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Spider Protein

21 Oct

Depending on which internet meme you believe we all either eat 7 spiders a year while sleeping, or we don’t. I prefer to think that we don’t cause the idea of eating anything while I am asleep is disturbing, ick! lol

Last week I was cooking dinner and I decided to boil some pasta. I keep the pan and pot I use most often on top of the stove instead of putting them away in the cupboard, cause you know, I’m lazy like that – don’t worry, when I have guests coming over I put them away *rolls eyes*.

Anyways, I grabbed the pot off the burner it lives on and measured some dry pasta in to it, then I realized I was an idiot and needed to take the pasta out of the pot so I could put the water in and bring it to a boil before adding the pasta so I started taking the pasta out. When I lifted a couple of the noodle pieces out there was a fluff dangling off of one of the pieces. I was all, “huh, guess there was a piece of fluff or something in the pot” I brought the pasta closer to my face so I could see the fluff better while separating it from the pasta and it turned out it wasn’t a fluff it was spider webbing and dangling at the end of that suuuuuuper fine piece of webbing was the world’s smaaaaaallest spider. It was a little dot of a spider, practically not there.

spider

Obviously it died a quick death.

The disturbing reality is, if I hadn’t put the pasta in the pot and then realized I had to take it out I would have added water to the pot, brought it to a boil, added pasta, cooked the pasta, drained the pasta then eaten the pasta. The spider would have been present for each of those steps and unless it went through the strainer when I drained the pasta, it would have ended up in my tummy. Ugh.

Granted, I would most likely have not even noticed it, it was such a teeeeeeny tiny spider, but knowing I might have eaten it makes me shudder. 😛 …shudder and wonder if the meme that says we eat spiders in our sleep is right? 😉

 

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Best Foodie Website Ever!

4 Oct

Today was a Subway kind of day. Actually, I didn’t want food, all I wanted was the fountain diet coke but I figured that the pop alone didn’t qualify as lunch sooooo I got a sub also.

Because I forgot to take a picture of the sub before I ate it...

Because I forgot to take a picture of the sub before I ate it…all I have is a picture of the logo lol

I went with my standard option, a 6 inch turkey sub on 9-grain wheat bread, with white cheese, toasted, loaded with veggies and topped with mustard and light mayo. It may seem boring but I really like it – and not in a it’s-a-healthy-choice-so-I’ll-eat-it kind of like it but I legit like it. 🙂 I  love that you can have avocado, I thought it was supposed to be a limited time offer but it’s been around for ages and doesn’t seem to be getting phased out, maybe it’s so popular they realized they should keep it? shrug. I dunno, I’m just happy it’s a choice.

My sub is more veggie than meat lol I get spinach, avocado, tomato, cucumber, green pepper, red onion, black olives and banana peppers. Mmm! Don’t you love how many different colours veggies come in? My sub always look so purdy 😉 lol

I still remember by heart how many Weight Watcher’s points my sub is but now I’m counting calories and those I do not have memorized. I checked out the Subway website this evening to find the calories and discovered they updated it quite a bit since I last took a look and holy cow, amazing website!!

You pull up a chart that has all their items listed, just like every other nutritional information chart you find on restaurant’s websites but! this one is different! You click on the item you ate and it takes you to a new page where it explains the nutritional information you are seeing is if your sub was on white or wheat bread and had no condiments. But c’mon, who doesn’t put some sort of condiment on there, right? So then you click on a button that says “Calculate Yours” and boom! you get this amazing page that has all the options listed, you can say exactly which vegetables you had, which cheese, which condiments and as you pick and choose what you had on your sub the nutritional information that is showing on the side of the page updates itself.

Seriously, best. nutritional. website. EVER!

Turns out my sub with all it’s modifications is 440 calories – good to know! )

As I was googling for a picture of the Subway logo I came across a Subway scandal! *shocked face* Turns out people have been measuring their subs and they are shorter than they are supposed to be, the footlong is coming in at 11″ which makes me wish I’d measured mine before eating it lol Next time! 😛

If you want to check out the Subway nutritional information page click here.

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Hunting For Information

3 Oct

I met a friend for coffee today which turned in to lunch at White Spot which turned in to my first meal that I can’t properly track because I didn’t cook it at home. Erg.

I knew this was bound to happen but why-oh-why did it have to happen so soon? *pout* I’m weird in that if I am tracking I want to be able to track perfectly for every single thing I eat, if something happens and I can’t track a meal then I feel “what is the point” and I usually quit. It’s stupid, I know. It’s just that if I’m doing something, I want to do it right, shrug.

So for the rest of the day I didn’t know what to do. Should I eat? Should I assume my meal was all my calories for the day and my punishment for eating something I shouldn’t have is that I don’t eat again today? What do I dooooooo?

Well, duh, I went online and went hunting for the nutritional information lol Gotta love the internet!

At first I couldn’t find what I needed, the salad is new and I wasn’t seeing it on any of the nutritional information charts that White Spot has online…granted I was searching while at work so I couldn’t fully dedicate my focus to my sleuthing lol When I got home I was all ready to admit defeat for tracking my food today but I decided to give it another go and boom! Found it! *happy dance* Actually, more like horrified gasp…

I am not so dumb that I don’t know that restaurant salads are not always healthy, that in fact, they can be hiding a huuuuuge amount of calories, fat etc and you might just be better off buying a chicken burger or sandwich or some other dish, that knowledge didn’t stop me from buying a salad though…and no, it wasn’t one of the salads marked as a healthy choice, it was a new salad that sounded tasty…I let my desire for something tasty dictate my food choice and I am now kicking myself for that. Kicking hard!

The salad that I ate (ate every single bite of I might add) is the Candied Salmon Spinach Salad. I know, I know, the word “candied” is a dead give away, sigh. I somehow thought the spinach and salmon in the salad would counteract the candied part and the dressing…obviously it did not.

Here, this is the salad description, how can a girl resist the sound of this salad?

Candied salmon, fresh strawberries, gingered pecans, red onion & Okanagan goat cheese on spinach dressed with our champagne vinaigrette. With garlic panini bread.

white-spot_candied-salmon-spinach-salad

And yeah, I ate the bread too…

After my second round of internet searching I learned that my lunch was 868 calories! Broken down that is 682 calories for the salad and 186 for the garlic bread.

