travel pics – Page 3 – Darkk Horse Travel

Belfast, Northern Ireland: Part 1 – The Titanic Museum

Published on February 8, 2016August 28, 2016 by EmileeLeave a comment

Did you know that there are two Ireland’s? It may sound humorous, now (since I’m developing quite a reputation as Irish obsessed), but I had no idea of that fact when I first landed in the Northern one. During my first backpacking trip to Belfast, back in 2013, I made the terrible mistake of thinking Northern Ireland was just an extension of what is formally referred to as the Republic of Ireland. True story. Now thinking back, it’s pretty ridiculous given that you would think that I had learned about Northern Ireland’s history at some point in school. But either I didn’t, or I retained none of it.

Luckily, a rather tart bus driver was more than willing to educate me on the difference as he kicked me off his bus for trying to use the wrong currency (N. Ireland = Pounds not Euro). There’s nothing quite like learning firsthand from the locals.

That was then, this is now. And on our two week backpacking trip me and one of my friends decided to take a day tour up to Belfast to visit (what turned out to be) one of the most beautiful museums I’ve ever been to. I didn’t get a picture of the outside of the museum but you can see, thanks to the interwebs, what it looks like, above. It’s absolutely immense, and you go through each level learning about a different aspect of the Titanic – from concept to construction to catastrophe. If you’re ever in Belfast I CANNOT recommend the museum enough – it was breathtaking.

In addition to sponging up as much information as possible, the overall bus tour itself was also great (despite the weather, which we’ll talk about in Part II). I’ve done three tours, now, with WildRover tours, and I’ve loved every single one. It really is one of the best ways to learn about the history of Ireland while seeing the countryside. Here are some of my favorite pics from this part of the trip!

Dublin, Ireland: Part 2 – City Life

Published on January 31, 2016March 26, 2016 by EmileeLeave a comment

While I was living in France I visited Ireland a lot. It was a cheap getaway, at about 30 euro a pop, and I loved being able to see my favorite country so often. On my last trip to Dublin, before I moved back to the U.S. I remember thinking, “This city would be so beautiful to see around the Christmas holidays.” And I was right. I didn’t quite get there in time for Christmas, but I did get to Dublin for the next best thing – New Years Eve.

After spending a couple nights solo, my travel companions joined me in my favorite city and we had some fun traipsing around the city, visiting the National Gallery, walking around Trinity College trying to (unsuccessfully) find the Oscar Wilde museum, and eating some damn good food at 300 hundred year old pubs. All in all, there were definitely still things that were on my list, that didn’t get done – but I guess that just means I have to do it next time!

New Years Eve, itself, was spent working (one of the beauties of having a job that is remote) and finally making our way over to Temple Bar ( a pretty touristy, but none the less charming part of Dublin where a plethora of bars and pubs are located), to hang out in one of the pubs. The thing about Dublin, I’ve learned, is that it’s not where you are in the city, it’s who you know. And luckily I know some pretty amazing people from the area, so we had a great time.

Also, can we talk about the holiday decorations in Ireland!? Talk about beauty. The best part about going late, is that people don’t rip down their Christmas decorations the second Christmas is over – the 12 days of Christmas don’t end until January 6th, so the Christmas spirit is alive and well, and the pubs are decked out like something out of a Charles Dickens story.

Something I noticed from the past times that I’ve been in Dublin has been that I never take pictures just of the city. Which is crazy. So, this time, I tried to take a few just of the everyday, walking around, scopes – here are some of my favorite pics from this part of our journey!

Edinburgh, Scotland: 1.5 Days Of Chilly Beauty

Published on January 17, 2016June 14, 2016 by Emilee2 Comments

Our lovely hostel is in the bottom left hand corner of this picture .

For those of you who have been following along, you’ll know that I was on a backpacking trip from Dec 24th – Jan 4th. I was traveling with two friends, on and off throughout the trip, and I we travelled two four cities along the way. While this wasn’t my first trip around the UK/Ireland, I wanted to make sure to hit some new places, so we went to Edinburgh, Scotland (I had stayed in Glasgow before) and we visited the adorable town of Stratford-upon-Avon. I didn’t have much time to post on the blog while we were traveling, so I’ll fill you all in on what happened in the upcoming weeks.

