Girls weekend :-)

I can only describe Amsterdam with one word……. Fascinating! I’ve been twice now and both times I’ve loved it! The first time was more about sightseeing and culture and the second time ended up being about the nightlife. Putting aside some of the bazaar things you’ll see over there, nothing beats cruising down the canal, watching the sun go down with a cocktail in your hand.

The first time I visited, I went with my best pal who was also visiting for the first time. We planned our time very efficiently to make sure that we managed to see and get up to a lot in the 2 and a half days we were there. As always, I used the bus tour service although soon realised, in order to take full advantage of the sites in the city, it’s more beneficial to just walk about! Located around the city are many “Tours & Tickets” shops. Here you can access information for amusements within the city along with purchasing tickets and packages to a number of places. Listed are some of the things we got up to and seen:

·         Amsterdam Dungeons

·         Hop on-Hop off tour bus

·         Canal cruise

·         Magnum Pleasure Store

·         Vondelpark

·         Red Light District

·         Red Light Secrets – Museum of prostitution

·         Sex museum

·         Ice bar

·         Moulin Rouge

·         And many more…..

Our first trip was in August, which is in average the warmest month of the year in Amsterdam, we managed to take full advantage of just chilling in the outdoor cafes and parks. It was lovely being able to have lunch on the canal side, drinking cocktails, watching boats cruise past.

The second time I visited, I returned with my best pal along with our other two besties :-). Here is a list of what we got up to:

·         Canal cruise

·         Ice bar Bar crawl

·         Lie in bed for 2 full days……..

We decided when we woke up hungover on our first full day that we would dedicate this trip to enjoying the nightlife! On the first night we went on the Red Light District Bar crawl which I would highly recommend to anyone visiting! The bar crawl consisted of:

·         Unlimited Vodka Shots between 8:00-8:30pm

·         6 bars, Pubs and a Club

·         Free Jager, Vodka, Sambuca or Apple sour shot at every venue

·         Free entrance to the club

·         Drink specials

·         Professional Guides

·          Free souvenir t-shirt

·         The opportunity to meet loads of new people!

All for only 18 euros!!!

The nightlife was great and despite being lazy brat’s majority of the trip, we all had an amazing weekend!

One more thing to mention, the streets are just filled with food, food and more food. All I have to say is expect to come home 4 stone heavier as it’s too difficult to resist….. If you are a fan of Chinese cuisine, I would highly recommend eating in the ‘Sea Palace’. This was Europe’s first and largest floating restaurant. The food is amazing and the views are even better!

Thanks for reading,

Daisy ☺  x

Best of both worlds!

As I’ve grown older I’ve learnt to realise you don’t always have to travel hundreds of miles away to see beautiful sites or to enjoy yourself!

Growing up, I’ve become more appreciative of the beautiful town I’m from and why it attracts millions of tourists annually. Living in the Outdoor Capital of the UK, I am lucky enough to be surrounded by glorious landscape and spectacular views every day. The place doesn’t get much better than in summer when the sun is shining down and you are able to jump off the waterfalls and go swimming in the rivers. Talking about summer, if you jump in the car for half an hour or so you can come across some of the most beautiful beaches making it hard to believe you are still in Scotland! Some of the sites I would recommend visiting in the area are;

·         Ben Nevis - Highest mountain in the UK

·         Loch Linnie

·         Aonach Mhor/Nevis Range – Ski/mountain bike resort.

·         Glen/Steal Falls

·         Caledonian Canal

·         Glencoe Lochan

With it being the Outdoor capital of the UK, Fort William hosts many events, some listed below;

·         UCI Downhill Mountain Biking Championships

·         Scottish Six Day trials

·         Glen Nevis river race

·         The Ben Nevis race

·         Ten Under the Ben

·         Relentless 24

·         Fort William Mountain Festival

·         Highland Games

·         The Agricultural show

·         The Glenfinnan Gathering

Working in the Ben Nevis Inn (rated no.1 on trip advisor for top restaurants in Fort William ;-)) placed at the foot of Ben Nevis and dealing with tourist’s day in, day out, has made me realise that I am very lucky to have been brought up in such a lovely wee town.

After living in Fort William for 19 years with my house only a 3 minute drive from the mountain, I realised last year I needed to get a grip and do it. This was decided after the stick I got from customers when I told them I’d never climbed it… with some customers getting really angry at me for some stupid reason. So yeah, one sunny day last summer I woke up and was determined to do it. I’m not really sure why I though climbing a mountain, 3,404ft with no training or doing any form of exercise prior would be a walk in the park but I did. As it’s me and everything I do goes wrong, 20 minutes in to the walk I obviously injured my leg making the rest of the walk horrendous to say the least. Just the half way point, I have to admit I turned in to a bit of a drama queen and may or may not have got a piggy back from my boyfriend to give myself a wee break along with making him walk ahead then back to me to see how far we were from the top…… Hopefully if I was to do it again I wouldn’t hurt my leg again meaning it would be less of a struggle as it was a great achievement doing it!