Yes, I do know I could have saved calories by getting the dressing on the side but I didn’t so no point in lecturing me about it now. 😛

Here comes the second problem with food…when I was at work I had to decide if I should eat dinner or not. I decided I should, cause if I skip eating that’ll mess with my metabolism, right? Right. So, I ate dinner.

Dinner at work today was salmon (not candied!), with squash and other veggies on top of couscous. Soooo, healthy? I dunno, shrug. The salmon didn’t have a sauce or anything, so I’m leaning towards that part being healthy, and the veggies were probably ok too, but what about couscous?

After some hunting online I came up with approximate numbers for dinner, 88 calories for the couscous, 82 calories for the veggies and 354 calories for the salmon. The calories for the salmon pains me, pains! That’s a total count of 524 which puts me at a total of 1392 for the day.

I can’t decide how I feel about that number. *confused face*

My first two days tracking my calories I wanted to be under 1200 calories a day, the second day I went over a bit and ate 1263, but I thought that wasn’t sooooo bad. After lunch today I was all ready to be super pissed off at myself but I was talking to a friend at work who is a personal trainer and she said I should not be eating under 1200 calories a day, that is too few calories and I’ll put myself in to starvation mode. I’m still not sure exactly how many calories I should be eating, but if I am aiming for 1200 now, then 1392 isn’t so much over that I can’t recover from it, right?…Riiiiiight…ok, so maybe I am trying to make myself feel better and I could be way off, I dunno, sigh.

What sucks is that it is now almost midnight and I am hungry *pout* Looks like my two high calorie meals today didn’t keep me full, nor did all the drinks I had which no, I don’t mean alcoholic drinks but diet coke, water and tea.

So yeah, that is how my third day went, ordering ridiculously bad for me food and ending up being hungry at the end of the day. I want a cookie *pout* 😉

 

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The Smell of Stupid

2 Oct

You might not think that ‘stupid’ can have a smell, let me assure you, it can.

I was cooking dinner this evening and two things happened. The first is this semi-yummy meal…

Mmm, pasta, shrimp and veggies.

Mmm, pasta, shrimp and veggies.

It is Catelli Healthy Harvest pasta, no name mixed veggies, 9 frozen pre-cooked shrimp all mixed up with Classico Alfredo & Sun dried Tomato pasta sauce. I rate it a semi-yummy because I prefer a higher sauce-to-pasta ratio so to me it was a bit bland. I cooked 85 grams (1 cup) of pasta because the box said that is a serving, ummm, yeah, way too much! Next time I will half the amount I cook and that should be plenty, bonus is that I can keep the same amount of sauce (1/4 cup) and that should be a much better sauce-to-pasta ratio for me. 🙂

But really, the meal is not the most important thing that occurred during the cooking of dinner. This also happened…

How lovely, melted plastic!

How lovely, melted plastic!

Something you should know about my kitchen, I have almost no counter space. I don’t mean I have a normal sized counter and it is covered with stuff, I mean to the left of the sink I have a space wide enough to have two cups side-by-side (so, tiny space!) and to the right of the sink I have just enough space to hold a dish drainer…is that what it’s called? I mean the thing you put your just washed dishes in to so they can air dry. And that is it. That is all my counter space.

This means a lot of food prep happens on top of the stove because there is nowhere else to do it.

Soooo, this evening I have water in a pot coming to a boil on one front element, on a back element I have a pan heating up to eventually cook the shrimp in and on the other front element I have my kitchen scale, which I am using to measure out my veggies. The veggies are kept frozen so I kept having to pause in the pouring of them in to the bowl that is on top of the scale so I can hit the bag against the edge of the sink in an effort to break them apart.

Then…the smell starts. It doesn’t smell good. I couldn’t figure out what it was, none of my food should smell like that, but I don’t have any candles burning, nor is anything else in the apartment creating a smell, so what the heck is it?

Even though I don’t like the smell I can’t figure out what it is so I keep doing what I am doing, figuring whatever is causing the smell will stop eventually, or make itself known.

I take a look at the pan on the back burner and realize it isn’t warming up, which makes me take a look at the stove knobs which made me realize holy shit I’d turned on the front element and was cooking my kitchen scale! Ack!

I immediately pulled the scale off the burner and strings of melted plastic spread from the bottom of the scale to the element, like melted cheese on a pizza, but smellier.

Sigh.

I put the scale upside down on the edge of the sink, I couldn’t think of any better place it should be put to cool down lol and stared at it in horror. Horror! This oh-so-awesome scale was a gift from my brother yeeeeears ago! I’ve been using this scale at least 7 years…holy crap I feel old now…but that’s besides the point! This scale is awesome, and I cooked it! Who does that?!?! 😦

Not gonna lie, I started to get upset not only because I was stupid and cooked the scale but because now I was going to have to try to find money to buy a new scale asap so I can keep on with weighing out my food, sigh. Then I remembered I have a back-up scale, yay! Couple years or so ago my mom got given a scale from a friend and she passed it on to me, it is a Weight Watchers scale that can calculate the points of a food while it is on the scale, cool huh? I didn’t use it because I wasn’t following Weight Watchers at the time and if I did need to weigh something, well, I already had a scale, shrug. Me being me though I kept the WW scale, in the box, in perfect condition, in a rubbermaid container where it would be safe.

Point to me for keeping the scale! 🙂

I pulled the WW scale out of storage after I finished dinner and was so close to being relieved when I realized it didn’t have a battery and it takes a 9V battery, not exactly something I just randomly have lying around. I know, I’m so weird right? 😉 lol

But fear not! When I went to put my dishes in the sink I tested the scale. It had cooled off so I flipped it over and tried turning it on and holy crap it works! Wowza! 😀 I cooked the scale so much I can see clear through to it’s innards but that sucker still works! Talk about quality made! lol

Now all I have to do is figure out how to get the melted plastic that has become one with the burner off the burner…and ideas?

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The New Day One

1 Oct

I started my day with a measuring tape and my almost naked body, lovely image that! lol 😉 Ugh. I even attempted to weigh myself but my scale appears to be dead.