Our first stop (after me sleeping in Heathrow on Christmas night with my Elf on the Shelf) was
Edinburgh. We took a Megabus up to Edinburgh because the UK takes Boxing Day very serious, and decided to close down all public transportation to prove the point. So, instead of being able to take a train up to Scotland, we hopped on a bus. Little did we know, the floods had cut off many of the routes that the buses usually used to get around, so the initial 9 hour trip ended up taking about 11 hours.

BUT, when we finally did make it to our final destination, we found our Australian filled hostel, more than welcoming and headed out to that night’s Pub Crawl. While usually I wouldn’t go out after sleeping in an airport, riding buses for over 12 hours total and being jet-lagged, I’m so glad we did because we had a great time hanging out with some Scots, and going to (without a doubt) the worst club in Scotland.
After a 10 hour exhaustion induced slumber, I was up and ready to go at the bright and early time of 11am. Thankful that my hostel didn’t charge me for checking out late, and even more thankful that they showed me the best spots for me to visit, I joined one of my friends on a walking tour and we galavanted around the hilly city of Edinburgh.

Our walking tour was more than a little bit entertaining, filled with Scottish anecdotes and history lessons, such as where the term “shit faced” comes from (referencing a saying doesn’t count as swearing, mom). We also got to see the grave site of the infamous “Greyfriars Bobby” which, you may know about if you’ve spent time watching the vintage Disney film, or are obsessed with stories about loyal little dogs, (both of which my mother is) which is why I was one of the few people in our tour to recognize the reference of it.

The trip ended by a trip to the National gallery and a walk around the Christmas markets, and Edinburgh at night (which is a holiday scene you don’t want to miss out on!). A quick pop back to the hostel (luckily, Edinburgh has most of it’s main attractions within a pretty condensed area) to grab my pack, and it was off to the airport – next stop, Ireland.

Oh! And did I mention that our hostel was right next to a CASTLE!?

Visiting the cafe where J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter!

The graveyard where the real Tom Riddle (amongst other characters from Harry Potter) were buried.

The history of the phrase “Shit faced” comes from Edinburgh. Apparently early in the morning, when pubs closed and men were stumbling homes, households would dispose of their chamber pots for the day (it was illegal to throw out your windows…but only if you got caught) and the unfortunate drunks were unable to (often) get out of the way – resulting in them, quite literally, getting “shit faced.”

When Life Pelts You With Lemons…

Published on December 7, 2015January 28, 2016 by EmileeLeave a comment

I won’t apologize this time, for the weeks I’ve been silent on my blog. Mainly because life has been serving me a platter of lemons, which I’ve had to skillfully squeeze and mix into some very spontaneous lemonade. To make a long story short, I got laid off from my job a couple of weeks ago and it was extremely abrupt and unexpected. The result was buckling down into “go mode” and starting to figure out how I would pay my tribute to the student loan gods (among other bills etc.).

I’m very happy to say that things have worked out well enough that my bills are covered, and although there is a pay cut involved with now supporting myself – I am considerably happier in my new job and more inspired to create, write and wake up in the morning.

So, what else have I been up to?

Well we relaunched our beautiful website The Exploress, which was a lot of collaboration and a lot of hard work – but we did it! I’m so proud of my beautiful team of writers and photographers and I absolutely love being able to work alongside them to tell their stories of travel and adventures.

And speaking of adventures – in just a couple of weeks, I’ll be headed out on my very own (with two of my best friends!) backpacking adventure around England, Ireland and Scotland. I’m so happy I could cry. Our itinerary consists of four stops, at the moment. We’ll be starting out in London, jumping on a bus up to Edinburgh (no trains – thanks boxing day), flying over to Dublin and then flying over to Stratford Upon Avon (where Shakespeare is buried!).

This trip is coming at the perfect time, and I’m so happy for it to be a bit of respite from my American life. It has been kind of hard to get back in the swing of fast-paced crazy U.S. life, but I’m doing my best and overall I’d say I’m pretty happy with where I’m at, right now.

