Seafood…and eat it!

Hyannis hostel

Martha’s Vineyard 2015

Nantucket 2015

Sam Adams Summer and shrimp salad

Gingerbread houses

Hy-line ferry

Cape Cod 2015

I’ve spent the first few days of my US trip between Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. A very good friend of mine had been a year or two ago and said how nice it had been and I remember reading a book years ago set in Nantucket so had always been interested to visit. Most people probably would have just stayed in Boston City Centre but it seemed too close to miss. I’m so glad I did!

The buildings in this area are all wooden, often grey with white edging (particularly in Nantucket) or pretty pastel colours and definitely with white picket fences and front porches with rocking chairs. The gardens tend to be well kept with beautiful bright pink blooms that pop against their wooden backdrop. The towns often have narrow streets that look far to small for the big bulky American saloons or SUVs to drive down. It has an English country garden feel mixed with a Cornish seaside town. It’s really very pretty and with many shops and restaurants to explore you do need to visit for a few days or more.

During my trip I stayed at all Hostelling International places, the first in Hyannis, which is a harbour town on Cape Cod. Here I was in a great spot for getting the ferry across to Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, and the bus to and from Boston. Main Street is full of gift shops with lots of seaside trinkets and nautical themed fashion, I loved it! There were so many restaurants and cafes to choose from too, although I chose to eat by the harbour as I really wanted to sample the seafood. I had clam chowder for dinner on the first night, a small bowl was packed full of creamy flavour and surprisingly filling. I then pigged out on delicious fish and chips for my lunch the next day, mmm – although it was missing mushy peas!

In Nantucket, I was staying at the hostel by Surfside beach, a really nice sleepy part of the island. The hostel was like a farmhouse with the dorms in an outside barn, our bunks were on the top floor in the rafters. It was both peaceful and comfy. To get into town you could catch a local bus for $2 dollars, although it only runs until just after 5, so if you want to eat out you can walk into town within an hour, although perhaps not in sandals as it makes your feet hurt. The roads here are flat and there are big wide paths for cycling or walking. If I was staying more than 1 night I would definitely have hired a bike to explore the rest of the island.

In Martha’s Vineyard I was staying at the hostel out by the airport. It was set back in the woods and whilst a great spot with very friendly staff, it did have a slight horror movie feel to it at night being so secluded! Again I relied on the local bus service to get around as the hostel was far from the ferry port. I got to explore Edgartown (the home of Jaws, apparently it is played at the local show cinema every Sunday evening) and Oak Bluffs, which is the main ferry port and this town had lots of shops and beautiful buildings to explore. I was urged to go and explore the Gingerbread Houses, which are exactly as they sound, a community of houses that are built and painted to look like they’re straight out of Hansel and Gretel story.

I travelled between the islands by using the Hy-line high speed ferry, each journey took about an hour and cost around $40 one way. The journey was fine, I didn’t suffer any seasickness but you can buy tablets from the ticket office if you do suffer. I would highly recommend applying plenty of high factor suncream before you travel as even on the cloudiest of days, you will burn if you sit outside. I have the red face to prove it!

There are many craft beers brewed in this region and during my trip I mainly stuck to the golden delights of Samuel Adams Summer, their seasonal brew, de-lish! It made for the perfect accompaniment to wash down the many seafood dishes I enjoyed from coconut shrimp curry and lobster roll to clam chowder and cajun crabcake wrap…yum! For the sweet teeth out there I can also vouch for the local saltwater taffy (pretty much any flavour), cashew brittle (worth risking a filling for), or homemade ice cream in homemade and still warm waffle cones (peanut butter cup should not be missed!)

I would thoroughly recommend a visit and with the hostels costing on average $35 a night, if you don’t mind sleeping in bunks with shared bathrooms, this is a fantastic summer holiday destination. It would be great for families as there is loads of exploring to be done outdoors. I just wish I was staying longer, but it’s onwards to Boston…

Nic x

Top tip: if you’re trying to book a hostel online and it says they are full, email or call the hostel to double check as often there is still space.

Mine’s a side of friendly American please

Nantucket 2015

Since I arrived in America, which is a whole four days ago, I’ve been overwhelmed by how friendly everyone I’ve met so far has been. It feels like everywhere I go there is someone specifically waiting to meet me and chat, it’s brilliant!

On my first night in New York I met a girl from LA (although originally from Peru), we were sharing a dorm and it turns out we’ll be in Boston at the same time so of course we’ll meet for drinks, brilliant!

On the second day I was travelling to Cape Cod and got chatting to a lovely gentleman called Ron who was heading back home to Falmouth after spending Father’s Day and his birthday with his daughter and grandson in New York. We spent the 5 hour journey sharing stories of our families, travelling and our home towns.