My scale is digital, before you step on it you are supposed to lightly tap the top of it with your foot so that it flashes three zeros then, once it shows a steady 0.0lbs you fully step on it to get weighed. Well, my scale seems to have forgotten it is supposed to start at 0.0lbs so every time I tapped the top and it reset itself it set to a weight, which I would have deducted from whatever number showed on the scale when I stepped on it but the number was different each time and frankly, it left me not trusting the scale. I took this as a sign I should stick with my measurements for tracking lol

Though, the measurements are confusing me also, sigh. I measured myself at the beginning of September so when I measured myself today I of course compared the numbers to those from Sept 1st and they had changed. All but one of the numbers had gone down (one of them stayed the same), which is awesome, but I don’t think realistic. No way I’ve gone down by at least an inch in every spot I measure, not in a month, especially a month where I haven’t been doing a good job of exercising.

I’ve been working really hard since coming back from vacation in July to eat three meals a day instead of the one or one and a half I normally eat, and for the most part I’ve been trying really hard to eat in a healthy balanced way. I wasn’t tracking calories or anything, I was just trying to make better choices in general, so protein and veg and fruit with smaller than what I used to eat amounts of carbs. Nothing really impressive about that eating plan, and nothing that would create a large change, right? *confused face*

So why are the numbers down? For my arms I think it is because dragon boat training season is over, has been for a while now, and that means my arms are being worked a bit less, well, a lot less lol. Even though dragon boating is mostly core, back and shoulders, the arms do get worked, I figure the lack of practices has taken away some of my arm muscle, hence my arms getting a bit smaller. As for the rest of the numbers, I guess I messed up somewhere. I double and even triple measured myself today because I was so shocked the numbers were different from last month so I guess I messed up when I measured in September.

In case you’re wondering, the different areas that I measure are:

– mid upper arm

– just under the breast

– belly button

– lower than the belly button at the fattest part of my tummy

– hips

– fattest part of my thigh

– mid calf

I measure both the left and the right side, mostly because my left and right legs are different sizes due to an old injury, but it is something I recommend for everyone, after all, if your feet can be slightly different sizes who says your limbs can’t be?

There are a lot of measurement tracking pages you can find online, none of which I liked (of course lol) so I made my own but I don’t use it, instead I draw a stick figure and make marks on the stick figure labeling what I am measuring and what the measurements are. I don’t know why I prefer using the stick figure drawing with measurements marked on it but, shrug, I do. I’m visual like that I guess. I am going to start transferring the measurements to the tracking sheet I made though for quick reference.

I ended up not taking pictures of myself like I had planned. I have one full length mirror and that is in my bedroom, by the time I woke up there were construction guys working on the house next door so there was this constant parade of guys walking past my bedroom window. Now sure, you’re probably thinking, why didn’t I close the blinds? Well, they were as closed as they can be but thanks to a certain cat who has climbed through the blinds so often they have been permanently disfigured there is no such thing as having actual privacy in my room anymore, the blinds are always open at least a bit…just enough to make me uncomfie standing around in my underwear and bra, taking pics of myself, while guy after guy walk past my window. I know, I’m so high maintenance! lol So I’m thinking Saturday morning should be safe, I mean, construction guys won’t be working on a Saturday, right? It’s a bit annoying my measurements and my pictures won’t be done on the same day but 4 days difference won’t matter, nothing will have changed in that amount of time, shrug.

he looks innocent but he killed my blinds. Blind killer!

he looks innocent but he killed my blinds. Blind killer!

I managed to track every single thing I ate today, yay! I ended up eating 1140 calories, I’m not sure if that is good or bad since I haven’t done the calculations that will tell me how many calories I should be eating, oops! Also, I did nooooo exercise, nadda, niet, nine, NONE! Talk about a lazy day!

All in all, I think my New Day One went well, I didn’t cheat with my food even though I was sooooo tempted, I tracked everything I ate, I got my measurements done…*nods head* yup, a good new Day One. 🙂

2013-06-28 22.05.47

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Getting Back On Track

30 Sep

Lately I have sucked at many things, the main ones are writing on this blog consistently, writing on this blog about something other than my vacation, following any sort of eating/fitness plan and budgeting. Yeah ok, budgeting doesn’t seem to really fit in there but hey, it’s something I suck at so why not add it to the list? lol 😛

I’ve decided to stop being an unorganized annoying person who wants to see change but isn’t working towards it, and instead be someone who is actively working to achieve the change they want to see.

Man oh man will this suck! lol Well, at the beginning anyways, but hopefully soon (very soon, pleeeeease very soon!) it will all become second nature and it’ll not seem like so much work.

Officially I am starting tomorrow, I like starting things at the beginning of a month, that way when I look back at what I am tracking I can see a whole month’s worth of information instead of one week, or half a month or however long it has been. The chunk of time not working towards my goal, and therefore not tracked, looks like some gaping black hole to me when I am glancing at my accumulated information and it bugs me. Yeah yeah, I know, I’m weird, let’s move on shall we? 😉

Here is what I am starting, as of tomorrow, but technically did today to see how it went:

– I am tracking what I am eating. Every. Single. Bite.

– I am tracking my exercise

– I am tracking my spending. Every. Single. Penny. (even though we don’t have pennies anymore…am I the only one that misses pennies? sigh)

To this end I bought myself a cute three subject notebook…

hoooo! hoooo!

hoooo! hoooo!

One section is for my food, one is for my exercise and one is for money spent. I know a lot of people use smaller notebooks to track things, ones that will be easier to carry around but I tend to lose them in my purse, or forget about them, and I thought why not use a larger book, one that can hold everything, is cute (so I like looking at it), and has pages that are large enough the stuff I write down won’t be cramped or written in super small print so it fits?

Today, with the food tracking, all I did was write down what I ate, I didn’t include calories or convert it in to Weight Watchers points, I just wanted to start the habit of writing down what I eat.

I’m not actually sure what kind of meal plan I am going to follow, which is probably pretty stupid considering I am starting tomorrow but there are so many different ways to go about this and I’m not sure anymore which is the best way to go, sigh.

