CHRISTMAS IN DENMARK

Merry Christmas!! I have never actually had a christmas in England each year I have always flown over to Denmark to celebrate christmas with my extended family. Having spoken about the usual christmas events and traditions to my friends everyone questions my ones as they are so different to a typical English family's traditions so therefore I thought I would give you an insight into my christmas and why I personally think it is the best time of the year.

Christmas for us starts on the 23rd of December where all of the family meet at my grandparents coming from all around Denmark and of course us coming from England. On this nice we have a tradition of having rice pudding for dinner!! No idea why or what this tradition is about but everyone in Denmark has rice pudding for dinner on the 23rd! How strange! Furthermore in the evening we all get together and drink homemade mulled wine called "glögg" and eat pancake balls called "æbleskiver" and play board games to late at night. Every year in my family we play a danish trivial pursuit game entitled "bezzerwizzer" which is all about Denmark which us Brits always lose especially when playing England vs Denmark. On this evening each year is Home alone 2. Between the 22-24 each home alone is played on the danish version of ITV so on the 22nd is it home alone 1, 23rd home alone 2 and 24th home alone 3. The country apparently just loves it!

The main christmas day is the 24th December which is the european equivalent of the 25th December but that for us is our boxing day which is a whole other story. But on the 24th it is the mayhem in the kitchen day with all the food being prepared and cooked (we had to use our neighbours oven because we had so much food) yet each family member is put with a list of things they had to do that day in order to make the day run smoothly. For example my job was to lay the table, put all the presents  under the tree, find santa's outfit and wrap presents. We do this throughout the day however a lot of the time we also play board games and card games and everyone eats a lot of quality streets. Our christmas starts at 4pm when we all sit down and watch the annual "Disney's christmas show." We all sat down with our gin and tonics and watched the 50 year anniversary of the show which includes episodes from Snow white, Donald Duck and Peter Pan. When we all sit down together regardless of the age of the individual that is when christmas truly begins.

After the show as we usually have many little ones and the danes like to eat early we start sitting around the table and start eating as much food as our heart desires. Typically in Denmark this includes turkey, goose, sausages, caramelised potatoes, red cabbage, brussel sprouts and many more things. However because of the many vegans or lactose intolerants etc we had many vegan dishes including a stew type thing and falafel. We all sit and chat and drink wine while talking and eating around the dinner table. After we have our big meal the food doesn't stop and it is time for dessert after a short washing up break. In this break we also put the presents under the tree if that is your assigned job otherwise you help with prepping the table for dessert. Dessert is a competition of who can eat the most "risalamande" which is a creamy almond pudding. However eating dessert is a competition because there are 3 whole almonds hidden in it and if you find a whole almond you win a present. After this we again clear the table and slowly head to the living room where we gather around the christmas tree. In Denmark as we celebrate christmas eve santa comes to your house and delivers the presents himself. However for santa to come you have to sing and dance around the christmas tree! So as tradition we sing Danish songs and dance around the christmas tree and even do a sort of conga around the whole house!! After this we give out the rest of the presents and then youngest first opens all of them and we all watch each other open their presents. From there we play games and talk until late and we start going to bed ready for the next day.

Like I mentioned earlier the 25th December is our boxing day where for some reason it is a tradition to have Asian food so today we are having an spicy indian curry. We always go to my uncle and aunties house and gather there and today is the day of games and especially the most important part of today the game called "pakke log." This game is a chance to get more presents! You wrap up loads of small things (basically from the Danish version of pound land) and you put in the middle of the table. Then a dice goes around the table and if you roll a 6 you get a present from the table. When all the presents are gone that is when the competitiveness begins and a timer is set and until that timer goes off you steal presents of each other if you get a 6. It gets very competitive and all my family members each year gang up on my uncle (as tradition.) From there we just play more family games and relax a bit and eat a bit more almond pudding and then we mosey back home.