Glasgow

After leaving school, I moved to Glasgow continue my education at University studying Business. With the hundreds of shops, thousands of lovely bars and restaurants, number of theatres and cinemas, lovely parks to wander in and the vibrant nightlife, it is a complete contrast to my home town making me feel like I have the best of both worlds!

Things I would recommend doing if visiting for the weekend and places I would advise eating/ drinking are listed below;

Things to do:

·         Kings Theatre (Depending on what’s on!)

·         Stand Comedy Club

·         Wandering round some of the parks- Queens park, Kelvingrove, Kings park, Pollock park

·         Airspace (slightly outside of Glasgow)

·         Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum

·         Glasgow Science Centre

·         Shopping- the three places I shop are; Buchanan street, Silverburn, Braehead, Argyle street

·         Cinema

Places to eat:

·         The Butchershop Bar and Grill

·         La Lanterna

·         The Anchor Line

·         Anywhere in Princes square- Restaurant Bar and Grill being my favourite

·         The Two Figs

·         Mini Grill Glasgow

Bars:

·         The Anchor Line

·         October

·         Metropolitan

·         Hummingbird

·         Vodka Revolution

·         Bunker

·         Vodka Wodka

·         Again, anywhere in Princes square!

·         The Social

·         Gin 71

Thanks for your time and feel free to ask any further questions,

Daisy J  x

Weekend away in the capital!

With flights from Glasgow as low as £9.99 and travel taking only a 1 hour, 20 minutes, London is the perfect place to head if you have a spare weekend and plenty of money.

I have visited 3 times, each time for different reasons.

The first time I went was in 2011 with the theatre school I was attending at the time. As nothing ever seems to go smoothly for me, of course we went in time with the London riots. Amongst the sirens blaring and the helicopters swooping over us along with the mobs on the streets, rioting and looting along with my mum phoning, checking up on me every 4 seconds!!!... we managed to have a fantastic trip! Feeling somewhat under pressure, the Principal of the school almost literally had us on a very tight reign. The highlight of that trip was the masterclass we attended in Pineapple Dance Studios led by a west end theatre choreographer from the musical ‘Legally Blonde’.

The second time was the 6th year trip in High School. With it being a school trip, there was a very busy itinerary meaning we pretty much managed to do everything you would want to do at that age!

My most recent trip to London was with my boyfriend. We went in February last year as part of my Christmas present. As always, it managed to turn out eventful! On the way to London we flew out from Glasgow airport where due to giving ourselves little time to get there followed by our shuttle bus at the airport carpark taking forever and a day to turn up, we had to sprint through the airport where they very kindly held the plane for us… Yes, we were that couple who get sighs and dirty looks whilst scurrying to our seats and trying to find somewhere to place our bags. On returning home, we tried to make sure there wasn't a repeat performance but that didn't really work for us! We decided that we would get up early (6am in fact) to make sure we didn't miss our flight home. But… there was a crash on the motorway and the road was closed for three hours and yip you have guessed it, we missed our flight! Given that, there were massive queues once we got to the desk and found out all remaining flights to Glasgow that day were full. Thankfully, we eventually got a flight to Edinburgh!! (If you recall we had departed from Glasgow airport) and it didn’t leave until 10pm (recall our 6am departure to catch our flight on time!) After hanging about the airport for hours we eventually got on our flight to Edinburgh. Once getting there we had to get a bus to Glasgow followed by a second bus to Glasgow Airport to pick up the car! By this time it was 1am! Putting aside the travelling problems, we had a lovely weekend!

The highlight from each of my trips have been the musicals I have been to see! Listed below are the shows I’ve seen throughout each of my visits. I would highly recommend all of them!

