Santorini (in August)

My friend Jen and I headed to the lovely greek island back in the month of august for nine days of sun. Since coming back, our airline and travel agency have gone bust so perhaps we enjoyed the last goodness of Kaforous resort for a long time. we were well impressed by the weather and beachiness, good food and amazing people. we'll be trying again for a different greek island next summer but would highly recommend this little santorini:0)

more photos to come! this is day one and two...


first stop


our local beach (three minute walk from the hotel and three kilos from the airport)


our home


caldera view in fira



the beginning of the 589 step descent to fira port

Calpe, Donkey Sanctuary, Guadalest, etc

Dave and my trip to Spain in June to visit his parents. The weather was surprisingly cold and rainy, but we managed to meander up to the hill town of Guadalest, do some wine tasting at the Virgin Pobre winery and eat lunch on another steep precipe disguised as a donkey sanctuary. odd, but good.


great tapas in calpe


spanish steps

Surrounded by the Aitana, Serella & Xorta Mountains, Guadalest was a strategic military stronghold with fortifications dating back to 715AD and the period of Moorish occupation of Spain.


from the other side


trying to be arty


ridiculously sweet wine made from grapes picked in the region


big


donkey sanctuary!




our last day

The Brecon Beacons

Alive! and with lots of travelling updates!
So the next few entries will be the bare essentials.

Date: Easter weekend, March 2008
Place: The Brecon Beacons in Wales...five people in a cottage made for three
Weather: cold and bloody snowy
People: my lovely England family--dave, jen, laura and matt




the view from our cottage


panoramic up the hill shot


waterfall


tree


signs in welsh


typical flag shot in brecon town centre


another mountainy view


the fam on top of the big hill


matt and dave

Edinburgh Reunion

Back in the land of February i made my annual pilgrimage to one of my favourite cities ever. Edinburgh, my love, my sweet, home of the famous falaffel and the best pub with a built in gigantic bed.

nothing evokes nostalgia quite like a trip to edinburgh; i was transported back four years, back to my undergraduate student days. days with my crazy european flatmates and american friends and the assorted cast of characters. our pub quiz nights out and 24-hour computer lab sessions and dimly lit stairways into alleys and pubs with names carved into corners of walls swearing undying and eternal love.

it's hard not to see that place, YOUR place, change. i felt the ghosts of my friends and my memories walking beside me, whispering into my ear, remember this jennifer, remember that jennifer. and the scary thing is that the memories grow distant and you almost forget, but the place brings you back. challenges your advancing years.

but i think the beautiful thing about edinburgh is that besides the memories, the place itself is just stunning. old and gothic and kind of creepy wherever you look. a cobblestone or a monument for an undeserving author (shaking my fist at you, Walter Scott) or the Heart of Midlothian, and you know there's stories and secrets behind them. more ghosts. old ones. really, really old ones. the ghosts mingle to make the place what it is; they're welcomed and they know it.

I had the privilege of showing my american friend around for her very first time, and i'd like to think i did the city justice. We did the typical tourist things. well, snuck a free peek at the Castle and Palace before heading to some of my top favs in the city (most of which happen to be food).

so my edinburgh top ten then (in no particular order, just the order they come to in my head):

1. Falaffel at Palmyra Pizza (my first experience with the beauty that is this wonderful food--thanks Sara--i can find no better falaffel anywhere else in the world)


2. Calton Hill (the monuments, the view of Arthur's Seat)








3. Arthur's Seat and the Crags











4. £3.50 lunch at the Mosque Kitchen by the University


5. Brass Monkey (and the giant moroccan bed, £6 happy hour bottles of wine, and film screenings daily at 3pm)




6. an abundance of hip, indie coffee shops dotted across the city, and in that measure, the abundance of used book shops




7. Spitting on the Heart of Midlothian (and scaring the tourists)




8. Wandering up and down the wynds and closes off the Royal Mile (Cockburn Street--pronounced Coburn--is one of my favs)





9. aimless wandering full stop. everywhere, nowhere, there's something. always something.






10. the cliche that is buskers playing the bagpipes (i will be the first to tell you about false constructions of national pride, but it still gets me every time)


there's so much more i could say about this place. really, so much more. the trip was very...different. refreshing perhaps? not really sure. it's been a crazy few months in london so the three-day escape was welcome. the train ride there and back was beautiful, we met up with an old university friend and one of my crazy european ex flatmates and natalie and claire so imbibing was in order. emotions ran high, and for just the weekend we relived the crazy university days...stumbling out of three sisters to head to siglo to meet a group of very eccentric french boys...

life repeats itself sometimes.
and i couldn't think of a place where i'd more welcome it.

Graduation!

Well phew! it's been months and months and months. it's not that i haven't travelled, it's that i haven't had a proper internet connection. When i say proper i mean i moved from elephant and castle after the crazy brazilian housemate kicked me, then moved to clapham sleeping on couches and various beds at a friend's, then had a minor housing crisis then moved to Tooting.

yes, i now live in Tooting Bec, London, SW17.
laugh and laugh now. my mother still does.

we celebrated two months in our Tooting house last Thursday and for various reasons there's been a dearth of internet. but it's done and done and sorted. I've been around London roughly 37 times--having eaten 6 Borough Market brownies, travelled to Wales (where my friend and potential future brother in-law made goo goo eyes over each other), headed back to Edinburgh, moved out, went to america for Katie and Kasey's weddings, came back, Leamingtoned it up, quit my job, unquit my job and went to Brighton. Not all in that particular order.

i've missed the internet greatly, i've missed writing more, and i'm considering life as a professional bum so that i can sit on the beach and conjure up poems or sonnets or really sarcastic prose. i'd go on a downloading spree and stick all of my photos right now and then write about them, but unfortunately we're at the "height of british summer" and i've got to be at work at 7 tomorrow.

so for the meantime, i give you the photos from the reason i started this strange journey in the first place...a year as a grad student at the University of Warwick. (i should mention that i graduated somewhere around 25 January 2008, not today, the date i've actually posted these!)


The Vice Chancellor and esteemed professors of the university



I think we're being presented?


beanies processing!



and i'm graduated!


dave and me



my parents and the quasi-surprise trip


not the end but blogger is, again, very slow.
more to come. hopefully sooner than months from now.