Where’s Mollie Global Travellers (WMGT) Day 1
On 20th October 2017 by AdminDay 1: The start of the trip! I left the house pretty early at 8:30am and made my way up to Cumbria. It’s a blinking long way. I love my car and I love driving but honestly by the time I got there I was going a tiny, little bit crazy, talking to myself, the car and the sat nav every time I was told to drive a further 50miles down the M6!
I found the hostel and I think this was the bit I was most nervous about. Apart from the obvious of having never met everyone before, I’ve never stayed in English hostels and I was so spoilt in Australia living at Wake Up that I didn’t really know what to expect. I couldn’t have been more impressed. Firstly Ambleside YHA is situated right on Lake Windermere the entrance less than 50 metres away from the water. Once in the main entrance, downstairs consists of a reception area, to the left of that a bar/dining area, to the right the main dining section with long communal tables, past there there’s a games room and past there there is a spare room which Mollie had hired for that evening so we could all properly meet each other.
I shared a room with four other girls who had all car shared together. They were really friendly and our room was a great space for 5 of us. We had 2 bunks and a single bed, a wardrobe/hanging space and a sink. The bathrooms were right outside our room and were spotless. Not going to lie I’m a total toilet snob! I will judge anywhere by the state of a bathroom (yes I’m weird) but these were so clean so no complaints from me. The beds were comfy and the linen was clean and not stained. The only fault is the hostel doesn’t have a lift and really that’s not much of a complaint at all.
I met the two girls in the next room, Shannon and Lucy, and we decided to go for a walk into town as the girls in my room had already been. Ambleside is so pretty with lots of dark stone and slate houses, steep hills and cute little shops. We stumbled across a garden shop which honestly was amazing as they had a whole Christmas department (what is it with me and mentioning Christmas in my blogs at the moment?). We went for a look around there and wanted to buy absolutely everything but just about managed to control ourselves.
Once back at the hostel we all had dinner then met in the very end room where we were welcomed by Mollie. It was a little surreal seeing Mollie in real life and also Lydia and Sam as I’ve only ever seen them on an Instagram feed. We then spent the evening getting to know our fellow Global Travellers. Everyone was playing games, be that cards or guessing games on mobile phones where you put the phone to your head and people have to sing songs at you (ahh I forgot the name of the app but you know what I mean…right?). We all kept saying it must be so strange for Mollie: we follow her on social media and know a lot about her but she knows nothing about any of us and here everyone is because of her and her travelling philosophy essentially.
People headed up to bed pretty early but a few of us stayed downstairs and played pool, a game I completely suck at but it was fun. I headed up for bed about 10:30pm and tried to get an early night before the adventures really got going on Day 2!
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