With my leaving date rapidly approaching (two days time ohmygod) there is so much to do.

Goodbyes, packing, last minute organising, film downloads, book downloads, jabs, medication to buy, toiletries to buy! My travel bank card still hasn’t arrived and the bank doesn’t yet know that i’m off. I need my iphone, a travel phone and a fake phone to give if someone tries to mug me… Then, a big wallet, a small wallet and a fake wallet for the same purpose… I need to pack clothes for 30 degree Thailand and thermals for the minus ten degree nights in Bolivia, bikinis, jumpers, towels, underwear, shorts, teeshirts, jeans, trainers, flipflops, waterproofs.

I also honestly have toiletries and medication coming out of my ears… shampoo, conditioner, the BIGGEST can of dry shampoo you’ve ever seen (can’t live without it), face wash, body wash, suncream, more suncream, face suncream, p20, p10, aftersun, travel wash, nurofen, tablets to stop you diarrheaing (I know.. So nice), tablets to rehydrate you if you get diarrhea, tablets to make you go to the loo (even nicer),  antibiotics, antibiotic cream, disinfectant, MOSQUITO SPRAY TO COVER A NATION, bandages, plasters and lots more.

My 5 month backpack will also be filled with A LOT of cool gadgets that everyone should be very jealous of. I’ve got… a wind up torch, a portable washing line, a tool kit, a universal adapter, a universal plug (yes i will be able to fill up EVERY sink), a pop up mug, soap that cleans food, clothes, hair and bodies! AND even a portable mini kite. I honestly have the works, everything you can think of and more.

But am I sorted? Not even close. Now I need to fit this mumble jumble array of items into ONE sixty litre backpack AND have it weigh less than twenty kilograms.

Challenge accepted.

I will update you tomorrow on whether my plan fails massively or not.

For the last two days our luck changed around drastically, with the sun breaking through the clouds and fog, giving us two bluebird days in powder… The idillic skiing conditions!

In the quaint little ski resort of Megeve there is hardly anyone else skiing so with the arrival of the sun and half term holiday tourists we were quite surprised at the amount of people skiing! The plan: coffee break at 11.30, ski over lunch time when everyone is eating and basically have the slopes to yourself, lunch at 2pm when everyone’s finished lunch (no queues for tables hehe). This plan worked well for the last two days and we enjoyed the opportunity to tear down the unoccupied slopes. The powder was also home to much amusement, going off the piste into the deep snow and then getting stuck because of the sheer volume of snow on top of our legs!

Over the three days we skiied on three different sections of the two mountains, each providing their own unique slopes and runs. My favourite was the second, probably because it was most sunny that day which always makes skiing better – but also due to the volume of different slopes and their width, a much wider slope is a lot more fun to tear down. The second day the powder was also so much fun to ski through as it was fresh and so very soft.

On our third and last day, we skiied to the highest and furthest point on the mountain then made it our mission to ski back making sure we skiied on ever run in order to tick them off on our piste map!

After heading back to the chalet, we watched the sunset from our balcony (above picture) which turned the mountains purple! A beautiful end to a great mini break skiing.

Day one in Megeve and our luck didn’t really get any better.
We aimed to get up early however our alarms didn’t go off and it ended up being 9am before we actually got out of bed.
Then on our drive down to the village to quickly rent some skis for those without them, we passed a car stuck in the snow. Like the good Samaritans we are, we got out and helped push the car up the slippery snowy road. Our quick trip turned into a long one.
THEN, on the way home from the ski store, we’re driving slowly up the windy mountain when out of no where a skiier flies into our car! Basically he lost control and flew down a don’t ski here slope and lucky for him we were driving extraordinarily slowly! However we did knock him over and all we could see from the back of the car was two skis in the air! The man was absolutely fine, got up and walked back up to the ski slope… But what a ridiculous add-on to our stint of bad luck!

We had a great day powder skiing, even though it was very hard to see anything in fog and thick snow but the powder cushioned any falls we may have had and the snow was great!

Later that day when trying to find the right ski entrance to our chalet the bad luck came back as on our first try we were too low and would have had to have hiked a long way back to the chalet! On second attempt we were fine and glided through the powder up to the door of our home.

After waking up at 4.30am in order to leave for the airport at 5am and be on a 7am flight to Megeve, France, we were told, while checking in, that our flight was delayed by three hours. Great. We might as well go home and come back, but as our luggage had gone and we were checked in, we found a spot for breakfast and waited it out.
10am, our new flight time had arrived and so we check the board to find out the gate… and it now reads estimated flight time: 10.30am. Great (again) so we sat back down at our coffee table and waited another half hour, then another, then another…
Now 12 o’clock and on our way to gate 3, pretty annoyed as 4 flights to the same destination as us had already left… why were we not on those?
On arriving at the gate, meeting a bundle of angry tired delayed others, we were told that actually they were giving our flight to the people going to Pathos and we were going to have to wait till 1 for another plane to fly in from Stansted. (A plane that currently has no crew)
All hell broke lose, people refused to move, blocking the doorway until someone explained
“why we were being lied to” and “where our flight was” they also demanded that someone from easyjet come down to the gate and explained the situation themselves. After long attempts of barricading the door and refusing to move, people gradually began to get hungry (we had been waiting 6 hours after all) and so slowly drifted off for lunch. (there were also threats of police arriving…)

2.45pm and we were finally boarding the flight, nearly 8 hours late! Apparently the pilot had had trouble landing the plane when flying in from Stansted due to weather conditions, which led us all to feel very nervous and begin doubting our pilot!

Having missed our lunch reservations in Geneva at 6pm French time, we rented a car and drove the 2 hours up the mountain, stopping on the way for a very needed and very big dinner.
11.30pm and we’re finally tucked up in our Megeve chalet… What a hectic start to our skiing minibreak! Fingers crossed we’ve used up all our bad luck for the week and these next few days go swimmingly… after all, there’s lots of fresh powder to sink our skis into tomorrow!!!

With less than three weeks to go before my 5 months of travels begin, and a 4 day skiing holiday in the middle of that, I am slowly running out of time to prepare and get organised for the rest of my Gap Year.

Time is literally flying away and so I need to get organised with a to do list: Things to do before jetting off.

(some of the list I’ve been super organised with already, but you’ll soon see that there’s a lot more to do, than already done)

1. Plan destination 1: Thailand
2. Plan destination 2: Australia
3. Plan destination 3: South America (including booking a guided tour through Bolivia)
4. Get a Backpack  (mine is awesome, ill give you more info on that later)
5. Get any jabs, vaccines and injections necessary (should probably sort this one out sooner rather than later)
6. Stock up on contact lenses (I would actually like to see these countries that I’m visiting)
7. Print all necessary flight and bus tickets that have been emailed to me
8. Buy some nice new trainers to trek around the world in (maybe some new clothes too)
9. Get a world travel bank card (for best exchange rates)
10. Pack five months worth of stuff into one 60L backpack, then repack, then repack again…

SO EXCITED!