Then on the 26th December is our last day of Christmas. This is the day where the really extended family come to us and we have a massive 2 course lunch which is normally a fish starter and like ryebread with different toppings for main. Oh and it always has a lot of snaps involved!!! Then we play even more board games! And we also do our classic walk around the beach. From there we relax and have down time after the stress of being so many of us and talk about our plans for next christmas.

Exciting news that I have checked in to my flight to France which I leave in 3 days time and I have a window seat! Heading to 80cm snow and with my new christmas presents of 4 sets of thermals I am ready!! Just haven't thought about packing at all!!!

But I am on my way and ready and rearing to go!

I HAVE LEFT THE COUNTRY - LONDON TO DENMARK

Everyone says travelling drastically changes you, whether it is in appearance or personality apparently it makes a difference. I think from interailing my focus changed, I no longer was the girl striving for 100% but I became someone who always wanted to visit more places and 'broaden my horizons' and I realised what was truly important to me. So I am seriously interested to see what happens during my 9 month travel trip.

I think I have realised just how long 9 months is recently, what it would entail and started debating whether I was prepared for it. Could I ever be prepared for it in all honesty? When I went interailing I never thought I would be part of a water fight outside Budapest's houses of parliament nor did I think I would meet a 30 something year old guy called Terry who literally slept outside our room in Greece. So how could I prepare for the 9 months of chaos I am about to experience.

I took the fact that I would never be prepared for my trip as an excuse for not packing until the night before after around 16 double gin and tonics. (This proved very interesting by the way.. I forgot pyjamas.) But I am known to be last minute so everyone in my family is very used to it. But I did end of packing for both France and Denmark (I have a few hours in England between them... like 8 hours)  but then I realised I only had one suitcase so I had to empty all of my France stuff out of my suitcase and then pack my Danish suitcase which when a tad more than tipsy was a big inconvenience.

But we set off at 7am in a giant camper van!!!! To the airport!!!! and we waited in traffic for 2 hours which did increase the stress if I am honest as when the m25 was closed it was a bit bit stressful but we managed and I am sitting in Denmark right now. But i actually feel like I am cursed with baggage check they always put my suitcase on the otherside to check it and like I don't pack it badly or put liquids in it but this time there actually was my brothers christmas present in it which we forgot and it wasn't allowed through so it got taken away from us. (How annoying) but luckily my brother did see that we actually bought him something prior to it being binned by the bag checker. But we had enough time to have the tradition of a super unhealthy burger king breakfast in the airport. Whenever we go to Stansted we always have burger king for breakfast (Mainly because of the amazing drinks machine there is that does fanta zero peach fanta (wow it is amazing) and it is free refills and for a girl who loves diet drinks this is one of the best things of my life. But we got through the airport (was very proud of myself because I navigated the way through it for my family as a test run for when I am in Cambodia on my own and did it successfully!!) and we sat on the plane of course our hand luggage was on the other side of the plane but we managed and we were off in the air.

We flew with Ryanair and I think almost anyone can relate to me saying that they are the best company price wise but you pay for what you get and when my plane to France was 4.99 I think I will see this even more. But it was bumpy and when the plane landed everyone was like that landing should have had the pilot fired, it was shocking!! But when we landed we were greeted with the expected weather from Denmark: cold, rain and windy! And when I was greeted with that I knew I was really home and started to feel more in the christmas spirit.

We arrived and had lunch (the lunch I only ever eat because it is amazing and incredible don't slate until you have tried it is pickled beetroot on ryebread!!!! it sounds super yuck and super plain but honestly I look forward to it every year!) And then quickly the cousins started arriving both the older ones and the younger ones (including my goddaughter) And we gave my little cousins their presents as funnily enough they are flying to Sevenoaks tomorrow to spend christmas there. We all had dinner together (11 of us is a rather small number of people around a dinner table in Denmark) and we wait for reinforcements to come to take the number to 20+ like usual.

