Youtube

I've bitten the bullet (is that the right saying?!) and made my first proper Youtube video in a very long time. I always love watching other people who talk to a camera and thought I would give it a go myself. As a first video, I decided to do the TMI tag- where I basically answer a bunch of questions. Hopefully it is more interesting than that sounds! 

I'm hoping to film some more soon and make it a more regular thing. I would love you forever if you subscribed to my channel. 

Click HERE to take a look and subscribe to my channel! 

KAT'S TRAVELS: Edinburgh

With us both finishing our degrees this summer, my lovely friend Charlotte and I decided to treat ourselves to a few days away in the beautiful, Scottish capital of Edinburgh. In the mist of dissertation woes, we booked a ridiculously cheap 3 nights in a Travel lodge and secured reasonable train tickets. (Little tip: Book your hotel and flights at least 3 months in advance for the best offers. We literally paid £50 each for the hotel which was right in the centre of the city.)

Armed with enough Starbucks, Heat magazines and Doritoes to feed a small army, we caught the London Kings Cross to Inverness train at 12. There’s something poetic about taking a long ass train journey and we sort of relished in the 4 and a half hours it took for us to arrive in Edinburgh. We were able to catch up, read, and take in the beautiful sites that we zoomed past; including Durham and Newcastle. 

We arrived at our hotel (Travel Lodge Waterloo Place), which was only 5 minutes away from both the train station, and Prince Street, the main road in Edinburgh. After dropping off our bags, we went for a wander around a city which had little knowledge of. First thing that caught our eye was just how beautiful the old city is. Edinburgh is very much a city of 2 halves- the old and the new. The old; where you can find the castle and the famous Royal Mile is cemented in deep history. The new; built in the Georgian era (so not that new) displays beautiful town house buildings and a great concoction of bars, restaurants, pubs and shops. Plus a Starbucks on every corner (yay!). 

We decided the best place to eat that evening would be The Hard Rock Cafe, situated just off George Street. We had to wait a good half an hour for a table, however, this didn’t matter as we enjoyed an amazing cocktail at the bar and admired the rock memorabilia on the walls. Once we had ordered and were sitting down, Charlotte and I both enjoyed the best burger we had ever had the joy of eating. I can’t even put in to words how incredible it was. 

We went on to a pub just up the road from the restaurant and walked back to our hotel.

After waking up and getting dressed, there was one thing and one thing only that both of us needed- coffee. We headed back out on to Prince Street and made our way in to a welcoming Starbucks. Sat down with coffees and muffins, we made a plan for the day.

After getting somewhat lost, we finally made it to the castle. After climbing a fair few steps, we made it to the top. The castle was playing host to a few events over the next month so a pretty impressive stage had been set up. We made our way to the queue and got our tickets. Adult tickets cost £16. 

We really enjoyed wandering around the castle, taking in the views and learning about its’ huge history. Top tip: try and be in the castle grounds at 1pm as each day, a cannon is released. For £16, I think the castle offers you at least a couple of hours of entertainment which I don’t think is too much for the most popular tourist destination outside of London. 

We then walked along the Royal Mile and grabbed a sandwich on our way. Royal Mile can be compared to Covent Garden in London; complete with quirky shops and street entertainment. The street was a buzz of tourists and had a completely different feel to that of the new city. 

Shattered after spending the day walking around pretty much the entire city, we had an early dinner at Pizza Express in the old town then headed to a nearby bar for a few drinks. 

To our surprise, we woke up to beautiful blue skies Thursday; something neither of us expected on a trip to Scotland. We quickly decided the best way to enjoy the sunny weather was to do an open tour bus. Edinburgh offers 5 different bus tours and cost £14 each for a 24 hour ticket. For a further £4, you can have access to all 5 of the tours. The tours typically last around an hour and not only allow you to see the whole city but teach you so much about Edinburgh as well. 

After going around on the bus for one tour, we got off and headed to the park for a picnic and sunbathe. In front of Princes’ Street runs a long strip of public park. Everyone in Edinburgh seemed to be enjoying the sun and we loved relaxing on the grass with the spectacular castle in view. 

We got back on to the bus to enjoy round 2 of the tour before getting off at the Royal Mile. We mooched around in some tourist shops, picking up postcards and shot glasses (I collect them!). 

We headed back to the hotel before having a Nandos and more drinks in our favourite Edinburgh pub. 

