Planning Ahead

Sometimes it's hard for me to keep a constant stream of content running on here, but then again there are sometimes when I feel like I have so many different ideas for posts and so many things to talk about that I don't know where to begin. I have spent this evening writing a couple of different posts that I will publish over the coming week, so keep an eye out for more of my ramblings and attempts at travel advice!

Everyone who knows me knows I love to plan. My diary is my bible and my life, and if it is not in my diary it is not happening. End of. Which is what makes it so much harder when I actually have no idea what I'm going to be doing after my last exam sometime in May. My diary is literally blank. There will be the end of term frivolities in the form of RHUL Summer Ball - which I am actually looking forward to as I've never been. Hopefully, I'll be able to squeeze a holiday in before graduation, but then what. The rest of my life is ahead of me and I don't know what to do with it.

Diary and back up calendar...

Naively I thought coming to university may actually help me find out what I wanted to do with my life, but the only thing it has done is confirm that I actually have no clue. Me, like thousands of other nearly-graduates up and down the country, will be thrown out of university this summer, some will have graduate programmes, some will have jobs lined up, some may be taking a gap year or simply going home for a bit of a break from education, and some, like me, are toying with the idea of doing a masters degree. I've sent applications here, there and everywhere, and I'm fairly confident in most of them as I've got places everywhere I've applied, and waiting to hear back from one. What makes this so much harder is the next decision, where to go? What to do?
The downside for applying to so many different places and different courses is that now I want to do all of them, at the same time I've got my eye on a work placement year in Canada with BUNAC, because who wouldn't want to be able to ski to work? And a six-week trip through southern Africa which would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity but would totally wipe out my savings.

The world is our oyster, kids, the question is, what to do with it now?

Have a good week my loves!

Lots of Love, Kate xxx

SPOTLIGHT ON: PARIS

Hello lovely people,

Sorry, it's been a little while since I last wrote, I've been very very busy over here. Some of my biggest news recently is that I've now got my own radio show on my university's radio station, Insanity 103.2FM. You can tune in online and listen to me at 12-1pm on Tuesdays where I will be talking about travelling in different countries, each week somewhere different - so listen to 'Around the World in 80 Shows'!

Listen Here

Therefore I'm going to attempt to write a blog post each week to tie in with each show, just to sum up everything I've talked about in each show, so if anyone is really listening they can find all the information I have here in one place, choosing to use it if they want!

This week I visited Paris, in reality, and on the show, therefore, apart from going on and on about the utter romance of Paris here are the few practicalities I talked about earlier on today.

Me in Paris - so misty you can't see the Eiffel Tower!

• STA Paris Pass - £159 includes:
• 2 nights in a hostel next to Gare du Nord
• 2 day Paris Pass giving you free entry to over 60 places, free metro travel, guidebook, one day hop on/off bus pass, fast track to all places and a wine tasting experience (in English), and a 3.5-hour bike tour of some of the most famous attractions.

• Personal Recommendations for places to stay:
•  La Demeure  - a boutique hotel in the Latin Quater - approx £100pp
• St Christopher's Hostel - Gare du Nord - £20 pp

• Easiest way to get there: 
• Eurostar - take advantages of their £26 sales
• Flying into Charles de Gaulle or Paris Orly is sometimes cheaper and you can collect the air miles

• Top Sights:
• Notre Dame
• Louvre
• Sacre-Coeur
• Musee d'Orsay
• Centre Pompidou
• Montmartre
• Eiffel Tower
• Jardin du Luxembourg
• The Seine
• Pont d'Arc
• Check out Student Prices and 1st Sunday of each month many of these attractions are free.
• Most museums aren't open on Mondays 

• Where to Party:
• La Fleche d'Or - a club in an abandoned railway station
• Moulin Rouge dans Montmartre

• What to watch to get you in the mood:
• Chocolat (in English)
• The Intouchables (in French)

If you need any help planning your trip to Paris give me a shout here!

Have a good week my loves!

Lots of Love, Kate xxx

Top Tips in 2017: Collecting Air Miles

Welcome to 2017!

