April has been one of my busiest travel months in nearly a year! I’ve either been traveling or at work with only about two days off besides that. I had a long weekend to Malta, and then spent a week in Canada on a work trip. Here’s everything that I got up to this month!
Where I’ve Been
York, Bishopthorpe, Mount Grace Priory, Sutton Bank, Kilburn, Coxwold, Byland Abbey (United Kingdom)
Sliema, Valletta, Mdina, Rabat, Popeye Village/Ghadira Bay, Marsaxlokk (Malta)
Vancouver, Kamloops, Banff, Canmore, Calgary (Canada)
Best Moments
Canada. Literally everything about Canada. Not only was this such a stunning part of the world to explore, but I did this as my job. I got paid to do this. That realization hit me time and time again, and I am so incredibly grateful.
But especially this view from the helicopter over the Canadian Rockies. Of everything I did in Canada this April, by far my favorite experience was the 12-minute helicopter flight over the mountains. I even lucked out and got a seat up front with the pilot! The views were simply incredible. This was definitely a bucket list experience and I’m so happy I got to do this!
An amazing long weekend in Malta! Adam and I have been pretty desperate to get away on a trip. Mainly since we had to cancel our trip to Greece in February, after Adam was seriously injured in a car crash in January. We went to Malta at the beginning of April with basically no expectations, and had the best time! It’s such an interesting destination and we had a blast enjoying the sunshine and exploring the island. I would definitely want to go back for longer, especially to see Gozo and Comino!
Qassatat! I’m a sucker for cheesy pastries. Anyone who knows me knows that I live for Georgia’s khachapuri. In Malta, I discovered, qassatat, a ricotta-filled cheese pie that you can get for €1. Needless to say, it quickly became a staple part of my diet during my long weekend in Malta!
A great Easter off. I came back to the UK on the Saturday before Easter, which is a long weekend here in the UK (both Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays). I was lucky enough to have the Sunday off to recover! To beat jetlag, we walked a few miles down the river to the quiet village of Bishopthorpe, enjoyed a pint in the sun, and then walked home via several more pints. It was such nice weather (sunny! Warm!) and I was off work. It was so nice to hang out with Adam after a week where we could barely talk to each other due to the time difference. I’ll be writing about the walk a bit later on the blog!
Explorations around the North York Moors. Even though I’ve spent a lot of time in the North York Moors, I still don’t feel like I’ve seen and done everything in the area. I ticked a few more big sites off my list the last weekend of April though! Starting at Mount Grace Priory, we then did a short walk around Sutton Bank, saw the Kilburn White Horse, and finished the day at Byland Abbey exploring the ruins. It was a really great day out, and despite the clouds it didn’t rain!
Worst Moments
The sheer exhaustion of Canada. I’m obviously so grateful to have been given the opportunity to go to Canada, and I don’t regret it for a second. But the pace on a fam trip is BRUTAL. So much faster than how I normally travel. For example, we woke up before 6:00am, left on the Rocky Mountaineer train at 7:30am, arrived into Kamloops at 7:15pm, and had 10 minutes to get changed before going out for drinks and apps with the Kamloops tourist board. And then finishing up around 9:30pm, falling asleep asap, and waking up at 5:00am to do it all over again. It was so tiring and there were times when all I wanted to do was go to bed and go to sleep early. But I made it, and you can sleep when you’re dead!
Torrential rain in Malta. One morning, it was supposed to rain. We thought that we’d still go out (we had planned to go to Popeye Village), but after sitting on the bus for an hour, it took 3 minutes of standing outside in the horizontal rain to convince us that this was, in fact, a bad idea. We got the next bus going anywhere and went back to the hostel where we changed out of our wet clothes and waited out the rain for another few hours. But the ferocity of the rain was definitely unexpected!
Buses breaking down in Malta. I don’t mean to paint Malta’s public transportation system in a bad light. We got around loads of places and it worked really well! But in a 5-day trip, we had our bus break down on us twice. The first was when we were coming from the airport and had no idea where anything was! The bus driver got us all on another bus, and then when we tried to transfer to get where we needed to go we got told our tickets weren’t valid. The second time was coming back from Marsaxlokk to Valletta—but luckily there was another bus to Valletta right behind us. This was also my first time ever being on a vehicle that got a flat tire!
A lot of stress between trips. I had two days between when I got home from Malta, and when I got back from Canada. So in addition to doing laundry, unpacking, repacking, and going to work, I also had a very limited time to get a few things sorted for my visa and book things for my parents’ trip to the UK. I managed to get the most important things done, but it was a very hectic few days!
Ants in kitchen. I’ve lived in my house for 2.5 years, and while we’ve had a few issues here and there (remember that time when my fridge broke and we didn’t get a new one for a week?!) there hasn’t been anything major. Thankfully, this wasn’t a major one either. But I came home from work the last week of April only to find ants all over the floor in the kitchen by our garbage can. And they were EVERYWHERE. Luckily I got ant traps and killed as many as I could, and I haven’t seen a single one in four days! But it’s never fun coming home to bugs in your kitchen!
There’s been a lot of drama at work. I can’t go into a lot of detail, but as I work in sales I earn quite a bit of my salary through my commission. Things have changed with how we get paid and not for the better for me—and it’s negatively affecting me and I’ve lost money because of it. The worst part is that these issues will only continue being issues, and in theory I could keep losing out on my earnings every month until they get fixed. I’m definitely not happy. Hopefully it all gets worked out in the end!
Posts Published
Since I’ve been traveling for half the month (and working the other half!), I’ve been short on time to get posts published. I’ve got loads of content coming though, after writing so much in my downtime in transit this April! (Or do I just say that every month…??) Anyway, here’s what I published this month!
Photoessay: Vancouver To Calgary Through The Canadian Rockies
How Much Does It Cost To Travel Malta For 5 Days?
The Best Festivals In York, England
The Best Viewpoints In Tbilisi, Georgia
Instagram Top 3
I’ve been all over the place on Instagram lately! It was really tricky in Canada when I just didn’t have the time to post. Here are my top 3 most popular photos from the ‘gram in April!
Coming Up In May
May will be a pretty chill month, as most of the first part of the month will be spent organizing paperwork and applying to renew my visa. I have a friend coming to visit the first weekend in May, which I can’t wait for! And then finally once the stress of my visa is done, I’m heading away on a road trip to Scotland the last week of May! The plan is to explore the Isle of Skye and more of the Highlands. My road trip to Scotland last year really made me want to go back, so I can’t wait for this!
What did you get up to this April? Any plans coming up in May?