·         Legally Blonde

·         The Lion King

·         Matilda

·         Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

·         Wicked

Unfortunately, the theatre can be fairly pricey so I have attached a link where, once you have selected the musical and date you want to go to, it shows a comparison of each of the websites prices so you can go on to pick up the cheapest possible tickets! http://www.comparetheatretickets.com/

Apart from our various unplanned adventures and the theatre, things I have done that I would recommend doing/seeing would be;

·         London Eye

·         Madame Tussauds

·         Tower Bridge

·         Big Ben

·         Trafalgar Square

·         Churchill War Rooms

·         Buckingham Palace

·         London Tower

·         Piccadilly Circus

Restaurants & bars can also be slightly pricy but the way I like to think is, if you’re away, you might as well go all out! Two places I visited whilst away last february which I would highly recommend would firstly be the award winning bar for 2015/2016 given by ‘design my night’… London Cocktail Club. There are 7 located around London city centre, the one I visited was in Shaftesbury Avenue. It had a buzzing, party atmosphere with bar tenders doing tricks whilst making the drinks, sometimes using fire and sparklers! The music was great and it was a very comfortable venue allowing you to sit back and enjoy your cocktail. The second place I thoroughly enjoyed was a wee restaurant/bar located next to Cambridge theatre where Matilda is shown called Kopapa. Despite only going in for a wee drink after the show, we ended up with a bill of £80, although I must say it didn’t feel wasted! We had a few starters between the two of us along with some lovely cocktails. If we knew about it prior to going we would’ve planned dinner there but as we had a late lunch that day, we were only able to manage some starters. As I’ve said, it was slightly pricy but I would definitely recommend it! Here is a link to the website if you fancy having a further look at menus! :-) http://www.kopapa.co.uk/

Thanks for reading,

Daisy :-) x

48 degrees!!!

Last summer, my boyfriend and I booked up for 5 days in Madrid. I’d never really been interested in going there before but I came across a deal and though why not?!? I have to say, I am so happy I did come across it as it was an absolutely beautiful city and we had a great time! The week prior, I’d seen Spain were forecasted a heatwave which whilst sitting in work looking out the window to pouring rain, this sounded like the best news ever… Yes, it was great, but walking round a city centre with temperatures reaching 48 degrees can be slightly tough! This didn’t stop us though, we just slapped on the sun cream and got on with things :-)

Along with wandering the streets and lying, sunbathing in parks, listed are some of the things we got up to:

·         Hop on, hop off bus tour (obviously!)

·         Prado National Museum

·         Parque Warner

·         Madrid Zoo Aquarium

·         Aquapolis Water Park

·         Royal Palace of Madrid

·         Parque del Retiro

Normally we wouldn’t visit as many parks but as the heat was so high we needed out of the sun so googled some things to do and we came across these! The waterpark was a massive bonus as walking round a city centre, fully clothed in temperatures over 40 degrees is not easy!!

I would best describe Madrid as a mix between Paris and London. It had the old, beautiful architecture along with the buzzing city vibes with lots of designer, high street stores.  The food was a highlight and thankfully, we never experienced a bad meal! I have again, attached a link to top rated restaurants in case you plan on going any time soon and want to have a wee browse :-)! https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurants-g187514-Madrid.html


I would definitely recommend visiting this beautiful city, just not in the peak of summer!!

Thanks for your time,

Daisy :-) x

La bella città di Roma!

Despite having the most amazing time in one of the most beautiful cities, this trip couldn’t have gone more disastrously!

How good would it be to go to Rome to support Scotland in the Rugby Six Nations? Great you would think.  Catastrophe number 1 -  For this particular weekend there were no direct flights to Rome so in order to travel the most cost efficient way, we ended up going from Glasgow -> Romania – Romania -> Rome. Ok a bit inconvenient, but not an actual catastrophe.  Spoke too soon, as the first disaster struck when  the flight to Romania was delayed for half an hour (again not too much of an issue ) but it did mean that on arrival  we were required to sprint the entire length of the airport  and only JUST made the second flight.

All went well from here… until we arrived in Rome.

Catastrophe number 2 - Leaving behind some beautiful blue skies in Glasgow that morning, we arrived in the not so sunny Rome. In fact there was torrential rain AND to top it all off thunder & lightning. Ok, so tomorrow is another day and it might look different when we wake up – that was if we ever actually got the chance to sleep and subsequently wake up!  When we reached our hotel we were greeted by the receptionist who informed us that the whole top floor -where our room was located- had been affected by the weather and was completely flooded and therefore they had no other room for us!

Now bearing in mind we had travelled - via Romania – early in the morning and had been up since 6am and it was now 8pm, this was the last thing we needed. She very helpfully told us she could transfer us to the sister hotel for no extra cost and, in the manner of good customer relations, the hotel would provide us with a taxi.

