What a stupendously gorgeous weekend! Decent weather has finally come to our neck of the woods and I’m doing everything in my power to enjoy it. In turn, please enjoy this slideshow of my weekend exploits. The Kailey birthday celebration pictures are missing, but it might be best if they stayed that way ;)
Hey, all my faithful followers.
I don’t have a lot to report. The weather is alternately gorgeous and sunny and then quite suddenly cloudy and rainy, which is becoming more than a little annoying.
In 2.5 weeks we break up for another half-term holiday (only a week) and then begins the countdown the year-end. Making it this far is in accomplishment in itself, but I can smell the summer and it’s making me grouchy. I want Amsterdam, Paris, Chamonix and Edinburgh now now now! I also want friendly faces from home and a hug from my mom.
Soon, soon, soon.
I meant to post this to my UK blog but Tumblr can be a bit tricky sometimes. I need to figure out how to make my UK blog my primary one. Any advice, techies of the blogosphere?
I really, REALLY have to start adhering to these rules.
Also, it’s been consistently above 10 degrees Celsius here for the last 4 days. Hellooooo Cleethorpes <3
Well, I survived! Unfortunately, Amsterdam is simply not as charming in the winter as it is in the summer, but that’s to be expected.
Kailey and I found our way to the ferry port in Hull on Sunday and didn’t have trouble embarking and getting settled. We wandered around the boat, ate way too much candy, watched “The Adventures of Tintin” in what was basically an empty movie theatre, and got a decent night’s sleep despite forgetting about the time change and getting woken at what felt like 5:30 in the morning.
The drive from Europort to Amsterdam took 2+ hours, mostly because of the gridlock around Centraal Station, but we made it to the hostel without a problem and put our stuff away so we could go exploring.
We saw a lot of the usual sights; shopping near Konigsplein, the Flowermarket, the Red Light District, the Van Gogh Museum, and a million canals. We also went to the zoo, which was surprisingly excellent, and to the House of Bols were we proceeded to drink much more than what our ticket entitled us to. On our last day we took a free 3-hour walking tour, though bailed on the last hour because of the nasty weather. Too bad about that because our tour guide was just lovely and I would have liked to finish it out with him.
Highlights: Artis Natura zoo, cheese, stroop waffles and the walking tour
Lowlights: the weather, the Van Gogh museum, and the trip home on the ferry
I’ll be back in July, and I expect much better weather!
Well, it snowed. Last night it snowed about 3 inches, and turned Cleethorpes into a winter wonderland. I stayed in whilst all my roommates were out and watched Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” in the lazy boy by a roaring fire, and it was lovely.
This morning I decided that I ought to go out and enjoy the powder, so I pulled on my good winter boots and my winter coat and Kailey joined me for a romp around Cleethorpes Country Park. Enjoy!
Well hello, faithful readers. I would like to preface this blog entry with the information that I am sick again, in a similar way to how sick I was in August. It’s been extremely enjoyable. Not.
Now I would like to move on to a different topic: a challenge I posed to myself this January to lose a LOT of weight. 7+ stones, in fact. For those of you who don’t speak Her Majesty’s English, a stone is 14 pounds and one of the most common forms of weight measurement in the UK. 7+ stone is more than 100 lbs, a pretty big goal for sure. I knew I was going to have to make some pretty big changes, so instead of trying to make them myself, I trusted someone else to tell me what to eat and do, something I’ve never done before, something I assured myself I would never do…
I joined a diet group.
I didn’t really know what to expect when I joined up; I was so self-conscious and a little bit embarassed, but my friend Jenny had been doing it since November and was having such great results that I knew I had to give it a shot. I joined up on January 3rd.
Today is February 2nd and I’ve lost 18.5 pounds. Holy shnikes.
I have to mark Geography tests otherwise I would do a lengthy post on how the whole thing works and such, but I just wanted to share this big change. I wasn’t going to say anything about it, but I’m so pleased with how my efforts have paid off that I had to get it off my chest. I know that at this stage the rapid loss is probably just my body going “thanks for not eating that crap anymore, chica!” but I’m crossing my fingers and wishing and hoping that it keeps up.