A Seaside Day at Weston-super-Mare

It's amazing how having a couple of weeks away from blogging really makes me want to get writing again! It always reminds me of how this blog is my passion, and brings back the motivation to keep adding to this online travel journal, which I've been building up for more than half a decade now.

And today I've got another little trip to add to my collection. It's definitely not the most exciting one out of all the different places I've visited since starting this blog, but it was a fun day out!

My parents were visiting friends near Chippenham last Saturday, and they offered to drop me and Claudio off at the train station so that we could go off exploring somewhere. It didn't make sense to go to London or anywhere to the east or north from Chippenham, when it's quicker and cheaper to go from Swindon or Kemble, so we decided to go further into the South West. The two options that were reasonably interesting were Taunton (which has a museum inside a castle) and Weston-super-Mare (a seaside town that I went to a lot with my family as a toddler). Eventually, we opted for Weston-super-Mare, as it had been a long time since either of us had been to a beach.

The last time I went to a beach was in August, when I squeezed in a last visit to St George's Bay in Malta before coming back to the UK. (That is, unless you count Severn Beach as a beach, which to be honest, I don't!) Beaches are probably my favourite type of travel destination, so six months without visiting one felt like a long time! And although Weston-super-Mare is not exactly the Caribbean or the Mediterranean, there's something about seeing the sea, listening to the waves, and smelling the sea air that is really good for the soul, no matter how picturesque or not the beach itself is.

Having said that though, it was a little disappointing to arrive at the seafront of Weston-super-Mare, only to find something that didn't really look like sea at all! In photos we'd seen online (and in my memories of going there as a toddler!), it looked more like a "proper" beach, but what we found there looked more like an expanse of somewhat muddy sand with something that looked like it could be sea a long way off in the distance.

All the same, being at the seaside was a nice change of scenery! We decided to start off our sightseeing by visiting the Grand Pier, which costs £1 per person.

Most of the pier is taken up by the arcade, which has lots of different rides and games.

Near the far end of the pier, there's a corridor where you can see various examples of vintage travel posters advertising Weston-super-Mare. I've always loved these kinds of posters (I actually have one of Cannes!), and from a marketing perspective, it's amazing to see how they can make a place like Weston-super-Mare (which is pretty grey and muddy most of the time) look like a sunny paradise where glamorous movie stars go on holiday!

On the other side of the corridor, there's a large tearoom, which can actually be booked for weddings. It is a really nicely-decorated and spacious room, but it would be improved if it had a view of the sea rather than mud!

We also had a look out at the views from the pier, which were quite nice, despite the mud! I particularly liked the look of the island in the distance, which I believe is called Steep Holm. It looks kind of mysterious and exotic rising out of the water, and I like to imagine that it's hot and sunny over there, with tropical jungle and beautiful beaches!

Looking back towards the town itself from the pier, you can see the Winter Gardens Pavilion, an events venue, which is definitely the grandest and most beautiful building in the town.

Next we headed inland to visit the Italian Gardens behind the Pavilion. We had been quite excited to see these gardens based on their name, but in reality, they couldn't really be described as either "Italian" or "gardens" - it's just a big concrete square with some fountains and benches.

We then walked over to Knightstone Island, which is one of the most old-fashioned and pretty parts of Weston-super-Mare. The island is next to Marine Lake, where we found probably the closest thing to a normal beach that we saw all day, though it was a shame that the crane in the water ruined the view a bit!

Then we walked all the way down the seafront to the golf club, passing sights including Tropicana, an events venue with a bar (I wonder if drinks are free there!).

The far end of the beach is quite picturesque with its quaint wooden beach huts, and the sun had come out by this point, which made the place seem much more cheerful than before. We stopped here for a while and talked about life in general, and even came up with some exciting ideas as to our plans for the next year or two. Things haven't been coming together for us lately the way we hoped in terms of being able to properly set up our life together in a place we both want to be, and it's been getting us down at times, so it was definitely a positive thing to start to see another potential pathway ahead.

By this point, it was the middle of the afternoon, and we were very hungry! So we walked back up towards the town centre and found this cool round building, which has a Bistrot Pierre inside (a restaurant I used to go with my parents nearly every time they visited me when I was living in Nottingham).

The interior of the building is very elegantly decorated and has fantastic panoramic views of the beach. And the food was delicious!

For our dessert, we had Mr Whippy ice creams while walking along the sand, which was a great way to round off our day at the seaside!

Although Weston-super-Mare isn't the most beautiful beach in the world, we really enjoyed our day there, and it was a nice break from the stresses that we're going through at the moment. It was also interesting for Claudio to discover a typical British seaside town - he'd been to Brighton before, but not to a place like Weston-super-Mare, which is less wealthy and doesn't really get any foreign visitors. 

