Versatile Blogger Award

Lottie from Little Lottie Travels recently nominated for Versatile Bloggers Award. Lottie is  a young English girl who is passionate about traveling (especially solo) and has great solo budget tips as well as other adventure stories on her blog. I’d like to thank her for thinking of me for Versatile Bloggers Award. Be sure to check her blog out if you’re interested in traveling, and especially solo female budget travels! 🙂

What is Versatile Bloggers Award and what are the rules?

From Lottie’s blog she writes,

“The Versatile Blogger Award is an award given by bloggers to other up-and-coming bloggers. It is designed to encourage new bloggers to keep up the good work, and help people to discover new blogs. It may kinda sound like we are all just patting each other on the back out here in blogger world, but there are some criteria for selection! When nominating someone for a Versatile Blogger Award, you must consider:

• the quality of the writing;
• the uniqueness of the subjects covered;
• the ‘level of love’ displayed in the person’s writing; and
• the quality of the photographs.”

The rules for accepting are:

• display the award on your website;
• thank the person who nominated you and share a link to their blog;
• share seven facts about yourself; and
• nominate up to 10 other bloggers for the award

7 facts about myself

Today is my 24th birthday, so it seems like it’s a perfect day to write something about me so that my readers can get to know me better. It was fun thinking 7 facts about myself and writing them down. 🙂

1. I am a fan of geography and world culture. I grew up exploring atlas books and encyclopedia, memorizing country capitals and watching documentaries on topics such as the lifestyle of Himba people in Namibia. I still find these topics fascinating and do not mind spending hours on YouTube watching documentaries on countries, borders and culture.

   

   Porto, Portugal in 2013

2. I am an Aquarius and I have a fascination with water, especially seas and oceans. I love being on the beach and water. Learning scuba diving is one of the things I want to do pretty soon. I also want to learn surfing in the future. This might be because of the fact that I grew up in landlocked Nepal, therefore seas and oceans are the most mystical and intriguing natural bodies to me. My heart is at peace when I am on a beach listening to sea/ocean waves and swimming/snorkeling on it.

   

   Swimming in Malta one summer. Look how clear the water is ❤

3.  I used to have a pen friend from London when I was about 12 and we wrote a few times. Receiving a hand written letter all the way from London was so amazing! I spent hours on internet making virtual friends from many countries (of my age) like UK, Denmark, US, Australia etc because I was very interested in the lifestyles of people living abroad.

   

   Athens on a cold January morning

4. When I was about 15 or 16, I started developing a fascination with Nordic countries. Low crime rates, low population, extremely beautiful nature, highly advanced societies, very good on gender development index, high ratio of metal bands (I used to heavily listen to metal for a couple of years when I was a teenager) – it sounded like utopia to me. 😀 I spent hours reading about these countries at the library and internet. I was particularly interested in Iceland among all and made it a mission to visit the country one day (hasn’t happened yet! 😉 ) This is also why I chose Finland for my higher studies when I was 18.

   

   View from Suomenlinna fort in Helsinki on a lovely summer day

5. My first abroad trip was to Japan when I was 13 or 14, and I was absolutely mesmerized by the entire experience. Japan was an entirely different world than Nepal and since then, my desire for traveling grew even stronger.

   

   A lovely beach in Croatia last summer

6. My childhood memories are mostly defined by two colors: yellow and orange. Orange – my youthful mum used to wear a lot of orange and yellow because yellow houses shined brightly on sunny days in Kathmandu suburbs. I formed distinct memories around those things and thinking of those memories makes me smile.

   

   Kathmandu is where I feel the most nostalgic

7. I thought I spoke 4 languages (Nepali, Hindi, English and Polish) until last year when I went to Sri Lanka. Some people there tried to speak in Hindi to me, and all I could utter was a gibberish of Polish, English. Nepali and Hindi words all mixed together! It was a shock because I understand almost everything in standard Hindi as North Indian cinema and TV channels dominate in Nepal, but I was shocked to find out I could only understand and not talk! 😛

   

   Sri Lanka last year

My nominations for Versatile Bloggers Award are:

• Christina from justbluedutch
• Nandita and Raga from sending postcards home 
• Urska from Slovenian Girl Abroad 
• Len from Journeys Of Len
• The Wayfarer from Whiskey Sour Wayfarer