I could follow Weight Watchers again, but I plan on working on building muscle and that means tracking by following numbers on a scale won’t work out too well. I could follow the version of Paleo I was on before, it worked really well, but it is very strict, there is no wiggle room and I honestly don’t know if I can follow that again. I could follow a basic calorie counting plan, figure out how many calories I should be having a day and make sure that is how many I eat.

Without thinking I’ve already come up with three different ways I could go with this, and that is without research, this is just from what I know already…think how much more confusing it could get if I start doing more research? There are meal plans that take in to account your blood type, your body shape, plans that take away all sugar, all carbs, all meat…too many options!! Arg!

I am leaning towards counting my calories, I haven’t done that before, well, not successfully lol but maybe this time I’ll be better at it…couldn’t be much worse I suppose. 😉

The last couple times I have tried to get back on track I find a new app for my phone and try that route but this time I am going old school. I did well when on Weight Watchers and I tracked by writing everything in a notebook, not using the app. While normally I am all about utilizing technology, sometimes I think it doesn’t work as well as the low tech ways. With all the different apps I have used I have had issues, either they are American based so the foods and restaurants etc that are loaded in to them don’t match the foods and restaurants I have access too, they only track you by weight, they are rigid in their definition of meal names, they think that just because it is past midnight it’s a new day even though I didn’t get up till noon and am not going to bed until 3am, they don’t have the exercises in their database that I do…things like that…In the end I find the limitations of the apps so annoying I stop using them.

When using a notebook sure there is a bit more work, I have to look online to find the information (calories, WW points etc) or *gasp* read the nutritional information on the food package but that’s ok, am I so important I can’t find time for that? Pfft, no. Well ok, some days it might be harder than others but I’m sure I can manage it, right?

As for exercising, I will still use apps for tracking if only so I can get accurate distances, calories burned and time of day I exercised. I don’t track all my exercises, when I lift weights for example, but I think it’s more important to be tracking the cardio. Hmm, that sounds wrong, I track weights in the sense I keep a record of how much weight I lifted and how many reps, I just don’t use an app for that.

For keeping track of my success (note the optimism? 😉 ) I will be measuring myself in oh-so-many places lol I will also take pictures of myself (front view, side view, back view), I will repeat this on the first of every month. I’m toying with also weighing myself but I find that the number on the scale can have really negative effects on me and I just don’t know if I want to go there…I’ll see how brave I am tomorrow and if I think it’ll be a wise choice to step on to the scale.

BMI Scale Measuring Tape

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UK Trip Day 7: July 20/14

21 Sep

Just a quick recap for Day 6 of vacation, after the cliff jumping I got a taxi ride back to the B&B had a quick shower and went to the attached cafe for lunch where I devoured fish n chips, Mmm! 🙂 I didn’t have anything else planned for the rest of that day, I wanted to wait and see how I felt. I was told there was an interesting lighthouse that people liked to go to, you can climb all the way to the top but I just wasn’t feelin it, ya know? Normally I’d have been all over that lighthouse excursion but after lunch I went back to my room and napped lol Yes, that is right, I napped. I was exhausted! I think not just from the cliff jumping but the whole week, I think it caught up to me and knowing that I had my own room (no more hostels, woot!), and knowing that starting the next day I’d be surrounded by family, my body decided forget climbing a hill and then a bunch of steps, it was time for sleeeeeep.

Some might say I wasted that afternoon and evening, but I don’t feel I did. I worried a bit that evening I’d regret not having done something once I no longer had the chance but nope, I still don’t regret it. I made endless cups of tea in my room, took my time packing and getting organized, had that lovely nap, watched some tv, read some of my book, went on facebook cause that was one of the only places in Wales I’d had internet and well, that’s pretty much it, shrug. Heck, I even went to bed early! *gasp*

July 20th aka Day 7

I wasn’t sure how long it would take to drive to Manchester from Holyhead Wales so I decided I should probably leave around 9am. My rental car was due back hmm…noon or 12:30pm, somewhere around there and I was worried what would happen if I was late. I went to the cafe for breakfast and when the lady took my order she commented that she noticed the day prior I hadn’t eaten the bacon or sausage, I apologized and told her I forgot to mention to her I don’t eat pork. She seemed so worried I wouldn’t have enough to eat so with my full Welsh breakfast she didn’t bother with the pork but instead I got an extra egg and some fried mushrooms, yum! I dallied a bit over breakfast, had an extra cup of tea, basically did whatever I could to stay longer. I really didn’t want to leave.

I didn’t want to leave The Beach Hut B&B (seriously, nicest people ever!). I didn’t want to leave Wales (I fell in love with that country). I didn’t want to leave that section of my vacation (I learned I looooove going on vacation alone, who’d of thunk it? lol). I just didn’t want to leave, sigh. But leave I did, and only a tad behind schedule. 🙂

Thanks to the wifi at The Beach Hut I looked up directions to the Manchester airport the night before and wrote down quite possibly the most detailed directions anybody in the history of the world has ever written lol Oh, and Dave being the awesome man that he is, when I was partway down one of the flights of stairs with my stupid heavy suitcase he saw and came rushing up the stairs to take it from me! When I said not to worry he made a comment, I don’t have the exact quote or anything, but it was something like of course he would help and I should have come and got him because of course he’d have brought it down all the stairs and not just the final flight of them. Love that man! 🙂

I said bye, told them I had a great stay and I loved the place, loaded up the car and *sniffle* left Holyhead. 😦

I was so sad to be leaving I took pictures while driving, *rolls eyes at self*

I was so sad to be leaving I took pictures while driving, *rolls eyes at self*

DSCF0186

Driving back towards Manchester I was much more confident on the highways, heck, even on the little roads and within city limits. At the beginning of the trip, when I was leaving Manchester and on my way to Llanberis I wasn’t sure of the speed limits anywhere so I am sure I was going slower than I needed to. On this leg of the drive not only was I more comfy driving on the left side of the road, and more comfy with the style of driving over there, I was also more used to the road sign placement so I actually noticed signs in enough time to read them properly which meant I knew the speed limit, yay! This meant I got to Manchester waaaaaaaay earlier than I predicted lol

Returning the rental car was thankfully a lot easier than the ordeal I went through picking it up – if you don’t know what ordeal I am referring to feel free to click here to read all about it. I had to fill out a form when I dropped the car off, there were all these questions asking about how happy I was with the service etc. I chose to fill out the form truthfully, and then when I was giving it back to the lady at the returns section of the lot I mentioned I had a horrible experience at pick up and now that I’ve told the truth on my form I was probably going to get charged for something (damage to the car that I didn’t do etc) because the powers that be within the company would be unhappy with the review I gave. She said no, she was the one who assessed returning vehicles and she promised she wouldn’t charge me for anything just because I wrote the truth on the form. I wasn’t sure if I trusted her, which is horrible to say, but it is true, shrug. I never did get random charges by them on my credit card and I even got an email asking me to fill out a longer online survey because they heard I had an unpleasant experience. I filled out the form and their response was that next time I rent a car from them I can get a discount. I won’t ever be renting a car from them again, but the offer is nice.

