Tag Archives: sleep

The Places You Likely Haven’t Thought Of Sleeping During Your Vacation

sleeptimePexels

What is the bedrock of a positive vacation experience? Is it the place you visit? The people you meet? The food you eat? The places you’d stay? Which one of these, if lost, would render the experience unenjoyable? We’d argue the accommodation. Good quality accommodation where you can rest your head well and recharge your batteries for a full additional day of exploration is part and parcel in enjoying a holiday space you can truly call your own.

However, it’s likely that you haven’t particularly thought about this in the past aside from finding a place which looks clean and nice, is sizeable enough, and is cheap. For some people, the location is what matters, and having a safe place to rest their head is simply a nice addition. It’s for this reason that the backpacking and hotel trade is always popular and enjoyable. However, if you’re getting a little more mature in your tastes and the accommodation means as much to you like the place you inhabit, you should try the following ideas:

Ice Hotels

To stay in an ice hotel sounds like a difficult and challenging experience for many people, especially those who don’t like the cold. While they’re obviously not as warm as a room with central heating, they can be immensely beautiful to stay in and inhabit. These hotels are masterpieces of architecture and ice engineering and deserve to be visited. When visiting Lapland, a magical place in its own right, they could serve as a perfect and beautiful way to feel connected to your local and cold environment.

What’s more, is that the hotel is constructed each year, so you never see a new one twice. Over 1,000 tonnes of ice go into the construction, and as a result, the ‘building’ is sizeable and incredible to witness. Not only that, but the ICEHOTEL 365 has recently been released, the world’s first permanent ice hotel which takes advantage of central heating and is truly a sight to witness. If looking for an impressive entry into your vacation journal, this might be the ‘coolest’ set of pictures you take.

Tree Top Hotels

Tree Top hotels can be perfect if you’re looking for a view that can simply rival any other. Aside from camping, there is no better way to feel interconnected with the nature around you. These hideaway suits can truly give you that perspective over the environment that you need, and that can be especially conducive to a reflective and meditative vacation, perfect if you’re simply looking forward to getting away from it all.

Tree Top hotels often have a low carbon footprint too, meaning that an ethical holiday could simply be right around the corner. This could be perfect if you’re trying to become closer to nature and detoxify after years of city living.

Over time, the simple effort taken to experience new methods of resting up can lead to you acquiring new tastes, finding new more like minded people, or giving yourself that celebratory vacation you truly deserve.

 

Things a’changing

There are days, when I question things about my life, and my choices. Today has been one of these forsaken days. Actually, I have been at it since 3AM, but that is beyond my point.

I was thinking about back in 2011, when I had my first Christmas alone, living far away from my family, friends, and on top of that, in another country – How courageous was I, to take such a big leap, leaving everything and everyone behind!

Before then, I have never lived alone, and I had no idea about the kind of responsibility and effort it entails to live and make ends meet at the end of the day, and month when all bills came crawling up. I have done a great job, and learned a lot from this experience.

When I have moved back to Malta, I was not willing to move back with the family, as I enjoyed my independent life too much to let go of it. So much so, that within a year of renting, I purchased my own property.

Although this made sense financially, this has indirectly tied me to this country without even realising at the time. Now that I have settled down in such a “grown up” lifestyle, it seems to me that I have become more self conscious when taking decisions. And I shall give you an example. This week, I was meant to travel, but my plans fell apart, and I have decided to give up the holiday based on two reasons:
1. I should not travel alone at night
2. Accommodation has risen up in price (it also being Christmas holidays, and included NYE), and a last minute purchase would have costed me my entire savings for my holiday.

If I did not have my house to worry about, and if I were not such a wuss, I would be in the UK right now, enjoying cold weather, possibly fog and snow, and beautiful beautiful scenery. How silly am I? Where has all my self confidence gone? What has tarnished my spirit in such a way?

And if you are wondering why I wrote this and why I am sharing this with my readers, it is because I want to be able to read this whenever I need to, so I do not repeat such thing ever again. And also, to try to keep reminding myself that not all my decisions in the past years have been as bad.

Now to try and live life guilt free… and keep moving forward… >>>

Dreams… are they an indication of truth?

Are you familiar with waking up just around 10 minutes before your alarm goes off? You do your best to sleep again, as if your life depends on it.

It is during these few minutes that I get the most vivid of dreams. Often than not, dreams that will shaken me for the rest of the day.

Today, it was one of them days.

It felt so real that I woke up with tears on my face.

Do you believe that dreams are meaningful? Do you think that there is a little truth in every dream…? Is it an indication of what will happen in the near future? Is it just your insecurities and worst nightmares manifesting when you are trying to get a few hours of rest?

I for one, hope not.

Over-tiredness

For the last 3 weeks, I have AGAIN started to struggle with lack of sleep, and/or waking up at random hours of the night. Sometime between 2 and 3 AM seems to be a regular nowadays (even if I sleep after midnight… ugh!).

My body-clock is broken.

And despite this, I have to wake up 6AM latest during the week because I am in work at 7AM; less traffic and parking stress this way.

I have been trying to find a solution for my restless nights as I am becoming overtired now, and still for some reason, I don’t get a full night of sleep. Seems like I am stressed beyond repair.
– I exercise or go for a walk to get my body tired
– Don’t get all worked up and pissed off at people towards sleep time aka alone & quiet time
– Drink Camomile / Herbal tea – Maybe it is time to quit coffee all over again? (I only drink this in the mornings)
– Read before I sleep
– Listen to relaxing music
– Nice, long, bubbly, warm baths before bed

Seems like that none of this is helping, even if I do a combination of two or more.

The more I think about it, the worse it gets.

I am getting frustrated and annoyed, and I can’t figure out a way forward.

