Kirstiekins Blogs: Travel

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Vienna Christmas Markets

Wednesday

Now that Autumn is officially here (and there are less than 100 days until the big C) there is only one thing on my mind... Christmas. I absolutely love the run-up to Christmas, everything is so festive and the smells that fill the air are to die for; food, candles, Gingerbread Lattes, the list goes on.

A few years ago, my cousin and I took a trip out to Vienna so we could wander around the Christmas Markets, and experience some of what Austria has to offer in the winter. If you have never been to a Christmas Market, then you are seriously missing out.

Saturday

Living in London is definitely not good for my waistline. It seems as if there is a new restaurant or cafe opening every week, and of course, I want to try them all! Whether you are into chains, boutique type 'pop-ups', street food, foreign cuisine, or elaborate desserts, there is something for everyone.

Here are a few of my favourite places to eat when I am out and about in London.

Thursday

Tuesday

Paris is easily one of my favourite cities. It was the second foreign city I ever visited (Amsterdam being the first) and I fell in love with it almost instantly. Every building has its own unique characteristics, whether it be in its architecture or how brightly coloured flowers have been displayed on balconies - everything is beautiful and I love it.

Friday

My brain did a little bit of a swan dive towards the end of last month. I had planned to write a bunch of blog posts, and share some really cool products, books and experiences with you guys, but my brain wouldn't have any of it. The more I tried to get stuff done, the more I wanted to gouge my eyes out with a fork.

Wednesday

Wow, this month has flown by, don't you think? I know February is a short month, but woah.

Monday

Way back in February I took my mum to The Big Apple for her birthday, New York is one of her favourite places in the entire world - she loves the bright lights, towering buildings and yellow taxi's that just seem to appear out of nowhere; I am the complete opposite, I love quiet spaces, culture and being surrounded by history. Honestly, I am such a huge dork, and after going all that way on a plane (I hate planes) I decided to reward myself by dragging my mum down to Penn Station at ridiculous o'clock in the morning, fuel'ing her up with coffee and bagels from Dunkin' Doughnuts, and then jumping on a train to Washington D.C

I have always wanted to visit Washington D.C. It is a place that we see so frequently on the news with reporters outside the Capitol building or the White House, but D.C is so much more than that. Aside from the popular tourist attractions, there are a number of restaurants, museums, nature walks and historic things to do and visit. Unfortunately, as we went in the middle of winter and it was below freezing we didn't get to do everything on our list, but we did get to see a lot of the city under the moonlight! We missed the last bus back to the train station, so we had to walk a good few miles whilst barely being able to feel our toes, the upside of this was that apart from the odd homeless person or tourist, there was absolutely no one else on the streets, it was almost as if we had the entire city to ourselves!

Sunday

Tuesday

The only thing better than seeing the New York Skyline from Liberty Island is being part of it. Ever since I saw Home Alone 2 when I was a kid, I wanted nothing more than to climb to the top of New York and look out onto the enormous buildings and vast blue skies; and let me tell you, it was everything I ever hoped it could be.

Monday

I wish we could have spent a lot longer in Central Park than what we had time for, as it is so pretty and there is so much to see, but considering the weather was ridiculously below freezing we decided to venture for warmer pastures and save what we missed for another trip (at a warmer time of year).

The little time we spent there was not nearly enough time to get around the entire park, but we did manage to visit Strawberry Fields, The Zoo, and climb the rocks that are used in ninety percent of movies that are shot in Central Park, as well as well as do some general wandering.

Tuesday

Whilst I was in New York I got to see my favourite musical, Wicked, on Broadway, which was everything I could have hoped for and more.

So this weeks NYC post is pretty photo heavy, but how can it not be when on our second day in New York, we hopped on a sightseeing bus and made our way down to Battery Park so we could see
The Statue of Liberty. I have been wanting to see Lady Liberty ever since I first saw her on TV when I was little, so finally getting the chance to see her in person was pretty magical.

My first day in NYC was more of a first evening. We landed at JFK around 4pm, and after waiting for what seemed like an eternity at customs and the luggage carousel, we finally bundled ourselves into the back of a mini-van and headed off to our hotel. We were quite lucky, as there wasn't too much traffic which means we got to take the Queensboro Bridge and see the New York skyline at night - the movies do not do this sight justice, not in the slightest. Seeing this view with my own eyes has got to be one of the greatest moments of my life.

New York City. It's the city everyone dreams of visiting. The tall buildings that tower into the sky, the bright blurs of yellow taxis whizzing by you, the adrenaline that starts pumping the very second you walk into The Empire State Building, knowing that very soon you will be standing on top of a national icon. It's beautiful. It's magnificent. It's inspiring.

Last month I was lucky enough to be able to visit the wonderful city of New York and experience all this for myself, and let me tell you now, there is nothing like it. It is incomparable.

Over the next few weeks, I am going to be sharing my trip to NYC with you. I will cover the basics such as booking and accommodation, all the way over to food, things to do and how to get the most out of your time there!

When it comes to travelling, I am not shy of hunting around for the best deals, booking everything separately, and figuring out things as I go, I actually prefer to do things this way, but as I was travelling with my mum, I opted to book it all online with Expedia. My mum likes to know that everything is planned before she travels, she doesn't want to faff about looking things up once we get there. Expedia allowed me to scroll through and choose hotels and flights based on our needs and budget and then add on extras once we had finished. These extras included transfers, sightseeing bus tours, excursions, helicopter rides, and other bells and whistles NYC had to offer. We opted to stay at The Washington Jefferson which I will talk about more in my next post and to fly with British Airways. I also chose to book our airport transfers through the 'add-on/ extras' section, so I could put my mother's mind at rest.

