The St. Mary's Singer, Travelling and a New Flatmate

(*Please note: This post was written 2 days ago and I didn't get around to posting it today so that's why the tenses of my sentences may be different)

Hi everyone

I'd like to introduce you all to a new character in the St. Mary's Family, The St. Mary's Singer (or SMS as she will be referred to hence forth).

Ever since I moved into my flat, every once in a while, I'd hear someone singing in the flat next to me.  It was always pretty muffled and I couldn't tell if it was a person singing or loud music playing. My room is at the end of the hallway and beyond my room's wall is a room in the next flat.  Normally it's pretty infrequent and only during the day. But lately it's gotten much worse.

Click 'Read More' to see the rest!

Scotland, twice, and Strange Visitors

Hi again!

Carly and I have been enjoying our extra 3 week vacation after we came home from Barcelona with some visitors!

My mom and brothers came for the New Year holiday and I was so happy to see them!  I went straight from the airport to their hotel since we had both arrived on the same day.  I had to take 2 buses and cross a highway to get there.  My suitcase almost got taken away by the wind because there was some storm raging across Newcastle that day but I managed to make it alive and with my suitcase intact

After touring Newcastle for the first day and a half, we spent a day in Edinburgh taking in the sights.  First we Edinburgh Dungeon.  It's not an actual dungeon but rather a walk-through tour of the various dark, evil and deadly happenings in Edinburgh's past.  It's a chain actually and I had been to the one in London and I thought it wasn't that scary at all so I decided to give this one a go with my family.

*Edinburgh travellers be warned: The Edinburgh Dungeon isn't some tourist-trap fake scary tour thing. It was legitimately terrifying.  It was dark, loud and just all around skin-crawling.  A family of 5 was on our trip and all the children were screaming to leave the entire time (the parents didn't want to leave so they stayed during the whole thing but that's a conversation for another day).

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Home Invasion

While trying to think of something to post about this week, a genius idea came to mind.  I'm going to do something a bit different in this post.  I'm going to tell a story.

Before I begin I need to make clear that what you are about to read is 100% true.  It really happened to me and I did not make this up.  Although I wish I had because it was honestly the most terrifying moment in my life thus far.  So let's begin the tale...

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Barcelona

Welcome back readers! On to Part 3!

For other posts:

Click here to read about Paris (Part 1 of our vacation)

Click here to read about Madrid (Part 2 of our vacation)

December 24
Barcelona!

We hurried from the airport to our meeting point at the Hard Rock Cafe so we could check in for the hostel. It was an apartment style hostel so there was no check-in area in the building.  Carly and I were blown away by how nice and clean our Barcelona hostel was!

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Madrid! Part 2 of Vacation

On to Part 2 of vacation!

If you need to read different posts:

Click here to read about Paris (Part 1 of our vacation)

Click here to read about Barcelona (Part 3 of our vacation)

December 20
Our first day in Madrid!

We left the terrible overnight train and made our way through the metro system to our hotel. Carly and I decided to buy a 10 trip metro pass to make our travels a little easier. We were impressed with our own cleverness.

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Christmas Vacation! Paris, Madrid and Barcelona

Hey readers hey!

FINALLY I got a chance to post about my Christmas Vacation! I'm going to split it up into 3 separate posts but I'll include links to each post so you can read all 3 with ease.  Each post will be broken down by date to make things easier to read. (PS I did take all the pictures...except the maps obviously :) )

If you've already read my posts:

Click here to read about Madrid (Part 2 of our vacation)

Click here to read about Barcelona (Part 3 of our vacation)

We began our trip in Paris.

 December 17

Carly and I had to wake up at 5:45 am to make it to our 9am flight on time.  For the first time in my life, I flew on a budget airline and I have to say I was very impressed. It wasn't nearly as sketchy as it may sound.  Budget airlines are more widely available in Europe than the US.  And considering the US budget airline, Spirit, scares the crap out of me, this was a big step.

Click Read More to see what's next!

Christmas Plans!

Hey everyone!
I hope you all are enjoying December & the holidays and all that!

My life has been pretty boring lately. I finished my first 4,000, 2,000 and 800 word papers. I just have another 4,000 word paper to complete by January 16th and I'll  be done for the semester!  4,000 words is about 13-15 pages so the work hasn't been too difficult but I am DEFINITELY counting down the days til my Christmas vacation. I'll be busy every day until vacation starts and I know I won't have time to post as much so I figured I'd give a preview of what posts to expect in the coming weeks.

Carly and I are taking our first (of hopefully many) adventures to continental Europe for Christmas.  We leave December 17 and return to Newcastle December 28.
Here's where we'll be visiting:

I'll include a map for reference.

We're starting out in Paris, France. We'll be there for a few days (just enough to see all the important stuff) and then we're off to Madrid, Spain.  We're spending a bit more time in Madrid so we can also take a day trip to Toledo.  Christmas Eve we're travelling to Barcelona, Spain where we'll spend Christmas! And on the 28th we're returning to Newcastle :)

We're going to hit all the major tourist spots in each city and hopefully have a really awesome time.

I'll have a bunch of photos to post and I'll make sure I get them out ASAP!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays :)

xoxo

Becstar