My 2015 - goodbye illness, hello plans!

2015 New Years resolution: to spend at least one weekend a month somewhere other than the Fens!

So, 2015 was an important year for me, mainly because it marked 5 years since I first came down with a nasty virus that didn't seem to go away. No matter how long I spent sleeping, I always felt completely drained and my body constantly ached. I caught every cold and bug imaginable and it became the norm to sleep for weeks on end. It was hard because no one understood or could explain what was happening to me. I'd always been energetic and a fairly bright student but suddenly I couldn't even concentrate on my school work anymore. My social life diminished and my attendance dropped so low because I physically couldn't get myself up and ready everyday.

After an array of tests and appointments, I was finally diagnosed with three conditions - Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (also known as M.E.), Lupus and Hashimoto's thyroid disease. The virus had left me with my immune system struggling and basically attacking itself. Although 2 of the conditions improved over time with medication, CFS was a struggle to manage over the next few years. The hardest thing is that people don't always understand how debilitating it actually is because you look normal on the outside. For every good day, it's usually followed by several weeks of bad days.

The only plus side of being diagnosed with CFS at a younger age is that teenagers are typically more likely to make a full recovery than adults are. Over the next few years I worked hard with my doctor and a specialist nurse to follow structured programmes to help build my stamina back up. Some people may never improve. For the first year or so I felt like I was still continuously deteriorating. I struggled through my GCSE's and prom. However, slowly but surely my symptoms started to improve and eventually stabilised a bit. I was able to study Events Management & Marketing, got a part time job, got a golden retriever and passed my driving test. By September 2013 things seemed to be going relatively good so I pursued my passion for marketing and began my career with Cross Keys Homes.

CFS will always be there in the background and sometimes things get too much and I have to take some time out but I decided that my New Years resolution for 2015 would be to see more of the world, including my own country. I set myself a goal to spend at least one weekend a month somewhere other than the Fens.

So, how did I get on? Below you can find my main highlights of 2015. 

January

Any hopes for a dry January will always be ruined by January 22nd because it's one of my best friends' birthdays! This year we ventured to Leeds for Kate's birthday weekend. To summarise, 6 girls with just 1 double bed is a recipe for disaster.

February

At the start of February we decided to head to Nottingham for a night out and met up with our friend Heather. We also had our first Nando's of the year! 

On February 28th Ryan and I made our way down to Sheraton Skyline for a night in London before our flight to New York (yay). The cocktails in the Sky Garden really are something else!

March

After 20 years of waiting I finally made it to New York City! We froze to death in the snow, shopped 'til we dropped and gobbled as much food as we possibly could. I got to see some of the worlds most famous sights such as Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building and the World Trade Centre. I'm not very good at showing emotion or crying, but the first morning in Times Square reduced me to happy tears! I thought I'd stop being as obsessive once I'd visited but our trip has only made me worse. (click here to view the blog post)

April

Most of April was spent with my friends as everyone was home from uni! We spent some time in our home town and nearby city Peterborough. 

Ryan and I took full advantage of the early Spring sunshine and went on our annual trip to Alton Towers and then had date night at Frankie and Benny's. 

May

May was fun and there were 2 bank holiday weekends too, yay!

In my opinion, S Club 7 have been the coolest band around since I was a kid so we booked tickets for the tour in Nottingham and made a weekend of it. We spent the day at TGI Friday's, moved on to Turtle Bay for 2-4-1 cocktails and then relived our childhoods. When it finished we went to Baa Bar for some smoking drinks and then into the city for the night. We went for lunch at Wildwood the next day before before heading back home. 

There's nothing like leaving plans until the last minute and 2 days before Radio 1 Big Weekend in Norwich we still hadn't got an outfit or anywhere to stay - organisation at it's best. Nevertheless we had so much fun!

June

Time for some holiday shopping with my mum! We had to re-arrange twice as we were both ill but we eventually made it to Leicester.

Ryan and I returned to Corfu for the third time, this year accompanied by mother Howlett and the Johnson's! (click here to view the blog post)

July

Norwich time! We went to Chiquito's for lunch, TGI's for seconds and cocktails and the rest of the sunny day drinking on the Riverside before heading out into the city that evening.