I had a lie in today, something I haven't had in so long I could just lie in bed and not dread going to work again. But I survived 6 months of hard work and now it is travelling time and I am going to fully embrace it. Today I am going to the border near Germany (very far away) to see my old au pair and her 2 daughters which I am very excited about and tomorrow the Copenhagen cousins arrive! Its beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

Full Time Working And More - The Reality Of A Gap Year

I thought I could hack the long days at work when I clicked the defer button on my university application. But when I clicked that I was unaware of what I exactly would be doing. I was holding down a part time job which I had throughout the whole of my studies but I knew that I also needed a full time job at least on top of that. I went to every single restaurant/coffee shop/business in my area and handed out my CV, I applied to jobs in London and for some lucky reason after numerous rejections and the bank account starting to suffer I found myself with 5 job offers. I took the one closest in distance to me which was at my local independent coffee shop.

My colleagues were all around the same age as me and we were all doing the job until we either went to uni, found a post grad job or a permanent job in the city. Many of us used the cafe as a small stop in our life and to get relatively easy money in our bank accounts at the end of the month. Yet what people didn't tell me about working a midi job on your gap year was that it was hard, many days my alarm was set till 6am to work at the cafe until 4 and then go to the pub from 6-11 and then the day would be repeated the next day. I was exhausted, I had no time to do anything else then work. The money was relatively little but because I worked well over 40 hours full time and then up to 15 hours part time a week the money tickled over and was my only motivation to set my alarm to 6am for the next morning.

Many gap year students don't talk about the work side of it only the travel side. So when I decided to take a gap year I was pulled into it by the travel aspects. By the fact that soon I will be waking up in Asia or Australia but they didn't mention the 12 hour shifts or the moody customers. But nobody mentioned to me what I would do when I watched all my friends go off to university and I was at home. I watched countless snapchat stories of my friends enjoying their freshers week when I was on break after having cleaned up a child's pee which is what I definitely didn't think was a barista's job but there i was. I saw my friends move hours away from me and suddenly everyone was away starting a new life when I was waiting for mine to begin. Waiting to be able to take off on that plane and be able to say that this was worth it, these shifts were worth it.

Saturday nights were no longer filled with sleepovers with my friends nor going out clubbing they were simply filled with shifts. In the last 5 months I have only had one Sunday off and no saturday off, and I never thought I would miss schools regular "Monday - Friday" routine as I always said I would way rather be spontaneous and be able to have random weeks then work Monday - Friday but now that I have done that I have come to establish that stability is rather nice. Saving means you sacrifice a lot and that means that just this week I haven't had one day off and I agreed to work overtime and work 9 long days in a row. Right now after I have completed that I am aching, I am so tired to the point that I am tearful about the fact that I don't have to get up in the morning at 6am.

But there is nothing more satisfying then pay day, pay day is something I count down the days too. Nothing will beat the feeling when I paid 800 pounds to go to Maldives and I finally said the words I am going travelling. Today I started packing my suitcase with my ski clothes that I was able to buy because of those Saturdays that I worked tirelessly. It was an amazing feeling knowing that the shifts weren't for nothing, they were to be able to achieve my dream of travelling the world. The most satisfying feeling I have ever had was handing in my notice and saying the reason why was to go travelling. That day whilst serving customers I was glowing, I was so happy. On my last pay day I got so happy whilst out with my co worker that we went and had second dinner in wagamamas and then had many many vodka cokes. Things like that make me realise that it was completely worth it.

Nobody speaks about the part where you are working instead of travelling on a gap year. But I think having this experience has taught me a lot, it has taught me that there are people in the world who's only care in the world is that their croissant gets cooked to the highest degree of excellency and if standard drops it is like a bomb has gone off. It has taught me that kids make so much mess when eating but nonetheless when the mums come in with the "smilers" you cannot be angry whilst tidying up after them. It has taught me just how many people like coming in to a coffee shop 5 minutes before you close when you are ready to go home. It has taught me how to deal with complaints and criticism. I am a solid believer that everyone has to work in customer service at least once. Customer service is so hard to work in and I promise to myself I will never order a coffee when I am on the phone and I will wait an extra minute if I am being served by a trainee and to always say "have a nice day" after I am being served.

