Introduction

So before I start to indulge in my blog I want to give you an idea of how I want people to view this. This blog will be a mix of travel, food and alcohol. My knowledge of these may be minimal but my willingness to learn, understand and gain incredible experiences is my aim. 

Firstly I want to give you a brief down low on why iv'e chosen these 3 subjects (and how i may not always stick to them).

Now a lot of my friends and family know how much I LOVE my food. I come from a family who's life revolves around it. Growing up I was constantly surrounded by freshly prepared food like my Granny England's homemade apple crumble (which my dad has mastered a treat) and my Granny Scotland's soups and stews. My mum was always determined to bring up healthy eating kids, so we never had chocolate/crisps or sweets in the house, if we ever wanted any of these things we were to make them ourselves. So this is where me and my sister most days after school would come home and make fairy cakes, flapjacks or stacks of pancakes and demolish the whole thing. I must add that we were both competitive swimmers training 6/7 times a week so having 2 breakfasts and 2 dinners was normal. 

Here is an example of my love for food, me demolishing a 22 ounce steak in Canada

 Our school was well known for our Design & Technology. For our GCSE’s we had to choose a specific field of technology we wanted to pursue, clearly I was going to go for Food Technology! To begin with it was never really about the making of the food for me it was all about the eating! Even my teacher told my parents on parents evening that: 

"before Hannah starts the class we must feed her so she can concentrate better"

If I'm honest this hasn't changed much but I'm trying hard now not to eat all the ingredients before I complete the dish! 

At college & work life, not much changed apart from the fact I had given up swimming so I also had to give up my extra breakfasts and dinners. Now that I was doing less exercise I knew that I needed to focus on reducing my intake of food, thanks to my mum I always ate healthy and never had big portions anyway so wasn't too much of a big ordeal, but it didn't stop me from treating myself on a regular basis!

Work colleagues also quickly took on to the fact that I loved food mainly because I never stopped talking about it. They would buy me gifts like this…

and they always used food as a weapon to keep me quiet.

When it comes to traveling I couldn’t tell you exactly why it became an interest for me. Maybe because I am a fidget ass and can’t sit still, maybe its because I love meeting new people and trying new things, challenging myself, the list could go on. However I can remember that just before I turned 18 was the first time I decided to do something about it. I had been on holidays with my family and friends and when I came home from my last trip I worked out that the money I spent in a week on hotels and flights I could stretch over nearly a month traveling. Personally I felt that I could gain more from traveling, experience cultures, try a variety of foods and beverages and challenge myself. This was when I asked my friend Emma if she wanted to Interrail around Europe for a month with me. We met at college, both drama students, so never quiet and full of energy, she reminds me of my sister whom I get on really well with so I knew we could last a month together. 

Emma & I 

We visited Den Bosch, Amsterdam, Berlin, Budapest, Vienna, Rome, Florence, Pisa, Verona, Venice, Milan. 

We tried all the traditional dishes of each country however our main plan was to eat Italy, which was a success!

Pizza that I ate in Venice

Italian Ice Cream

Hungarian Chilli Dish

So now I have spoken as briefly as I could about my experiences with food & travel, now I turn to beverages.

In the UK we are pretty fortunate enough to have a variety of different beverages, alcoholic and non alcoholic. We LOVE tea, and my grandparents are prime examples of that, having tea time at 10am and 4pm but also before breakfast and after dinner, basically anytime of the day. It’s a huge social drink and people always use it as an excuse to sit down and chat! Alcohol is another social drink. When I first started drinking with my friends, everyone used to get the big bottles of Strongbow cider or dirt cheap vodka and go to town on them. I was the only one there with my bottle of wine! Wine was my first favourite drink and well it hasn’t changed much since, working at a wine company for almost two years added to that! For the short period of time I was there I learnt more and tasted a variety of wines from around the world, testing the products making sure they are up to the UK customer standards. I also had the privilege of going to Lake Garda and visiting a winery, also gaining WSET (Wine & Spirits Education Training) which I hope to continue on in the future.

We love a good party in my family, any social events and we are there, singing, stand up acting & dancing, eating, playing crazy games and having a big knees up, the list goes on. We also all have our fancy of what we like to drink, my Granny Scotland was one for whiskey and water tipple before bed alongside my Uncle Sean, my Aunt Lucy’s love of red wine, my mums love of Bacardi and coke, my dad’s now complete love of ciders, my cousin Steven’s love of JD & coke, my Canadian family’s love of Caesars! I want to emphasis that we don’t drink to get drunk. We drink for the flavours, taste and the fun of the coming together of people.

So that was a VERY brief insight into my life, we would be here all day if I went in depth about all this. What I really want to show you is my adventure that I am taking now.

Which was that in February 2015 I finally took the leap of booking my round the world trip. This included:

Sri Lanka

Thailand

Malaysia

Singapore

Indonesia

Australia

New Zealand

Fiji

LA

Costa Rica

Miami

Canada

HOME…maybe

This trip is my plan but we all know plans like to change so who knows where these next 10 months could take me!

This blog is going to be about my experiences of my trip, how I write may vary each time I put a post up. I am not very good at sticking to one subject so it may jump from one to another very quickly, I’m sorry but I won’t be changing that, its how my brain works when I get excited about things. I also want people to understand that sometimes I may write lengthy posts and give full details about my experiences however some days it may just be pictures with little description. Another thing, the way I describe what I eat, see and feel will be my own opinions, everyone has different views about everything so please take my opinions with a pinch of salt (no pun intended). 

The biggest rule of traveling: "never listen to the traveler go and learn it yourself."

Anyway that is enough about me, lets get going, welcome to my blog: Happy Hungry Hannah!