Instead of doing the generic post about what resolutions I've made and my general ramblings about the fact I am sure to break it in two weeks time. I thought I would combine and create a post about collecting air miles and my top tips about how to do this as I've had lots of people asking me recently how I've done all my travelling over the past few years, and part of it was due to the wondrous world of air miles, and in particular, I collect Avios points. There are many ways to collect points, the biggest one being by booking flights with airlines that are part of the one world alliance such as British Airways and Iberia to name a few. Therefore I thought I would share some of my top tips for collecting air miles so everyone can get themselves free flights (although you do have to pay the taxes), upgrades, or even holidays! When we are all strapped for cash in the new year, what better way than getting a discounted holiday from your everyday spends.

                                                

1. Is the ticket free with air miles? 

Ultimately, no, as when you purchase flights with air miles you still have to pay the tax on the flight. However, this can be as little as £50 for short-haul flights and £200-£400 for long-haul flights, but it certainly varies depending on airline and flight.

2. Do I have to pay for my own ticket to collect air miles?

No, you can collect them from anyone you are travelling within the same booking or if you are booking flights through work!

                                                     

3. So how can I collect air miles?

- Flying: pretty self-explanatory, whenever I fly I always try to book my flights with an airline that allows me to collect Avios points. The first thing I did was to sign up for a BA executive club card, as although I don't fly enough just on BA for all the rewards, it is the easiest place to combine all your points on. Click here to sign up.

- Credit Card: The next step was to sign up for a BA Amex Card. I use this card as much as possible as it earns me 1 point for every £1 I spend and bonus points for spending with British Airways. Also, within the first 3 months, there are an extra 10,000 points to be awarded for spending £1000. The 22.9% APR is high but I just pay the balance before the end of the month or as soon as I can to avoid any interest. This card is then linked to by BA exec account where the points are transferred to each month. If you decide to apply for this, use my referral link here to be awarded more bonus points. 

The downside is that Amex is not excepted in every shop, however, I have found a way around this with another credit card I have which I will explain later.

- Clubcard: As much as possible, I shop at Tesco and have changed my preferences in my account online so instead of receiving Clubcard vouchers to spend in Tesco I have it linked to my BA exec account again to earn Avios points. Click the link here to sign up for a Clubcard. 

To go hand in hand with this, I also have a Tesco Bank credit card which is a Mastercard which is accepted in all shops. With a Tesco credit card, I collect 1 Clubcard point for every £8 spent not in Tesco and 1 point for every £4 spent in Tesco. Although this is not a huge amount, as this credit card is linked to my Clubcard which is already collecting Avios points for me, it works well too. The BA card earns me more points so I use that where I can, but having the Tesco Mastercard as a back up where Amex is not accepted. With a Tesco Mastercard, there are plenty of options, I have the card with 5.9% APR but there is one with a 0% charge on balance transfers for 40 months which may be a better option for those who might use it to pay rent or bills. Click here to apply for one!  

- Shell Petrol Loyalty Card: Just pick up one of these cards from your nearest Shell garage, register it online and choose the option to collect BA Avios points which will be then linked to your exec account and every time you fuel up at a Shell garage, just have them swipe your card and you'll start collecting points. Here is the link to the website to register your card.

 - Shopping: If I'm shopping online, the first place I'll go is to avios.com where I have signed up for a free account, and I periodically move my points to my BA exec account or to my avios.com account if I want to spend points. avios.com features hundreds of well-known retailers such as ASOS which often has bonus point collections earning up to 8 points per £1 spent!

All of this might sound a bit much, but trust me, once it is all done and set up, every time you spend money you will be collecting air miles, and soon you will be jet-setting across the world in high-class style for budget prices! If you need any help with it just email me here.

Good Luck and Happy Collecting!

 

Have a good week my loves!

