Wanderlust (A Tale of Two Cities)

(Written on 31st January 2015)

Today is my 28th birthday, and I am writing this somewhere under the English channel. As birthdays go, I suppose waking up in Paris and then spending the day with some of my favourite people in London ranks up there as one of the best ways to spend an adult birthday.

However, it's also quite sad. I am on the penultimate leg of my 'mini grand tour of Europe', which means the next stop after London is back home and back to real life. I've been looking forward to this trip for so long, and now it's nearly over. Somewhat like my 20s.

I have just realised that I'm technically no longer in my mid 20s, and I'm closer to 30 than I am to 20. Not that age matters hugely, I've just spent a lot of time this week with friends I have known for a long time, and have naturally reflected on our teenage years.

Ten years ago today, I turned 18. I remember it vividly - going out for dinner and to the cinema the night before, and driving down the M56 for half an hour so I could be with my friends at midnight (we sat in Chester service station sharing a chocolate muffin between four of us, then I had to drive everyone home and didn't get in until after 2am. I vaguely remember falling asleep in my stats class the next day, which would have been less of a problem if I hadn't made up 50% of the class).

At 18, I think I was probably the most confident I have ever been. I had lots of friends, I could drink and drive (not together) and have a job and do all sorts of grown up things. I was clever and passed all my exams (they later let me take a whole extra A level, which meant learning the course two weeks before the exam), I was going to go to university and get a great job and do loads of travelling, and it was all going to be amazing.

Fast forward ten years, and I am happy. But life is so completely different than I ever imagined it would be. This week of travelling around Europe (albeit only three countries, not including the UK) has been amazing, but on more than one occasion I've found myself wishing I was there with my friends, living in a new city, learning and using a different language, and being part of a completely different culture. My lucky friends live on this huge land mass where a completely different country is just a few hours away on the train.

I think I might be a little bit jealous.

My friend sent me an article recently that says if you are ever asked for life advice, tell them to go travelling. I could have told you that for free.

But just because the advice is given doesn't necessarily mean I'll take it. I love travelling, but I've come to realise that one of the things I love most is the opportunity to escape from real life.

Unfortunately, when you leave anywhere to go travelling, real life has a habit of coming with you. My lucky friends do have so many opportunities to travel, but they also have to deal with bills and rent and insurance and all sorts of grown up nonsense that means travelling isn't actually as easy as it sounds.

So I guess I don't really have a choice. I have to go back to real life and face my quarter-life crisis head on.

Though that won't stop me from planning the next grand tour!

A Vegan Abroad

(Or 'why I never want to see another omelette again in my whole life')

You may have guessed, I'm not technically vegan, but I have been vegetarian since I was 9, which has been fine (apart from being force-fed nuts and seeds when, particularly as a teenager, all my friends were eating chicken nuggets and chips). That is, it was fine until about three years ago when I became lactose intolerant. All of a sudden, the main ingredients disappeared from my diet - no more macaroni cheese, no more milk in my (copious and very large) cups of tea, and no more ice cream, cream or custard. Basically all of the best foods had gone.

For a while, I survived on garlic bread and chips (although that was as much to do with the depression and general exhaustion as it was to do with the fact that 'I can't eat anything'). But over time, I have rediscovered my love for cooking, and now spend at least one afternoon each weekend creating new recipes and adapting existing ones.

One of my biggest bug bears is going out for dinner and being stuck with one of three options: pizza without the cheese (delicious but irritating given that I can buy lactose free cheese in the supermarkets, and therefore make my own pizza at least once a week); chips and salad (the excellent but lazy combination of unhealthy with a bit of wet lettuce); or my least favourite - pasta with red sauce (normally tomato. Sometimes I'm not sure).

Most of my favourite restaurants are on the list because they either offer a range of Rosy-proof food, or they are willing to adapt menu items. If the chef gets excited about the opportunity to try a new recipe just for me, they boost straight to the top of the list.

This is all fine when I'm at home - we don't go out for dinner very often. But during my 'mini grand tour of Europe', it wasn't that easy.

On my last day in the Netherlands, my friend and I decided to go out for lunch. The evening before, we trawled the internet for local menus, and had a shortlist of possibilities. When we got into town (I didn't fall of my bike - yay!) we headed to the first restaurant which, online, had veggie burgers on the menu. Their menu has changed the week before, so no veggie burgers, or anything that wasn't meat, fish or cheese.

The next few restaurants were similar - lots of options, nothing for Rosy.  After about half an hour, we settled on a pub, and I ordered an omelette - delicious.