After enjoying our Starbucks breakfast, we headed to the station and boarded the 12 o’clock train back to King’s Cross. Although it was the hottest day of the year, the train was blessed with perfect air con! Not the same could be said for our train home from London- never felt so sweaty/gross in my entire life! 

Our trip to Edinburgh was the perfect escape and celebration of finishing our degree. Without spending a huge amount of money, we were able to relish in a city which is beautiful, buzzing and bursting with culture. 

View from Edinburgh Castle

Steps to the Castle 

Scottish loving 

The New Town

Asked some very scared looking Spanish tourists to take this photo

The Castle was so magical

Old Town at dusk

We were so excited to find this stunning view. 

Kat xxx

Quote Sunday: Part One

I love a good quote. One of my best friends and I regularly send a gem we may have heard or read recently as we know we will both appreciate them. I read this one of Twitter recently and it definitely hit home.

"Surround yourself with those who see greatness in you, even when you don't see it in yourself."

This past year has been the hardest I've ever lived through. Home life has been really difficult and it's still pretty tough. Although I've mentioned things about this before on my blog, I like to keep my private life private and therefore won't go in to great detail. However, there have been times in my final year of university when I genuinely felt that I could not continue. I was beginning to suffer from panic attacks and my anxiety was at an all time high. Some days it would be a struggle getting out of bed to the library. 

On Friday, I found out I had achieved a 2:1 in my History with Journalism degree. To say I was happy was an understatement. Celebrating with a friend that afternoon, she said something that made me feel good. "Kat, back in September, you told me you were going to quit university. I'm so proud that you didn't. I knew you would stick at it." 

Her comment got me thinking. All the times I did feel like quitting or giving up, I knew I had so many people who I could phone or visit. They never gave up on me and I think that is the foundation of friendship. We all go through times in our lives when cannot see beyond our weaknesses. That is when you need people around you to remind you of your greatness and push you through it. It may take (in my case) endless hugs, rom-coms, tequila, late-night chinese and Facetime but you will get there in the end. 

Kat xx

Life beyond filters.

I was having lunch the other day with some friends at a really nice restaurant. We’d finished our exams and thought it would be nice to celebrate with a meal out. Our food soon arrives at our table. However, instead of commenting to each other about how great it looks and enthusiastically start devouring, we all get our phones out and start snapping away. We all post said almost identical photos onto Instagram, albeit with some with an Earlybird filter and some with Toast.

It seems we can no longer eat out without all of us documenting the event on some form of social media. I’m a BIG lover of social media and would probably get the shakes if I didn't check my outlets each day. However, it does seem to be getting ridiculous. Instead of ‘living in the now’, our generation seem to have a constant urge to let our friends know what we are doing every moment of every day. And I say friends loosely. Take a look through your Facebook friends list and see how many of them you have actually had a face-to-face conversation with in the last month.

Why do we do this? Is it so others think we are living a somewhat fulfilled, social life? Isn’t it all a little false? We only seem to document the positives on social media, suggesting that we all live these perfect lives. We don’t tend to document the days we feel lonely, sad, or miserable.

In some ways I guess it is great. Without us really realising, we have managed to create a diary online over the past five or so years which we can reflect on when we’re in old age. I can scroll through my Facebook at any given moment and witness the embarrassing hair cut of 2008 to the drunken fresher photos from 2011. However, are all the images we upload necessary?  I’d much rather like someone’s graduation photo over someone’s Starbucks drink.  Just remember that there is in fact a whole world beyond your phone and laptop screens that doesn’t need to be ‘liked’ by your 500 Facebook friends. Don’t be doing things and taking photos of them just so your online friends can see that you’re doing more than binge watching Breaking Bad.

Maybe instead of working out which filter would look best on that pizza, just eat the pizza. 

Kat xx

There's no place quite like Dublin

In the midst of dissertation stresses, exam woes, and impending end of our university experiences, some friend and I spent a weekend in Dublin. The trip was initially set up my 21st birthday way back in March, however, the break doubled up as a nice getaway from adult things.

Since I was eighteen I saw my older cousin spend her 21st in the Emerald city, I had always to visit. The trip had been booked up since Christmas, so when the day we left finally came around, we were all very excited. 