All this time I’ve been talking about the car, I don’t think I ever put a picture up of it, here ya go…

The little Kia that got me through Northern Wales

The little Kia that got me through Northern Wales

DSCF0189

It really was a cute little car, great for the tiny roads. It handled well and was comfy, go Kia! 🙂

I had time to kill waiting for family to pick me up, originally it was going to be Sue, who when I was younger I used to call Aunt Sue even though she is my cousin cause she was an adult and I wasn’t and it is polite to have a prefix in front of an older than you family members name but now that I am all grown up I just call her Sue…actually…most of the time I found ways to get around calling her her name cause I felt a little odd calling her Sue but she’s not my Aunt so I can’t call her Aunt Sue anymore and well, it was kinda awkward lol By the end of the trip I got it sorted out though lol So anyways! She was going to pick me up but then I got a phone call from her son Liam saying he was picking me up, along with Samantha (his sister), and Bryan (Sam’s son)…still with me? 😉

Liam ended up calling me from the car cause they were lost and needed me to give them directions to where I was waiting (I was at the car rental office) which I thought was hilarious cause I have absolutely nooooo sense of direction, however! I had my freakishly detailed handwritten notes I had made for how to get to the car rental place from Holyhead so I read off to him the section of the notes that were pertinent to him and eventually he found me, well, they found me. 🙂

It was great seeing family, and it seemed almost magical how for a week I’d been travelling on my own and sorting things out by myself and all of a sudden I was in a car with people who had my back, aaaaaand who understood much better than I how everything worked lol Finally! People who could answer all my random questions about all the odd little things I’d been noticing but had nobody to comment to about them lol Oh, and even better, someone to drive who knew (roughly) where they were going. What a relief!

To be continued…dun dun dun… 😉

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UK Trip Day 6: July 19/14

10 Sep

This is the big day! My most exciting day! The day I was most looking forward to! 🙂 I was surprised I slept at all the night before lol I woke up early, made my way down to the cafe that is attached to the B&B. The lady who helped me when checking in was manning the counter, I don’t know how she was so friendly so early in the morning but she was lol

I got my full Welsh breakfast, which by this point, was starting to seem like a normal way to start my day lol Only thing is I forgot to tell her I don’t eat pork so I ended up with a huge thing of bacon and some sausages, ugh, I ate everything but the meat, obviously.

Dave came out and I asked him for directions to where I needed to be, I was hoping it would be close enough I could walk/jog there but when I asked about that he looked at me like I was a tad cuckoo lol which is ok, lots of people look at me that way when I say I want to walk to get where I’m going lol 😛

Since I couldn’t walk/jog there I asked if they wouldn’t mind calling a cab company for me but Dave said nope, he’d give me a ride there! How awesome is that?! First he carries my super heavy suitcase then he gives me a ride to the outskirts of town, love this guy! 🙂

So where was I going you ask? I was going to the home base of a company called Anglesey Adventures, their website is http://www.angleseyadventures.com I thought I had signed up to go coasteering, which if you are like most people I know, you have no idea what that is, which is ok cause I didn’t know what it was either lol I stumbled across the company and their adventures when I was researching what to do in Northern Wales, this video is what sold me on signing up for fun times with this company…

Now, there was a bit of confusion because when I booked my spot with them I thought I was going to be doing what was in that video but when I got there they had me signed up for cliff jumping only, not coasteering. sigh. Also, only out of the awesomeness of the owner Grant did I still get to go because nobody else had signed up for the same day/time and normally they would have cancelled the outing but since I signed up so far in advance they didn’t want to cancel on me so it was just me and a guide, no group! When Grant first told me this I was a tad nervous but that is cause I am sometimes shy and I didn’t like the idea of just me and a guide, he (the guide) would see just how much I sucked since there’d be nobody else to look at lol also, I was counting on the peer pressure from the group to help me jump off the cliffs lol In the end though I was really grateful it was just the guide and I because I’m pretty sure I would have died without so much attention being given to me 😛

The first thing that I noticed when I got to the office site was that there were no women around, I eventually found one lady in the office manning the desk, and there were some twenty-somethings in the same washroom as I but they were from a neighbouring campsite, they weren’t taking part in any of the adventures. When I asked about that I was told that women don’t really sign up for this stuff, most of the groups are guys going on a stag weekend. What’s with that? C’mon ladies, go out there and have some adventures already! lol

I was given a wetsuit and told to put some swim shorts on over top of it, I knew that already so I brought the closest thing I had, which was a swim skort type of thing lol I figured it might look weird, wearing a black skort over top of a wetsuit but whatev, I’m a girl, I can wear a skort if I wanna! 😛 lol The reason for this is because the cliffs are so sharp they tear through the wetsuit material super easy but swimsuit material is tougher and doesn’t get damaged nearly as quickly. Once I heard that I resigned myself to having my skort die at some point but it actually survived without a scratch.

The guide brings along a water proof camera and takes pictures through out the adventure so I have actual proof of what I did! lol He said to remind him to take the pics cause he often forgets, I reminded him at the beginning, and we did get some, they turned out pretty well, I think…

I do this whenever I'm on vacation and there is a beach lol

I do this whenever I’m on vacation and there is a beach lol

Final prep on the beach before heading to the cliffs...I didn't tell him to take this one lol

Final prep on the beach before heading to the cliffs…I didn’t tell him to take this one lol

It looks like a really big jump when looking down!

