alice

Okay, so it’s 6 days til I’m off. I spent today sorting out what to pack. I made a nice list of what I need to take and I began collecting stuff and putting it in a pile. Doesn’t seem to be that much, but that’s surely a good thing. I’ll try packing my bag maybe tomorrow. I’m going shopping tomorrow to buy some more stuff to take.

I’m getting quite nervous. Stuff I still need to do:

• email Jutte
• phone Elaine
• print off all stuff
• learn Italian? haha yeah…
• find exchange rate for Swiss Francs and Czech money
• find out what Czech money is even called? I have a 100-something note in Czech currency, but I have no idea if that’s worth about a quid or £100?
• PACK

Hmm. I’m getting so excited as well though! This time next week I will be in Cologne! Ace.

I now have two companions on my travels as well, marvellous:

Been a bit MIA recently, the reason being Bob was staying here for a week and a bit Here’s a nice brief catch up of all the stuff that’s been happening in the meanwhile.

• Thursday 20th March - I had my last day of work (Friday being bank holiday and all), which was very sad. I got a card, some presents, and two proposals from people haha. We went out for drinks afterwards which was very fun, everyone is so lovely. At one point S went round the table filming everyone on his phone as they said what they liked (and didn’t like) about me. Nobody had anything bad to say (apart from ‘I don’t like Alice cos she is leaving’ teehee) so yay. K and I left for the train station about 10, he was off in the Mancs direction and I was off in the total opposite way to Leeds to meet Bob, so we went our separate ways shortly. I was only a leetle bit drunk, honest.
• Easter - had a lovely Easter sans work, involving the traditional easter egg hunt (I am grown up, honest) and a roast turkey mmm.
• DUCK!!! - yeahh this had been planned for months, well originally was meant for January to celebrate Bob graduating, but it kept getting pushed back. Eventually we found a date good for everyone, and had an immense meal at Red Chilli with Inn, Kev, Gem, Paul, Lindsay (and me and Bob of course). Fun times.
• More Red Chilli action - yeah me and Bob decided to take my parents out to Red Chilli later that week as well (more duck action!). They really liked it there, we ordered A LOT of food, but with Bob and my brothers there we still got through it all. As well as the delicious duck we also got some yummy soft shell crab, some seafood soup, seafood stirfry, and some pork and chicken dishes. And the inside-out fish we had a lot when we were back in China. My family liked that one! Hehe it was funny watching them try and remember how to use chopsticks.
• Hello Kitty facebook - yes this is epic enough to warrant it’s own bullet point! Bob customised my facebook so it’s pink and hello kitty-ish. Hehe. It’s also now in German! Yay.
• Travels - in one week today. Brussels in twelve days. I’m owed a secret when I get there.
• Brief meet with Amy - last Wednesday I went to meet Amy briefly so we could see other other before I leave. We just went for a coffee in town but as always is lovely to see her.

Hmm what else. I need a big catch up on my Flickr photos.

Hmm well I’m in two minds. On the one hand I’m very very sad because tomorrow is my last day at work and I will miss it and all the people there terribly. But on the other hand Bob is then coming up in the evening and I haven’t seen him in a month, so of course I am immensely looking forward to that and that makes me happy.

And I can’t wait to see him of course, but also I don’t want the day to go by quickly.

It’s strange to feel the exact opposite things at the same time.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Eeee I’m so excited. I have finally organised it! A FINAL and DEFINITE route and I have done the scary and daunting and looming task of booking stuff. I have now booked all my stuff for the trip. ALL OF IT.

Overall I’ve spent about £1500. That includes 2 x Inter-rail card and 2 months worth of hostels/hotels. Money well spent!

I’m not going to post up my itinery here cos like, no offence to you lovely reader, but what if a stalker/scary person reads this :/ unlikely but still possible some general stuff though is that I AM SO LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS. Along the way I am stopping at Jutte’s, Uka’s and Terry’s, spending 5 days in Paris with my boyfriend, a long weekend in Rome with parents, and so on.

Anyway.

I’m so excited and so deadly scared at the same time. In a way I can’t believe this is real and it’s happening. In a month I’ll be on the road. TRAVEL TIME. I’m no longer scared about being by myself. It’ll do me good.

