Planning a New Adventure

This trip has been a very, very long time coming!

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I first found the desire to go to Russia whilst I was still at school, and I finished school 10 years ago now! I learnt Russian for three years (even got an A* at GCSE) and whilst I was unable to carry on to A Level I was originally going to study the language at university. Life got in the way, however, and whilst I did make it to Central America and SE Asia and emigrated to New Zealand I never ended up getting to Russia. 10 years later and my life and career have taken a very different path and finally, finally, I am starting to make my dream come true.

I've got 10 weeks off work (paid leave - thank you nursing job for letting me save up a couple years of annual leave!) I've read the guide books, googled my heart out, scoured travel blogs and forums and decided on the route I want to take. I even have a travel partner in my loving boyfriend of 2 years who is keen to take this trip with me even though I've warned him I might be a bit difficult, I am used to traveling alone... This is our first long trip away together, so I guess it'll be a bit of a test of our relationship! I think one of the things holding me back from travelling to Russia earlier was that I did actually want to share the experience with someone rather than go it alone. When I went to Laos a few years ago I did feel somewhat more isolated than I had travelling before. Most people I met were either couples or groups of 18 year olds out for some drunken laughs, although I did manage to meet a few other solos whom I remember fondly.

I've spent the majority of 2012 so far planning the route I want to take. Originally I was planning on doing an independent but organised trip through a recommended company who would book our train tickets and accommodation and a few tours and things, but due to a few factors I decided to bite the bullet and DIY it. I blame the guide book, there were just too many places I wanted to stop. We are also spending a month in the UK and I didn't want to be there during the Olympics so rather than heading there first and working our way back to NZ overland we are travelling East to West. We fly from Dunedin via Auckland to Hong Kong, for a fun filled few days with a couple of my closest friends who now live there. Then we are flying from Hong Kong to Vladivostok on Russia's Far East coast. This is the start/end of the Trans-Siberian train route. Most travelers actually go Moscow to Beijing and don't make it this far east, but if you are coming from NZ or Australia this can be an alternative starting point, especially if you don't want to go to China. If you are coming from Japan or South Korea there are also ferries to Vladivostok. From here we are spending a couple of weeks travelling the rail to Moscow, stopping off for a few days around the Lake Baikal area, Krasnoyarsk, Yekaterinburg, Vladimir and Suzdal. Because my boyfriend is interested in war history, I have managed to squeeze in a couple of days in Volgograd ( formally Stalingrad) at his request. We are flying here to save time, and then flying up to St Petersburg to finish off our month in Russia. You can only get a tourist visa for 30 days so I've planned our trip to be exactly that.

After Russia we will make our way briefly to Prague and Paris, then onto London and the UK towards the end of September. I left the UK in 2006 and only visited briefly in 2007 so this will be my first major trip back to my 'homeland'. Rich has been to the UK more recently than me. I want to catch up with my sister and my friends and take Rich to the places I grew up. Of course this pretty much means travelling the UK almost it's entire length... But hey we'll have just done that in Russia, the largest country in the world, so the UK should be easy in comparison!

We head off on the 17th August and I am counting down the days! I will hopefully manage to keep you updated...

Intensive Update #4

It's been a while since I've updated, and there have been a few reasons why. I thought it was about time I did though, because the last couple of months have been pretty action packed. Some things really warrant a blog post all of their own, but I literally do not have enough hours in the day at the moment so more detailed posts will follow later!

So, the first major event of the last few months was that I have bought a house! I found it in October and the deal was finalised on December 7th. Ever since then it has been a hectic time of moving all my stuff, unpacking, sorting, buying much needed equipment and furniture and cleaning up. The garden still needs a lot of work, but luckily mum came and lent a hand with some of it. I'm still having a few teething issues, particularly in relation to electrical problems (stupid washing machine...) and the shower (poor hot water pressure) but it's all stuff that can be sorted. I want to do a bit of decorating before too long as well.

The second event is the departure of several friends of mine. One close friend left a couple of months ago now to live with her boyfriend in the North Island, so at least there is the chance of seeing her again occasionally, but the others are just going too far away! Craig and Rhonwyn left just before Christmas, to head to Australia for the holidays and then over to Canada. Life just isn't going to be the same without them, though the reality of them not being here really has not sunk in yet. I've lived with these guys for almost 3 years so it will be a big change. I think it's helped I've had the new house to focus on. Hopefully I'll manage a holiday over there in the next couple of years! JT also left to pursue work in Oz, and another good friend of mine leaves in February, but not before we have a well deserved holiday in Tonga. It really has been a mass exodus of friends recently. I'll be advertising for new ones shortly!!