I’ve started a new job, which is remote, so I’m working today from a beautiful coffee shop near my house. I’m working on social media and marketing with them – which is a bit of a dream come true, because I get to write and come up with marketing schemes. I love being able to take both branches of work and really dedicate myself to the overall mission of the company.

Oh! And I do have a couple of upcoming trips, apart from my UK one, that I’m really excited about:

I recently took a road trip to the Olympic peninsula and that was both beautiful and balming for my soul. You can see some of those lovely pictures below. And NEXT weekend I’m taking a snowy adventure to Leavenworth! I’m so excited for so much beautiful snowy goodness.

Oh! And I’ll be headed over to San Francisco, for a week, in January! So really the whole travel life style is working beautifully, at the moment. The thing I’ve learned about travel is that if you make it a priority (and better, if people know you’re the type to jump at the opportunity), the adventures will come to you. I promise to keep up more on the blog, since the storm seems to have calmed for the moment *knock on wood*. Especially while I’m backpacking – I plan on smothering you all with stories and whimsy about my adventures.

You Can Call Me A Seattleite

Published on June 15, 2015June 28, 2015 by EmileeLeave a comment

Well, it has been far too long since I wrote a blog post, but mostly that’s because I’ve felt like I was becoming the walking dead, and not the cool Game Of Thrones kind. Switching countries always sounds much easier than it generally is. Switching continents adds a whole new level of crazy to the mix.

Today is the first time that I feel semi-conscious, so I think I should update all of you lovelies on what has been going on in my life.

On June 8th I hopped aboard a plane, leaving my house at 5am, because apparently that’s the only time frame I can ever seem to find flights. I was pretty happy to have a smooth trip from the house to the airport, but that ended quickly when I got a 113 euro charge for having to check my “over-weight” carry on. The problem with moving, though, is that you reach a point when if you get rid of anything else you’re going to start losing things you actually care about. So, I took the penalty and climbed aboard with Iceland Air.

I’ve never flown Iceland Air before, but I would definitely recommend it. The staff was great…although I might just have been overly happy to speak English to people. I ended up having a 9 hour layover in Reykjavik, which actually is a completely gorgeous (if completely empty) airport. And then it was off to Seattle. The movie selection on the plane was limited so I ended up watching Shawshank Redemption and Titanic, neither of which I’ve seen before. The first movie made me want to stand up and cheer, the second made me want to punch the back of seat where it was playing. How was Titanic ever considered a “brilliant” love story/movie? I mean, come on.

Anyway. I flew into Seattle on a beautiful 80 degree (FAHRENHEIT!!!) day that was clear and perfect and allowed me to see the mountains as I came in. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see a landscape in my life. After a boring routine through security, I was off to my friends house, which I would love to tell you all about if I remembered anything other than falling asleep and waking up the next day and falling asleep and waking up the next day… until the last few days. Jet lag is rough.

But here I am, now! I’m officially a Seattle resident, again and despite there being more bumps in the road than I could have ever anticipated, I know that I am back where I belong.

This is also the part of this story where I tear up and tell you all how amazing my friends have been over this whole process. I literally don’t know what I would have done without them – there is no way I would be happy, healthy or housed. So thank you to each of you darlings who have supported and loved me on a level that has been so much more than I could have ever imagined, expected or deserved. Thank you for being my family when others have fallen short and for building me up when I’ve fallen down. Someday I hope I can repay you darlings for everything you have done. *cue tissues*

Pere Lachaise Cemetary

Published on June 7, 2015June 7, 2015 by Emilee1 Comment

As a sort of “last adventure” I decided to go visit the Pere Lachaise Cemetery yesterday. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the cemetery, it’s absolutely beautiful and known for having the graves of celebrities such as Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde, Balzac, Moliere and Delacroix. But what really too my breath away were the tombs of people who I had no idea who they were. There were some absolutely beautiful sculptures and a serious lack of weeping angels. But overall I spent a good 3 hours there and it was absolutely beautiful.