United Kingdom

Good evening good evening fine people!

And so my adventure has ended, and I'm back in London town.. Slowly falling back to ground, slowly realising the new reality I'm part of, and slowly letting my other reality to become a memory rather than a life.
I'm quite sad to be back because I really really enjoyed my time in Auckland. I enjoyed my work and I loved the people and relationships that I built up over the past 3 months. In saying that, I am glad to be back in London because I'm excited and determined to get back into my studies - I've never been so determined actually!

My last week was spent mostly with Cameron in Pukekohe - meeting the last few folk of his family that I hadn't met previously - that was really lovely. I had my first farewell dinner on Wednesday with the friends I met through Cam. We went for Italian and had a really great night. Thursday I had my last day at St Dom's school with the girls, Thursday evening I went out for Thai as my farewell with Hannah and Leon, the lovely couple I was lucky enough to live with for the duration of my trip. On Friday I spent part of the day having staff training on Mary, then ran some errands and had lunch with my good friend Jo. Friday night was my Logos farewell and about 17 people came out. We had a massive Chinese meal, and then went for drinks at a pub across the street. We had the room upstairs for a time, and we all gathered in a circle, and everyone took the time to give a little speech about me. It was very very sad and emotional, with so many beautiful and surprising things said to me. A couple of friends even played guitar and sang me a song.. Then they gave me my gifts - one being a new hoody with the brand new Logos logo embroidered on it - I couldn't believe it, I was the very first person to have anything with the new Logo on it! Then there was the proper goodbyes, and that too was very emotional. Cam and I drove back to Pukekohe all packed up, and Saturday was his mum's bday, so we took her out for lunch and just had a lovely day together. Cam and I drove up to Auckland for 5pm Vigil Mass, and then drove to say one last goodbye to his nana. Then we drove to the airport early enough for some dinner and have a proper goodbye without being rushed.....

All very emotional, but here's some photos from the last few days:

Me and Jo with the Logos sign (that will soon be the old Logos sign)

Maps, me, Cam and Tom at my Chinese farewell

Cam went to the toilet in the airport, and came back in a kilt!

Our last wee photo together

My last day with most of the Logos crew

And so, this marks the end of my New Zealand 2009 Travel Blog. No doubt there will be another opportunity to use this blog in the future, but in the mean time, I want to thank you all for taking the time to read my posts and leave comments. I'm glad I got to share a small part of my life with you

God Bless,
Cheryl

Firstly, welcome to another one of my crazy adventures!
Incase you're unfamiliar with how this works, I update my blog, you visit my page and you'll see the most up-to-date entry. The posts go back in time the more you scroll down the page (and I've been a few places so they do go on!)
The entry below this one was a test - I can now send an email to this account from my wonderful iphone, so that I can update on the move! It's really quite cool! (Let's hope sending an email won't be too expensive when I'm in New Zealand!

So, here we are again.

29th June - 27th September 2009

I am blessed to be travelling to my favourite country, New Zealand, after visiting there just last year. When I arrived back, I started scrolling through websites, working out how I could get back again. Low and behold, I came across Logos: A Catholic Youth Work organisation who I emailed, told my life story, interests, academic qualifications and present circumstances to, and they invited me out to work for 3 months. Very very awesome indeed.

On Monday I'll leave London Heathrow and head on a very long long journey via Bangkok, Thailand, where I will land in Auckland, New Zealand. My plans are very much to involve myself as much as possible in all the activites with the organisation-not holding back-just enjoying every minute of it. There's the small chance I'll get moved to Wellington to work for a little while, but that's not set in stone. I also have a friend from Greenock currently living and working in Queenstown (south on the south island) (also my favourite town in New Zealand), so I'm hoping to visit her and go snowboarding for a weekend or two. I also have 2 friends who I'd love to catch up with, both living in Sydney Australia - if funds permit, I'm hoping to meet them for a weekend, but that almost certainly is far from 'definite'!

So here lies my plans. I know it's going to be an amazing experience, no matter what I get up to. The weather should be very Greenock-Autumn-esque (rain, but not too cold).

Hopefully the next entry you'll see will be from New Zealand

God Bless and lots of love!
Cx

See the itinerary of this trip, and details about each destination.

