Back from South Africa

Well, I've been back for a couple of days now, but those 2 days have been filled with sleep and catching up on the 560 unread blog posts on my Google Reader (Yes, it is actually meant to say 560, it's not a typo, and I did read the vast majority of them. I really thing I need to cut down the amount of blogs I follow...).

It's been a bit of a shock coming back to England - going from highs of 38 degrees Celsius to highs of about 7 degrees (a full 31 degree drop in temperature!) has left me feeling constantly cold, it's still dark when I wake up, it's rained more here in half a day than it did in the entire time I was in SA, and I'm slowly getting used to wearing jeans and hoodies again! On the plus side it's nice to be able to sleep tucked up in bed without sweating gallons, not to sweat when standing still, and to not have to wake up at 5am daily (thankfully my body clock adjusted very quickly, otherwise I'd be waking up at 3am UK time!)! I'm already missing grape Fanta and biltong so I think a trip to the SA food shop near here is in order later this afternoon!

I'm heading back to Cornwall tomorrow to start my last ever taught term at uni. Scary times! I'll be so glad when it's over though, but I'll save that talk for another post. That said I'm quite excited about going back, mainly so I can see Steve who I haven't seen in 5 weeks.

When I eventually get myself organised I'll post photos and entries from my travel journal - I've got 2 weeks and over 1,000 photos to sift through to find the best bits, so the posts might be a while coming! But I'll try and post every day for a week, posting about 2 days at a time; that seems pretty achievable, and even though I'm starting back at uni on Monday the first week won't be that full on as I'm only doing one module plus my research project this term, so my contact time is basically nothing.

Stay tuned for a whole host of South Africa-themed posts :)

Five Things Fridays: Five places I'd love to travel to

As I'm still in South Africa, I thought this week's Five Things Friday should continue on the travel theme. So, this week's five things are:

Five places I'd love to travel to

1. Amsterdam

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Even though I've been twice, those were both day trips with school so I'd love the chance to take some more time and explore the city properly.

2. USA

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If I was going on a single trip I'd struggle so hard choosing which city or even which state I wanted to go to! My ideal trip would be to hire a car and travel round every single state - no idea where I'll find the money for this but I'm going to keep dreaming!

3. Honduras

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I posted about my trip in 2009 here. This was the first time I'd ever left Europe, the first time I'd ever gone further than 1,000 miles from home, and only the 6th time I'd ever left the UK. As such it was a really big thing for me, and because of this the country will always be special to me. I'd love to go back some day and go back to the cloud forests and explore the country some more.

4. France

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I've been to Paris and Strasbourg with school, and although they're typical touristy destinations I loved the atmosphere there, and I think French culture seems really interesting so I'd love to go and learn some more about it. Plus French is the only other language I speak (well, I could speak it when I did my GCSEs nearly 5 years ago, and I could probably still speak a bit now. Enough to get by anyway, and it's not a completely alien language to me) so it gets rid of the "argh I can't speak the language, what do I dooooo?!" anxiety that I would get going to any other non English-speaking country :P

5. Scotland

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 I've got family in Scotland that I've never met or haven't seen in years, so I'd love to take a visit up there to see them. I haven't been there since I was 2 so I think a visit is well overdue!

Five Things Fridays: 5 animals I want to see in South Africa

I'm currently in South Africa, so this is a magical scheduled post. When I get back I'll update this post with my own photos (if I manage to see all of the animals that is!)

Five animals I want to see in South Africa
 

1. Elephants

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2. Great White Sharks

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3. Rhinos

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4. Lions

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5. Zebras

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Off to South Africa!

In a couple of hours I'll be heading off to the airport to start my trip to South Africa.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous... I'm actually pretty scared and I keep imagining every single possible thing that could go wrong :\. Hopefully when we get there and have been settled in for a couple of days I'll start to relax and enjoy myself!

My flight leaves at about 8pm tonight and takes 12 hours, so I'll get there at about 10am South Africa time tomorrow morning. I get back to England on the 18th at about 6.30am, urgh.

Wish me luck and see you in 2 weeks!