33 Experiences I can Thank Travelling For..

When you come home from your travels, you find yourself very soon looking through your photographs and reminiscing on all the incredible moments you got to do.
I look back and I realise that I have done so many amazing things that are pretty mind blowing. I worked my backside off to be able to do and see the things I can tell stories about but I am also very lucky for everything to have fallen into place the way it did.

I was feeling nostalgic, so here's a list of just a handful of those things..
And its all thanks to the beautiful big world we live in and the opportunities that are out there, you just have to go get them!

1. Swimming with whale sharks in Mozambique.
2. Rounding up and relocating a rhino on horse-back.
3. Tandem bungee jumping with my boyfriend for our second anniversary.
4. White water rafting in the Adirondacks in the USA.
5. Renting an apartment in Harlem, NYC.
6. Got chased by an angry hippo.
7. Kissing and feeding tea to a tame hippo.
8. Eating impala, crocodile, kangaroo, ostrich (raw and cooked) and warthog.
9. Cuddled a baby elephant and rhino.
10. Horse riding alongside black bear and their cubs.
11. Near death experience in a Tuktuk in Cambodia.
12. Swimming with a sea turtle in the Great Barrier Reef.
13.Climbed to the highest point in Australia.
14. Mustered on a cattle station in the Australian Outback.
15. Built a classroom in an orphanage in a South African township.
16. Partied on a rooftop in New York City over looking the famous skyline.
17. Rode on the back of a moped around parts of Thailand.
18. Had a run in with three lions.. and survived!
19. Helped to re-collar a tracking device onto a lion.
20. Helped to track progress of leopards.
21. Watched the sun set over the Africa bush, Aussie bush, beach, mountains and world famous skylines.
22. Partied and skinny dipped in Miami until daylight.
23. Camped out underneath the Milky Way.
24. Learnt to surf in Australia (badly).
25. Road tripped Tasmania.
26. Milked a cow in the Outback.
27. Got lost in a temple in Cambodia.
28. Caught a NYC yellow cab.
29. Bridge swinging for my 18th in a gorge in South Africa.
30. Went on safari by horse back and elephant.
31. Bobsledding in an Australian ski resort.
32. Drove a safari vehicle and then crashed it.
33. Got involved with Anti-poaching in South Africa.

My Personal Thoughts On Alcohol

Alcohol is involved in a lot of peoples lives around the globe. 

Whether it be that something people enjoy to share with friends on special occasions, a part of every weekend to let loose after a week in work life or even an escape for people dealing with troubles. 

It's usually something people use to make them feel better in some shape or form. 

I've had a slightly different experience with alcohol. 

I had my first ever proper alcoholic drink at the age of 19 I believe. As in a drink I ordered, not something I just tasted off a friend. 

I used to be so very much against alcohol and drinking, to the point where I wouldn't be near anyone drinking or even allow it in my fridge at home. Obviously it was my mums fridge and I didn't have the authority to ban it in my house but there was a compromise and it ended up going in the fridge in the gardens summer house (our glorified shed). 

So why was I so against something fairly normal? 

Well, I grew up with it around me, not like really around me but my dad was a heavy drinker. Infact he was an alcoholic who ended up loosing his life to the stuff when he was just 38 and I was 14 (if you wanna read about that subject in detail it's a few posts down on my blog "living with grief" and "loosing a parent 10 years on"). 

I always knew he drank and as much as I could understand it as a kid, I also grew to understand that with my dad it got to a point where it was making him really unwell and the doctors said after two dangerous trips to hospital previously, that if he carried on drinking it would kill him, and that it did. 

So I always had this strong hatrid towards alcohol. I vowed I would never let it touch my lips because as far as I was aware as a little angry teenager, alcohol was something my dad chose over a life with me. Obviously there was ALOT more to it than that, and that alcoholism is an illness in itself. A shitty horrible thing that for a lot of people that don't get the right help, ends up sending their lives into a short spiraling whirlwind. 

I was really quite proud of the fact I didn't drink as a teenager. Sometimes maybe a little too proud and I would end up snapping at people for it. That was just a cover up for how terrified I was of the substance. 

At around 19 I started giving in as such. 

I first started having a drink, I started experimenting which lead to a lot of sickness from like one blue WKD and me not actually enjoying it much atall. When I was travelling alone in South Africa and all of my friends around me were doing it, I'd try and keep up. Obviously I didn't atall. I am THE biggest lightweight known to man. 

The very few times that I have been drunk (which I can probably count on one hand in all my 23 years of life) actually made me quite unwell. 

I started to wonder what was the point and up until about 8 months ago I would only ever have like 1 cider if there was a big BBQ or a party going on. But it started to really make me unwell every time almost like I was allergic to the stuff. 

A few of you guys reading this might know I have IBS quite badly and I found out that alcohol was setting me off with IBS attacks even after half a can. Ive also got weak liver and kidneys which I found out after being hospitalised a few years ago with septic shock from dehydration. 

So I've completely stopped again. 

I'm quite happy with mocktails and Pepsi. I save a lot of money too! 

But my thoughts on alcohol are still fairly negative. Infact alcohol really scares me, especially if the people I care about the most are drunk. I get really uneasy and upset and It scares me seeing people out of control. 

At times I can become quite socially awkward when alcohol is involved. 

For example, the other week at a staff party with my work friends, everyone started getting quite drunk around 8pm and started getting loud and straight away alarm bells went off in my head and I had to just escape and get out of there. 

It scares me how something so "normal" can really destroy lives as easy as something that is illegal and deemed as really bad like drugs for example. 

To me alcohol is a legal drug, and because it's so easy to just get hold of it ends up being a big part of a lot of people's lives in not good ways. 

I don't think I'll ever drink, I don't think I'll ever feel the need or want to. And the thought of throwing my guts up and other very unattractive things that will most definately happen if I do drink, makes me pretty positive that I won't.

And I'm totally happy with that :)