Yorkshire VI.: Whitby and Scarborough

Today we take a tour to two seaside towns in North Yorkshire - Scarborough and Whitby.

Scarborough

I visited this town with my friend and we traveled by train, which is for sure more comfortable and also more expensive. From Leeds it took about two hours. We had bad luck with the weather (very common trip spoiler in the UK but you get used to it eventually) and it was misty and rainy as you will see on the pictures. We did not even hike to the castle because you could hardly see it from the harbor so there was no point at all.

We were there in April so it was not very crowded but I can imagine how it gets in summer. There are many game rooms lining the coast as well as fish and chips restaurants (all of them ofc serving "the best fish and chips" in Scarborough.

As my mom always says, the coast is the best place to eat fish and sea food. So we didn´t resist too long (also we were already frozen to our bones and hungry). With mashed peas as usual :)

With full bellies we continued our walk to the lighthouse. On our way back we did some shopping in SportsDirect (I really miss this shop) and had the best hot chocolate ever in Pumpkin by the train station.

It takes about two hours to get from Leeds to Scarborough and the train ticket was about GBP 20. Ok I have to learn how to insert the symbol. Next time.

Whitby

I wanted to visit Whitby for a long time, mostly because of the awesome abbey. And more fish and chips. It just tastes better with seaview.

I took the bus from Leeds. The return ticket was 13 pounds and it took over four hours. Four hours in that bus. No pee stops. But it goes through the North York Moors National Park so at least it´s not a boring ride.

This time I was lucky and it was sunny. Cold but sunny. English people did not mind and enjoyed the beach. I was happy to wear my warm jacket.

My tip: do not take the walk to the abbey on a full stomach. It feels like those few steps will kill you.

You can get to the church and old graveyard for free, you have to pay only to enter the abbey area.

Just the church area offers beautiful views on the bay and the town.

I think the entrance was about five pounds, with student card. There is a small museum with videos and photos and then you finally get there.

Although Fountains Abbey is bigger and more preserved I liked Whitby more. Sitting on the cliff above the town, reminder of Britains rich past. It just has different energy and power.

I took a nice walk around and about two dozens of "almost the same but so not the same" pictures.

As the bus I took only goes few times a day (the last one goes at 4 or 5 pm, so quite early) it was time to head back to the town.

Whitby sure is worth a visit, there is lot of things to do, not just look at ruins and eat fish and chips as I did ;) The beach is lovely and there is more of the town to explore. You can also make a great walk on the cliff. Maybe next time...

Thanks for reading and have a great day :)

Yorkshire IV.: Fountains Abbey

Fountains Abbey is a cistercian abbey in Yorkshire, one of the bigges and best preserved in England. It is set into a huge Georgian water garden. This place was also recognized as a World Herritage Site.

 My way to Fountains Abbey went through a little town Ripon, where you can find an old saxon crypt under the Ripon cathedral.

There are quite a lot of scary black magic stories connected to the cathedral, the cathedral personal would love to tell you all about it. You just have to understand English better than I did.

From Ripon goes a special bus to Fountains Abbey. I recommend to take the bus and not go by car, because with the bus ticket you get a 50%  discount on admission.

Fountains Abbey was founded in 1132 and mostly made money with wool business. It was closed in 1539, when Henry VIII ordered Dissolution of Monasteries.

this is where the wool was stored

Part of the estate is also an old water mill and a small museum telling the history of the monastery and about life of the monks.

Stairway to nowhere

You can wander through the ruins and then continue to the garden, where you can find plenty of great picnic spots.

The garden was build in 18th century. You can also find classical statues, follies and garden buildings carefully positioned within the landscape to discover and enjoy. 

Take at least two three hours to just see it all and walk through the garden. If you are in the area it is a must see. Also great for families with kids, as well as for solo travel or romantic trip with your love.

Have you been there? Did you enjoy?

Changing my habits in 2015

New year brings a lot of looking back at the past year and past mistakes and forming new years resolutions that should FINALLY change our life to better.
I love resolutions. All January I am able to stay excited and keep them. Yes, all January. And then my inborn lazyness gets the better of me. But every year I still try. When I started to think about this years resolutions, I went through my old ones in my diary and realised, they  don´t really change. They are all about finishing school, getting to another school, finding a boyfriend, losing weight...
Last year I postet 31 things I want to do and looking back, I managed to do about half of them. Not too bad. Sort of. Maybe.
So this year I decided to do it a little differently and more focus on what would make my life better for real - changing my habits.

During my stay in England I managed to gain six kilograms despite of the five miles that I cycled to work every day and quite physically challenging job. Also my back issues are worse. That makes my nr.
1. Making yoga a part of my life, starting with the 30 days of yoga challenge by Yoga with Adriene

When I started this blog last year I was very excited. All January. Ehm... I will try to be better this time around.
2. Take my time and do this blog regularly. Finish all semifinished articles and write new ones.

I was looking for a some sort of creative hobby to stop doing nothing (watching series while playing candy crush) in my free time. So this is what I want to try:
3. Learn knitting

4. This year might be the year when I finally make my language certificates

5. Goodreads reading challenge: 27 books

Healthy eating and more cooking is too much of a challenge for me (one step at the time), so I have to repeat the old resolutions:
6. Taking better care of my body (drinking more water, eating less cookies, regular use of body lotions and peelings and face and hair masks...). Gosh I am really getting old =D

 Another thing I would like to change are my shopping habits:
7. Puting quality before quantity in cosmetics and clothes shopping. Better to have one good quality make-up than four ok ones.

Last but not least: In my age I should really know better.
8. Find/create/polish my personal style. I am getting too old to dress the same like when I was under twenty. (yes, I even still wear the same clothes)

What are your new years resolutions? What are you hoping to change this year?

xx

Lost in 2014

This year was not a good year for me. For the first time in my life I truly feel lost. All my life I studied. Literally. All I did before was really just get from one school to another and when I got kicked out of the last one where I was trying to get my Masters Degree, my life just lost all its purpose. Suddenly there was no plan and just so many roads to go.

What am I going to do with my life now?? I did not know anything. I didn´t know what I want to do. I had no clue. At that moment I just wanted to get out. To leave behind the feeling of failure that I felt all the time and especially as I have to come home with nothing and look my parents in the eyes. During my studies I only worked at few part-time jobs (to have more time to focus on studying ofc) and so I did not really have any proper job experience. I needed a change with a big C so I decided to take my friends advice and go to England. My English was not bad but far from useful so I worked there as a housekeeper for eight months. It was a good experience but now I just can´t help feeling like I wasted so much time and I have nothing and done nothing that matters. Do you really put housekeeping in your CV next to your Bachelors degree?
I have been home for two months now. The sad truth is that I still have no idea what I want to do. I am even writing this post to keep me from what should be my every day content - looking for a job. I just have no idea what am I looking for so I am just scrolling through it all looking for excuses.

How do you know? How can I find out what I am supposed to do? How can I get that job? I studied tourism and loved it for the most part but now I think I just loved the learning process, all the new information about countries and cultures and habits... Working in the hotel showed me that probably I am not the best person to work in there. I like working with people but when I see all the job offers seeking "open sparkling self-confident" people I know that is just not me.
So what I have to do in 2015? Figure it all out. Find a new dream. New passion. Follow that dream. Or just find a job. Any job. That won´t drive me crazy too much. And will pay the bills.

“Tomorrow, is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one.” 

― Brad Paisley.

And that scares me like hell.