I wont forget the old man who orders a regular cappuccino five times a day every day of the year, I will remember the guy who orders a large latte with cream. I will forever wish I had a "turbo chef" in my kitchen which cooks my hash brown from frozen in one minute 45 seconds! I will never forget the time when my drunk colleagues and I signed up as a comedy act who required a coffee machine for Britains Got Talent and we actually got contacted by the show with a time and place for our audition. I will always see people around sevenoaks and know that that man orders a large americano with cold skinny milk, or the lady who orders the darjeeling and earl grey tea mixed together. And one thing I will always cherish with me is the smile people have when they give me a full loyalty card as they say it is time for my free drink.

Working in customer service has been so mixed for me, so many ups and so many downs. But it has got me to where I want to be and that is travelling and I leave in 9 days. We are in single digits now! There were days I starting regretting taking a gap year for the mere reason of working. But today when I only have 6 shifts left I really don't, it was worth it. As many people say, you are so young you should do it now or never! And I guess that is exactly what I did.

PS one thing that frustrates me is that there is no such thing as a black flat white and also skinny milk and whole milk only have 2% difference of fat content but if you are really worried about it go for oat milk and please just ask if you don't know what a cappuccino and a latte is rather then send your cappuccino back because it is too frothy. - the reality of what a barista faces in a day

Photo taken at the Aros museum in Arhus Denmark whilst interailing 

Why Did I Decide To Take A Gap Year?

Ever since I was little I remember telling everyone my goal was to travel, I always wanted to visit Asian beaches, go to New York, go see huskies in Alaska, eat churros in Mexico. When I was around 13 I wrote lists and lists of places I wanted to visit, dreams that I wished to achieve and from then my desire to travel blossomed. So far before my gap year I had only left Europe once and that was go to to Thailand in 2013. I was there for around 3 weeks and I fell in love with Asia, it was like nothing that I had ever seen before. It was so beautiful and I felt that I wanted to see more of Asia then just Thailand. That trip 4 years ago was one of the main reasons that I decided to use Asia as my main destination on my gap year and from there my trip just developed.

I never felt ready to go to university, first of all I had no idea what I wanted to study. I had a place to study clinical psychology but this wasn't what my heart wanted so I decided to give up my place and take a year out. I had a very hard few years prior to starting my gap year, i spent countless days in hospital for anorexia and was going to medical appointments constantly. I was at war with myself and I knew I needed a year out to fully recover. So deciding to take a gap year was a relatively easy decision (despite putting off making the decision for a long time) and I knew it was something I both needed and wanted to do.

The timeline of my gap year was more of a tricky decision. I had to balance finances, work, dreams, friendships, university all into one year. When I first took the decision to go on a gap year I knew I was doing one thing and that was go interailing with my friends. On May 22nd 2017 I left to travel around Europe to 13 different countries in 31 days. It was the first little bit of travelling and one day I worked so hard for. I knew I was doing the trip for probably around a year and a half before the start date and I had been working and saving ever since. Now working full time I laugh at how long it took me to raise 1500 pounds when I don't pay rent or buy my own food but I guess I was in a different position to where I am now: working full time. I went interailing and I loved it: it was an amazing experience and something that I truly recommend to anyone and everyone no matter what age.

After I went interailing I went on my family holidays to Denmark with my mum and to Spain with my Dad (all whilst working in between). This was the last bit of travelling I did before my big trip: the one I leave for in 15 days now (not that I am counting.) The long nine month stint.

I think taking a gap year was one of the biggest decisions I have ever made in my life. It meant not being in the same year as all my friends, it meant not going to university with them and having to find a full time job. However done of that mattered to me, all I knew was that taking a gap year was the decision I had to make and it is one I am sure I wont regret.

Photo taken in Rome this summer