The third event is live music! There have been a couple of bands I've been dying to see and have had tickets for for months. First off was Pearl Jam in Christchurch, supported by Liam Finn and Ben Harper. The music was great, the weather was awful, and I was enjoying myself until some idiot behind me hit me on the back of my head with his elbow. Luckily the friend I was with and a couple other people around me picked me up off the floor and looked after me, but the b**st**d didn't even apologise or even seem to notice! I ended up with a headache and neck sprain which went on for weeks. Seems to generally be okay now, so I'll have to start going back to the gym and seeing how I cope.

I also flew up to Auckland to see Green Day, who were absolutely amazing! I was careful not to get hit this time! The music and the lighting show they had was simply fantastic and there was tonnes of crowd interaction - they got a young boy up on stage, and a woman with pink hair got to come up and sing one of their songs. I'll post properly on the event later.

Other than that, I've been working, working, working. Can't wait for my holiday in February and also for my sister coming to NZ next week! I wish she was here for longer than 2 weeks, but maybe I'll just have to steal her passport so she can't leave!

I'm not really one for New Year Resolutions so I won't bother joining the ranks of bloggers who've made lists of resolutions for 2010 - let's face it, I'd probably break them next week anyway. I'll just say I have one goal for 2010 and that is to write more than last year. That won't be hard!

Intensive Update #3

My blog has been taken over for the last 6 months by tales from my trip to South East Asia, and so I haven't written about anything else. Hopefully now I'll get back on track!

So, first a bit of an update in what has been happening in my life during the last few months:

1 - Job

I started my new job at the hospital about 10 days after I got back from my trip. Six months in, it is still going really well, and I really feel like I'm improving as an RN. As a new graduate I have this job for a year. After that I'll have to find a permanent job, hopefully in the same place I'm working now and definitely still in Dunedin - I have no plans to move elsewhere! I feel settled in Dunedin, and it must feel like home because I always miss it and am glad to get back whenever I leave! I'm not sure I've ever really had that feeling in my life before...

2 - House

I'm currently looking for my first house! Yes, I'm entering the property market, and hopefully before the end of the year when my rental agreement runs out or else I'll be homeless! It is proving quite hard, houses I like tend to be sold very quickly before I can even make a decision! I've got a few lined up to see this week though, so hopefully something will come of it.

3 - Free time

Well I don't have much of this any more, due to all the working! I've had to give up choir for the rest of the year, but hopefully I will be back there next year and able to be a bit more focused! My writing is also pretty sporadic at the moment, I think I need to get into a routine and plan my free time a little better to make room for it. I've also been trying my best to spend time with my friends lately, as a lot of them are leaving at the end of the year - won't have many left after that!! And then there's the boyfriend...

One new hobby I've taken up is vegetable gardening. Well, sort of. I've got the beginnings of it anyway. It'll all be in containers, at least until I get my own garden. I'll blog about it later.

I'm making this a short update. The clocks go forward an hour tonight, which means I get an hour less sleep. I have to work at 7am tomorrow! Argh!

Graduation!!

I'm a bit late posting about this, as my Graduation was on the 12th December, but better late than never I guess!

Finally, after starting my Nursing degree back in the UK in September 2004, I had finished! It has been a bit of a long journey, particularly as I had to do one year more than I hoped when I got to New Zealand, to satisfy the requirements about 'cultural safety' etc.

The best thing about my Graduation was that my family were all there! It is not very often these days that we are all together, as I only get to see my sister once or twice a year. Luckily she scheduled her flights to fly into New Zealand a couple of days before Grad, which I was very happy about! She had her Graduation earlier in the year back in the UK, which I could not attend as I was in the middle of my course, but I was very grateful she could come to mine.

The Graduation itself didn't start until the afternoon, so my parents arrived at around midday and we went out for lunch at Capers, one of my favourite cafes in Dunedin. It was pouring down with rain, so I opted to skip the Graduation Parade down George Street, in order to have more time for lunch.

Here we all are at Capers - dad is clearly already tired from the 4hr drive! Then they dropped me off at the Town Hall and I caught up with the end of the procession and headed into the Marquee.

