Blast from the Past: Munich Oktoberfest

Coming somewhere in almost every drunkards bucket list is the world famous Munich Oktoberfest and yes ladies and gentleman for the famous fests 200th birthday I was there in very inappropriate faux German attire.

Not willing to spend 100€s in dirndls we opted for the fancy dress ones with COLD consequences.

Unfortunately the lengths of our dirndls (dresses) did not correspond with the freezing weather outside but we powered through regardless. We were camping because all the hostels were full and anyway they were around 100€ a night so instead we paid 15€ a night to freeze to death in a tent (not that we slept). 

Our tent was COLD

The first night only having three days at the fest we headed straight out READ MORE>>

Blast from the Past: Finnish SitSit

The man ran down the aisle carrying a chainsaw ..... he came closer and closer and then........ he slipped.....

But more on that later. You know how I say I always wish I had blogged about Germany .... no maybe not but I do say that and I thought

Hey why don't I do that now!


My brain is still swimming with all the cool blogtacular information and seeing as I'm not going anywhere (for the next 30 odd days) I thought I would start off with one of my faves. Not only was this one of my favourite memories of 2011 but also my favourite city and country that's right you guessed it (or didn't based on how well you know me) ........

It's Helsinki baby!!


But George I hear you cry, how can you like Helsinki it's soooo cold. Why yes it is children look ...

This photo was taken in March, it was -10c snowing everyday but that didn't stop Finland from being KICK-ASS!  READ MORE>>

Morocco: Top 5 Travel Tips!

O.K. I've done top 5 travel tips before but these are specifically for Morocco so if you are going or even interesting in going some day here are just some things to remember.

1. Be Aware of Scams!

My friend got scammed by the black henna ladies. She grabbed her arm and then stole 100dh from her. As you can see she was not very happy about it.

This almost doesn't have to be said but the variety of scams out there is amazing. I could make a top 10 of scams by themselves but I'll just list a few here. Trust noone! Not even the hostel as we found out the hard way. Be wary of guides and where they are taking you make sure they are not taking you anywhere you can't find your way back. Don't take pictures of people before negotiating the price. People walk around with monkeys and snakes as well and if they place one on you they will want you to pay whether you wanted it or not. Don't let the black henna ladies get hold of your hand. Again they'll tell you it's free, then charge you and finally Don't leave money in pockets that are easy to access. Again seems obvious, but children in particular are trained to be pickpockets and there tiny fingers can reach into a pocket undetected.

2. Haggle EVERYTHING!

That's right you can haggle pretty much anything, READ MORE>>

Looking Back and Moving Forward: My 2011 and the year ahead!

Before I post my top 5 tips for Morocco I thought I would reflect a little ...

2011 was an interesting year for me I've lived in 3 countries (4 if you count England and Wales as separate countries) visited 10 different countries (5 new) and truly caught the travel bug. So here is how my year went.

January - Italy, Spain, The Netherlands
I started the year off the year with NYE in Cardiff then instead of flying home I went straight to my friends in Brescia and visited Venice (which I didn't like). Brescia however charmed the pants off me and quickly became my favourite city. After going back to Germany I also had a long weekend with my friends in Barcelona (which I was also not a huge fan of) and finished January off with an excellent weekend visiting a friend in Amsterdam!

February - Hamburg and Munich
For once I spent the whole month in the same country but that doesn't mean I didn't travel. We started off the month with a trip to Hamburg and it's famous Reeperbahn and I also met up with loads of 1st, 2nd and 3rd year student from my Uni for a fun filled weekend in Munich.

READ MORE>>

Marrakesh: The Final Chapter

I know this has been a long time coming, to be honest I wanted to get all these posts written quickly before the memory of Morocco was fading away, but with Christmas, Essay and a general case of the lazies (and FB crapping out on me) it never got done. After this I still have my top Morocco tips to pass on as well so I'll have to pull my finger out and make sure that's done before I go to Dublin, the life of a traveller. Anyway on with the story ......

So the next morning we awoke to Marrakesh and it was a whole new world. The markets were VERY busy but not intimidating, and we got right into it and started to haggle. Of course you won't get anything for the price that a local would but we gave it our very best and got a lot of bargains. Scarves for £3, Bags for £2.50, Earrings for 50p. Marrakesh in December is perfect, just in time to get some great Christmas shopping bargains and it was a nice 15 degrees so you didn't walk about feeling like your face was going to melt off.

Shots of the Markets at Marrakesh make you realise how far from home you really are.

The markets were really stunning and we had a lot of fun pushing prices down to the bare minimum often walking off and trying other stalls and always getting called back READ MORE>>