Me and Ryan celebrated our 3rd anniversary and his 22nd birthday in Amsterdam. We had some struggles navigating the transport system on our arrival - it was a nice cold, dark, wet walk. It rained, and rained, and rained some more whilst we were there. (click here to view the blog post)

One of the downsides of being ill was that it completely ruined my front teeth and left them weak. I'd previously had them rebuilt by an NHS hospital but they were ugly. I finally spent some of my savings and got some veneers fitted to the front 4! Now I can't wait to have the bottom ones done in a few years time. (click here to view the blog post)

August

After last years fun in Ibiza we thought we'd mix it up a bit and go to Ayia Napa in Cyprus this year. We had fun in the sunshine and also managed to tick Nissi Beach off my sightseeing list. I survived tonsillitis before, during and after the holiday and after 2 lots of antibiotics I finally started to feel a bit better!

We went to the cutest wedding at Brook Farm in Cuffley, Herts. It was also our first together!

To celebrate Louise's birthday we ate on the Riverside in Cambridge and spent the rest of the day drinking cocktails.

Me and Ryan spent date day/night at the beach.

September

For Tegan's birthday we had a BBQ, went to Peterborough for the night which isn't far but FLARES IS FUN and then we all ended up having a massive sleepover!

October

We finally ventured up to Sheffield to visit Hannah at uni for a few days. We did some shopping, had cocktails, year six food (aka pizza and curly fries) and two nights out.

For Halloween we decided to visit Aimee at uni in Hatfield for the first time. We met all of her friends, had some drinks and went a meal at Prezzo's.

November

With Christmas upon us, we didn't really get chance to venture too far away as we were really busy. Christmas shopping in Cambridge is my idea of hell but Ryan did finally take me to Smokeworks which was delicious.

We also dedicated another date night to one of our favourite places, Arbuckles.

Me, Jamie and Alice went to our work Christmas party at the Peterborough Marriott Hotel and had fun in the photo booth!

December

I had so many good plans for December but due to some unexpected circumstances I had to cancel quite a few of them which is a shame, but hey ho, hopefully I'll make up for them in 2016.

For my birthday me and Ryan stayed at H10 London Waterloo Again (click here to view the blog post) and had such nice views over the city. We ate at Bodean's BBQ, H10's amazing breakfast and Shake Shack whilst we were there and drinks at London Cocktail Club - yum! We walked along Tower Bridge, shopped during the day and spent the evening in Covent Garden.

As Aimee lives in Hatfield which is so close to London we decided to pay her another visit for a few days before the end of the year to tie in with our visit to Winter Wonderland. It's so pretty at night when it's all lit up! We booked tickets for Bar Ice and the cocktails were good but it was freezing.

Over Christmas I mainly spent time at home with my family and friends, but we did take Poppy to the beach for a cold walkies.

Hopefully 2016 will bring more plans! Happy New Year everybody! x

My first trip to New York City!

For as long as I can remember I have spent way too much time obsessing over New York and forcing everyone I know to watch Home Alone 2 on repeat over the festive period. After several years of persistent begging and not-so-subtle hints at my boyfriend he finally cracked and let me book our first trip to the Big Apple. 

Booking

We had initially intended on visiting for a couple of nights between Christmas and New Year, but after researching prices we decided to book a little later in the year as we could get a longer trip for less money. Generally, the cheapest time to visit New York is between January and March as the weather is quite chilly. 

I spent a couple of months pricing up both DIY and package deals and found the packages were coming out a lot cheaper, but prices literally changed daily and hiked up every weekend. If you have the patience to wait I'd suggest setting yourself a realistic budget and when you think you've found a good deal, BOOK IT! In the end we opted to book a 6 day package with Expedia for £650 each. Our flights were direct from London Heathrow to JFK and we stayed at Yotel which is just off of Times Square and had great reviews on Tripadvisor. By watching the prices I managed to save us over £600. My top tips for getting the best deal are as follows:

• Try to be as flexible as possible with your dates. If you are able to travel on a day where the flights are less popular and not as many seats have been booked, the chances are that prices will be lower to encourage more people to buy. This can work particularly well if you're booking quite late because airlines will be trying to shift seats quickly. 
• Compare package deals with DIY as it doesn't always work out cheaper to book a package. Take advantage of any cashback or discount codes. I use Quidco for most things and got £49 cashback on this package booking with Expedia. 
• Try to book as early as possible as prices do tend to go up throughout the year. However, with that said, you can often get a good price booking late if airlines haven't sold many seats but you do run the risk of not getting the flight or hotel you wanted.
• Watch out for any additional costs such as luggage as this can get pricey, especially if you book with a low cost airline. British Airways appeared more expensive than some of their competitors but when factoring in hand bag, hand luggage suitcase, 23kg's of hold luggage, food and unlimited drinks (including alcohol) they were easily the best value for money. Remember to read the small print and beware of any additional service charges or taxes that may be payable when you arrive at your hotel as they can soon add up and make a good deal not so great. 
• Watch the prices and try to book midweek. Prices seem to inflate over the weekend. I watched them over a couple of months and found late Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning around the middle of the month where when the packages seemed to be coming up cheapest.

