended up driving south along Highway 1 for quite a bit further than we'd originally planned. We ended up spending the night in Santa Barbara, and making it all the way to Los Angeles the next day.

Well over a thousand seals, chilling out on a

beach we found along Highway 1.

June:

June was another very busy month. My mum and dad came to visit, and I took two weeks off work to go travelling around with them. We did Yosemite, Death Valley (Maximum temperature of 49°C/120°F was a bit too hot for me...), Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon, The Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, and the Hoover Dam. America really does have some absolutely incredible national parks. I also turned 21 in June, which was a little interesting, as they don't really do it the same way here. In America, turning 21 just means that you're allowed to go to a pub, rather than the whole big party that it is back home. It made me miss home and all the people I have there a fair bit, but was also plenty of fun. Twas also interesting to have my parents meet some of the people in my life over here.

July:

In July I went on one of the most incredible trips of my life thus far. As part of her bribery to have me stay another year, my host mum took me to Africa with her and the kids. I highly doubt I will ever be able to travel in the way  that we did ever again. We flew business class, and stayed in some of the most amazing places I've ever seen. We flew into Johannesburg, then went up to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, spend four days at two different camps in the Okavango Delta, in Botswana, two more nights in Botswana at Chobe National Park, then to Windhoek, Namibia, where we rented a car and drove down to Sossusvlei, the world's largest sand dunes. We spent the last five days on the beach of a little island resort just off the coast of Mozambique. And yes, I am fully aware of how insanely lucky I am.

August:

I spent the first ten days of August in Europe, where I took an extended stopover on my ways back to the States, in order to sort out the renewal of my visa. My travel went a little less smoothly after leaving Judy and the kids, what with a fair bit of running around in Frankfurt to sort out some hidden costs of my visa, a confusion with airports that had me taking the fastest taxi ride of my life (180km/h on the autobahn anyone?), the friend I was meeting in England being seven hours late to meet me after being hit by a car on his way to the station, and a nasty case of food poisoning while camping. But that's the stuff that makes life more interesting, right? I got to stay with my grandparents for a few nights, which was really wonderful, as it had been a good five years since I last saw them, and also catch up with my dear Anastasia. On my way back to Frankfurt to fly out I spent a couple of nights in Brussels, staying in a little hostel down a little alleyway leading to La Grande Place. Fantastic city, is Brussels.
The rest of August was pretty much just getting back into the swing of school and general life after having been away for so long.

En Manneken Pis. Much

smaller than you'd expect.

September:

At the beginning of September, David and I took a trip up the coast for Labour Weekend. Labour Weekend is in September here. Very strange. It's generally my favourite thing about October. Most of the rest of the year, too, for that matter. I'm incredibly gutted to be missing my Wellyfest two years in a row. We drove all the way up Highway 1 to Portland, Oregon, and back home past Crater Lake. It was rather a lot of driving for four days, but fully worth it. Highway 1 really is incredibly gorgeous. It goes all the way up the West Coast of the USA, from San Diego to Seattle, and there are many portions of it that are just stunning.

A river we camped beside on the way home.

That about brings us up to date, I'm reckoning. I've got various plans for the rest of the year, including a trip to King's Canyon/Sequoia National Parks next weekend, a few days off over Thanksgiving that I am yet to figure out what to do with, and three weeks back home over Christmas and New Year's. All much excitingness.

If you're interested in photos, I've been rather slack at organising whole albums for facebook, but I have been managing to put up one every day or so over at a tumblr I was coerced into getting, which you can find here.