If all goes to plan, we'll be off to a more exotic beach very shortly, but our day in Weston-super-Mare definitely helped us get our beach fix for the time being!

Gloucester and Cheltenham

Our first little adventure of 2024 was a Saturday spent in the cities of Gloucester and Cheltenham. I wanted to go to Gloucester to visit the cathedral, which was used as parts of Hogwarts in the Harry Potter movies. And as Cheltenham is such an elegant city (or town, technically) and is only a 10-minute train ride from Gloucester, it made sense to go there too.

I had been to Gloucester Cathedral once before, when I was about 5 or 6 years old, but obviously I don't remember very much of that trip! So going there was like visiting a new destination for both me and Claudio.

The cathedral is a really beautiful and imposing building to see from the outside.

After entering, we headed straight for the cloisters, which is where parts of Harry Potter were filmed! I'm a big fan of the Harry Potter books, so it was exciting to be inside "Hogwarts", even though I'm not so keen on the movies.

 

The rest of the cathedral also has loads to explore! It's actually where Edward II was buried, and you can visit his tomb, which I found very interesting to see, as I'd enjoyed studying that particular period of history at sixth form college.

We also had fun making our own gargoyles!

Afterwards, we had a little walk around the docks, which is quite an attractive area.

We stopped for a coffee and then headed back to the train station. Unfortunately, the next train was cancelled, which meant we had to spend about 40 minutes waiting. I was a bit annoyed about that, as I'm quite an impatient person and hate waiting, but at least we were able to sit in a reasonably warm waiting room. Eventually, I decided to make the most of the wait by getting some planning done for our next big trip...

Finally, the train arrived, and after a 10-minute journey and a short bus ride, we were in the centre of Cheltenham. I was really excited to show Claudio Cheltenham, as we weren't able to go there the last time he came to the UK, and I knew it was the sort of place he would like. The architecture is so uniform and elegant, and is reminiscent of other cities Claudio likes, such as Bath, certain areas of London, and even Paris. It also has a few Italian touches, including the Neptune Fountain and the Imperial Fountain, which really add to the classic, European vibe of the town.

I didn't take many photos during this trip, as I've already done a couple of posts on this blog about the sights of Cheltenham. But as expected, Claudio really enjoyed the visit, and especially liked the fact that there were so many fancy cars there!

We couldn't resist choosing to have a late lunch at the Ask Italian, because its exterior is just so beautiful!

It's a chain restaurant, so I wasn't expecting the food to be incredible, but the spaghetti pomodoro I had was actually the best pasta I've eaten in a long time, and our puddings were also delicious. Our meal there definitely got us even more excited about our upcoming trip to Italy!

We decided to use the 45 minutes to an hour that we had left before our train to walk back to the station (which is quite far from the town centre). It was a good opportunity to see more nice houses (and cars!) before going back home.

Overall, it was a lovely day out, though we think in hindsight, it would have been better to have spent the whole day in Cheltenham, which would have given us enough time to walk to Pittville Park, which still remains on my "to see" list! Although we enjoyed visiting Gloucester Cathedral, the rest of the city isn't that special, so we're not that bothered about going back there. But hopefully, we'll be back in Cheltenham sometime soon!

This has been the only bit of travel we've done so far this year that's been worthy of an entire blog post, so I'm now completely up to date with my posts, having spent the last seven weeks catching up with all the trips and other things I wanted to write about. Because of this, I'll be taking a break from writing on the blog for probably a couple of weeks. I'll use the time away to focus a bit on my Pinterest page, which I've really neglected for the last couple of months, as well as other tasks in my life that need attention, such as wedding planning!

I'll see you back here very soon! 😊

2023: An Eventful Year!

I know it's February already, but I can't miss out on my tradition of doing a summary of the year, especially as 2023 was such an eventful year in my life!

2023 felt like about three years squashed together into 12 months - I lived in three different countries, had three different jobs, got married(ish!) and engaged! On top of all this, I travelled in eight different countries and rediscovered an old passion that I thought I'd left behind for good.

This year has also had some big challenges, and I still feel like I have a long way to go to be where I really want to be in life. But all things considered, I'm grateful for all the amazing experiences I've had over the last 12 months. It's been a year to remember!

Our Civil Union and Engagement

2023 was a super special year in my personal life! My partner Claudio and I decided towards the beginning of the year that we both needed and wanted to have a legal bond as quickly as possible. We didn't have time to plan a proper wedding, so we chose to have a civil union, which we celebrated in May in Santiago. We had a very low key but really special day with just the two of us and Claudio's parents and brothers.