The weather felt even worse waiting inside the marquee - the rain was battering it so much the frame started to move! I thought the whole thing was going to collapse on us! Luckily it didn't and we were filed up with our little numbered stickers on our sleeves and led into the Town Hall to bagpipe music.

The Town Hall quickly filled up and the Graduation began. It wasn't quite as long and boring as I had dreaded and I was quite excited to get up on the stage, although the moment seemed to go so quickly I can barely remember it now! My sister videoed me crossing the stage, but got rather excited and so the video jumps around a lot!

Our guest speaker was a female drain layer (!), and she was actually quite entertaining, at least for the first 15 minutes of her speech. Finally though, it was all over. I headed off to find my family and go to the Nursing Department's Graduation Function.

Woohoo, I finally had my degree!

There were actually two Nursing Functions we went to that evening - the first was a prize giving where we all received our transcripts and Otago Polytechnic badges.

The second was supposed to be a dinner function that I had opted to buy tickets for, mainly because I hadn't been organised enough to book a meal anywhere else in town. The food however turned out to be pretty average (in fact it was basically little appetisers and no real food at all). There were also barely any of my classmates or lecturers there, so it wasn't really that much fun. We were all still pretty hungry so I ended up taking my family to Eureka instead and getting yummy dessert! Should have just gone there in the first place!

By the end of the day I was pretty glad to get out of my bright blue robes, although we had an early start the next morning because I had booked a Graduation photo session so we could get some nice family photos. So I had to don my sexy outfit once again...

All in all, my Graduation day was pretty fun and relaxed. It was great to spend the day with my family as it happens so rarely these days.

Of course, the funny thing about graduating here is that although I now had my Bachelor of Nursing degree, I still had to wait another week for my Registration Exam results. So even though I had the degree I still could not work as a Nurse. Luckily I passed the exam! I had been slightly worried about it, as due to my concussion I had had to put in an application for extenuating circumstances. It was all good though, and now I can put the letters BN and RN after my name!

Intensive Update #2

Life has been quite busy over the last month or so, even though I haven't really had any work at all. I've still got another post or so about my Wellington trip, and because I've wanted to get that finished I haven't had a chance to write about my GRADUATION (!), passing my NURSING REGISTRATION (!!), hiking the Kepler Track, or Christmas.

I was at my parents' house for over a week with no real internet access - they have dial up, but it barely copes with loading Gmail, and takes about 2 days to load a photo - so I was pretty much unable to keep up with the blog posts. Hopefully, I'll have a bit of time to catch up over the next couple of days, although I am packing up to move house, as well as finally getting some work. Life is ever hectic - but here is a photo of beautiful Lake Te Anau and Fiordland to bring some much needed tranquility...

Where to begin....

So here is the start of my attempt at blogging.

To be honest I have tried once before, in the dim and distant past when I was much more adept at computers and computer languages than I am now. Why have I suddenly decided to enter the blogging world again?

There are a few reasons. I'm coming up to a major turning point in my life, lots of things are going on and life's journey is starting to become a bit more interesting.

Firstly, I have finally finished studying to become a Registered Nurse, with my final Registration Exam in just two weeks. After four years of working, studying and stressing, the end is finally in sight!

Secondly, and following on from the end of studying, is that I will be starting my first real nursing job in March 2009 - when the real learning starts! (Assuming I pass the Exam, of course...)

Thirdly, because I have a nice long summer break before I have to be a real Nurse, I have booked my flights to South East Asia, specifically Laos.

I am so excited about this, it has been 2 years since I've been able to do some proper travelling and my feet are getting so itchy I need a whole tube of antihistamine cream to calm them down (okay, not really, yuk...) Of course, like the hoards of other travel bloggers, I'll be needing some place to post photos and write about my experiences, and torture all my friends.

Lastly, I really need to get back to my first love, writing. The last few years of my life have been so focused on the goal of becoming a Nurse, and also a bit of a roller-coaster because of moving halfway across the world, that my writing has suffered too much. I've had the odd period of industriousness, but am seriously lacking in discipline these days. I'm hoping to at least set a little bit of time everyday to do something writing-related.

So I am hoping my blog will be a good thing for me, and at least minimally interesting to anyone else who happens to read it (which, let's face it, will probably just be Craig...) I should say a big thanks to my friend Craig, who came up with the name for my blog almost immediately upon my asking him for suggestions. He has his uses! He is also trying to convince me to do some stories with my character from his popular blog Traumador: The Tyrannosaur Chronicles. Perhaps.