FLYING THE NEST: MONTH 8
Month 8 was a super exciting month, flying from Costa Rica to Canada and now on to EUROPE! This is our first time in Europe and we are so, so, so excited to be here. I am currently typing this up in our comfy bed here in Edinburgh, Scotland and seriously have never felt happier.
We would love to read your suggestions on where you would like us to travel to throughout Europe to help us plan out month 9! Please leave your suggestions int he comments below.
Okay, enough excitement over Europe...here is a run down of where we went, the highlights, lowlights and even what we spent during month 8.
Where We Went
11 days in San Jose / Costa Rica
7 days in Montreal / Canada
10 days in Toronto / Canada
2 day in Glasgow / Scotland
Highlights
Volunteering in Costa Rica. We never would of thought our first time visiting Central America would be spent volunteering in the jungle of Costa Rica.
Babysitting baby sloths. During our two weeks volunteering abroad we had the opportunity to work at a animal rescue center in the heart of Costa Rica, and one of our extremely tough jobs was to baby sit a baby sloth (okay, we admit we had it easy!)
Releasing 600 hatchling turtles into the wild. This has got to be one of the most special moments that happened this month. Watching hundreds of little turtles scurrying towards the ocean gave us a large lump in our throat - once in a life time experience!
FLYING THE NEST TURNED ONE! We did it - we have officially been blogging for one whole year! Hours upon hours have been poured into our little place on the internet and making it to one year has always been a goal we aspired to achieve.
<img src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6115d66cb356dc2356e173ca/1628833038592-O8H7NSXSS25GUHTU4XNO/costa-rica.jpg" alt="" />
costa rica
Exploring the very french city of Montreal. After spending over 3 months exploring Canada's west coast, we decided it was time to check out the east! We headed to Montreal for a week to experience a French Canadian city. Here's how we spent our week in Montreal.
World poutine eating competition in Toronto. We now feel like Canada is our second home - and what's more Canadian than experiencing a poutine eating competition!
First time on a Segway. Yep, we decided to use Segway's as our choice of transportation to explore Toronto and we officially want to buy one for ourselves :P
Niagara Falls! Niagara Falls has been near the top of our nature bucket list for as long as we have had numerous bucket lists for different travel categories (I'm sure were not the only ones). Seeing as we were in Toronto and only 1.5 hours away we took a day trip out to see these majestic falls.
FLYING TO EUROPE!!! Flying The Nest is officially in Europe! This is our first time here and so unbelievably excited to explore different European cities.
Chleo comes to town. After being away from family for over 8 months now, Stephen's sister decided to fly out and meet us in Europe! We love travelling in a group and having Chleo with us to experience Europe for the first time has made our Eurotrip even more special. You can watch Chleo's arrival through this link.
Best birthday present EVER! This month Stephen turned 25! For his birthday his family came together and bought him a drone!!! This was the perfect present and we hope will add that something extra to the vlogs. Check out Stephen testing out the drone for the first time: Visit this link.
<img src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6115d66cb356dc2356e173ca/1628833038285-AKU8Y7DTIA1NV2YARLX7/canada.jpg" alt="" />
canada
Lowlights
Getting stranded in Costa Rica. So, there seems to be a San Jose in Costa Rica AND a San Jose in California... and guess where our flight left from, yep San Jose, California. Unfortunately we missed that flight as we were in San Jose Costa Rica! After many international phone calls, and a moment where we thought we would have to return home, all was sorted and we were on a plane to Montreal. If you want to see the drama check out our vlog explore here.
Losing half our luggage in a taxi. The bad luck continued. Not only did American Airlines leave our luggage in the rain for 2 hours resulting in all our clothing and electronics getting absolutely soaked, we also left our laundry bag in the taxi on our way to the hotel in Montreal. We were unable to get the laundry bag back which meant we had no under wear, bras and many of Jess's tops (Jess got more of the bad luck with this one)!
Mice infested hotel! CHECK REVIEWS PEOPLE! We were on the hunt for a cheap hotel to stay at in Toronto and only having a few days to book we rushed and organised 10 nights stay at the University Apartments. After a nights sleep in our shoebox of a room (nothing like the photos we saw when booking), we came home the second day to a mouse in our room and droppings all through our bed!!! If you want to hear the whole story of this HORRIBLE hotel watch our vlog: Visit this link.
Getting sick overseas. This month we both spent a few weeks being quite ill. Stephen had a stomach bug during our time in Costa Rica and Jess caught the flu during our time in Toronto.
The Funds
This month we used our travel voucher we won from the travel video competition to book some of our flights and accommodation, which of course has helped keep month 8's costs down quite a bit. Overall, we only spent between the two of us $2567 travelling to 3 countries!
To break it down for you...
During our stay in Costa Rica we managed to only spend $50 during the entire 2 weeks!
In Montreal we spent $220 on accommodation, around $100 on food for the week, $50 on a taxi from the airport and $40 on the metro.
We caught a Megabus from Montreal to Toronto for $63, which was much cheaper than flying.
In Toronto we spent $616 to stay at University Apartments (which we are still waiting on a refund for - fingers crossed we get something back) and $272 on our lifesaver of an AirBnB who put us up with only 2 hours notice! Food for the 10 days came to $150, with many 'Timmies' had.
Our flight from Toronto to Glasgow came to $769 and we spent $40 on food during our two night stay.
Quick Numbers So Far…
Flights taken: 23
Kilometres travelled: 64,571
Photographs taken: 2,682 + our13,474 which we are hoping to get recovered (we broke our hard drive last month).
Days uploaded to YouTube: 241
Coffee’s Had: 210
Where To Next:
We will be spending all of October in Europe! We have a train ticket to London tomorrow and a cheeky road trip planned in a few weeks time but that's about it. We are leaving the decision of where we go all up to our amazing readers & viewers. Where would you like to see Flying The Nest go during month 9?
Thank you so much for coming along on our journey of leaving home and travelling the world!