Friday 
We caught a coach to the airport in the afternoon and arrived at Stansted at around 4pm. Having checked in online prior to arriving, this gave us lots of time to mooch around the airport- something I love doing! We boarded our flight at 6pm and landed in Ireland at 7pm. After being used to flying all over Europe and the US, it felt very odd only being in the air for an hour- the same time it took us to get to the airport by coach! Once we landed in Dublin, we soon noticed how much colder Ireland was. We had left England in sunglasses and arrived in Ireland lacing ourselves in as many layers as possible! 

At the airport, we met up with another friend who lives in Ireland and made our way in to the city centre. We arrived at our hotel after catching 2 buses. It was pretty magical that our first view of the city was it's twinkling night lights and buzzing pubs. We were staying a little out of the city centre in a travel lodge. Having spent a lot of my family holidays in these establishments, the hotel was pretty much what you expect. Basic but simple. However, the staff were really lovely; booking us taxis and telling us the best places to go. 

We were all pretty shattered once we arrived at the hotel so we headed up the food to our good old faithful Dominoes and brought back as much pizza, dough balls, and chicken wings as we could manage. After munching all this down, we decided to head to a local pub, just a few minutes away from the hotel for our first (of many) drinks. 

The pub was pretty dead, but for a few older Irish men drinking Guinness at the bar but the music was great and we had a few to celebrate the start of our trip. 

Saturday
We got up relatively early Saturday morning, grabbed some breakfast from the Aldi below our hotel, and caught the bus in to the city centre. After much debate between us, we decided the best way to see Dublin was on an open bus tour. We brought our 2 day ticket which was really reasonable, working out at 8 euros per day for students. The bus tour took 1 and 1/2 hours altogether and is a great way to learn about the city. After the tour, we stopped off at a pub and enjoyed Irish Stew and a pint of Guinness (I know, but it had to be done!) 

After this, we headed to Penny's (Primark) on O'Connell Street. We were amazed at how great the stock was, however, due to funds and limited suitcase space, we didn't buy anything. We then walked to the Jamesons whiskey distillery, however, unfortunately the wait for a tour was going to be at least an hour so we decided against it. A little tip: make sure you head to the Guinness factory/Jamesons distillery early in the day to be guaranteed a tour! 

We then headed back to the hotel, stopping off at Aldi for snacks and alcohol on the way. Before we'd headed out to Dublin, and in honour of my birthday, I asked everyone to dress up as characters from my favourite film, The Wizard of Oz. Everyone looked great and it made pre-drinks and games even more hilarious. 

We caught the bus back in to the city which saw people clapping us as we walked up the stairs due to our costumes. We got talking to some locals on the bus and they recommended a bar where we should head to. None of us could get over how lovely and friendly everyone in Dublin was! 

Temple Bar is a strip of bars and pubs and is where people tend to go for a night out so we thought that was the best bet for a great night! We headed to a bar to start with and had a couple of drinks, making friends with the many hen do's out for the night as well! Drinks are expensive so be prepared, however, the atmosphere is so amazing that you don't really need a lot. 

The bar closed at 1am so we headed back on the street to work out where to go next. One of us girls noticed that there was a pub called The Temple Bar which we saw as a perfect photo opportunity and we asked one of the security men to snap us all outside it. We decided to head inside and I am so pleased we did because we ended up having the most incredible night in there! 

The pub was just how you would imagine a typical Irish bar, complete with 2 men playing guitars and people dancing to the well-known songs they were playing. The highlight of the night was the 2 men singing Galway Girl and us all going crazy. 

Once the pub closed at 3am, we headed back on the street and saw that a busker was playing with about 30 people around him, singing a long and dancing. We thought it would be ridiculous not to miss this opportunity and spent the next 30 minutes going crazy to Oasis and The Beatles. It was the most perfect end to the most perfect night! 

Sunday 
We were all feeling pretty delicate on the Sunday morning, however, with it being our last day in the city, we wanted to make the most of it. We caught the bus back in to the centre and had a look around Trinity College, Dublin's top university. The grounds are beautiful and definitely worth a visit. After that, we went and got our photos taken to the statue of Molly Malone and brought as many tacky trinkets as our purses would allow us. 

To end our trip, we had a coffee in this really pretty tea shop, just up the road from Molly Malone. Unfortunately, none of us got the name of it. 

We caught the coach back to the airport and flew back to London that evening. 


Our weekend in Dublin was one of the best experiences I've ever had. I was in a beautiful and exciting city with my beautiful and exciting friends, making as many memories and having as many laughs as we possibly could. It is the best place for a get away with your girlfriends. 

Kat xxx