My 2016

Another year done and dusted!
2016 has been a massive roller coaster for everyone.
Don't deny it.
We took 2016 and made some majorly bad political decisions.

Actors, singers and great people died.
David Bowie died after an 18-month battle with cancer Jan. 10. He was 69.
Alan Rickman died Jan. 14 from cancer. He was 69
To Kill A Mockingbird” author Harper Lee died in her sleep Feb. 19 at the age of 89

There are many many more to be put on the list but this is going to be about my 2016.

January

I was offered my first job as an English teacher and they let me g two weeks later because they wanted someone experienced even though they knew I had 0 experience but weren't willing to train me because it was too costly.

February

I baked amazing muffins

My grandparents came to visit and we went for a meal in a restaurant / hotel

It rained.

It's carnaval! The perfect excuse for me to put a onesie on and wonder around town knowing im not going to look a complete weirdo.

March

By this time I was working as a volunteer in a School and a babysitter to four sisters (ages 3-12) and apparently 1% fluent in Italian

My best friend came to visit for two weeks, we hadn't seen each other in 4 years

Started to get slightly interested in makeup.

April

I started using up the bath bombs I'd bought the year before on my trip to London

Went to the beach

 mmmmmm...

 Took a lot of selfies

My best friend came back and she stayed a little longer this time so we decided to go explore the island a bit.

(It's a dessert island so we found lots of sand)

May

May was the month I tried to go vegan, I lasted for about nearly three weeks until I could not resist the temptation of a Sunday Roast any longer.

I decided to do a lot of walking

Used Snapchat for a while

Went on long romantic walks with my dog only to discover a scrapyard 

Tried and failed to make home made pizza

Did some more island exploring

 Ended the month by stalking a stranger that looked hot

June

By June I had been offered and accepted a job as an English teacher on another island, I was to start in September.

But at the very begging of the month, before deciding on the job I was also trying to decide whether or not if I should instead go to Australia to be an Au pair or to the UK to be an English teacher.

I decided to accept the English teaching ob, not in the UK but in Gran Canaria, the island next door.

Therefor if anything went wrong I wouldn't be far from home.

So what did I do in June apart from interviews?

 Go to the beach

 Tried new things strawberry fizzy drink with licorice

 Took some photos of a bike ride

Passed the camera onto my returned best friend (shes a very skilled photographer as you can see)

July

By July I'd been blogging for a year, so I decided to take my family on holiday.

 Lots of food to be eaten.

 We went to Scotland

 My brother was also due to move away in September to start uni

 We got invited to watch a premier of a film my dad was featured in.

Stayed at a hotel for a night

Yumm

 Bought a new phone

August

 More beach!

Apartment hunting!

Found one...

time to celebrate!

September

Time to make my move!

Time to start my new life as an English teacher oh the joy!

October

By October I'd started to settle in, thought I'd be celebrating my birthday all alone for the first time ever but I didn't.

Went out for a birthday meal with friends I'd made at work

Then we had the clown epidemic

Aaand back to work

In November I spent the days...

Eating and..

And...

And...

Then saying ''Look how much weight I've lost!''

Started going out with friends I'd made at work

December

Had a few days off work at the beginning of the month so I decided to go and see my dad, we went to a market.

Didn't realize how much I'd missed Sunday roasts

Flew back

Went to a fair

Went out with friends

Had my first business dinner

Did the Xmas shopping

Flew back to spend Xmas with the family

Happy new year!

Shampoo appreciation post

Hello again!

Long time no see huh? You may or may not know that since the end of august I have been living solo, working and sleeping, so the first month I bought all the basics. 

By basics I mean basics, all the cheapest versions of everything, even shampoo.

After two months of living solo my friend came over to see me,I had a shower and that was when she saw my hair.

I have long straight hair,and it tends to get knotty often but when i came out of the shower my friend offered to brush it. She immediately asked what kind of godforsaken shampoo had I been using, ''the supermarket brand one'' apparently I was going to lose all my hair if I continued using it because it was damaging my hair so much. So before she started to give me a headache I gave her some money and told her she could go out and buy some good shampoo if it was that important ( I was in a towel and did not fancy going out).

 She came back with TRESemmé shampoo and conditioner and gave me my change and said to use it immediately, so I did.
It was sooooo much easier to brush through and felt so nice once it was dried. A couple of days later I washed my hair again and remembered I also had some L'OREAL Extrodinary Clay shampoo and conditioner so I tried those aswell as the TRESemmé shampoo and conditioner and my hair felt and smelt amaaaaaazing.

I know this is a rubbish ranty post about shampoo, of all the things to write about I chose shampoo.
But I feel like I've just discovered something amazing and I wanted to let people know that sometimes spending a little more and not always going for the cheapest option is the best option.

Making friends as an adult- Huggle app

Who remembers the days when we could just run up to somebody and say ''tag you're it!'' and you'd instantly be friends chasing after each other, playing games, causing havoc wherever you went with each other?

I do.

Making friends as an adult isn't that easy, as an adult we can probably count how many friends we have on one hand.
In preschool, or kindergarten or whatever you want to call it, I was making new friends everyday.
As I got older I, and I think all of us must do this at some point, I started to distance myself from certain people or my friends had to move abroad and we lost contact.

Now I'm going to be moving, not abroad but still, to a place where I only know one person.

I've been offered to try a new app that should make it easier to meet new people, and being as shy and antisocial as I am, I appreciate the help or the push to be introduced to new people. (Plus, social media is becoming more and more of a way of life, a way of socializing)

Starting Tuesday I'm going to be using the app to see if it really works and report back on my results. In the meantime I'm going to tell you a little bit about the app itself.

The app isn't intended for dating, (like most meeting or social apps that are advertised do), Huggle is intended for you to be able to make new friends or meet new people through the places you visit throughout each day.

I need all the socialization (help!) I can get because I am going to feel very lost,living in a city ,on my own , for the first time ever, and as I said before I only know one person in this big big place. (It might not seem big to some people but it does to me) Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

• How does it work?

1. Click on the app and the loading screen appears, it doesn't take long to load which impressed me because many times I have spent more than 3 minutes staring at a loading screen.

2. Next step, logging in to as much social media as possible. 

The app needs to access your videos and photos and location.

3. Once you've turned on your location, you will get notifications from the app,asking you if you were at any of these places,and showing you other people that were or are at this exact place.

 

4. You can access their profile (I've decided to show you mine because I don't want to get in trouble for sharing a strangers profile). The profile will be able to tell you what age the person is,the place in common that you have,their current location, and the languages they speak and there's even a little about me section if they decide to fill it in. You can either decide to send this person a wink or a message.

I have already connected with another blogger! Although the place that we have in common is in the island I've just moved away from haha.

Throughout the course of two weeks or so, I've tried to connect with other bloggers but he is the only one that has replied, and even then it was a brief conversation of hello and how are you.

Overall, I think I'm going to struggle with this app but I will try and persevere, the good thing about it is that it makes you more aware of your surroundings, asking if you were at a certain place at a certain date and time.
If you're in a new place, like myself, this helps because you start to remember the names of bars and restaurants etc and it makes you more aware of your surroundings.

I'm going to keep using this app and see if I manage to lose my shyness.
Do you think I will be able to loosen up with people?
Leave a comment!

Until then I bid you farewell my lovelies!