I know it has been a while since my last post and to be honest I have no real excuse other than I have been living my best life, having way too much fun embracing the Australian life and making plenty of unforgettable, incredible memories! I have now been here 6 months!! SIX FRICKING MONTHS– how is that even possible? It feels like I left home yesterday, the time is just running away! I thought I would just write a quick ‘catch up with me’ blog before starting back into my regular blog posts (which is my New Years Resolution – stop being so shite with the blogging!)
So stick the kettle on and throw your feet up whilst taking a few minutes to catch-up on what has been happening.
November- AKA – My Birthday MONTH
I kicked off November with a trip to Perth. It was so amazing I will have to dedicate another blog post to it with all the ins and outs of my little adventure as there is just too much to try squeeze into this blog post. Perth is so so beautiful I cant wait to show you all my pictures and blog about my recommendations.
Since my last blog post I’ve aged a year, It was my 24th birthday late November. Reflecting over my 23rd year I cant help but smile. There have been so many changes which have raised new opportunities, countless experiences, travelling, friendships, and made me come to the realisation of what actually matters and an appreciation for life.
Birthday Week Shennanigans
Niall was on nightshift my birthday week so I took a few hours off work to spend some time for bday brekkie cuteness. When I arrived into work my desk was decorated with balloons and as the day progressed more and more cute gifts stacked up – 90% of which was unicorn or mermaid themed haha. 18 of us headed out for a boozy lunch and I basically spent the rest of my day skipping about the office and blowing out candles – it really wasn’t a bad days work.
I arrived back home to a fully decorated house (the absolute cutest) and my pressie from Niall which was a 5 day trip to Whitsundays with 2 nights staying on a boat – INSANE! I can’t wait to go but we have pushed the trip back because we have so much planned over the next few months which I will chat all about later.
I had a Big Birthday BBQ (true Aussie style) on the night of my birthday and it felt so special, all my friends I have made since moving here came and enjoyed a burger and a beer in celebration. It was so bizzare having my birthday in hot summer heat, every other year I have celebrated with nights out followed with a visit to the Christmas markets.
Moving on to the Saturday of my birthday week. My morning started with a FaceTime from home with the amazing news that my wee brother had just won a GAA All Star Award. I was buzzing about my house, jumping and squealing to my family on FaceTime in celebration. The smile couldn’t be wiped off my face I couldn’t be any prouder of him, it was the best start to the day! For my birthday celebrations we headed to ‘SENSATION WHITE’ which was an all-white outdoor festival and boy was it unreal. It was absolutely insane!
November was mad for Birthdays – I helped a few other friends celebrate their birthday’s too and it was NUTS! We drank, ate cake and partied from the start to the end of November! One thing I am absolutely loving about Australia is how close you become so quickly to new people you meet. They really do become your little Australian family and each and every one of them went above and beyond to make me feel extra special on my birthday, especially because it can be an emotional day as you tend to feel homesick on big occasions. It took me over a week to open my mummy’s birthday card for Gods sake!
December
We started December with a cute date night to the Open Air Cinema to see Dirty Dancing and it was the cutest ever. When we were just wee babies in secondary school, Niall and I took part in a school play ‘The Ghost of Christmas Past’ where we first got to really know each other. The finale song for the show was ‘I had the time of my life’ and it always takes me back to when we were so young, im talking 13year old me haha. I would love to hoke out the DVD of it im sure we would have some laugh at it!!!
Mid December we went to the Blue Mountains and WOW the scenery up are there is incredible, if you are in Sydney please put it on your to-do list. Again, I will blog a full post on this because it was just amazing.
Christmas Vibes…..
I have to say there was no real build up to Christmas here in Australia and I think it’s what I missed the most about home. I hardly heard Christmas songs, except for when I played them myself, if you follow me on snap you will have seen our FAB Christmas trees lol we blasted the Christmas music whilst decorating them and just had a good giggle at our excuse of a tree.
The weekend before Christmas Eve I literally felt like jumping on a plane and coming home for a week to spend Christmas with family and friends. I wanted nothing more than to enjoy my Mummy’s amazing Turkey dinner, homemade bakes and all the festive cheer with my nearest and dearest. I just felt so far away but then I took a step back and realised I should embrace the fact that I’m experiencing something totally different, and actually ‘how lucky am I?!!’