Lots of Love, Kate xxx

Christmas Time at Home

Well, now lovely people I have actually made it back to my parent's house in the darkest depths of Hampshire (which has recently been voted the best place to live in the UK - Winchester, you should check it out!). Anyway, now that I am back for the best part of two weeks, what am I going to do in this wilderness I hear you cry!? Well, your guess is as good as mine. I mean there's the constant desire to be classically Christmassy and watch films and eat till I explode, which I'm sure will come within the next few days and the fact that I've kinda finished most of my work, bar a few pieces that need editing, I have found myself with free time on my hands and as I am stuck in the arse end of nowhere, what better to do than actually read something for fun.

Yes, I said it. For Fun. I can't remember the last time I just picked a book off my shelf to read that wasn't involved in some coursework or essay deadline. So now, sat here in front of a roaring fire because the heating in our house has broken, and unable to watch Gilmore Girls because the Internet is so patchy and prehistoric, I am taking the opportunity to write this blog post and read.
Okay, I'll admit I am starting off with some YA fiction, only because these are two proofs of books that are set to be published early 2017 that I got from Scholastic in the summer - so I have been only waiting a ridiculous 4 months to read these amazing stories.

I literally just finished reading, The Goldfish Boy, what can I say, it was incredible. I know it has been compared to A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, by many reviewers and, although I haven't read it, I saw the play in the summer and I would agree that the premise of the storyline is very similar. However, I think Lisa Thompson's offering updates what has gone before it and is a very sensitive way of dealing with a complicated subject matter for younger readers. I won't say anymore so as not to give the plot away, you'll just have to go out and buy it for yourselves next year.

The other book from Scholastic that I've yet to read is Ink, by Alice Broadway. Although I've read the first half of the manuscript in the summer I haven't finished this book yet and the whole idea of this story is so exciting that I cannot wait. The idea of living in a world where your entire life-story is tattooed onto your skin is fascinating and very Hunger-Games-World-esque. The cover art is absolutely beautiful too!
For me, this was one of the greatest perks of working at Scholastic, getting to see the proofs before everyone else, and for a time, being sworn to secrecy. Definitely, one of the draws to go back, I would really like to go back there once I have graduated, so fingers crossed an assistant's job comes up at the right time for me!

Anyway, that's enough for one day, I'm gonna grab a cuppa, snuggle up with Alfie (my cocker spaniel mad dog) and get stuck into Ink. 

Have a good week my loves!

Lots of Love, Kate xxx 

Its....CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!

Hello all,
I'm back again in a much more positive mindset and a much happier post because its CHRIST-MAS!!!!!!!
Okay, so it might not quite be Christmas just yet, but it is now officially December which means it is no longer too early to put up the tree, although let's be real, the tree and Christmas decs have been up in our house already since mid-November as we've got to make the most of winter here, not being at uni for actual Christmas. Very sweetly the boys announced the other day that they will be cooking Christmas dinner for us this year which I am actually really looking forward to, and to see how it turns out, although I have every faith in them.
I don't want to get sad because this post is meant to be happy happy happy, but seeing as this is our last Christmas together as a group, and I know we've had our ups and downs completely, everyone has as housemates, but for the most part I think we have done pretty well as a group of strangers put together at the beginning of first year and we are still housemates three years on. We've done good.

I am pleased, though because next year I will be (hopefully) staying here at RHUL to do my Masters as I have been unofficially (thanks to the Classics department) given a place on the Ancient History course. So, Royal Holloway, you've got me for one more year!

But back to the subject in hand, CHRISTMAS. Although I have done none of my shopping yet, and it will probably end up being a last minute job with the help of Amazon Prime, I love the Christmas feeling. Christmas days itself is fun, but a little bit of a let down I always find compared to the fun of the hype of the weeks leading up to it.
One of my most favouritest things about Christmas has to be London at Christmas, the lights, the Christmas markets, the crisp London air, I just love it. Oh yeah, and Winter Wonderland, although the crowds there do drive me utterly mental.

           

Well that it for my random ramblings today, I'm gonna try and write more posts on here more often from now on, although I do say that every few months or so and fail, I'll try I promise!

Have a good week my loves!

Lots of Love, Kate xxx