Yay!

Two of my friends from my year abroad are coming to visit me for the next week and a bit! I'm SO EXCITED. I haven't seen Nora since April last year, and Chris since May 2010! We're going to be visiting London then doing a roadtrip of sorts to Bath, Stonehenge, Brighton etc. I'm so looking forward to be able to spend so much time with the two of them.

I won't be blogging (not that you'd notice, since my update rate has been appalling lately!) in that time, obviously. But I'll hopefully be back with lots of fun photos, like these darlings:

2011 recap.

2011, as I mentioned in my last post, was something of a strange year. In my mind, it's very much split into 3 parts; January to May was university and dissertation-ing, June to the end of August was the Summer of Joblessness, then September to December my life was pretty much taken over by my job at the Holiday Inn. So yes, a very mismatched year!

Here's some highlights from the year:

March: Florida

April: Returning to Colorado

June: Mariah + Sierra coming to visit

July: Graduation

Summer

Nights out with work friends

Definitely some good memories there. Here's to 2012 providing even more!

Recently ... [6]

First thing's first: I've now reached over 100 followers, which I'm more than a little bit excited about and proud of! Thank you to everyone who follows me; it really means a lot. And thank you for all your happy birthday wishes too!

So, with a week until Christmas, December is absolutely flying by. Here's what I've been up to recently:

+ I've finally caught up with mobile phone technology by getting myself a new touchscreen phone! Hooray! I've had my old phone for 3 years, and since it's been working fine I saw no reason to buy a new one. But the other day it just decided to stop receiving texts. Lovely. So I used my birthday money and bought myself a Huawei Blaze.

It was only £60, bargain or what? It's going to take me a while to get the hang of the whole touchscreen business, I think - texting has suddenly become a lot slower process!

+ Since I work in a hotel, we've been hosting various Christmas parties on Friday and Saturday nights for the past 3 weekends, and last night was our last one. They've been good fun, if slightly chaotic. Definitely looking forward to our own Christmas party now, though (but we have to wait until the new year for that!).

+ I finally got around to uploading some photos from when a few of my friends came to visit me for my birthday night out.

We spent a while sitting by a fish tank, and this fish barely moved the whole time - it just stayed there, staring at me! I wasn't sure whether to be flattered or creeped out!

Hope you're all getting into the Christmas spirit! I feel as if I should start coming up with New Year Resolutions, but that sounds like a lot of hard work ...

London.

I can't believe it's been a week already since I went to London to meet up with my girl friends! Seriously, where does the time go? I feel like time has been going by extra quickly since I've had a job. I measure my weeks by days on a rota, which runs from Friday to Thursday of the following week, so I'm all messed up. It doesn't help that my days off don't often fall on a weekend, and that I don't necessarily have two days off next to each other. Sometimes the only way I can figure out what day it is is by looking at my rota and thinking 'well, I wasn't in yesterday morning, so today must be [insert day here]'. It's quite the confusing work schedule!

I made the most of my (begged for) weekend off last weekend by visiting the Good Food Show with my mother and then on Sunday going to London to see some of my lovely girl friends.

I got to see Katie's engagement ring in the flesh (as it were) for the first time! She's been engaged since MAY (yes, I did just got allll the way back on her Facebook profile to check!), and I haven't seen her since before then. Isn't that terrible?

We went to the Forever 21 on Oxford Street, which I was super excited about because I have a gift card for the shop but ... I was disappointed. It didn't fill me with that 'OHMYGOD MUST HAVE EVERYTHING' feeling that the stores in the States do. Something was lacking. Hmm. I did come away with some earrings, though, so it wasn't a total loss.

Since I failed at finding a dress for my birthday while I was shopping in London, I did some online shopping instead. I acquired two LOVELY dresses from BooHoo.com that I'm super excited to wear. I might do a post on them. And the earrings. Ooh, you're all excited, right? Right?

P.S. For those of you who commented on my last post asking, I'm not sure you can call the things going on a 'good thing', but ... well, I'll save it for a proper post about it!

Not Halloween.

I'm aware that this is an unpopular opinion in the blogosphere, but ... I'm really excited that Halloween is over. Don't hate me guys! I know Halloween isn't anywhere near as big a deal over here as it is in the US, so maybe I just don't 'get' it properly. But there's only so many blog posts about a day I'm not invested in that I can read without feeling like my head is going to explode!

I didn't do anything specifically for Halloween, but it was our staff quiz + night out on Sunday instead. Such a fun night. Even if this isn't a job I plan on being in for all that long (I've been there 2 months today! Time has flown by), I'm definitely lucky to have such a fun bunch of work colleagues.

