Beautiful Belgium - The Concrete Cavas Walking Tour Edition

Slowly following on from our arrival edition and the graffiti lane edition, I bring you... 

the Concrete Canvas tour!

We attempted the Concrete Canvas walking tour on our second day in Ghent but somehow managed to fail miserably at finding any of the art work we wanted to see.

Bring on our last day in Ghent, lots of motivation to find these gems all over the city and the hopes of a day filled with fun!

Roa was on the top of our list, after being slightly familiar with his work after seeing some of it around London. We opened our map and circled all of his art work on the tour and set off for the second time - succeeding greatly!!

Discussing the pros and cons 

We took turns at being the tour guide, which we all took very seriously..

That pen came in very handy!

And we managed to see ALL of the Roa artwork on the tour! 

Ghent is pretty cool - not only is it beautiful, it's pretty small which made walking around the town super easy and enjoyable! 

The rabbits were my favourite piece of Roa's artwork, I'm so glad we managed to find them!

We started to try and guess which artwork was coming up next, as on the map it didn't specify which animal it'd be, so that added to the excitement!!

This was another favourite from Bue the Warrior - They had some cool takes and concepts of stuff!

We stopped off for lunch at a cute wee pub, filled our bellies with delicious food and mulled wine, then we were ready to find the last few artworks! 

Ghent was such a lovely place to spend a couple of days with two pretty choice people. 

If you love old cities, wandering around aimlessly whilst actually achieving things and and getting a bit cultured, then I'd highly recommend it!

Beautiful Belgium - The Graffiti Lane Edition

We went for a stroll down Graffiti Lane once we had arrived at our hotel and got settled in. It was on a list of things to do in Ghent and was right across from our hotel. We entered this scary lane, hoping for the best...

We weren't disappointed!! 

The colours were amazing! So was the art work! 

This was perfect timing as we were there on Valentines day!

  

I felt like my colourful hat and bag ensemble blended in perfectly!

It was a fun adventure to start our trip!

Here's Beautiful Belgium Part 1 - The Arrival Edition  

Beautiful Belgium - The Arrival Edition

During the February half term break, myself and two other fun humans, who we shall call Rach and Cara, set out on an adventure to Belgium..

First stop was Ghent!

After getting on the ridiculously early 7am Eurostar from London, we arrived in Brussels a couple of hours later to then enjoy another short train ride to Ghent.

Somehow, mainly thanks to Rachyroo our travel guide goddess, we got on the tram to the town centre where our glorious hotel was. For someone like myself who doesn't stay in hotels very often, there was quite a novelty about it all. I'm not sure what was more fun - putting our most prized possessions - read: passports - into the safe and opening and closing it a few times for fun, OR the fun of getting to sleep in a luxuriously huge bed!

We stayed at The Novotel hotel and I really couldn't complain one bit about it. We were lucky enough to have a pretty sweet view from our window overlooking a little square, getting cheeky views of the locals demolishing beers in the early afternoon and my favourite part - hearing the bloody church bells ring for a bajillion hours straight on a Sunday morning... I swear, it didn't stop for at least two hours and when our heads were slightly sore and we were all craving frites, it wasn't the best start! However - the windows of the hotel were very soundproof!

A slightly worrying long way down.

We did loads of exploring and walking around the quaint, little, cobble stone streets dodging bikes, ate lots of delicious things and took lots of photos of each other... and the beautiful city we were in for three days.

Ghent canal by day

Ghent canals by night - photo cred to rachy

It was fun walking down the street holding hands, merging into a line when the crowds got a bit squishy, taking in the stares and the feeling of being on a school trip...

It was almost, only just though, as fun walking down the streets holding a cone of frites in our warm hungover embrace, scouting out the best spot to sit down before we collapsed in heaps. 

There was so much more fun to be had... Stay tuned!!

You should check out Cara's blog - Britventures for part one and part two of our trip away!

Finally I've blogged!! ~Christmas In New Zealand!!~

Going back to Wellington for Christmas was probably one of the best holidays of my life.

I was well overdue for some R&R and what better way to spend ridiculous amounts of pounds and three glorious weeks with my family and best friends!!

Boxing Day with the fam - win!

The weather was absolutely perfect!

Some of my favourite and best moments are....