It looks like a really big jump when looking down!

Big step out so I don't hit any of the cliff on the way down...

Big step out so I don’t hit any of the cliff on the way down…

Happy and safe bobbing about in the ocean

Happy and safe bobbing about in the ocean

Different angle...I was told to keep my knees bent cause that area was a bit shallow and you didn't want to hit the bottom

Different angle…I was told to keep my knees bent cause that area was a bit shallow and you didn’t want to hit the bottom

Tryna act all cool and nonchalant, like this is stuff I get up to all the time lol

Tryna act all cool and nonchalant, like this is stuff I get up to all the time lol

So here’s how it works, you walk out to the beach, put your helmet and pfd on, get given a safety talk and head to the cliffs. They are super slippery and right from the start I thought I was an idiot for doing this, I can be a slow hiker on rocks when they are dry, why didn’t I think about the fact the surface of the cliffs would be slippy?  The guide said not to worry, everyone starts off slow even though the beginning part is the easiest but before I know it I’ll have sped up and be going much faster on difficult areas, I didn’t really believe him but turns out he was right! 🙂

The first cliff jump is one of the shortest ones, the first four are actually not huge, they gradually get a bit higher with each jump. They start you off there so you can practice your form, and so the guide can see how well you listen to instructions, if you don’t do as you are told, or you suck, then you can’t do the super high jumps cause it’d be too dangerous.

An example of the instructions I got for one of the jumps went like this:

Take a big step out because the lower part of the cliff comes out farther then the top part we are on so you need to make sure you clear the rocks, also, don’t go to the left because there are rocks under the water in that area that you can’t see from here but trust me, they are there, also, don’t go too far to the right because there is a patch of seaweed and you don’t want to get tangled in it…oh, and if you jump too far out there are more rocks…

Sooooo, basically, you are told which small area to aim for when jumping, and you better get it right! lol

After each jump you swim over to the next section of cliff that you will be climbing and up ya go! There was one part where the guide climbed up first, braced himself and sent a knotted rope down that I could use to help me climb up, that particular area was extremely slippery and he said the rope would make it easier…it did and it didn’t lol I was part way up and my foot slipped, I swung out a bit then slammed in to the cliff side with most of the hit landing on my right knee, oh man did that hurt! I kinda hung on to the rope for a second trying not to make any noises of pain then realized the poor guy was still holding the rope and a wet person is not a light person so I basically mentally shook it off and kept climbing lol There was one other section, near a top of a cliff where he cautioned me to be extra careful because a person the previous weekend had slipped there, landed face first and chipped a tooth, ack! It took him saying that for me to realize I could actually get hurt in more ways than just some bruises.

All in all, I would say if you want adventure, want to test your limits, want to see how brave you are, go to Anglesey Adventures! They are really nice, the excursion, though not what I was expecting, was still ridiculously exciting, it really gets your adrenaline pumping! Definitely worth the money! 🙂

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UK Trip Day 5: July 18/14

3 Sep

Alrighty so technically I am starting this post with the tail end of Day 4 of my trip but I just couldn’t bring myself to write a post titled UK Trip Day 4: July 17/14 Part 4…4 parts seemed excessive lol 😛

After I was done eating dinner and that oh so lovely dessert (don’t know what I’m talking about? go read the previous post! lol) I called the hostel I was going to be staying at that night to see if my luggage had made it. I had requested the delivery company send it ahead to that hostel because the delivery timeline they gave me showed that is where I would be on that day, well, that night. The lady at the hostel said the best words to me I had heard all vacation “we have your luggage”. Oh my freakin gawd, my luggage! No longer lost! No longer who knows where being subjected to who knows what! My luggage just a short drive away! Happiness, oh overwhelming happiness. 😀

I quite happily got in to the rental car and started on my way to Betws-y-coed which is pronounced betta-sea-co-ed.

When I got to the town I (of course!) couldn’t find the hostel lol In my defence this particular hostel is attached to a hotel, which I didn’t know, and the signage for it isn’t all that clear. However, it is a small town, a super small town, so I pulled over near a shop with a name in the window I could see and called the hostel for directions. Got there less than five minutes later lol.

I didn’t take a picture of the outside of the hostel so I nabbed this one from the hostel’s website… http://www.yha.org.uk/hostel/betws-y-coed

Betws-y-coed hostel

Betws-y-coed hostel

The long part you see is the hostel, farther to the right (not shown in the picture) is the hotel which is taller, more obvious, and has a large sign – maybe now you see why I overlooked it? The only picture I took of the outside of the hostel was this…

Came over to say hi!

Came over to say hi!

After I got my suitcase I immediately took it to the car and plopped it in to the trunk, I was then sorting stuff, seeing if everything was still in the bag etc when this little guy came over to welcome me to the neighbourhood. I don’t have much experience with birds like this so I was a tad worried it was going to try to peck me to death or steal my food or something but all it did was hang out for a bit before leaving me for more interesting sights…which fyi was a cute guy over at his car lol

It felt so amazing to have my own things again, *happy sigh*. I was able to take a shower using my own items, blow dry my hair for the first time on this trip, basically look normal for the first time on this trip lol I was tired after a long day in the sun and not really looking for any company so only chatted with one of the girls in my room. It was a four person room with two bunk beds, I was the last one there so I got stuck with a top bunk. I showered, got organized, crawled in to my bunk and basically passed out lol I woke during the night not feeling well, too much sun, which gave me a bit of a worry cause I didn’t want to be heat stroked the next day but I fell back asleep and by the time morning came I was doing ok. Not great but ok. I had a lovely sunburn and was cursing myself for not being smarter the day before lol

This was the first day I didn’t have a full Welsh breakfast, my tummy just wasn’t up for it, instead I had the “healthy breakfast option” from the menu. This hostel was the same as the other in that you could pay for breakfast in advance, which I did, it was served in a dining room that looked like it did double duty as a pub.

My healthy breakfast.

My healthy breakfast.

