Gap Year - Part 2

Following on from my last post I wanted to give more of an insight into my gap year itself.

Without a doubt it has been one of the best years of my life as I got to have so much fun, spoil myself and family, travel, be independent and most importantly, found the best friends ever. ☺️☺️

By the end of September I managed to get a new part time job at Tk Maxx (where I'm still working) and decided I was going to begin saving to try and travel somewhere for at least a month. The job itself is much more demanding than my previous job at an Outfit store and has definitely given me a good insight into how differently high-street stores can work. For example, Tk Maxx doesn't actually have a stockroom, and deliveries arrive 6 days a week. This means there are specific staff just for sorting out the deliveries. They have to make sure everything is in the correct department totes/rails, tag all items over £9.99 and stick the price stickers on many of the items too.

As an associate you're expected to work on specific departments the majority of the time, however I was trained on each one (mens, womens, home, kids, shoes, accessories, jewellery, fitting room and cashiering) as my manager knew I wanted to transfer to a store in Nottingham when I moved, and this gave me a much better chance. Because of this I ended up working full time hours throughout the year as I was able to do any extra hours at any time. This meant I was able to save as well as have fun visiting my friends in Liverpool every week.

Although I was constantly working, I did feel like I was living a half student life as I was going back and forth from work to my friend's uni accommodations and was rarely at home. I also made friends just through uni nights out, which did begin swaying me towards going to uni in Liverpool instead..

Early March time I still hadn't booked where I wanted to go and I was hoping to leave in May earliest, so I decided to visit an STA Travel shop to get some advice. I had to give the worker my budget, ideal destinations and length of stay, and he then found a collection of tours which suited me best. After much deliberation I decided to go with the group TruTravels and do the 'Ultimate Thailand 30 Day Tour' as they appeared to include the most in their packages and were known to be good for solo travellers in particular.

So that was that. 6 weeks before I was set to jet off by myself I had booked my trip (not that my mum or dad knew).

In between this time I had a jam packed period full of birthdays, events and work. I attended Ladies Day at Aintree, went to Elrow in Leeds, celebrated St Patrick's day in Liverpool and much more:

Then came Thailand!!! There is too much to sum up from this trip so I'm going to make a post for each week I was there as it was the best thing I've ever done.

After that month, I returned home to a pretty empty looking summer. All I had booked was to go to Parklife festival for the third year, Cocoon festival, and my mum's 60th. I mainly intended on working flat out for the rest of summer to save for uni.

PARKLIFE:

COCOON:

MUM'S 60TH:

However, Millie and Tori (my two best friends from home, pictured above^) managed to persuade me into booking Ibiza with them... I was just missing the Thai sun too much! 😋

We went the day after Tori's 18th birthday, so it's safe to say we were all very hungover before we'd even arrived.

TORI'S 18TH:

Ibiza was a very fun week with my best friends, we partied more than we slept; the real Ibiza way🤷🏽‍♀️. We did 5 nights which went way too fast, but it was definitely enough as it was a manic couple of days. Millie's sister is a manger of the dj duo Mason Collective and lives in Ibiza and so she ensured we had a cheap time by getting us guest list for all the events and taxiing us around, I defo couldn't complain 🤗🤗.

After Ibiza I then went down to Cardiff to visit my friends I met in Thailand. Six of us had all arranged to meet up for the bank holiday weekend as it was the most central place for us all to get to, and a few of us were starting uni come September.

After a 3 hour train down south, and also my first trip to the capital of my own country (🥴), I was more than excited to see the girls. They'd planned all our weekend perfectly, and even better we were greeted with a heatwave!!

So that is a very, very short summary of my gap year!

Mia

xo