Being Abroad: Travel on the Cheap

While I was writing my Au Pair 101 post, I was thinking about how, as an au pair, you have to make do with the funds you have to do the travelling you want.  Since I’ve managed to do a bit of travelling while on an au pair budget (which has fluctuated based on family), I figured I’d share how I managed what I did and hopefully that will help someone out there! I’ve found that a lot of Europeans already know most of what I’ve written below, since it is so easy to travel on the cheap here. However, for at least North Americans and possibly others who aren’t used to travel here, this should be very helpful. I wasn’t aware of most of this before I arrived, because it’s just not available in Canada and was definitely a bit of a learning curve. Once you get into it, however, it’s definitely very easy and becomes second nature.   Note that this is a general summary of what I’ve done, so as to be as useful as possible to people who might want to be travelling in various countries. I do have more specific information for both France and Spain, but all of this is definitely useable across the board, no matter where you end up staying. 

13 Moments from 2013

It’s that time where we round things up, count things down, make new promises to ourselves and welcome the new year. Every Christmas my mom mails out one of those yearly round ups, a mini paragraph for each member of the family, and, I have to say, seeing my year through her eyes opened mine up a little bit. I have had what can only be described as an amazing year. It was everything 15 year old me could have wanted and so, so much more.  

14 Moments

As I sort of mentioned in one of my posts last week, I’m going to do a bit of a round up this week of some of my favourite things from this summer.  Don’t worry: they’re all image based with links at the bottom of the post to take you to the original post. There’s no words to read in this one. I had a lot of fun figuring out how I wanted to set this post up and how I wanted it to look. It was also nice to go through all those posts and photos one more time before really moving on to what’s next.  Tomorrow I’ll be posting about Deba, which is a little nothing of a town up in the Basque country. Even with it being so small, as I’ve been putting the post together, I realized that two weeks is a long time and there’s quite a bit to include! Anyways, that’s tomorrow so today: one last look at summer.

Ships & Things

My last day in London was spent at the National Maritime Museum. Now, I have a working theory that, in a past life or alternate universe or YA steampunk British novel, I would have been one of those female characters that either snuck onto a ship  and ‘learned the ropes’ (my puns are as bad as my mother’s) and later on had her own crew or was adopted by a pirate as a baby and lived on boats her entire life. Yes, this is a thing I have actually put thought into, which is what happens when you grow up on a diet of books and living in Saskatchewan where there is no ocean. Which is all to say: I absolutely loved it and probably could have spent all day there if I had had the chance. 

Odds & Ends

I can’t resist taking pictures of Canadian flags. It’s like capturing little bits of home, in a round about, kind of weird way. Though, to really capture home, I’d do it sporting this. Even if summer is coming to a close. Speaking of: second last post on London. Where I put pictures that really don’t belong anywhere but I still want to share because I hate having loose ends.