To save ourselves the stress of driving down to Heathrow in a hurry on the day of our flight we decided to book a hotel and airport parking deal with Holiday Extras. For £99 we got 7 nights parking (including transfers to Terminal 5) and one nights stay at Sheraton Skyline. I put it through Quidco and got £14 cashback. When we arrived we found out we had been added to the preferred guest programme which meant we didn't have to pay for the hotel parking that night (usually £15 a night for guests) and also didn't have to pay for the high speed wifi. 

Planning and top tips

I am one of those irritating people that has to plan everything right down to the very minute. Before I went to New York everyone told me to have a rough idea of what I wanted to do but to go with the flow. I found the following tools so useful for planning my trip:

• Countdown+ app is first on my list because it's exciting to count down the days until your trip!!! It was also way easier than replacing my post it note on my desk each morning. 
• Tripadvisor. It's a bit of an obvious one, but it's so easy to filter through thousands of attractions and restaurants. I picked most of the places we ate by searching within the location and sifting through the reviews, menus and cuisines. When looking for a hotel Tripadvisor is my number one 'go-to' website as the search and ratings features are ideal when there are so many choices. 
• 'NYC The place to be' Facebook group. The page has a number of both friendly first time and experienced travellers sharing their tips. I found this particularly useful for restaurant recommendations and grouping attractions together. Seeing other peoples posts and photos made me really excited.  
• NYC mtrip app was easy to use and allows you to plan your own itinerary or the app can create one for you based on your preferences. I used this app for the whole trip to keep us on track and plan out each day. It's a bit easier than a paper itinerary as you can make amendments quickly and it's always easily accessible on your smart phone. The best feature is the offline maps and directions.
• New York Subway MTA Map and Route Planner was a life saver. I have an awful sense of direction and struggled to get my head around the system. We purchased a 7 day subway pass for $30 dollars and used the app for every journey. It saved us a fortune in taxi's and you can find subways based on attractions too. 
• Reading other blogs and webpages on itinerary's. It's always useful to see what others have done and compare. 
• We purchased the New York Pass before travelling which had an app, a guide book and lots of details about the attractions. Price up the attractions you want to do and then compare this to the price of paying for everything individually. For us it made sense to get the 5 day pass as they had $30 discount per person at the time of booking and we wanted to do quite a bit whilst we were there. There are several different passes out there but this one worked best for us. 
• Invest in a MetroCard as soon as you arrive. For $30 dollars you can get a 7 day pass which saves you a fortune in taxi fares and it's nice to get out of the snow for 5 minutes. 
• Try to group together your attractions to save you time, and also pick your times wisely to avoid queues. We chose to visit Top of the Rock late afternoon/sunset and Empire State Building late at night. The views from both were amazing and we didn't have to queue at all.  
• Pick your footwear carefully. I took UGG's and Adidas Superstars which were both absolutely soaked through by the end of our first day. The snow was really heavy and there were massive puddles on the sidewalks which are a bit of a nightmare. On the second day I invested in some Timberlands ($99 + tax at Woodbury Common Premium Shopping Outlet) which I lived in for the duration of our stay as they were waterproof but also ridiculously comfy.
• Save yourself worrying about carrying around large wads of cash by getting a pre-paid card. I got one through Travelex with a really good exchange rate ($1.51 to £1) and they are so easy to use. It's basically a debit card and you can use it for free withdrawals and also manage your recent transactions. It's easy to convert leftover money back to another currency. Be careful when deciding what card to take out as some charge hefty fees for withdrawals. I used Money Saving Expert to compare products. I got good cashback on my travel money too. 

Itinerary

Day 0

We drove down to Sheraton Skyline hotel. We stayed in a classic room and were pleasantly surprised at how spacious and sophisticated it was. They have 'Sweet Sleeper' beds which are ridiculously comfy, an arm-chair and table, desk with high speed wired internet, 32 inch TV and a modern bathroom with bath. It was great value for money. Unfortunately we forgot our swimming clothes so we couldn't use the indoor heated pool, but we instead enjoyed cocktails in the Sky Bar. There are a number of restaurants and a Starbuck's on site which is really handy. 

Day 1