I of course had tea and juice with the breakfast, and actually, before I got served this I had a small bowl of cereal. I was really worried I wouldn’t have enough energy to get through the day but this turned out to be a nice size. 🙂

After breakfast I walked across the street to Swallow Falls, its this little park area you have to pay a pound, maybe a pound and twenty five pence I can’t quite recall, to get in to and then you have some little walkways you can follow to get a beautiful view of the waterfall. There were steps going down, then up (obviously) as well as some benches set up so you could just sit and enjoy. It was amazingly beautiful. 🙂 I went on a whim and am so glad I did. After I wandered all the paths and saw all the various views of the waterfall I sat on one of the benches and just…sat. It was such a peaceful area and I was so calm within myself.

I don’t know how to describe what I felt at that moment except complete and utter peace. I was calm, the area was calm, the sounds of the water was soothing, I didn’t have to be anywhere, I was disconnected from the world (literally since I had no data plan and hadn’t brought my phone with me on the short walk), it was as if I had found some inner quiet, become one with myself, it is the most centered I have ever felt in my life.

I ended up sitting there for at least a half an hour. I didn’t want to leave but I was worried I’d be late for my next adventure so off I went. I wish I could go back, sigh.

The sign for Shannon Falls

The sign for Swallow Falls

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I thought this couple was cute so I took a pic of them on the down low lol

I thought this couple was cute so I took a pic of them on the down low lol

The view from the bench, I could have sat there for hours.

My view from the bench, I could have sat there for hours.

Aaaaand as I was inserting these pics I noticed I did take a pic of the hotel/hostel, yay me! I took it when I was leaving the waterfall area and was across the street…

This part is technically the hotel, not the hostel.

This part is technically the hotel, not the hostel.

After my time at the waterfall I headed off to my next adventure, which really was my first big adventure since I didn’t get to climb Mt Snowdon…not that I’m still bitter about that or anything… 😉

I went to the meeting spot for a caving expedition I signed up for. The company I went with is called Go Below Underground Adventures, their website is www.go-below.co.uk and if you are ever in a position to go on an adventure with this company all I can say is go! Go! Goooooo!

You meet up beside Conwy Falls Cafe which is 2 miles south of Betws-y-coed. For the caving expedition they recommend bringing a packed lunch and the cafe provides them if you want to get one from there. Since I had nowhere else to get one from I bought mine there and it was totally worth it. There was a delish sandwich that was huge, chips, water and cake, Mmm!

Go Below provides you with rubber boots (or wellies as they call them), helmet and harness gear. You are responsible for bringing a small backpack to hold your food and water, a waterproof jacket and clothes easy to move in that won’t get heavy when they get wet.

After they go through a safety presentation and show you how to clip on and off the safety ropes with your harness you head off in a Land Rover to the base of the mountain.

Sidestory! When I was in the cafe I asked for directions to Holyhead since that would be my next destination and I was worried the cafe would be closed when we got back and I wouldn’t be able to ask. A group of three people overheard me and they also were doing the Go Below adventure, we started chatting and they said after the caving expedition if I wanted to I could follow them because while they weren’t going all the way to Holyhead they were going really close and they’d make sure I took the proper route. How awesome is that?!?!

Back to the adventure! lol

You get out of the Land Rover and have a hike up the mountain to the entrance of the mine. It was incredible, it looks so different from the hiking environment I am used to lol I kept wanting to stop to look more closely at things but there wasn’t time. The guide was really nice, talked a lot about the area, explaining the history of the place. Also, fyi, there are these things that look like four leaf clovers that only grow in the forest, if you eat them they taste like licorice!

The forest

The forest – some of the trees were completely covered with moss.

After about a half hour hike, mostly going up, you get to the mine entrance. From the inside looking out it looks like…

The little part at the bottom, with the smaller bars, that opens and you crawl through.

The little part at the bottom, with the smaller bars, that opens and you crawl through.

Sadly, that is the last of my pictures from this adventure, sigh. My camera battery died. 😦 There was a couple in the group from Scotland that took my picture at the end and said they’d email me pics but they haven’t. I was holding out hope for a while, but now it’s pretty much gone, sadness.

When you are in the mine you walk, climb, crawl, cross a zipline and traverses, climb rock faces, boat across a lake, abseil off ledges, climb a waterfall and to get out you climb a vertical air shaft where you then pop out of the side of the mountain and blink like a mole seeing sunlight for the first time ever cause you’ve been in a mine for about 5 hours lol. Oh, and then you have to climb down the mountain lol 😛

It was amazing! So much fun! Challenging in parts but what is an adventure without some challenges? There was one part where I thought I was an idiot for signing up for this, that would be when I was climbing along the side of the rock face using such small rock ledges to step on that only my toes fit and I could hardly see them in the dim lighting, oh and the finger holds were so small and hard to see that I was certain I was going to fall off in to a pit. I mean yeah, I had safety gear on and was attached to a line but that doesn’t matter in the moment ya know? But! I didn’t fall, I conquered! wOOt! 😀

You stop in about the middle to eat your packed lunch, everyone turns off their helmet lights and you eat by candlelight to see what it would have been like for the miners – those miners, wow, I don’t know how they did it!

I learned all kinds of interesting things from the guide but this post is already ridiculously long, a trend I am noticing with my holiday posts lol so I’ll tell you all that random stuff in the next post. 🙂

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UK Trip Day 4: July 17/14 Part 3

2 Sep

After the gaol I walked over to the old Court House, also Victorian era. It was also supposed to have live performances but there weren’t any. It is small but there was lots to see and learn. 🙂

They also had the headset audio tour that you could listen to and me being me I listened to every part of it. This one was done in the more traditional style of a person explaining what each section or room was for, some examples were given of various cases that went through the court and things of historical significance were pointed out.

Mostly what you learn is how unfair the court system was back then, something I already knew lol My pictures of the inside didn’t turn out very well, kinda blurry, but I managed to get some good ones…

I was standing in the balcony overlooking the main area of the court house, to the far left you can see the “judge” (aka creepy mannequin lol). To the right you’ll see a metal fence, that was put up because the public would come in and the whole place would get overwhelmed with people, plus there were attempts to kill the judges, so the fence kept non necessary people out.

