Verona, the city of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet and also the name of an essential Kiwi song. I won't get into which is better, because Mercutio and his plague would rain on all of our houses, but you can't possibly be a kiwi and not sing Verona every chance you get while there.  The train ride wasn't that long but due to large quantities of prosecco and strawberries I slept most of the way. Emma, charming soul that she is, documented the trip for me in a series of snaps. Mostly of me sleeping. But she's creative, and made sure to use snapchat filters. She's good like To View More >>

After our short stop in Pisa and the Italian McDonalds we took the train to Firenze. The Firenze train station was a short walk to our accomodation, Chez Aline (located on Via Ventisette Aprile)  which is a sweet and inexpensive hotel with the world's tiniest elevators. As it turns out, elevators are exceptionally small in a lot of Europe. We just managed to fit both our suitcases in then ran up the stairs to collect them two floors up.  Aline is a good location, nearby to museums and a two minute walk to a laundrette (Lavanderia Il Delfino) . There's also a pharmacy and some great To View More >>

Pisa, Italy The best way to wait for a train anywhere involves sitting in a bar in the sun/shade with a glass of rosé.  After getting out of the Pisa airport we headed straight to the tower to get the most touristy part of our trip out of the way. It's a tower. It leans. That's about all I can say about it. My OCD doesnt like things wonky so I can't say it was a highlight. I took the token photo of it (with Snapchat no less, dont even think I got my actual camera out) and then we went off to find a place to lunch. Our train to Firenze wasn't for a couple for hours so we To View More >>

Visited Iceland in November and it was stunningly beautiful. Unfortunately it rained (and POURED) most of the time we were there so I did not get as many photos as I would have liked but the experience itself was incredible.  After landing in Keflavik International Airport the lovely Odin from Ace Rental Cars collected us from the airport and took us to their office to pick up our rental car. This meant no waiting in queues at the airport and Odin was friendly and helped us start off in the right direction. Ace is a family owned business and they were lovely to deal with. To View More >>

TBT: Christchurch 2008 Back in 2008 I finally got to visit Christchurch. My cousin and I went down to celebrate my birthday and while the cold temperature was a bit of a shock to my JAFA disposition, it was rather beautiful.  Being that it was 2008, it was before the earthquake took Christ Church Cathedral away from the city. My cousin and I walked the stairs to the top of the cathedral and with hindsight as wonderful as it is, I'm glad we did it. Though, this is the second time I have made the decision to climb an architectural landmark at the last minute, only to have it come To View More >>