Wish I could switch off my brain and my feelings for a few hours a day… Maybe that would do the trick… But I guess I am not a cyborg (half human half machine), so that cannot happen effortlessly.

Rant done.
Over and out.

I Miss You

As a person who thinks a lot, my mind dwells… Especially in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep… How awful is that? 😉

Well last night, I made a ground-breaking discovery; It might be nothing unusual for some, but in my case it helps me understand myself and others around me better.

When someone says I miss you, how often is it meaningful, and how often is it just a conversation filler? These words are so often overused, that they tend to lose their meaning just like when you say I love you every five minutes. It has become such a habit for people to say it, that you just never know when it is truthful or not. Besides, what are you supposed to say when someone says this to you? Oh yeah… I miss you too.

I have also realised, that there are two kinds of “I miss you”

  • There’s the I miss you when I am bored and lonely
    So basically, this is when you are bored in work, or at home and have nothing better to do. So you would miss certain people in your life. Perhaps a good friend or someone important to you.
  • There’s the I miss you when I am busy and having lots of fun
    The nicest kind of I miss you, as you are thinking of certain people while you are having a blast – You are having such a lovely time, yet you feel something is missing and you wish that person is there to enjoy it with you. True affection, need I say more?

I have never been the kind of person who overuses such phrases.

I am a romantic, I love literature, I think I am passionate and quite an emotional person with the right people.my

This in mind;
I make sure that when I say these words, I mean them.
When I say these words, I am genuine.
And I do not expect a mutual agreement.
Because… you should say such words not to seek attention, but because that is how you feel.

Men men men men, manly men men men! ♫

I have a very particular taste when it comes to men.

Surely and truly, I like them taller than me, with long hair and a beard (Disclaimer: I liked beards way before they came into fashion!). Ideally creative, with a romantic side and lots of wanderlust. Someone who knows what he wants, and he is not afraid to fight for it. But what really attracts me is intelligence, especially when it comes with an accent. Although not a necessity, a great accent makes me all tingly inside. I know it sounds silly, but to each their own right?

I guess it all goes hand in hand with the fact that my choice in men tends to be from foreign lands, be it expats or from afar.

I suppose, from previous experiences, I know it ain’t easy. Maintaining a relationship with so much distance in between is a challenge not everyone can keep up with or appreciate. However, getting to see each other after a month or two is so lovely and exciting, that it makes you forget all those days you spent apart.

As long as you know that there is a future;
A future which will involve seeing each other the last thing before we sleep, and the first thing when we wake up.

If you catch my drift…

 

Restless nights and its atrocities

What I refer to dreams in this article are the ones you actually get while you are asleep, not the other kind which I aspire to reach in the coming days, months or years.

I am not one who dreams a lot, or maybe I do… but I don’t remember them… not even briefly; Except when I have a nightmare.

In real life, we tend to remember or focus more on the bad stuff rather than what is going well and what makes us happy. It tends to be easier to remember how someone has hurt us, rather than the many times they managed to put a smile on our face.

And it seems like when it comes to dreams, my brain tends to highlight the bad stuff too. Not only that, but I manage to wake up at ungodly hours, become annoyed about what made me have such a nightmare, and as soon as I fall asleep with the hopes that the dream ends there, it ironically continues right were it paused earlier. The HORROR!

Because having a restless night is not enough, I end up in a bad mood and wonder why I dreamt this. Although I do not believe that dreams mean something in particular, sometimes I wonder if my nightmares are trying to indicate something wrong with my life.

 

 

Christmas Time… ♫

holly
“Christmas time, mistletoe and wine
Children singing Christian rhyme
With logs on the fire and gifts on the tree
A time to rejoice in the good that we see” ♫

 

Yes, it is Christmas time… and yes I do tend to indulge on some extra ̶w̶i̶n̶e̶ ̶  mulled wine at this time of the year… Unfortunately no mistletoe here, as I won’t be spending my Christmas with a special someone; but rather with my family and friends… which is still good none the less.

The plan is to go out at around 10PM for a few drinks and chatter on Christmas Eve  and then off with my mates for the early Christmas Breakfast. For those not in the know, it usually is a continental and English breakfast buffet and this is quite a popular way to start off Christmas day in Malta. Afterwards, it is resting time and then at noon I’m off to lunch with the family. Luckily this time round we are not going to cook ourselves, which means that I will have enough time (!) to charge my batteries after the night out.

Once that is over, I am hoping to make mulled wine and teas at home, and soon after all the family opens gifts from each other. Usually this is quite fun as we leave the presents as a surprise so we have no clue on what we are getting, unless the gift wrapping shape is too obvious, such as when the gift is a bottle of alcohol.

How will you spend Christmas this year?

Wishing all my readers a lovely Christmas with lots of smiles, hugs and beautiful experiences. May you get all you wish for… and more! X

Tea in Summer

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I think, a cuppa is my favourite non-alcoholic drink.

A side note for my foreign followers and readers:
Maltese Summer, especially August, is very hardcore; In the sense, it is very, very hot and humid. Imagine, a temperate of 35 degrees and 80+% humidity on a daily basis. That would feel like 40 to 45 degrees. Add onto that hot ‘desert’ wind to it. Although it might be nice for a week holiday, I’d say in my honest opinion is a nightmare to live in.

All the above, does not really put me off tea… I still feel the need for my morning tea with biscuits, afternoon tea and another right before I go to bed. The only issue is that is too warm for this.

I have tried bottled ice tea and home made ice tea… but this does not satisfy me as well as my tea with milk, or chocolate and coconut flavoured tea!

Tea-Biscuits1

So, every morning, I make my tea, and drink it right in front of the fan, while I sweat like a pig…
The sweat is not by choice…
But living without tea, is just not for me.