Catastrophe number 3 - When we arrived there it was very clear as to why we were charged no extra cost, the hotel we had been moved to what could only be described as an Italian equivalent of Faulty Towers!  We arrived over at the hotel around 9:15pm at which point we were absolutely starving. Very helpfully – not - were told the restaurant would be closing at 10pm. As we were soaked through to the skin, we ran upstairs to get changed before heading to the restaurant. When we got there the restaurant was closed (despite it only being 9:30pm!!!). After speaking to a very pissed off, restaurant manager, he let us in although we were “just to be given what they had left.” As we were starving this wasn’t exactly an issue… until we were given a plate of cheese, followed by a plate of ham. My assertive ‘hangry’ side took over as my patience was running as thin as the ham they had provided and I requested a bowl of salad, a basket of bread and also decided a bottle of wine was necessary to get through this catastrophic start to our trip. Finishing the ‘meal’ we got up to leave to find out the leftovers we had been given had come to a grand total of 65 euros. As we were all past the point of caring, we paid the bill and headed to bed.

The next morning, we headed back to the hotel we were meant to be staying at. We were taken to our rooms which were lovely with their huge balconies and lovely views. As the sun was beaming, we headed off to explore the city. I’m happy to inform that the day went smoothly and we had the most amazing time! As we only had one day in the city we tried to see as many sites as possible, my favourites were;

·         The Colosseum

·         Trevi Fountain

·         Pantheon

·         Altare Della Patria

Here is a link for the top things to do in Rome advised by Trip Advisor; https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attractions-g187791-Activities-oa30-Rome_Lazio.html#ATTRACTION_LIST

We came across many more but the thing I enjoyed the most was relaxing in a cafe on one of the beautiful streets, enjoying the glorious sunshine sipping on a wee glass of wineJ The atmosphere over there was amazing and every second person we walked past was wearing a kilt. It almost felt like we were in Scotland except the weather was warm and we were surrounded by lovely Roman streets.

I think I spoke too soon when I said things were running smoothly...

Upon arriving back at our hotel that night we were greeted by hundreds and hundreds of ANTS happily crawling around our room. We realised this must’ve been caused by the damp from the night before and were going to be a bit accommodating (see what I did there?) and my boyfriend – or knight in not so shining armour - happily  became like the exterminator with a can of my hairspray which he happily finished trying to annihilate these very friendly Italian ants.  Catastrophe number 4 -   finding them crawling on to the bed we decided we needed out of there!

Trying to talk to the receptionist was up there with one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. Due to the fact he spoke ZERO English!  I was left trying to carry out my greatest acting skills and was gesticulating wildly (a bit like Bail Faulty actually) so that he would understand our room was infested by ants. Finally he understood.  As they had no other rooms, we were sent back off to Faulty Towers again :-) :-) :-) All jokes aside, the hotel we were heading back to seemed like 5 star luxury in comparison to the ant invaded room!!

The final day of our trip was the rugby day! As many of you may know, this was a successful day for Scotland making the trip worthwhile. Prior to the game, we wandered the streets outside Stadio Olimpico meeting many friendly Scottish and Italians which added to the buzzing atmosphere. Like I said it was a successful game with Scotland winning 36-20. At around midnight, after one too many

celebration drinks, we headed in a taxi home as we were up at 4am to catch our flight! Catastrophe number 5 -  After 45 minutes in the taxi (bearing in mind we were in a bar only 25 minutes from our hotel), it appeared there had been a misunderstanding with the taxi driver and we were actually an hour further away from our hotel…. Arriving at the hotel 1 hour and 45 minutes later, 115 euros down, we decided to just get packed up and head straight to the airport.

When we arrived at the airport we handed over the money whilst escaping from the taxi only for the driver to tell us that the 50 euros must’ve flown away!!! After scrambling about on the floor and under the chairs, in our ridiculously stupid, naive, intoxicated ways, we then handed over a second 50 euro note! We didn’t really have a choice unless we wanted to engage with the Italian police. Bang went the last of our spending money which was ok as we were just heading home!

A bit flustered, we headed in to security! Once we had emptied our toiletries, jewellery, money, phones etc. into the trays, we were asked for our boarding cards to find out we were in the WRONG BLOODY AIRPORT- Catastrophe number 6.   At this point, we had been awake almost 24 hours and I think a small tear may have left my eye. So off we headed to another taxi which thankfully took us to the correct airport (another 70 euros) but to our escape where we finally boarded the flight!

Obviously in this post I have just listed all the catastrophic moments but it was all worth the laugh it gives us now! It was genuinely one of the best trips I have been on and I would absolutely love to go back to the beautiful city!

I have to add, I have visited Italy 4 times now and the food has been one of the best parts! It’s terrible to say but I can’t actually remember names of places we ate out on our visit, they were all lovely though so I have attached another trip advisor link on places to eat! https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurants-g187791-Rome_Lazio.html

Thanks again for taking your time to read,

Daisy J xx