Spending time with one of my all time favourite humans

And one of my favourite non-humans

Having icecreams overlooking this view before going to see the third Hobbit film at The Roxy cinema.

Getting to hang out with this scallywag!

These two were alright..

Catching up with family on Boxing Day

Making this to-die-for dairy free, gluten free, chocolate cake.. twice.. and eating one that Markie had made!! Recipe can be found here over at the glorious Meghan's blog

Having afternoon gin and tonics with my Mumma. Feet in pool, gin in hand - what more could a girl need?

Taking this pooch for walks down to the Hutt River near my parent's place. I feel like I took complete advantage of the outdoors!!

Spending my second to last night and last day with Meg and Mark and the boys was one of my most special and favourite times. And having 'panini coladas' on New Years eve!!

Saying goodbye to these two at the airport wasn't easy.

It was very much a last minute trip planned - flights were booked on a Friday and I was outta London on the Sunday. My parents were a bit shocked to say the least, but it was still hands down one of my best holidays.

Until next time New Zealand!!

Life Lately

Life has been a bit crayzay over the last few months!! 

After 3 long months, this time next week, I'll be in the hospital having my first ever operation. It's freaking me out to no end, I feel like I'm going to throw up every time I think about it, but I know my knee will finally be fixed. 

I didn't know what it'd be like to be on crutches; to have my leg in a massive brace; to be incredibly restricted in pretty much every aspect of life; to be in this sort of pain. 

But it's all going to be better soon!

Autumn has well and truly hit London. The clocks have gone back an hour. The days are darker earlier. There's that autumnal chill in the air. The leaves on the footpath are scattered for what seems like forever. 

We've approached the end of the grueling first term back at school, with extreme levels of exhaustion and stress. 

The spiders have been out to play in backyards. And in our case, as of last night, four wee mice have resided in our kitchen - more on those antics later!

Flower markets have been visited with friends. Pubs have been calling our names after long days at work. 

Sunrises have been marveled at in awe. 

And mustache beds have been slept in. With mustache pjs. Life won that night!

I should theoretically be able to post some more 'insightful' posts over the next 6 weeks, as my butt molds its shape into the couch.

Stay tuned...

Is London really where my heart is?

Coming to you from one homesick Kiwi, with a love-hate relationship with London.

Sometimes I'll miss home...

And sometimes I won't.

It took me well over two years to allow myself to know and feel that it is OK to miss home. Living on what is literally the other side of the world didn't sink in for a while - I don't know if it ever will to be honest.

But the longer I've been in London, the bigger and stronger those pangs are and get; 

It is OK to miss my friends and family. 

It is OK to want to be back there... sometimes.

I've only been back to New Zealand once in three and a half years. That one visit was a real test of me. 

Could I move back home within a few months and enjoy life? Will I be happy? Will I still have friends? Will things just pick up from where I left off? 

Nope.

I got home wanting to come back to London straight away. But I had a long six weeks ahead of me. Things got better; I saw more friends and family, went to more places, chilled out more, enjoyed life at a slower pace. 

But London had called me well and truly. 

I'm definitely not saying life is easy at this end. There are always going to be good days and bad days, regardless of where you live. 

The challenges. job opportunities, friendships, life experiences - all make someone a better person. 

All in all though, I do still feel torn between the place where my heart is and the place where my life is.

The best little city in the world. 

It'll keep you breathing

When my sister and I were younger, we'd lie on our lounge floor, as still as we could, to see if we could feel the world spinning. We were convinced that we could and thought it was the best thing ever.

Nowadays, sometimes that world spins just too damn fast.

The craziness of the life-spinning takes over and makes you feel like there's not enough hours in the day; you can't quite get everything done and when the overwhelming backlog of really important stuff mixed in with all the mindless crap gets too big, you wish time would stand still. 

For just enough moments. 

Enough time for you to gather your thoughts, cross a few things off that mile long to-do list, decrease the mindless crap pile, get those really important things tended too, and to just breathe. 

Breathing is important, but I find it's often forgotten. Smelling those figurative and literal roses seems like such a treat and the thought of that quickly gets pushed back onto the to-do list. 

Remembering the important things in life - those special magical moments that only you might treasure, the little things that make you happy and smile and all warm and nice and human, they're one of the most important ingredients in life's magical mystery. 

An important ingredient to remember. 

It'll keep you breathing.