We always planned to have a proper engagement and wedding in the future when the time was right, but I didn't know when exactly Claudio was thinking of proposing. However, he ended up proposing seven months after our civil union, while we were in Paris together, at night, right in front of the Eiffel Tower! It really was the most special and perfect moment. ❤

Now we've got a wedding (and a honeymoon) to plan! We actually want to have a small ceremony in the UK and then a big celebration on the beach in Chile, so it's going to be a big task planning everything compared to how it was for our civil union, which was so simple. But although wedding planning is a completely new world for me, it's a nice challenge, and I'm enjoying it so far. Hopefully, soon we'll have a date and a venue!

Career

2023 was also an important year for me career wise.

At the start of the year, Claudio and I were living together in a small but modern apartment in the Ñuñoa comuna of Santiago. We had furnished it really nicely (if I do say so myself!), life was going well in general, and we were happy there. But something was missing for me. At the time, I was still teaching English as a foreign language online, and although my schedule was lighter than it had been in previous years, I was feeling tired of teaching and lacking motivation. Furthermore, it wasn't bringing in much money. 

I knew that I wanted to do something else with my life, and particularly liked the idea of working in marketing. So I started applying for jobs both in Chile and Europe. Eventually, in around February or March, I was offered the chance to do a fully-funded internship in one of Malta's most successful marketing agencies. Although it meant leaving my life in Chile behind, it was an opportunity I couldn't turn down.

So a few days after our civil union, I flew back to the UK, and after spending less than two weeks at home, went off to Malta with 11 other interns. I spent three months there, and even though there were challenges, it was such a great experience overall. All of us interns lived together in a rather run-down hostel, which had problems with mould and cockroaches (fortunately, I never had one in my room!). It obviously wasn't the best accommodation, but we had so many good times both hanging out at the hostel and going to other places around the island. 

I also absolutely loved my internship at the marketing agency, which involved writing social media posts and blogs for a variety of different brands, among other tasks. I really felt like I was doing what I wanted to be doing in life, and I hoped to continue along the same pathway with my next role.

However, finding my next job turned out to be more difficult that I was expecting. I had hopes of being offered a great position in a marketing agency somewhere nice on the continent, like Vienna or Barcelona, but I wasn't lucky with my job search (and the fact I don't currently have an EU passport surely didn't help).

After a month or two of applying for jobs from Malta and another month of intense job hunting back home, I was finally offered a role in a big global company, which I decided to accept, mostly because it was a role that would allow me to use my French on a daily basis. However, it was based in Bristol, which wouldn't really have been my first choice of city to live in.

I decided to give Bristol life a go, and moved into a shared flat at the start of October. But I felt pretty miserable living there, and I couldn't help feeling like it was a bit of a set-back to end up living in a city so close to where I grew up, after all my experiences of living and working abroad. And while it's nice to use my French in my job, and I get on well with my colleagues and like the working environment at the company, what I do now is so much less creative than what I was doing in Malta. My job is a sort of marketing role, but it's very repetitive and doesn't really feel like a "career" in the way that my job in Malta did. I've now realised that working in a marketing agency is what I really want to do with my life, and that I have to make sure that's where my next role will be.

Having said all that, my goal for 2023 was to get a foot up on the career ladder, and I do feel that I've achieved that. This is my first permanent job contract, and it wasn't an easy task to reach this stage in my late twenties, after three and a half years as a self-employed TEFL teacher. Although I don't see it as a forever job, I feel that it will be a good step in the right direction towards the career that I really want to have in the future.

Musical Theatre

Moving on to a more fun topic, I can't write a post about my 2023 without mentioning my return to one of my big passions in life: musical theatre! Growing up, I was obsessed with musicals and performing arts, and was absolutely determined to one day perform on a West End stage. However, as a teenager, I had several experiences that caused me to lose confidence in my abilities (even though I had many positive experiences too), and eventually, I more or less completely gave up on performing.

Weirdly, towards the end of 2022, I had a few dreams about performing in musicals, which made me feel a lot of nostalgia for my days of singing, acting and dancing in concerts and school productions. And then at the start of 2023, I read about a musical theatre opportunity, which the teenage version of me would have been absolutely ecstatic about. Even though the idea scared me, and I hadn't done anything like that in years, I felt I owed it to my younger self to give it a go. So I recorded a tape and sent it off.

It would have been absolutely amazing to have got to the next stage of the process, but unfortunately I never heard back. Part of me was disappointed, but not as disappointed as I worried I might have been. Maybe I didn't progress because the audio quality of my audition (filmed on my phone) was poor, or it could have been because I haven't been to stage school, or it could have been the fact that I hadn't had singing lessons in over a decade, and my technique wasn't as good as it had once been. But in any case, the experience of putting myself out there in the musical theatre world again really spurred me on to do more.

