reflections off the road: back into bad habits

Well, here I am back in Dublin, and slipping immediately back into all the bad habits I thought I put behind me when I set off on my grand cycle. Watching youtube videos all day, after being youtube-free for almost 30 days. Sitting around refreshing pages over and over waiting for updates. Getting hardly anything done. I'll run an errand or two, then sit down at the computer for hours. Wash a few dishes, put a few things away, then sit down again.

I really need to start having dedicated Internet-Free Days. I think I will start with one day a week: Friday. Every Friday I will do no internet except email on my phone, and research if necessary. I will try to do more creative things. I will restart my non-cycling workout routine. I will start a new comics project. I will sketch or write in my journals more often. I will make a blog entry twice a week and a youtube video once every other week.

I'm putting these goals in public now so you guys can get on my case if I don't follow thru. If you see me on the internet on Friday, say, GET OFF THE 'NET, WOMAN. If I don't post a blog entry once every three or four days you can email me, WHAT ARE YOU DOING. WRITE STUFF.

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Tomorrow morning I'm getting up at the crack of dawn to take a ferry, with my bicycle, to the UK. I'll disembark in Wales at Holyhead and then take a series of trains to Manchester. I will kill zombies again at an abandoned manor house out there, go visit Holmfirth and take pictures/video for my grandmamma (it seems to be the #1 place she would visit were she to come to the UK), then take a train to York and cycle up to see an abbey that my mother absolutely adored when she was here. Then I'm going to Cardiff to do the Doctor Who Experience that just opened down there, and will probably return home after that, altho' I haven't bought my return ticket yet just in case I would like to stay a bit longer. The trip will only be 7 or 8 days total, and I'll come back just in time to prepare for my sister to come visit me on the 21st - 29th!!

I will write blog posts from the road possibly, but may not post them until a few days later. I have some "reflections off the road" blog posts that are only half finished right now that I've been procrastinating on... haha, good going, me. I had a wonderful 27-day streak of being more creative and I went and blew it on the internet once I got back to my flat. I was gone so long I forgot that my carpet was red and was literally surprised by it when I returned home. Now it's been days since I've properly left this tiny little room.

My time abroad is rapidly coming to a close. It's up to me to make the most of it from now on.

Pax.

back from England!

Just spent about ten days in England, travelling about. Started in a monastery in Essex, near Tiptree; spent four nights in London after that; then killed zombies in Reading; next, went to the spa in Bath; and finally, wandered about Oxford before catching the ferry home from Holyhead.

Originally I intended to go up to Edinburgh for a few days, and also see some of North England (think, York, Hadrian's wall etc), or at least a few more sites in England, such as Cambridge or Dover or whatever I thought of at the time. However, my hamstrings and knees really started to bother me after the zombie-killing, which involved lots of sprinting, including sprinting up and down stairs. Because I want to do my cycle tour of Ireland more than anything else, I decided to come home so I can get some massage, do my physio exercises more diligently, and warm up my legs on the bike for a bit before setting off. Since cycling is easier on the knees than walking, I still think I'll be able to pull the trip off. I may have to cut it off early, but we'll see. Whatever happens, I won't stop travelling.

Before I go, I need to figure out how to best update this blog and/or youtube on the road and buy some more kit so we'll see about that.

in August I plan to visit Cardiff for the Doctor Who experience that just opened there, perhaps kill more zombies in a different experience in Manchester, and if I have a few days go see more of Wales or Scotland. It all depends on when my family intends to visit me, because of course I want to show them all around Ireland--but they'll only be here say for 10 days or so.

I'll write up some posts about my travels in England soon. I have tons of pictures and snippets of footage. Sorry for the delayed reports; one thing I definitely need to work on is reporting on things as they happen rather than weeks later... but better late than never, so they say.

pax.

update

Well, right now I'm in an internet cafe right outside Earlscourt station in London. I've checked into the youth hostel in Holland Park, which is actually really nice I think, for the next four nights. Tomorrow I'll get up and do a walking tour of London to get my bearings... I have an oyster card already, and a seven day pass for the rental bikes, so I'm all set for transport. On the 15th I'm heading up to Reading for the zombie experience that I booked, and then from there I intend to travel north up into Scotland, do some kind of tour of the highlands, fly out of Edinburgh (I have a return flight out of Glasgow but I might just ignore it altogether since it was so cheap and I may want to stay on longer), or something...

London and Dublin have a lot of similarities, and the tube reminds me of the trains in Japan (so weird to see mostly white people on 'em), so I feel at home here. I just wish I knew what I wanted to do with my time, y'know? I'm really bad at vacations. Like, really bad.

The weather is pretty miserable so I'm probably not going to do much today. Rain rain rain. Apparently there was some flooding in Essex last month. After weeks and weeks of drought warnings. Gotta love mother nature.

Everything's really expensive in London, whoa. I think it would be gas to live here though. I'd apply to Oxford or Cambridge or something but no way I could afford it, like. How can you squeeze a city like this into four days? That's what I wanna know.

My internet access is gonna be really spotty from here on out but I'll try to post updates as I can I guess?

pax.