Aside from a day trip to Washington DC, we booked all of our attractions whilst we were there, but I will go into all of those in a different post, (and that post will be linked right here when I have posted it.

What did it cost?

In total, not including anything I did whilst we were there the trip cost £1250. Please bear in mind that these figures were for two people

£940 for return flights with BA.
£260 for a five-night stay at The Washington Jefferson.
£50 for return airport transfers.

However, just because I booked it through Expedia, doesn't mean I didn't do everything I could to get the best price possible. Here are some tips on how to save when booking through travel agents

Many hotels will charge extra for WIFI. Some at extortionate prices ($10.00 a day). Always read the small print when it comes to WIFI. If you find a hotel that is an extra $30 but offers free WIFI, do the math and figure out whether or not you'll actually be saving money by staying at the cheaper hotel without free WIFI.

Do you really need to add breakfast to the bill? Buy some cereal bars and keep them in the room, or go out and pick up something from the local shop. Most hotels will get you to pay $10.00 a day for breakfast, and all they will offer is some croissants and cornflakes.

Fly on a Wednesday. I don't know why, but for some reason, it is always cheaper to fly on a Wednesday. Most airlines abide by this unwritten rule, so if you can, travel on a Wednesday.

Be prepared to shop around. If you can book everything individually then do it, you will often find out that planning everything yourself, and booking it all individually will be a hell of a lot cheaper than booking through a company.

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New York City is everything you could hope it to be and more. I could sit here explaining it to you all day, but anything I say will not do it the justice it deserves. Hopefully over the next few posts, I will be able to show you a small part of what makes it so great, and why you should go there.

Kirstie xoxo

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Wednesday

A few weeks ago I took a spontaneous trip to Amsterdam to visit one of my best friends, Cat! She is studying at UvA, and has been on at me for months to come and visit her - and to be honest, I was kind of putting it off, as I am not really a fan of flying, but I am so glad that I did.

I've only ever been to Amsterdam once before, and that was a school trip when I was thirteen. We visited a lot of the museums, and a tourist hot-spots, so this time I was more interested in seeing the other fascinating places that Amsterdam has to offer. I was, and still am so in love with how pretty Amsterdam is, that I pretty much spent the entire time I was there walking around in awe.

Sunday

I know it's a little late, but I couldn't not share these photos with you guys! I went to Paris for August bank holiday with one of my oldest (and bestest) friends on the planet, and we decided to see how many sights we could see in one day. Yup. One Day.

We took the coach from London Victoria on Saturday morning, and finally arrived in Paris later that day. We checked into the hotel, ate our weight in food and then watched Law and Order: SVU in French. It was great. We woke up on Sunday, packed our bags and then we were off. We went to the Moulin Rouge, Arc du Triomphe, Notre Dame, The Eiffel Tower, Gare du Nord (to reminisce our school French lessons), and got a little bit lost looking for the love lock bridge.

If you read my last post you would know that I was M.I.A from the blogging world last week, due to the fact that I was in Rome! As I mentioned before, it has been on my list of places I want to visit, ever since I was little and watched the Sabrina goes to Rome movie. Although I couldn't see the Trevi Fountain in all it's glory (it was boarded up for renovation) I still had a tremendously amazing time, and I can definitely say that I will be going back at some point in my life.

I fell in love with Rome. Not in the 'Love at first sight' kind of way, and not in the cliched 'it happened slowly and then before I knew it, I was falling head over heals at speeds unfathomable' kind of way either. If I am being honest, I didn't even know I loved Rome until I wasn't there anymore. I had an inkling when we left the city behind to go and fanny about on the beach for the afternoon, but it wasn't until I was on a plane heading back towards London that I really felt it. I realised that from the moment I got there, (even though I couldn't - and still can't - speak a word of Italian) I felt at home; I felt like I belonged. After you have been to a place like that, even if you live in one of the most desirable cities in the world, the place where you live just doesn't compare. London is wonderful, but I would trade it for Rome in a heartbeat.

It wasn't the scorching heat, or the fact of finding history around every corner, or even the remarkable works of art and architecture - it was the people. I am a strong believer in that people make a place special, and even though the Roman people that I met were simultaneously both polite, and ill mannered, I wouldn't change them - sure maybe some common courtesy when letting people off trains on the Metro would be great, but you can't judge other cultures by the standards you hold of your own, that's how wars start!

I fell in love with the dirt that the buildings had collected, the poor lighting at Repubblica station, the smell of the heat rising from the concrete in the evenings, the little cobbled streets, the multitude of gelato flavours, the fact that I walked into a pasta shop and the tattooed woman behind the counter was singing along to the R.E.M song blasting from the radio, the gypsy woman that kept asking me for change in St. Peters Square, the crazy old lady that sold me ice water from her drink stand every morning and evening, the waiter that served me in the little restaurant across from the forum, the same waiter when I went back a second time and he remembered me, the view from St. Peters Basilica, the eerie silence in the Sistine Chapel, the way the moon looked different even though it's exactly the same, the sound of water coming from the numerous fountains around the city, the funky looking bread my hotel served at breakfast, the volcanic sand that I still can't get out of my shoes, and finally, just knowing that I was walking on the same ground, climbing the same steps, sitting in the same places as the ancients did all those years ago! There aren't words to explain how I feel, it's overwhelming, it's - is it cliche to call it magic? I'm going to call it magic. Not in the conventional way as to what we believe magic to be, with witches and potions, and what have you, but in the feeling way. To know that we as humans, had to ability to create a civilisation that is still recognisable today, that was still standing until around four hundred years ago, it really is remarkable. We are constantly looking for excuses to believe in magic, when really the only proof we need is history.