South America was in our (mine and Phil’s) to-go-list—primarily for me: to see Machu Picchu (ever since I saw photos of it when I was younger), and for Phil, (I think) influenced by the fact that the 2016 Olympics is happening in Rio de Janeiro. Apparently (according to Phil), the Olympics is the greatest show on earth! :)
Cliché. Overrated. Too commercialised. Overly crowded. Terms that I used to associate Bora with. (I’d like to believe that) I am the type who, as much as possible, avoids riding on bandwagon—the type who loses interest in anything exceedingly popular. And I think it is true most of the time.
It was nearly the end of 2015 and what better way to end it than to go back home for the Christmas holidays! Ok, I did not originally plan to be home in December 2015 because (1) I already went home in April that year, and (2) going home in December is a little bit expensive due to more expensive flights and because it’s a time of festivities and meetups and what have you.
Anytime soon, I will be planning for our trip to Barcelona this coming April, and yet I haven’t blogged about my first trip to that city in August 2013 (yes, almost 4 years ago to date of writing!). So I thought I’d write about my first time to set foot in Barcelona before my comeback.
So this is part 3 of my week-long SPAINtastic series; Part 1 (Madrid and Segovia) and Part 2 (Valencia) were written in 2013.
(9 countries in 3 weeks in Phil’s case!)
A bit crazy if I think about it now. It’s been more than a year to this date of writing, but I still remember every detail of this trip with Phil around central/eastern Europe in the summer of 2015. It was the first long trip with him and I thought it could define how good Phil and I would be as travel buddies! :)
There wasn’t a “16for2016” (i.e., 16 countries in year 2016), which could have been the third following from my 14for2014 and 15for2015 projects in the last 2 years. Nonetheless, this year I managed to step on 4 continents (Phil did 5 though, because America!)—which is why I think 2016 is equally awesome as the previous years!
I thought to share something useful for those who are booking a Cebu Pacific flight online and wanted to pay through a BDO ATM debit card that’s registered to BDO Online Banking. This has been helpful for me when I was planning for my Philippine trip whilst I am still in the UK, and wanted to use my Philippine bank account to pay for Philippine internal flights to avoid forex-related costs. :)
Spring of 2014. In the midst of a very busy audit engagement. It was a temporary escape. Went far up north, in another kingdom. I’d like to call it Kingdom. I thought it sounds so cool. Scotland!—farther, in the Scottish highlands! When I think about Scotland, I used to imagine camping—with the soft earth as my bed, the canopy of stars my roof and the chirping of the birds my lullaby at night and my alarm in the early morning. That’s how I imagined my Scotland visit would be.
It was Spring Bank holiday in 2015 when Phil and I decided to visit Northern Wales and hike up Snowdon Mountain. I was quite excited about it because (1) it’s another “country” in the UK (2) mountains, and Snowdon is one of the peaks that’s generally included in the UK 3-peak challenge (with Ben Nevis in Scotland and Scafell Pike in England on the list); and (3) it’s my first long weekend trip with Phil! ❣
Nope, I’m not talking about the lovely coastal south of France. I am talking about visiting Strasbourg and Colmar in the north of France. Yup, in the north, near the border of the south of Germany.