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Part of me has been considering doing NaNoWriMo this year, but I haven't got a plot or a plan at all, so it's probably not going to happen. Oh well, there's always next year!

A night out.

My caps lock button is only working about 40% of the time. This is frustrating.

Anyway!

Two of my friends from university came down to visit me on Thursday, and it was SO good to see them. We did a bit of shopping (I bought some black wedges from New Look that I didn't reeeally need, but I didn't have any going out wedges so it's okay) before coming back to mine, eating, getting ready and getting our drink on with some Crunk Juice Juce.
Has anyone else tried this stuff? It's imported from the US and is SUPER STRONG. I'd tried the grape and fruit punch flavours before, which were both revolting, but the watermelon wasn't quite as bad. It was drinkable, at least!

Georgia's first sip was not a pleasant one.

I'd never been out in Southampton before, so I wasn't sure where to go, but we went to a bar/club called Orange Rooms that had 2 for 1 cocktails (one of mine had - get this - dry ice in it! It was ridiculous) and good fun music, so it was a good night!

It closed at 1am, though, so we ended up in an almost empty club when that closed, which was more amusing than anything because everyone else in there was so drunk!
A good night all round, I say.

Date night.

It's half term this week, so to celebrate Dan completing half a term of being a real teacher, and because I had Friday evening and the whole of Saturday off, we went out for a meal and drinks in Frankie & Benny's, yay!

This is what I wore: (cue standard 'in-the-mirror' shot)

Not too dressy, but it was COLD out, and I've never been one for fashion over warmth. That's just crazy to me!

I love Frankie & Benny's. There's such a yummy selection of food, and the cocktails there are super strong and delicious too. I was planning on taking photos of all our courses, but after two glasses of the Long Beach Iced Tea (like Long Island Iced Tea, but with cranberry juice instead of Coke), um, I forgot!

On the bus I realised my lack of pictures, so I tried to take some, but the bus wouldn't stop moving. How inconsiderate.

Dan cooked me a full English breakfast in the morning, because he's super lovely like that :) We went for a walk in some fields afterwards, but I'll save that for another post (something for you guys to look forward to, haha).

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Last night I got to Skype with Sam, one of my best friends from my year in Colorado. We talked for over two hours, and it was so lovely to catch up. We hadn't spoken in far too long. I really miss that girl. Long distance friendships are tough.

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I'm guest posting over at Mary Rebecca's blog today, so you should check it out!

A meal in London

On Saturday, during that wonderful heatwave that I'm missing already, I went to London to celebrate my friend Emma's birthday with a meal in Jamie's Italian. SUCH good food, seriously.

The British countryside looks so lovely when it's sunny.
[taken from the train window]

These mushrooms were possibly the best thing I've ever eaten. There was a little pot of garlic mayo on the side and the whole thing was just OHMYGODAMAZING. I could happily have eaten this starter another 3 or 4 times over. Everyday for the rest of my life. It was that good.
If you ever go to Jamie's Italian and you love mushrooms: order the mushroom fritti. You will not regret it, my friends!

The brownie I had for dessert was quite sensational as well.

I was a little disappointed not to have more time to just sit and talk to my girl friends, since I hadn't seen them in months, but I suppose that's a good excuse to make sure I see them again soon!

Facebook nostalgia.

I'm sure you've all noticed the way that Facebook is bringing up old statuses on the right hand side of some pages, right? It doesn't seem to be for any reason other than to provoke a feeling of bittersweet nostalgia. The other day I had

On This Day In 2009
Emma is going to her first ever American football game today.

Man, that seems like a long time ago. Well, I guess it was two years ago. Still. It's odd to see the passage of time just there, at the side of my Facebook page, reminding me of how different my life was then to how it is now. Luckily (is it luckily? I'm not sure) I don't post all that many Facebook statuses so it probably won't be a problem I have all that often. Just enough to give me a quick stab at the heart every now and then. And I suppose, in a way, it's a little bit nice. I wouldn't remember these exact dates, these exact occasions without them.

Thank you for your thoughtful comments on yesterday's post, by the way. They made me realise that I'm far from the only one thinking these things, and that if I want to travel and not be stuck in this job for more than a year it's entirely up to me to make it happen.

Things.

1. Dan and I went to Cardiff (my hometown) for a couple of days on Tuesday. We were planning on staying until today (Friday), but on Tuesday I got an email from the Holiday Inn asking if I could start on Wednesday. Typical! Luckily I managed to get hold of James (my new manager!), who said it was okay for me to start on Thursday instead. So I didn't get quite as long in Cardiff as I'd have liked, but at least my mother had the day off on our one full day so I could spend some time with her.