On the bus I also met an 80 year old French American lady who had trained as a nurse for three years in Uxbridge. She had fond memories of her time in England and told me how she’d joined the forces with her goal to join the parachute team but unfortunately she married, fell pregnant and had to leave so never got the chance. Apparently she almost signed up for a jump last year but her family convinced her that the risk of breaking a leg or two was perhaps a bit too real!

In Hyannis I met a very bubbly lady called Eileen who was trying to make it back to Martha’s Vineyard but the tornado warning had messed up all flights so she was waiting for the next ferry (in the storm!) I was soon exchanging email and Facebook details with her, and parted ways with an offer of a place to stay if my hostel wasn’t very nice in Martha’s Vineyard!

At the bar where I met Eileen, we also met Michael the friendly bar man who was also a freelance graphic designer. He told me about his time travelling to Europe to intern with Disney and then Warner Bros on visual merchandise and advertising projects, he was currently working on a campaign for a new Martin Scorsese film.

Today in Nantucket I met a group of family friends who were on vacation to celebrate their daughters graduating from high school. The mums were amazed that I was travelling alone and that I’d been to so many places, they also thought I was in my 20’s so thanks for that! The girls were taking notes of the hostels I recommended for their travelling dreams next summer. They invited me to stay at their place in Connecticut and got very excited about the places they could show me.

It really has blown my mind. I knew that travelling and staying in hostels gives you the perfect reason to meet people, but I just wasn’t expecting it to happen so easily and for everyone to be so open. I would never normally chat to so many strangers back home, there’s definitely something about the adventure of travelling that makes you want to get to know people. People seem genuinely interested and amazed at my travelling tales and I love hearing everyone’s stories – if they’re happy to share, I’m happy to listen. Plus my British accent has never sounded so posh!

Nic x

No hablo en Español muy bien

Spanish lesson in Puebla

After 2 weeks in Mexico and 4 weeks in Cuba, both of which are Spanish speaking countries, you might naively assume that my Spanish was improving. You might also think that my suntan was developing, but you’ve all seen the pictures, that’s going as well as my Spanish!

I studied GCSE Spanish at school a million years ago and walked away with a B, which I was very happy with thank you very much. I dabbled again in my first year at uni where I got the highest mark of all my subjects in semester 1 and then the lowest mark of all my subjects in semester 2. All thoughts of a combined degree were swiftly forgotten by my second year.

As a lot of my friends will know, I do have a freakishly good memory for inane things such as children’s TV theme tunes or silly anecdotes over the years that most people have forgotten due to the fact they have far more important information or life moments to remember. This talent does come in handy however for learning a different language. I can remember a lot of vocab and tend to recognise words when I see them or hear them, but ask me to string a sentence together and speak it out loud to a local and I’m like a child learning to talk for the very first time.

Prime example, Jenna and I were travelling to Puebla from Mexico City and we were catching a bus so needed to buy a ticket. I told Jenna what we needed to say to purchase our tickets, so I confidently strolled over to the unsuspecting man at the Taquilla (ticket office) and babbled an incoherent string of Spanish words in my traditional northern accent. He just smiled at me sympathetically for at least having a go and said the correct sentence in English. Brilliant!

Now I’d definitely appreciate points for trying, but really I don’t think I deserve them. It’s just so difficult to try and put the memories in my head into actual Spanish sounding words, plus it really needs confidence to carry it off and I think we’ve already covered that topic, I score low points there. I just don’t want to look like an idiot so I tend not to try as much as I should.

In Cuba our local tour guide, Yanni, spoke incredibly good English and our driver, Juan, didn’t, so me and one of the other girls on the tour took advantage of our respective lack of language skills and decided to help each other learn each other’s language, with Yanni helping to translate when we got stuck, which happened a lot! In this environment I didn’t feel afraid to try and piece phrases together and it felt good to help someone else who wanted to learn from us. I just clearly didn’t spend long enough trying.

So I’ve made a decision. My New (half) Year’s resolution is to learn Spanish properly when I go home. That way when I come back to Mexico, as I love it so much and there’s still so much to see, I’ll be confident, fluent, and practically a local…well, I can dream!

Nic x

Is it just me or do you feel a bit seasick?

Jenna and I feeling a bit wobbly in Mexico City

Over the last few years I’ve uttered this sentence twice to my best travelling buddy from uni, Jenna, both times when we’ve been nowhere near water.

The first incident was on my birthday in 2012 when we were 58 floors up in the Lebua State Tower hotel in Bangkok. It was a very windy day and I had flown in from Oz the night before so was feeling a bit jet lagged. In my head there were two possible scenarios to explain how I was feeling:

1) the building was swaying in the wind, I’d read something about skyscrapers being built with a 1m sway to cope with high winds, so my money was on that; or

2) I was swaying from jet lagged induced fatigue and might be on the verge of collapsing. I hadn’t slept very well and it was early so that was also a feasible option, until Jen said she felt a bit seasick too.

