Not Following the Sun

As regular readers of my blog – and I know there are some! – will already know I have decided to finish year round teaching and will instead look to work during the summer and pick up other opportunities that might arise during the rest of the year. If you are interested I explain everything here Embracing Life After Full-Time Work but the short version is that I wanted to be able to look beyond the classroom and find out who I am and what I could do in other areas.

One of those areas is visiting places I have always wanted to go but not really had the time to. I put together a list of five places, all of which, coincidentally, began with an S! As you will see, none of these places are renowned for their beaches or their heat. I have always preferred the cooler climes, with the exception of Australia in the summer, because you can put more layers on to keep warm. If you are in temperatures above 80 Fahrenheit (I still work in those units!) there is no way you are going to get any cooler.

So, there’s the Top 5 places I want to visit. The first of these is booked for September, the stone circle experience at Stonehenge. I never wanted to go when I thought that you would just see the stones from a distance, but you can walk in the circle if you are able and willing to pay an extra £40 or so on top of the normal entry price. So, that will be the first one ticked off. Obviously I will blog about my experience so watch out for that one.

The second one that has already been booked is the Salzburg Christmas Market trip. I am trying to learn enough German to communicate at a basic level so it has already been worth doing from the point of view of encouraging me to embrace a new experience, namely a language I had never studied before. As a Christmas lover this has always been high on my list and my affection for The Sound of Music and Mozart made this a must visit. The Christmas Museum in the city is a total bonus! At least three blogs will come out of that visit!

So what’s after that? Well, who knows? I feel as though the Northern Lights may be the last ticked off the list but we don’t know what lies ahead. One thing is for sure. Life is going to be full of new experiences all being well.