Travel logbook: places I’ve visited

Hey,

On today’s blog post I thought I’d share with you guys on the places I’ve visited so far…welcome to my travel diary *insert a chime*. Quick disclaimer before I start on this blog, yes the list ain’t gonna be that long, don’t blame me but my bank account that unfortunately cannot keep up with my desired lifestyle. I mean there is still so much that I’d like to see. I want to go to Prague, Italy, Australia, Ireland and more. However, I’ve just gotta hold on till I’ve managed to save enough to hop back on that plane and enjoy the sun. On the list below, the two places which I commonly go back to visit are France and Finland. This is due to the fact that I have family out there, which is always a good excuse to travel back, so I get to kill two birds with one stone whilst I get myself out of England once in a while too.

So without further ado let’s get into the travel logbook:

Helsinki,Finland

As mentioned before, I pretty much go to Finland as much as possible to go see the family and spend time with them due to the long distance between us. The tickets there aren’t the cheapest, especially when direct Finnair airlines cost an absolute bomb. Although I do love my time soaking up the sun and tanning up on my melanin, you can’t beat the winter season, especially in Finland. I mean the fresh smell of cinnamon and Glögi (mulled wine) is the thing that I love to wake up to in the morning. Not only that but can’t go wrong with cosy oversized jumpers around the lit fire. Anyways this ain’t about why I love the winter season so much, that can be saved for a future blog post. I don’t know how to speak Finnish, only count up 5 and say simple greetings like hello. To sum it ip I’m basically useless when it comes to translating haha.

In 2016, me and my 2 sisters went to spend our Christmas there. We did lots of activities with the kids like shopping, baking and ice skating. Not to trump my own horn but I did a much better job of ice skating than my younger sister. They had set up an outside ice skating ring in the middle of the city center. Nothing like skating under the watchful eyes of stars to get ourselves into the Christmas spirit at the time.

Paris, France

Next, we have la ville magnifique Paris that everyone loves going to, whether it may be for a short weekend trip or an adventurous two-week trip. For me it’s between seeing my lovely close cousins (who I always miss dearly) or going with my sister to see the French Open tennis match, whilst visiting the Palace of Versailles. Since the latter was the reason for my most recent trip to France, it would only be fitting to talk about that trip on this section. Luckily we went at the beginning of the month so the weather was on our side throughout the trip, which was bliss!! It was my first time watching tennis live so you can tell how excited I was on the first day of the match. The security was tight as expected and once you went through the gates you could see how packed it was inside with different pitch sizes located around us. I would be lying if I said that I didn’t fall asleep half way through the match every now and then…but a girl’s gotta stay committed to her naps too. I really enjoyed visiting the Palace of Versailles too,the artwork inside was beautiful and so was the huge garden outside.

Barcelona. Spain

In 2017, I went to Barcelona with some high school friends and her uni housemate. Although we went just for the week, we got to explore a lot of Barcelona and catch some sun by the beach, which I may say was my highlight. The overall price wasn’t as bad as I’d have expected, considering that we booked ourselves an apartment rather than a hotel for our stay, which was close to the main city centre. Apart from going to the beach, we went to Parc Guell, La Rambla and the popular shopping centre called Maremagnum. I didn’t want to buy too much stuff because I was not ready to pay for any excess luggage at the airport. Our day trip to Parc Guell was beautiful and the weather was really nice too (maybe too nice as I was dripping in sweat haha). It was day filled with good memories and culture learning. We took turns with one another  when it came to taking candid pictures for us to put up on Instagram, we even came up with a hashtag for ourselves to use whilst in Barcelona. I would definitely like to go there again sometime for my holidays.

Majorca, Spain

Majorca will forever be my most memorable holiday due to 2 reasons; it was the first time I traveled alone with a friend without my mum being there and we literally booked the holiday on a whim when we met up  for lunch. All we really wanted was a nice, all-inclusive and cheap holiday to spend our last days of freedom. The hotel that we stayed at was called Honolulu, which was about 20-30mins away from the airport if I remember correctly. The rooms were adequate and we had a lovely view of the town from our balcony, where we could see the beach, some rides and few of the clubs too. Although there was just the two of us, we befriended these other 2 girls that came on holiday alone and pretty much stuck together as a group of 4 for the rest of the week.  Everything was within a walking distance so getting around was easy and hassle free. If I was going to complain about anything, it would be the wi-fi at the hotel which was just shocking due to the fact that it only worked at the reception. When we were in our rooms we had to use our 3G instead, so you can imagine how fast that ran out.

When it comes to holidays I’m not really picky as long as I get to explore the city, take  pictures for memories and experience the place to the fullest. I’m not a big fan of holidays where you just go and get drunk, then spend the whole day hanging in bed wishing you took it slow the day before. As mentioned earlier, I’m hoping to go to either Prague or Rome next year as I’ve heard a lot of good things about them.

If you’ve got any holiday recommendations of your own that you’d like to share, feel free to leave a comment below as I’d be very interested!

Yours Truly,

Melanin Talks x

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