OMG this is amazing. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’m proud of me, in a way, haha. I know I’m going to have a fantastic time. I really cant wait to get to Belgium and see Nic. I hope my Dutch will be good enough! Will be fun, we’re going to visit the Photography museum in Antwerpen too, and I will see Joris as well if he is around at this time. I’m going to visit Terry in Switzerland, and he lives quite near Zurich and stuff so that’ll make some nice trips.

Eeeeeeeexcited.

(more…)

Haha, it’s classic.

“Luxury!”

I haven’t been to a gig in AGES. Not yet this year! I have V Fest lined up for August which will be ace, but I miss the days of gigging it up in Leeds or Manchester at the weekends.

K and I have been trying to find a good gig to go see before I leave the country. Unfortunately nobody decent seems to be touring at the mo. Booo. Anyway, I’m listening to the fantastical Wolf Parade right now and I really want to see them live!

Here’s my list as it currently stands:

• Okkervil River
• Wolf Parade
• The Mountain Goats (I heard a wee rumour he might be over here in September, if that’s true then I will deffo be going to that!)
• Stars
• Cold War Kids would be nice
• The New Pornographers
• Decemberists
• Modest Mouse

I WISH I was in North America in April, not only are both Okkervil River and the New Pornographers touring then, but they’re doing a joint tour! How amazing would that be? K and I both agreed it would be fantastic.

Hmm who else do I need to see?

I’ve ended up completely loving my job.

Really and honestly and completely. I don’t want to leave.

I’ve learnt that things always work out. Maybe in a different way to how you imagined it, or how you think you wanted it, but it’s always for the best. Even when things go wrong, it’s for the best. It didn’t happen any other way, and it never will again. It’s been and gone, so I think just make the most of what’s happened, and think of it in a good light. I really have found that everything always works out, you know. Everything that scares me and worries me and wastes my time because I spend ages thinking, oh god, how do I do that?. It all works out. And it’s not because I’m a ‘lucky’ person, and everything always goes right for me. It’s because I want it to work out, and I believe it does. That’s who I am as a person. Plenty of stuff doesn’t go exactly as I would perhaps like it to, but it doesn’t really piss me off or get me angry, because I don’t like being angry and I don’t like feeling pissed off.

Stuff just happens, and I kinda believe everything happens for a reason. When something goes wrong, it forces you to find a solution and resolve the situation.

Enough of the philosophical shit haha.

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My brother gave me this album, by Wolf Parade last year for my birthday, but until recently I had never given it the full listen it deserves. Someone at work with great taste in music was raving about this album, so I decided I really should check it out.

And wow. It’s every bit as good as I hear, if not more. I thought nothing could tear me away from Okkervil River at the moment, but in the last coulpe of weeks K has managed to find two albums which do exactly that. And this is one of them (the other is the new Mountain Goats one, I may write about that later…).

It’s one of those perfect albums from start to finish, 48 minutes of pure perfection in the form of beautiful music. I can’t skip a single track on it and it’s impossible make up my mind which track I like the best. Each song is absolutely fantastic and a masterpiece in it’s own right.

Now we’ll say it’s in God’s hands. But God doesn’t always have the best goddamn plans, does he?

I got a lot of really good music lately. Someone at work has a fantastic taste in music so he recommended me some stuff and I made some nice orders off Amazon and Play.

In return I recommended him some of my favourite bands (that he didn’t already know!) including: Okkervil River, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Elliott Smith.

I’m loving Wolf Parade and The Mountain Goats albums SO MUCH.

I loved it so much. It did make me want to paint my face white and my lips bright red and wear lots of eyeliner and basically see how I would look as a geisha. I KNOW I KNOW I’m not Japanese but I still think it would be a fun experiment!

They’re so pretty. This film was so beautiful. It made me want to visit Japan so badly, but that’s not going to be for a while! Ah such a wonderful film, made me feel very happy and peaceful.

The scenery and photography of the film was just incredible. There’s one bit where she’s a little girl sitting on a bridge, the still-frame shot of that is just one of the most beautiful images.

I would definitely recommend this film to anyone. It’s just amazing. Haha and the whole film I was waiting for that one line…

“I just want a life that is MINE!”