I started off with finding the courage to sing karaoke for the first time (and then for a second time!) and eventually, I felt brave enough to start singing lessons, which I've now been doing for over seven months. I've even performed in two online concerts!

Aside from that, I've watched several movie musicals I hadn't seen before, and had my first trip to the West End in seven years, seeing Hamilton with my mum for my birthday (it was amazing!).

I'm really enjoying getting back into this old passion of mine, and looking forward to seeing where it takes me in the future. And if I have time, I may at some point end up starting a musical theatre blog...

New Experiences

As well as coming back to an old hobby, I tried a few new things last year too, namely ziplining (once in Cajón del Maipo and once in Santiago) and white-water rafting (in Mendoza)! It was scary but very fun to take on these new challenges, and I definitely want to do something similar at some point in 2024!

Travel

This post has turned out longer than I thought, but now we're back on topic for this blog! In terms of travel, I didn't expect 2023 to be able to compare to 2022, which was such a big year of travelling for me. However, I ended up visiting more places than I expected, including two countries I hadn't visited before and many regions and cities that were new to me. 

Here are all the trips I took (not including day trips):

January - Papudo and Valparaíso

Our first trip of the year, which feels like a lifetime ago now, was a long weekend in the picturesque beach town of Papudo, where we took a speedboat ride to an island filled with penguins and sea lions, meeting a beautiful dolphin along the way! On our way back, we stopped off in the colourful, bohemian city of Valparaíso, one of my favourite places in the world.

February - Algarrobo

Claudio's family rented a house in Algarrobo for two weeks, and we spent a nice couple of weekends there, relaxing, swimming, and visiting nearby secluded beaches. 

February - Mendoza

This was a trip I had to take in order to be able to stay another three months in Chile. I had been to Mendoza previously in 2018, but I made this trip a little different by trying white water rafting for the first time! I also travelled there and back during the daytime, which gave me the opportunity to see sights including Puente del Inca and Aconcagua, the tallest mountain in the world outside of the Himalayas.

April - Los Lagos and Chiloé

It was really special to spend time in the south of Chile shortly before leaving the country. The Los Lagos region is so beautiful and green, and is filled with volcanoes, lakes, waterfalls and picturesque German architecture. We also took a day trip to the enchanting Chiloé archipelago, which has a very unique culture and feels almost like a different country.

June - Sicily

Italy is one of my favourite countries to visit, so it was great to have the opportunity to take the ferry over to Sicily when I was living in Malta. Despite the sweltering weather, I really enjoyed visiting the city of Syracuse, and exploring its Ancient Greek and Roman archaeological sites.

July - Gozo

I also took the ferry over to Gozo for a weekend during my time in Malta. Gozo is part of the country of Malta but is much quieter and more rural than the island of Malta. I loved seeing sights such as the Citadella, Ġgantija Temples and Ramla Beach, and I hope to return there at some point in the future.

December - Paris, Bruges and Amsterdam

This was definitely the most special trip of the year! Claudio and I didn't see each other between May and December last year, so it was fantastic to spend this time travelling through Europe together after being reunited again. Paris, of course, was the highlight! But it was also lovely to revisit Bruges, which is such a beautiful place, and to explore the sights of Amsterdam for the first time.

My Plans, Hopes and Dreams for 2024

This time last year, I'd hoped Claudio and I would have some more certainty in our life by the start of 2024. But, to be honest, things are just as uncertain as they were 12 months ago.

At the moment, we're living at home with my parents, as it was going to be difficult to find a decent place for us to live together in Bristol, and neither of us particularly want to live in Bristol anyway. Of course, our goal for this year is to both have jobs in a place where we both want to live (maybe the London area or somewhere abroad) and find a nice apartment or even house where we can live by ourselves. Claudio is hoping to get his Italian citizenship sometime soon, and I'm planning to apply for my Irish citizenship this year, so that should give us more opportunities.

I feel like over the last year or two, we've had certain aspects of our lives going well at different times, but we haven't yet been lucky enough to be able to bring everything together to actually just be able to properly settle down at last. Hopefully, 2024 will be the year we can do this.

But of course, we're also going to have some fun this year! There's wedding and honeymoon planning to be done, which is super exciting, and we've also got our first holiday of the year booked for next month. I'm really looking forward to that!

So, all that's left to say now is thanks for reading this (very long) recap of my 2023. And as always, happy (belated) New Year and happy travels!

My 2023 highlights from left to right, starting from top left: Mendoza, Argentina; Frutillar, Chile; Our civil union in Santiago, Chile; The Blue Lagoon, Malta; Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Getting engaged in Paris, France