Back home

Well I'm back in the UK and settled, well.. Sort of.

It's been great to catch up with my parents, family and my mates and now I plan on having fun and working throughout the summer before I start Uni.

This gap experience will be something that I will never forget, it has changed me, and changed my outlook on life and has given me more drive than ever to get out there and see the world while I can.

I don't feel like I live in little England anymore, I feel like I'm a citizen of the world and I want to continue travelling and go to as many beautiful places as I can.

Travelling in Hong Kong, New Zealand, the west coast of the USA and Canada was spectacular.  One of the highlights of my trip has to be seeing the sun rise over the pacific ocean in Kaikoura, that is an event that will stay with me forever.  

Working in California with the USGS has also been a hugely eye opening experience, I learnt a lot about GIS, and created my own Field assessment for the April 1st Iquique earthquake which will be used by seismologists and scientists in the future to compare with future northern Chilean earthquakes.

To anyone reading this who is considering taking a gap year or wanting to go travelling, I say do it!  

Get out there and see the world.  We live on a hugely unordered and beautiful planet, filled with scenery that can stir your emotions and a variety of good and interesting people.  Anyone can do it, and once you've done it you will have changed for the better and will have created a lot of good memories too.

Here are a few of my favourite quotes about travelling.  I read these before I left the UK in november, and have to say they are very accurate.

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness," - Mark Twain

"Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves," - Henry David Thoreau 

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes," - Marcel Proust

I'd just like to thank the Royal Geographical Society for my gap year scholarship and all of the support they gave me.  I would also like to thank the Lloyds trust, Darwen Rotary club, Darwen Lions, the Darwen Masonic lodge and the Duchy of Lancaster Benevolent fund for all of their very generous donations to my gap year fund.  You have all helped me to have the year of my life and experience new places and to meet so many new and amazing friends, thank you all so much.

Reunited with my dad, brother, sister and step mother (who is taking the photo)

Mum was happy to see me again

With my main bitch

With my mates again

New York day 3 pics

Anybody remember this store from a well known film?

No idea what he was doing at all

The photos really don't do the park any justice, but it really was stunning.

New York day 3

Yesterday my main aim was to see times square and to go and see central park.

After walking 6 blocks in the wrong direction (face palm) I eventually went in the right direction towards times square, when I got there I walked around for a bit and sorry to seem pessimistic but was incredibly disappointed.  It had a vibrant atmosphere which I enjoyed, but basically it's a huge flashy advert for capitalism.  The streets were dirty and potholes and puddles covered the sides of the roads, homeless people wandered through the crowds asking for change (which was quite tragic) and the smell of car exhaust fumes and the sewers filled the air.

Anyway after that I walked to Central park and basically wandered around for 3 hours stopping to read every now and again.  There isn't much to do in central park but it is a very beautiful and spacious place, it is filled with people playing games and sports, children on field trips, and of course foreign tourists such as myself taking pictures of everything in sight.

New York day 2 pics

Subway tunnel

Bit blurry but its better than no picture at all

Lady Liberty

Me with Manhattan in the background

Me with the Statue of Liberty

Wall st

Brooklyn bridge

New York day 2

Today I got into Manhattan early at around 9ish and used the subway to get to Southferry where I caught the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis island.

My first time using the subway was very straightforward and well overall hastle free to be honest, I had a good subway route map on the touristy map of manhattan that I got from the tourism kiosk which told me where to go and when.  It was a lot less stressful than the tube in London, there aren't crowds of incredibly stressed out and anxious looking people running about as if the world is going to end, however it was absolutely roasting!  

When I got on the ferry to the Statue of Liberty is was dangerously crowded, this isn't an exaggeration, there were rows and rows of people on the ferry, some elderly people and women ended up having to stand up the whole journey and the rocking currents of the Hudson river estuary made it a lot worse.

Luckily I didn't get seasick and I made it safely to the Statue of Liberty.  

After having a look around the statue and trying to avoid all of the crowds I caught the next ferry to Ellis island,  just about a mile north of the Statue of Liberty.  Ellis island, in upper New York bay was the gateway for millions of immigrants to the USA as the nation's busiest immigrant inspection station from 1892 until 1954.  

Over 100 million US citizens can trace their ancestry back to this small island which I find incredible.  The main building is home to the Ellis island museum which highlights how the USA was built and formed by migrants from all over the world, it was interesting to look at the diaries and entries of Britons and Irish people who had moved to the US for various reasons.  It was a strange feeling standing in the registry room just thinking that the ancestors of a 100 million  people had stood here and had their names written down.

Afterwards I went to the financial capital of the universe - wallstreet 

I then walked the Brooklyn bridge and back across the Manhattan bridge before catching the train back to Long Island.

New York day 1 pics

Not the best angle but it just emphasises how huge it really is

Its like being in a maize sometimes

The new towers

The 911 fountain memorial

Not an incredibly good view of the UN building, but to get a good frontal image I would have had to cross the bridge which would have taken half an hour.

New York day 1

Today I decided to walk around Manhattan instead of using the subway, saved me a bit of cash but also allowed me to actually see the normal neighbourhoods and areas of downtown Manhattan.

I started at Penn station and made my way to the Empire State building where I bought a ticket to go up to the top.

The inside of the tower is very fancy, glossy and well strange but I liked it, the views from the top of the tower presented 360 degree views of New York city, the sky was spectacularly clear too so I could see far out into the ocean and even get a glimpse of lady liberty, but she was too far off.

After that I wandered the streets until I found the Ground Zero 911 memorial.  It was a very strange experience for me because one of my first memories (unfortunately) was watching the telly and seeing the towers fall down, actually standing on the spot where that awful terrorist attack took place made my hairs stand on their ends, the atmosphere at the memorial was very eerie but I couldnt help notice the amount of people having happy smiley pictures in front of it as if it was some huge tourist attraction.  

To me it is a national monument, commemerating the lives of 3000 innocent people murdered by Islamic extreemists, making out like its some big tacky tourist attraction seems disrespectful to me, but maybe im being a bit too serious.  Nevermind.

After that I chilled at battery park until I decided to walk up the east side of Manhattan to see the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges before going to see the United Nations building.