As it turned out (upon reading an email from my dad) we were feeling the ripples of the Burmese earthquake, the aftershock hit later that afternoon and caused waves in the outdoor pool. It was a bit of a scary day thinking how bad must it has been in Burma for us to have felt it in Bangkok.

The next time I asked Jenna this question was yesterday when we arrived in Mexico City. The plane ride had been a bit bumpy just before we landed and then the journey to our hostel had been a bit hectic. We’d made our way across the city using the 20p metro (bargain, although no escalators meant climbing lots of stairs) and then on foot dodging the hoards of people and cars in the Zocalo. It was a bit of a mission, but by the time we put our bags down in our room I felt really spaced out, like I was swaying on the spot. When Jen said she was feeling it too, something triggered in my mind of my dad giving me facts about altitude sickness in Mexico before I left.

A quick google search gave us lots of stories of travellers feeling the effects in Mexico City, we also found a section in the Lonely Planet guide but that said in severe cases we might die so we stopped reading that one and concentrated on the less fatal anecdotes on TripAdvisor. We spent the next few hours feeling like we couldn’t walk in a straight line, a bit like we were drunk when in fact thanks to the Mexican election ban on alcohol, we hadn’t touched a drop in two days!

In summary I’ve come to realise that when travelling with Jenna, at some point I’m probably going to feel seasick due to some tropical force of nature and my dad, the wise old owl that he is, is probably going to predict the event and warn us. It’s a bit like travel sick roulette, you never know when it’s going to strike next…I love it!

Nic x

Windows and doors

Having confessed to loving a good window or door photo, here’s a few of my fave Cuban ones to enjoy…

Havana

Havana

Havana

Santiago de Cuba

Santiago de Cuba

Trinidad

Havana

Havana

Havana

Viñales

Holguin

Camaguey

Trinidad

Cuban Rhapsody

Paradise

Rooftops

Classic car

Sunset

Cuban flag

Street art

Beach

Tropical

Windows and doors

From what I’ve seen of Cuba, it’s a country with two faces. Busy and erratic, yet the most laid back pace of life. Vibrant colours in so many parts, yet stark and derelict in others. It’s sunny, hot and humid with amazing thunderstorms and sod all wifi. It’s a country full of surprises.

I visited Thailand almost 3 years ago and was disappointed to find the islands to be as westernised as they are. My romantic perception of idyllic, secluded beaches unfortunately wasn’t quite the reality. Cuba on the other hand delivered the authentic experience I’d hoped it would. If you want to visit a place that is yet to be spoiled by our usual Western ways, then book your trip sooner rather than later so you don’t miss out.

You’ll see men ploughing fields with oxen instead of tractors. American cars from the 1950s will be parked next to boxy Russian Ladas. They’ll be people queuing outside stores to collect their state rations for their families. Kids will be in the streets playing football or baseball, dreaming of becoming the next big sporting legend. Families spending time together in the evenings walking or salsa dancing in the many town squares and it seems there’s always a band playing on every corner or bar. The fashion is tight and bright, the conversation is fast and loud, but as the rum flows morning, noon and night, the pace is chilled and happy with things happening when they happen.

Cuban time means you’ll be waiting for service in shops, bars, hotels or restaurants, but when you’re in a beautiful country with so much people watching and salsa music to enjoy, what’s the rush? A menu gives you an idea of what you might like to eat, not always what’s on offer, usually the thing you fancy most will have finished for the day so make sure you choose a “plan b” option, but you can always rely on a Cuba Libre.

Cuba is not particularly famed for its cuisine, so if you go with low expectations you’ll be pleasantly surprised. The food mainly revolves around rice, beans, pork, chicken, seafood, cheese and ham sandwiches and the portions are huge! The salads and soups add some much needed colour and flavour to any meal. Ropa Vieja was my favourite meal at first as it was a beef stew cooked with onions and peppers so was full of flavour, something that’s often missing. Then I went to Baracoa and found where they had been hiding the flavour, lobster in the coconut and vegetables sauce was amazing, definitely recommend La Terreza. Elsewhere in Cuba they have all the ingredients to make tasty dishes, it just seems they don’t know what to do with them. I’m thinking Jamie Oliver might need to start a new campaign – Bring Flavour to Cuba!

Every province has something different to offer, from bustling urban cities, to lush green mountains, tobacco farms and coffee plantations, to beautiful rivers or bays and tropical Caribbean beaches. Cuba offers something for everyone. If you want to spend a holiday relaxing in a beach resort, perfect. If you want to travel through the towns and cities, easy, just hire a car or book one of the many tours on offer and have a guide show you the hidden depths of the real Cuba. Just don’t leave it too late to visit, I’m glad I didn’t.

Nic x