Update: 4th October – arrive in Italia
Did I mention how shitty this morning was? Sitting in the backseat in between my grandfather and father is not something I enjoy at any time let alone a 2 and a half hour car trip at 2 am Monday morning. Anyway we finally got there and we had to say goodbye to Chris and thank him so much for driving us at such an ungodly hour. Check in and all that crap went quite smoothly apart from grandpa hear absolutely nothing. The flight was only 2 and a half hours but it was mind numbingly boring. I bought two magazines that were on special and then listened to my ipod. I fell asleep at one stage but the attendant gave me an electric shock that woke me up quick smart which also sucked. When we got to Rome we were still babysitting Grandpa which I think we’ll be doing all holidays because he is absolutely hopeless at following directions and generally listening. There was a man in the terminal with a little sign reading WRAY, which was quite exciting and we took his shuttle bus to the campervan hire place. It took ages to get through to paperwork and sort out the van and Grandpa was INFURIATING especially when he would ask a question that the poor young girl who hardly spoke a word of English had just answered. When we started to drive off dad hit the wing mirror as we were leaving the park and from then on the car trip was horrible. He had no idea where he was going and has never driven a truck let alone a campervan this big. I think at one stage he was stopped in the middle of an intersection then stalled twice then went into the wrong lane. The Italians went crazy and there were horns blazing everywhere. And I’m not exaggerating he was actually stalling in the middle of the road, it was terrifying. On top of all that my blood sugar level dropped and I basically passed out and we couldn’t find a Supermarket but we found our way to the camp ground after three wrong turns and then mum and dad bought basic supplies for lunch. It took a long time to put all our bags away and all our clothes into compartments. We went to have showers but they were absolutely filthy and jasfjda urgh just no. Anyway there were many many many errors made but now I am sitting in the camper at 10o’clock at night when everyone else is asleep updating my journal. We had a great pizza dinner the bases were amazing and 10000x better than anything I’ve had in Australia. Another problem that arose with dinner is that we bought a bottle of wine from the bar and were then told we were not allowed to drink it in the restaurant and that if we wanted to drink on the premises we had to sit outside and eat pizza. We agreed to this. My family never says no to a bottle of wine only going for 4 euros. Then tonight we played yatzee for a while and I won and it was cool now I am exhausted and I honestly don’t think I will make it through ten days with grandpa. I am going to kill him.
Not really though ’cos that’s awful.
But really.
You don’t know what it’s like!
Update: 2nd October – hole of hawkum
Since nearly the whole family (not including peters family because he’s kind of…weird and we generally don’t involve him in family gatherings when we can) was in Scarborough we went on an epic walk to a pub in hawkum. It took about two hours to get to the car park and then we walked 6 miles there and 6 miles back roughly… so it was pretty hefty for a day with the family. The best bit would have to be that Laura and I talked non stop the whole time about all sorts of stuff mostly girly stuff but still it was a great bonding time, unfortunately we started to bond the day before I left but ohh well…The whole day ended up being a bit too stressful with grandpa being a dick and not listening to anybody and Debbie wanting to walk a million miles an hour. But eventually we all got home alright, when everyone got home al the adults crashed and fell asleep right away. But I stayed up and went on the computer. That night all the adults wanted to go out without the kids…even though technically I was the only child Laura wasn’t invited. Instead we got Chinese and watched a movie before going to bed. Once again I was on the computer and got to actually have a conversation with jonno over skype. Which was nice.
Update: 3rd October – last day in scarbo
Today just sucked. Not only did we spend alllllll morning stripping beds, packing bags and triple checking rooms we didn’t get breakfast until 12. And when you get up at 7:30 THAT SUCKS OK??? Anyway… I was pretty bummed that it was my last day in Scarborough and wanted to pick up some things from the beach to take home and Dad, Chris and Martin were all content with doing jack shit. Debbie who was such a fantastic host was obviously very stressed with having had us in her house all week needed us out and mum was ushering us out and Dad and Chris couldn’t be bothered. When we finally got moving we dropped grandpa home and went on to the beach to pick up some things and waste some pounds on the arcade games (I beat dad at grand turismo). Then we had to go visit Peter to go say goodbye which was alright but kind of awkward, Hazel phoned her two daughters who are at Uni for me to say goodbye. When I’d already done it in person but who cares now? We were shown around and then got to go yay. We got back to grandpa’s and raided his cupboard and I stole his computer to talk to people back home. He has shitty food and we were all tired. Mum put on a movie which was the pianist which was defiantly not a film I wanted to see before bed so I put my ipod on and went to sleep on the couch as that is where I’d bee assigned. Dad and Chris got two single beds and Mum and Grandpa were in armchairs. I have no idea why Grandpa didn’t go sleep in his own bed but anyway. The reason we were going to sleep so early was that we had to get up at 2am to drive to Manchester to catch a flight leaving at 6:50. So it was a shitty start to the next morning as well.
Update: 30th September – Whitby
Today we went to Whitby. We drove down and parked by the James Cook memorial. Mum and Dad thought it would be fun to go on a ride on the replica Endeavour. The one that was a third of the size of the real one, the real one that’s sitting in Sydney Harbour and the one we’ve already been on. Well guess what? It wasn’t fun. Sitting on a tiny boat with a mangey looking dog sniffing my fingers while a tape player played sea shanties on reapeat for 25 minutes is not really what I call fun … BUT…. The day got better. We wandered along the sea front in and out of shops getting ice cream until we ended up at a pub for lunch. They had really good Nachos may I add, it was covered in Jalopeneos and beans and salsa and cheese and kfjskg sooo good. Then we went back to the car and drove up to the Abby and took lots of arty pictures and then we went home because it was a long day of just budging around beach. That night the whole family minus Joanna, Chris, Tom, Mathew and Nan and plus Laura’s boyfriend Andrew we went out to dinner and it was nice. The food was rubbish but no one seemed to care that much.
Hello!! I have updated my journal… kind of… I wrote all of them until we got to Italy but have kind of been busy up until then. so. I will upload the other ones in order now and then will have to write the exciting ones later. Also this was my first chance to get internet for a while so i am here now and hopefully some people in Australia will wake up sooon…..
Update: 1st October – Robin Hoods Bay
Today Martin, Laura, Dad and I decided we would go on a father/daughter + dog walk to Robin Hoods Bay to the pub and then back. We set off and it was a mild slightly cloudy day with a bit of a breeze. We went via the cliff top to start as the tide was in and there was no other way around the rocks. There was a great view from the top (when we finally got there and when dad has stopped wheezing) there were cows and horses in paddocks right up to the cliff edge. When we got to Robin Hoods bay it began to rain so we sheltered in the pub. When we got in there and had finished our soup it was raining harder and harder. So we stayed for Martin and Dad to have another few pints. By this time we’d been there for about 2 and a half hours I’d say. It was pissing down and the tide had gone out and we had to go now … so we did. We walked across the beach in the rain and the wind we sheltered in a cave then ran to the car. We were soaked through completely and it was so much fun and yeah… That afternoon Chris, another of my uncle’s drove from Ealing up to Scarborough as he was driving us to Manchester when we left. He missed out on going to the pub with us and couldn’t drink when he stayed for dinner as he was staying with grandpa and had to drive him home.