Christmas Week
Since we were lacking the Christmas build up I organised a work Christmas dinner where everyone was in charge of bringing in a dish. It turned out to be amazing, we blasted the festive music and enjoyed dinner, dessert, Christmas crackers and topped it all off with a Christmas quiz.
On Christmas Eve we went around to our friends house for a good ole traditional Irish Christmas Dinner with all the trimmings. There were 13 of us and the dinner was out of this world! Mind you it was my first time eating a Christmas Dinner with 2 fans blowing and every window open possible lol!! Sarah was the hostess with the mostess -the food was delish. All I could take credit for was dessert- speaking of which, I baked 4 pavlovas in a week… My mummy must have taught me a thing or two because there wasn’t a crumb left over. Later in the evening we went for a few tipples down by the beach before venturing home, changing into matching jams and waiting on Santa to come.
We woke on Christmas day and pranced up the hall to see if Santa remembered that we had relocated to down under- and he had! The presents were stacked up under the ‘tree‘. We all gathered around to open our cards and gifts. I got to my families Christmas card and at that moment I wished I hadn’t spent 20minutes on a glitter smokey eye complete with a wing and lashes because as soon as I opened it, the tears started to flow and I couldn’t get the tap to turn off. We were all stood around like blubbering messes laughing at one another!
We headed down to the beach to get the obligatory ‘Christmas on the beach pic’. On Christmas day the sun played us and although it was warm, the sky was full of clouds and it was quite windy on the beach. We had a quick dip and a 10minute photoshoot before heading home to get the party started. So the pics were solely for the gram haha Is it even Christmas in Austraila if you don’t don a red red swim suit complete with santa hat on the beach?
Our Brazilian friends (Wendell & Raoni) are DJ’s and they took their decks to our house complete with disco ball and strobe light and I swear by the end of the night it felt like we were in ‘Project-X’ it was the best house party ever!
Well it may have been the the most un-christmassy Christmas Day ever but I couldnt of had a better day with friends who have become family down under.
In between Christmas and New Years we had a few day trips exploring different beaches and the Figure 8 Pools, so I have a few more recommendations on what to do it Australia coming right up!
New Years
NYE was litttttt, a big group of us went to Hot Dub Time Machine, music was played from the 60’s right up to present.. complete with a firework display and a NYE kiss from Niall it was perfect. We called it a night shortly after as we were going to Ibiza Space on New Years Day.
New Years Day morning we leaped out of bed and headed to the pub to ring in the Irish New Year (11am our time) but the pub was completely jammed and we couldn’t get in so we facetimed our family and friends to wish them all a Happy New Year.
So that brings me to the NY resolutions, have you guys made any or better yet stuck to them?
I try every year and push myself to do something rather than give up on loads, don’t get me wrong I am trying to eat slightly healthier and give up the sweeties but im not going to cut out every food group and drink nothing but water for the full month of January haha
Instead of giving up food groups why not try the below (I know it’s a fortnight late but im sure 99% of us have broken the resolutions we did make so why not give one of these a go)
- Give up negativity, Ain’t no body got time for that
- Give up people pleasing- Do you boo
- Give up being lazy – GTF up and at it
- Give up being so hard on yourself- Girls we all killin’ it, believe in yourself!
So just eat the damn pizza, smile and BE THE BEST VERSION OF YOU.
Also I just wanted to say, I have received loads of messages regarding people booking their one way flights! I have been trying my best to get back to each and every person, if you want to send me any questions you have I can screenshot them all and do a snap Q&A. Also, have a read at this blog post where I have probably covered 90% of the questions I am getting asked. It must be something about New Year that gets peoples butts in gear to get up and go because it was Christmas Day 2016 when Niall and I decided we would book Australia in the New Year. Actually, I was chatting to my family about it around the Christmas Dinner Table and my older brother laughed and put his hand out to make a bet i’d be sitting at the table this year because I wouldn’t move to OZ! Poor Conor’s pockets are slighter lighter now haha. I am so excited for you all planning your big move, don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something and if they do -just prove ’em wrong (isn’t that right Conor?! lol)
Well that’s definitely enough chat for today! I’m sure you are all sick of ‘and then I went, and then I did…’ haha sorry not sorry. I really like how chilled this blog post feels, it feels more like a little a random diary entry which I love! Let me know what you want to see me write about if there is anything in particular drop me a message, snap me, Facebook me whatever works for you. I’ll leave the social media handles below.
It feels super good to be back! HAPPY 2018!
Big love, GemKen x
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