Blog 6 – Final chapter – UK, Austria, Bratislava and Budapest

Kia ora team,

Welcome to the final chapter – it feels kind of crazy that the trip is over but the last couple of months were the perfect way to round it off!

The highlights

• My first (not so) white Christmas
• Thesis free travel (what a concept)
• SNOW and MORE SNOW!
• And some epic training with new (and less new) friends

Manchester

After catching up with my sister (and critically – doing all of my laundry) I managed to squeeze in a visit to Stealth BJJ before I headed off. I jumped into their open mat and really can’t recommend this visit more! I was made so welcome, it was a really busy mat and the head coach Steve made such an effort to suggest suitable match-ups so I had a lot of fun! I really loved that they split their open mat into two halves doing a quick technique instructional in the middle – perfect for people like me who get over-excited and need a little refocus halfway through to remember how to do sensible jiu-jitsu.

Bristol / Bath

Now this stop has been on the list since the start so I was stoked to finally get across to visit some globetrotters from Pärnu, Donal and Luke! Donal runs MODA gym in Keynsham which as I found was perfectly in-between Bristol and Bath, so as well as being fantastic training and a great chance to see Luke and Donal, MODA was the perfect place to train while visiting both Bristol and Bath. After some sporadic training, it was so lovely to train here for a full week! This is such a lovely gym environment, excellent coaching but beyond that, there’s such a friendly vibe, I loved training here!

Aside from its proximity to MODA, Bath was also the most beautiful city. One thing about me is that I am just like every other girl, so I love Downton Abbey, Bridgerton and Jane Austen, so Bath was such a joy – and an excellent excuse to rewatch all of the above to look for all the places I saw.

My horsey friend then joined me to head up to London so naturally we went riding through gorgeous English villages in the Cotswolds (!!!) It was an actual dream – I’m still plotting my gallop across an estate, but this was a pretty good stand in!

London / Christmas

London was a proper Christmassy long weekend – I had my sister with me again – she’s an artist so aside from being drastically cooler than me she’s also a fantastic person to tourist with – she flagged some cool spots and gave me a guided tour of the Tate (how good). Then after eating every sweet treat we could find and seeing some shows we headed out to spend Christmas with our cousins. This was my first winter Christmas and I’m all for it – I’ve decided that Christmas traditions are much more reasonable in this climate, and attending a carol service in the village castle was pretty out the gate!

Pre-camp (Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest)

My visa-less travel days within Europe renewed on the 26th of December, so on the 27th I send it straight to Vienna to squeeze in a bit more exploring before heading to winter camp in Wagrain. Travelling without working meant I could go a lot faster so I changed it up and did a few quick stops.

First up Vienna – the music, the buildings, the vibes, just beautiful! But I am to my core a horse girl (it was not just a phase) so the top of the list for Vienna was to visit the Spanish riding school. For those not in the know this is a dressage school that trains the beautiful grey Lipizzaner stallions to perform tricks and the most gorgeous dressage movements (it has been running for over 450 years) critically it is also the basis for hundreds of YA books for horse girls so this visit was really for 14yr old me (but current me also loved it!).

Prater park, the outdoor amusement park was recommended in a super casual way so I was only really planning to pop my head in but this park was so cool! So real talk – an amusement park may be solo travel final boss, but I found any awkwardness of being the only one on a fear fall quickly disappears when you’re dropped from the top of it – so all good! This ended up being a highlight of my entire trip, the rides are super high so if you go at sunset (like 3.30pm at the moment…) you can get an amazing view of the city skyline.

Bratislava, a quick trip in a very fun city, I stayed at the elephants hostel (Iykyk) this was a hectic welcome to Bratislava and a great way to end the year! Look at the pretty pink castle!

Budapest, it snowed on NYE and I went on my first ferris wheel – enough said? NYEs was sponsored by plinka – a Hungarian spirit – just awful but seemed appropriate. I have since learned that you are supposed to sip it rather than take shots of it so apologies to any Hungarians that witnessed the abomination. Budapest was such an easy city to visit, I also jumped into an open mat at Infinitas Jiu-Jitsu. This is such a cool space and the loveliest group of people, a bit of mix of gyms on the mat which made for some fun rounds! Definitely pop in if you’re in the city – super easy to get to, great vibes and critically fantastic post roll pizza!

Winter Camp

SNOW, SWEAT, SNOW – Winter camp was such a vibe – I loved seeing some familiar faces and getting a fresh batch of training partners for the week. The snow was so beautiful and I really loved hiffing it at people. This was the perfect way to end my trip and has got me scheming for how to get to my next camp already – any chance of planning one in Aus??

Home

I’m officially home – aka. Barefoot drinking coffee on the beach. I am so grateful to everyone who made my trip so special – I have seen so many amazing places, met the most amazing people and been made so welcome in gyms across the world. Not goodbye just lots of see ya laters. I’m currently looking for a flat with a comfy couch and looking forward to returning some favours xx

LET’S GO FULL NOISE  

Stats

• Month – 7
• Gyms Visited – 30
• Current location – HOME (NZ)
• Thesis Progress – 100% (!!!)
• Danger Level Gain – 40%
• Percentage of Trip planned – 100%
• Injuries – 3 Animals babysat – 8
• Tattoos – 2
• Hostels – 32
• Hostel Plagues – 3

The gym list (in order of visit):

1. Art of Combat (Palmerston North, NZ) [HOME]
2. Albury Wodonga Brazillian Jiujitsu (Albury, Australia)
3. Viti Blacktip Jiujitsu (Nadi, Fiji)
4. Axis (Rolleston, NZ)
5. WahiBJJ (Fielding, NZ)
6. East side (Auckland, NZ)
7. Upper Hutt BJJ (Upper Hutt, NZ)
8. Workshop (Wellington, NZ)
9. Alliance (Auckland, NZ)
10. Coast BJJ (Albany, NZ)
11. Tonga Judo Association (Tongatapu, Tonga)
12. BJJ Team Malta (Ħamrun, Malta)
13. Team Strela Riga (Riga, Latvia)
14. Rio Grappling Club Częstochowa (Częstochowa, Poland)
15. Fenriz (Berlin, Germany)
16. Metagame (Bochum, Germany)
17. Chimp Gym BJJ (Dusseldorf, Germany)
18. Helios Project (Cologne, Germany)
19. London Fight Factory (London, England)
20. Gracie Barra Dublin (Dublin, Ireland)
21. Jungle BJJ (Dublin, Ireland)
22. Shoalin MMA (Galway, Ireland)
23. Durinho BJJ (Galway, Ireland)
24. SBG Killarney (Killarney, Ireland)
25. SBG Maeda Belfast (Belfast, Ireland)
26. New Ground Jiu Jitsu Academy (Belfast, Ireland)
27. Evolve (Derry, Ireland)
28. Stealth BJJ HQ Manchester (Manchester, England)
29. MODA Jiu-Jitsu Academy (Keynsham, England)
30. Infinitas Jiu-Jitsu (Budapest, Hungary)