Main area of the court house

Main area of the court house

closer look at the creepy mannequins

closer look at the creepy mannequins

From the other side of the fence

From the other side of the fence

There were other rooms in the building but I didn’t take pictures of them, mostly because I knew I wouldn’t remember what the specific rooms were for and I’d be stuck with a bunch of pictures of random rooms lol One thing I did get a picture of though was a device used on women called a Scold’s Bridle…

I lifted it, it's really heavy!

I lifted it, it’s really heavy!

It was used on women who were considered to be “quarrelsome or nagging”, lovely huh? Mostly it was used on women who were considered to be witches, sigh. It was quite heavy and must have sucked to wear, understatement I know! If I was sent back in time I’m fairly certain one of those would be put on me quite quickly lol cause not only will I quarrel to prove my point (though I like to call it a spirited debate lol) I also have red hair and we all know what people thought of gingers back in the day, heck, some people still think those thought now, the twits. 😛

After the court house I stopped and got some ice cream from a place that was recommended to me from one of the people who worked in the Llanberis hostel, the ice cream shop is called Redboat Ice Cream Parlour and it was amazing! So many choices, really nice people working there, I had a little flirt with the cute guy behind the counter lol so all in all a place I’d recommend 😉

Redboat Ice Cream Parlour

Redboat Ice Cream Parlour

Hot summer day + ice cream = happiness

Hot summer day + ice cream = happiness

I got two scoops cause who just gets one scoop of ice cream when there are so many flavour choices? lol The coffee coloured flavour is peanut butter, the orange one was a local fruit that I can’t pronounce the name of let alone type lol The peanut butter one was ok but the fruit one was delish! Go to Beaumaris for ice cream, dooooo it! 😛

After having indulged in ice cream I wandered over to a sweet shop I had seen online when I was researching what I wanted to do in Wales. It is an old school sweet shop called The Penny Farthing, it looked so cute online I was really hoping to come across it, luckily everything is close together in Beaumaris and finding it wasn’t a problem. However, finding good service once inside was a huge problem. There was one lady working and she was busy chatting with her friend when I entered, not a big deal, everyone who works in retail has done that and I really don’t care if the person working is hanging with their friend as long as I get some semblance of service. I looked around, the shop is super small so that took all of 15 seconds lol The friend left and the lady turned to me asking me in an abrupt way if I wanted anything. I asked her if there was any candy that was a local traditional type of candy, she looked at me like I was a moron, said there was one but it was sold out and then turned away. Um, ok…I then asked if she had any suggestions for something that would be good…she said no without even looking at me. huh. I took the hint and left. It’s too bad really because not only did I not get any candy but they have a decent online presence and I wonder how many people wander in and get treated shabbily…

The Traditional Sweet Shop

The Penny Farthing Traditional Sweet Shop with the horrible service.

This is apparently the food portion of my post lol I eventually went to grab a bite to eat, I was hungry but not starved, didn’t want a proper sit down meal but really had no idea what I felt like eating. I ended up in a take-away that was attached to a pub, there were tables so I could eat there if I wanted, which I did. 🙂 I ordered a cheese and onion fry (I think that’s what it was called lol) it’s basically mashed potato, onion and cheese surrounded by a batter and deep fried. I asked if it was enough for a meal and the lady working said I should get chips to go with it. What I was envisioning was a cheese and onion pie or pastie so I was a bit disappointed when I received my food and saw this…

My lunch

My lunch

It was ok, not amazing, but not bad either. I had to wait a while for it to cool down enough to eat lol the chips were of course perfect. 🙂 I didn’t eat it all but figured that was ok cause my tummy was half filled with ice cream still lol

I wandered around a bit and wasn’t sure where to go next, all the things I had planned to do I had done but it was still early enough in the day I wanted to do something else before leaving for the next town. I walked to the pier area and saw a sign for a boat cruise and before I knew it I was signed up to go on a Puffin Boat Tour, yup, you read that right, Puffins, as in the bird…

On the way to the island

On the way to the island

those little dots are birds, lots and lots of birds

those little dots are birds, lots and lots of birds

closer shot of the birds

closer shot of the birds

abandoned building on the island

abandoned building on the island

because I think the water looks pretty lol

because I think the water looks pretty lol

The company that I took the boat tour with was amazing! Their website is http://www.starida.co.uk/ The people at the kiosk where you buy your ticket were friendly and knowledgeable, the prices are totally fair (it only cost me eight pounds for my ticket) and the tour itself was sooooo worth it. 🙂 It lasted an hour and a half (if I remember correctly), they do their absolute best to make sure you get some good pictures, my camera wasn’t great at close ups but if it had been I’d of had some amazing pics of birds…not that I’m really in to that but some people are, shrug. The gentleman who was the guide seemed to know everything about the area, before we even started moving he brought me a blanket because he could tell I’d need it lol It was a hot day but on the water, at the speeds we were moving it was chilly and since this was unplanned for me I didn’t have a sweater or jacket.

I learned a lot about the island, what I remember most was that the island got infested by rats when a boat went down near the island and the rats from the boat swam to the island for safety, ugh. The rats were winning the battle against the birds so people went over and set traps to get rid of the rats and save the birds, cute huh? There are 12 species of birds on that island and the guide spotted almost every one! We also saw seals, well, we saw their heads lol but I couldn’t get a good picture. I was so tired from the long day and the heat I actually nodded off on the way back to the pier lol luckily nobody noticed, or if they did they didn’t say anything! 😛

After that I decided a spot of dinner was in order, the town had practically shut down and I had two choices for where to eat, the fancy hotel’s restaurant or a smaller restaurant that was right beside it, I chose the smaller one. I got a yummy pasta dish and an amazing dessert called an Eton Berry Mess, oh man so so so good!

Mmm, dinner. :)

Mmm, dinner. 🙂

This dessert turned heads lol

This dessert turned heads lol

This dessert was so impressive people turned to stare at it, which made me feel slightly self conscious lol I didn’t expect it to be so large but oh well, who am I to complain? There is fresh fruit, crushed up meringue, whipped cream, umm…I think that’s it…I ate the entire thing! Even scraped the edges of the dish it was that good lol

After my lovely meal I headed off to my next stop Betws-y-coed which will be in the next post cause holy crap this is one loooong post! Congrats if you made it through the whole thing! 🙂

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