Fast-forward a few days, and I'd given up looking for anything that isn't egg based and fried. I've just counted and I reckon I ate no less than 17 eggs in six days.

Being in Paris was particularly hard. Every other shop I passed seemed to be a fromagerie, and I LOVE CHEESE! I may have spent half of my final day in Paris standing outside and staring through the window, drooling just a little bit. That was the hardest part of this trip.

My advice for fellow intolerant vegetarians (HA!) travelling in Europe is threefold:

1. Take multivitamins with you, and make sure they contain iron. Chances are you won't get a huge variation in the meals you eat, so you'll need something to make sure you get your recommended daily levels! Although if you eat as many eggs as I did, your iron levels will be the least of your worries...

2. Stay in self-catered accommodation. There are loads of options, particularly in major cities, for cheap accommodation - I love staying in youth hostels if I'm travelling alone, but if I'm with my boyfriend or friends, we try to rent an apartment (I use waytostay.com). Every city will have supermarkets, local markets and delis where you can buy fresh food which needs minimal preparation, and you can always take some dried pasta, rice or couscous with you as a back up.

3.  Do your research before you travel. Find out what the local delicacies are, and if there are any veggie/vegan alternatives. If you can, find out where you can buy these, and include them in your plans for your trip. Find out if there are any vegetarian restaurants, or restaurants that might have a vegan option (Mexican restaurants almost always will). Most importantly, make sure you know how to say 'I am vegetarian/ lactose/ gluten/ etc intolerant and cannot eat dairy/ milk/ cream/ bread/ eggs/ etc' in the language of whichever country you are in. You could write it down and keep it in your wallet if that helps, and try to learn how to ask whether there are any alternatives (and give examples). In my experience, restaurant staff are much more willing (and able) to help if you're speaking the same language.

I guess most importantly, don't be scared to try something new, but if you have to eat omelette every day of your trip, that's way better than being hungry and not enjoying yourself!

Toilet Humour

Yes, this is a post about toilets. Please don't read on if you are squeamish.

For as long as I have been travelling independently, particularly with Girlguiding, I have had what some may see as a completely bizarre obsession with toilets.

My introduction to international guiding, at the age of 14, was a presentation from an older girl who had been to an international camp the previous summer. I can't remember where she had been, or who she was, but I do remember she told us a lot about the toilets. She even showed us a picture (I'm pretty confident it was a portaloo, so pretty safe as far as international camps go, as long as your tent isn't down wind, particularly towards the end of the week).

My first experience of an international camp was in Germany in 2003.  I remember we had portaloos, and they were horrendous and weren't emptied until they started to overflow three days into the camp. Add in the communal wash tents (15 year old me was not expecting to be surrounded by hundreds of fully naked Germans), and it was a pretty traumatic experience.

Regardless, thus began my apparent obsession with toilets.

The reason I'm telling you this is because I realised during my 'mini grand tour of Europe' perhaps how unnecessary and weird this obsession has become.

In the Netherlands, we always seemed to end up talking about poo at the dinner table (I noticed my friend stopped putting tomatoes in my salad after I told her about a man who noticed tomato plants growing at the bottom of his garden thanks to the British train toilets which 'evacuate' straight onto the tracks), and whenever I go on a Dutch train I'm careful not to drink too much - there is something very off-putting about seeing the tracks moving at hundreds of miles an hour below you. I'm also petrified of accidentally dropping something important (it wouldn't be the first time I've dropped my passport in the loo).

In Brussels, I noticed that the toilet cubicle doors opened outwards, and on more than one occasion I found myself thinking this is a much better design than in the UK, where I more often than not have to balance either myself or my shopping on the toilet seat in order to squeeze the door shut behind me.

And that brings us to Paris. My friend lives in a beautiful but very small studio apartment with a communal toilet. To be fair to her, she did warn me about the toilet in advance, but it wasn't until I arrived (having drunk many cups of tea while waiting to meet her after work) that I remembered it is a squat toilet.

Now, in theory, I have no problem with a squat toilet. Once you've mastered the art of balancing and not peeing all over your trousers, you're all set (I was going to say it's a bit like riding a bike, but we all know how good I am at that...)

The problem comes when you're very tired. As I locked the door behind me, I had a horrible flashback to the first time I used a squat toilet. Without being too graphic (use your own imagination), I hadn't accounted for how slippy the floor might be, and ended up in a less than desirable position.

I don't think I drank for a week afterwards.

Needless to say, I was a lot more prepared this time around. I just made sure I used public toilets at every possible opportunity, just to be safe...

I promise I will try not to blog about toilets again.