Leaving tonight, byeee!
God Bless x

Hi again! It's not long before I get back from Australia that I announce another excursion to a far-flung part of the world. On Tuesday I'm off to Mbarara, Uganda. I'll be gone for 3 weeks, and I'll be helping teach orphans and x-child soldiers music, art, sport and hopefully a little bit of religion (English and Maths they already get taught).

I'm not sure of the internet connection in the place I'm staying at, but my friends Elisa and Louise who are already out there have been sending emails, so I'm pretty sure I'll get online to update this blog.

I'll be able to tell you more when I'm there, so stay tuned!

God Bless,
Cheryl

So this is the final entry just to round my last week up..
It seems so long ago that I started this blog, and travelling round New Zealand feels like months ago, but at the same time, it feels like I only left yesterday. I've been back home for a week now, and it's taking some time to settle back into my normal routines. Now that I'm back all I want to do is get up and go again, I think I've caught the traveller's bug!

So my final week was spent in Sydney for World Youth Day: a huge youth pilgrimage with the Pope. The basic idea of it is to celebrate being Catholic, and to share the experience of travelling a distance (pilgrimage) to gain a deeper spiritual calling to God, and learn more about you faith by sharing it with other-like-minded people. The youth of the Church were recognised to be expremely important for the future of the Church, and so Pope John Paul II decided to celebrate this with 'World Youth Day'. 600,000 pilgrims travelled to Sydney Australia to rejoice in the message of God, and the message of the Pope - "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses" - (Acts 1:8) So this was the theme - all about the Holy Spirit, all about our duties as young Christians, all about our calling and what our life should be going towards.

I had a busy week with the International Liturgy Group. 150 representatives from all over the world, and I was proud to represent Scotland. Everyone had different roles to fulfill for the week, and the choices had been made regarding who did what before we had arrived. My first duty was to carry the Scottish flag for the opening mass - the reps carried huge flags to begin World Youth Day. For three days in a row we had catechesis in St. Benedicts church (Catechesis is about teaching the faith and talking deeper about areas within faith, God, Church - it's also what I'll be studying on my MA degree!) I was then part of the 'Stage Welcome' group on the stage. 16 representatives were chosen to welcome the Pope as he walked up to the stage, and this was to be the first time the pilgrims would properly see him.

So we did just that, we welcomed, shouted, cryed, and were over-joyed and amazed with the experience, it was truly amazing! I was standing 2 metres away from the Pope infront of 500,00 people!! Unfortunately I didn't get to meet him, and my friends at the other side of the line did, but, I got Papal Rosary Beads, and I am quite sure that I'll meet him one day in the future!!

The days in between the main events included rehearsals and Stations of the cross, various outdoor festivals and indoor concerts. I managed to meet up with my friends I travelled with, but unfortunately didn't get to meet up with my Paisley Diocese. The last main event was the over night vigil with the Pope. We were lucky enough to be in the 100m restricted zone infront of the stage, and it was a lovely evening. Everyone had candles, we had adoration, and the Pope spoke about some really amazing things - Holy Spirit, love, our mission as Catholics. It was very inspiring. We are called to be the light of Christ in this world of darkness - so true.

So we headed back to Sydney University where we were staying the next day and got all packed up. We had a wee party, said our goodbyes, and left the next morning for the airport. I was in tears saying goodbye to some folk. I became really good friends with a few people from America, Australia and New Zealand, in particular Cameron, a seminarian who will be a priest in two years - I asked him to do mine and Mark's wedding, and he gladly accepted! I plan to stay in touch with all my new mates!

So that's my blog over. I hope you all enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing. I don't know when my next travel adventure will be, but I hope it won't be too long! Thanks for reading everyone!

God Bless, until next time, Cheryl x

I’m off travelling in less than 5 weeks (New Zealand and Australia) and instead of updating blogs on livejournal, bebo, myspace and facebook, I thought it best to add stuff to the one page. I can also add images very easily, so you can all have a look and see what I’ve been up to. You can subscribe to this blog which will send an email to you to let you know I've updated with a new entry - pretty clever and saves you repeatedly checking every day ('cause I know what you're all like!). Just save this link, and I’ll try update as often as I can.

The next time you hear from me I'll be on the other side of the world in the height of winter!

God Bless x