Katerina Smyrko

You are woken at 5:30am by hands rustling in bags and bunk beds creaking like old bones. You might lie in bed a little longer, earplugs jammed in firmly, trying to shut out the noise, but before long you are up too. Those first moments before you step out of bed are the only moments of doubt, when you start thinking; “Why am I doing this again?” But then you are up, putting on the same clothes you had on the day before (or a variation thereof), stuffing your sleeping bag in its bag and trying not rustle too much, there are still a few heavy sleepers snoring beside you. With whispers and hushed zipping you pack up your bag, you are quite efficient at it now. Then you regretfully pull your shoes onto your feet, ... read more

Every 2 hours on my 14 hour bus ride to Barcelona, the bus would stop, turn on the lights and blare out the name of the stop. Needless to say, when I arrived, I was a little dazed. To my delight, my sister Anna was standing outside the bus with a little grin, waiting for me! We had planned to meet at the apartment but she surprised me, it was so great to see her after almost 5 months. We were renting an apartment through AirBnb that was light and spacious and lovely. After tapas and lots of catch ups we went back to prepare for the arrival of sister number two, Lucy. The apartment was kind of hard to find so we made a sign and stuck it to the wall with bandaids (we had ... read more

The snow covered tops of the mountains seemed close enough to touch as we flew past. They rose around our plane on all sides, our shadow showed up clearly on the snow below. The pilot turned sharply and we suddenly entered an opening, blue water and a little town at our feet. Following the sharp turn was a sudden descent onto a short air-strip, I didn’t think we were going to make it. But our teeny little plane touched down without a hitch and we were in Isafordur, Westfjords. We stayed one more night in Reykjavik after exploring the South Coast. We spent a lovely evening with Hofi, a friend of Pete’s who lives in Reykjavik with her partner and their new baby April. We had an amazing vegan feast prepared by Hofi’s mum that blew ... read more

Our trip to Iceland didn’t start very auspiciously, with our flight being delayed for 2 hours because of French air traffic control strikes! We wriggled and fidgeted and worried until they finally told us we were going, but we were pretty lucky that they hadn’t cancelled our flight like a lot of others. In our spare time we did manage to buy a bottle of duty free gin as we had heard alcohol was very expensive in Iceland, so the time wasn’t totally wasted. And before we knew it, we were touching down in Reykjavik. The sun was shining and it wasn’t unbearably cold, we couldn’t believe it! We’d been told that Icelandic people had been voted the friendliest in the world, and before long that was readily apparent. Some excitable and possibly slightly drunk locals ... read more

The definition of the Spanish word ‘Granada’ is pomegranate. Throughout the city grow the twisted forms of the pomegranate tree, and pictures of the fruit are found on street signs, posters, bollards and every other available surface. When I first arrived, a friend from my hostel told me that she thought the city was called Granada because, like the fruit, it contained so much. Something sweet, juicy, surprising. And I think she was right. For the first week in Granada I stayed in the Makuto Guesthouse. I arrived bleary eyed from my 11hour overnight train from Barcelona and stumbled into a little paradise. Hammocks hang from every surface, the patio is brimming with flowering jasmine, and friendly staff and guests greet you from the tree-house which overlooks the patio or the chill-out room complete with guitars, ... read more