2. I started my job yesterday! I went in at 4pm to sign paperwork and be given 'the tour', and then started work at 6pm. It was so busy and chaotic, but the time went by so quickly and I really enjoyed it! Everyone seems really nice, too, which definitely helps. I didn't get home until midnight (although that was partially because a road on my way home was closed, so I had to take a massive detour) and was completely shattered!

3. Unfortunately I've been scheduled to work on Sunday. And because I'm brand sparkling new at my job, I don't think it's acceptable to ask to change dates so soon, which means I don't get to go to London to meet up with my girl friends. I'm really gutted, because it's been months since I've seen any of them, and could be months before I get another opportunity to get us all together in one place.
This is the problem with growing up; everyone has their own schedule, and it's tricky to get everyone's lined up. Le sigh.

4. I don't like the new Blogger.

Where's my BFF? (a thought process in photos)

Following on from yesterday's post (in the most vague way possible), I was thinking and I realised that, should I get married sometime in the future, I have no idea who I would choose for my Maid of Honour. Or my bridesmaids, for that matter.

That makes me sound like a bit of a billy-no-mates. Not true. I have plenty of girl friends. But half of them are in or around London, and the other half are alllll the way on the other side of the Atlantic in the US. So I don't see any of them nearly as much as I'd like.

I would consider these two to be my best friends:

But they live in Colorado, and have other friends that they're closer to than me. I have no doubt that, to both of them, I'm amongst their best friends, but like I said, other friends closer (both in distance and emotion) to them. We've got the kind of friendship where we can not talk for months, but when we talk, it's as if no time at all has passed. Which I love. It's just hard when I can't casually text them or call them, or, you know, see them.
I'd LOVE to have these two as my bridesmaids. But having them so far away makes that pretty tricky.

Also in the US is Sarah:

(sorry about the collage - there were too many great pictures to choose from!) (and yes, she is proposing to me in the last image) (in a Las Vegas wedding chapel, no less) (we were drunk, what do you want from us?) (sorry, I'll stop with the parenthesis)

Without Sarah, I probably wouldn't have had the amazing time in Colorado that I did. She was the first friend I met out there, the first one to say "Hey, come hang out with me", and who introduced me to some amazing people. We've had a lot of fun adventures together (including three times in Las Vegas - she lives there, y'see). She talks a LOT, but she has the most amazing heart, and I miss her.
Again, though, different country. Not too helpful.

Moving onto this country ...

My friend Emmy-Lou (well, her name is Emma, but I call her Emmy-Lou and she calls me Emmy-Liz. We're too cool) is getting married next April, and I'm going to be a bridesmaid for her. It's the first time I'm going be a bridesmaid (or go to a wedding, for that matter!) and I'm super excited to share her day with her.

(yes, we are massive dorks. We met on the internet, so ... yeah)

This is another case of a close friend of mine having a BFF4LYFE already. Which is fine, but it means, I don't know, I feel like I want my own BFF as my Maid of Honour. As in, that person who I am the No. 1 friend for. Is that selfish of me? Perhaps. But I don't think it's out of the realms of expectation, is it?

Now we're going down nostalgia lane ...
When I was 14/15 I had a best friend who was the stereotypical definition of a BFF.

(please excuse the hole in my mouth where teeth should be. One day I might get around to writing about the 6856378144 years of torment - I only exaggerate slightly - I went through with my teeth)

We did EVERYTHING together. When she was at her father's house, we lived a 5 minute walk away from each other, so I basically lived at her house. Both her mother and her father referred to me on more than one occasion as their extra daughter. I slept over her house almost every weekend. We told each other everything. It was the kind of best friendship that teenage books are made of.
But, as is often the way with teenage friendships, we fell out, and the rest of our friends all sided with her. It was a massive falling out that left me on the verge of depression for the two years of Sixth Form. I wish things hadn't happened that way. We were such prolific writers, both of us, that I believe our friendship could easily have lasted through university if The Argument hadn't made us fall apart. I still dream about her sometimes, and I wake up missing her every time.

And finally, there's these wonderful ladies:

It took a long time for me to be able to trust a group of girls again (see above), but this lot made it happen. I still see these girls as often as I can (I'll hopefully be seeing them next weekend!), but it isn't the same as it was when we were in university and we could see each other every day. And, once again, most (if not all) of them are closer to other girls than to me (both within that group and outside of it). Again, that probably has more to do with distance than anything else. I'm just too far away to casually go and spend an evening with them.

At the ripe old age of 22, I am BFF-less. And without school or university as a catalyst, I have no idea how to go about making friends, let alone finding me a best friend. Le sigh. I guess if it's meant to happen, it will.

(this overly long post is brought to you by loneliness as a result of Dan being away on a teaching training course, and me having NOTHING to do)