Venice in November

I feel like Venice has never been a place that was on my radar, in the sense that I know it exists but it has never been on a 'I need to go there' list of mine, but our trip was incredible. I surprised the boyfriend for his 21st birthday with a weekend holiday, only I didn't know where we were going. I booked a Surprise Trip with Expedia; a fairly new concept, but it meant that I knew when we had to be at the airport and that was it. After packing at 1am we headed to Gatwick for 7am when we received our email letting us know our destination. We were both expecting to go somewhere neither of us had heard of, maybe a small city in France or somewhere in Spain, but when we saw the word VENICE written across the screen we both looked at each other, mouths wide open. Arguably the most romantic city in the world, I felt like we hit the jackpot and I had very little to do with it - thank you Surprise Trips.

With no knowledge of our destination, there was no time to plan or research where we were going and so when we arrived at Venice airport it was time to pick up a phrase book and a map and figure out where to go and what to see. It will come as no surprise that we got lost several times. Venice is made up of cobbled streets, we could never figure out which street we were on, we walked past our hotel three times before we figured out where it was but we didn't really mind, Venice is probably one of the nicest places to be lost. Even though at times we didn't know where we were there was always incredible views, history to learn about and so much adventure to be had.

42 things I did in 2016

1. Did couch to 5k
2. Read 3 books (poor effort)
3. Celebrated my Auntie Ann's 80th birthday
4. I tried to count how many YouTube Videos I had watched...but after counting 300 I gave up, it must be way over 1500
5. Enrolled on an MA in Creative Writing and withdrew after 1 month
6. Visited New York, Chicago, Nashville, Memphis, New Orleans and New Braunfels (Texas) on an incredible road trip
7. Bought my first ever lottery ticket...I didn't win anything
8. Moved to Brighton
9. Had 9 tattoos done by the wonderful Zoe
10. Went to Slam Dunk, Download and Reading Festival

11. Went to the European Youth Event at the European Parliament in Strasbourg
12. Started a new job
13. Went to Brighton Pride and Brighton Trans Pride
14. Met my cousin's that live in Arizona for the first time ever and went over to visit them in July
15. Watched a 90 year old woman do a vodka jelly shot
16. Had the same profile picture on facebook for the entire year
17. Commuted from Brighton to Chingford for 3 months
18. Saw The Front Bottoms twice
19. Went to a Friends: Season 8 quiz (did not win)
20. Won £100 on the premium bonds

Reflecting on a Tough Week

It has taken me some time to gather my thoughts and feelings on what has happened over the past week. This week has been emotional for so many reasons and I was never going to be able to avoid writing about how I feel because it is so important. I have been writing this blog for over 5 years now, my writing style has changed and the type of thing I choose to focus on differs but this is something that I want to remember. I want to remember how I am feeling.

One thing I didn't mention in my Nashville in June blog, was that on that trip was the announcement of the UK's European Union (EU) Referendum. It was a long night that left me tired, sad and utterly miserable at the thought of going back to a country that had changed. I, myself, had voted to remain in the EU and was horrified that so many people had voted to leave, especially as it seemed that nobody truly knew what they were voting for. The 'Brexit' or leave campaign was a very negative display of political campaigning that didn't really give too many positive reasons for voting to leave the EU. In fact most people voting to leave were either voting on the sole topic of immigration or because they didn't know what to do and so just wanted to see a change. Even seeing that the majority of people in the town that I live in, voted to remain in the EU wasn't enough for me to keep hold of any kind of faith. The media coverage of the referendum was huge, but it all felt like 'nothing'. It didn't feel like politics, it felt like a guy who was photographed with a pint in his hand (so obviously he is the every-man) sharing his radically racist agenda and convincing the masses that his opinions on immigration were forward thinking and would better people's quality of life. When in fact, almost as soon as the announcement was made that the UK had voted to leave the EU, statements were being retracted, the Prime Minister resigned (which then led to an unfair and biased in house election of a new PM) and it genuinely seemed that no one had a plan, no one had any answers on what the consequences of this result were and people were left confused and felt that Brexit was completely miss sold.

After the disgusting and quite frankly embarrassing display of UK politics this year I really didn't think it could get much worse. The media has been a gross third party in all accounts; the US election was exposed as a complete reality TV show. There certainly needed to be a change in politics, it needs to be more accessible for everyone in society, but this year has been an absolute joke. Trump was elected by a little more than a quarter of eligible voters in the US. There are several reasons why people don't vote, one being that voting day in America is always a Tuesday so the majority of people are at work or school and can't afford to take time out to queue for hours before casting their vote, there are people who don't identify with any of the parties or candidates and so decide not to vote. Lets face it, voting isn't the most accessible activity for a lot of people for different reasons. It amazes me that anyone voted for Trump though, but it seems that a lot of people were voting on the basis of two things: you either vote for something you think has been done before and didn't work or something new. (hmm sounds familiar) People are so disenchanted by politics that all people are truly voting for is change, even though Trump has  said some outlandish and offensive things, some people's world is already terrible and so promising a new world, any world that isn't the current one has seemingly won a vote.

Incredibly, over 50% of white women in the US voted for Trump. I had no idea that he had such a huge support with this demographic. With this in mind I decided to look into it and stumbled across the Women for Trump official website. It is sad that the Women for Trump site acknowledges the sexist remarks that Trump has made, but instead of that fuelling activism and campaigns against him, they instead have passed off his comments as making him 'real' for not reading off a teleprompter. 'We look at his actions, not his words' the whole tone of the site is childish with a very strong theme of 'othering', the constant use of the phrase 'they say'. It is heartbreaking to think that there are women out there that support Trump and his pro life views, that women should never have abortions in any case, that he would never put funding behind any kind of pro choice system, a system that many people who are pregnant are in need of when they cannot support a child or that it would cause them severe medical trauma. Even if you aren't strongly opinionated on abortions, just knowing how Trump treats women is an easy no vote. The grossly inappropriate comments he has made towards his own daughter, his constant objectification of women on social media, in interviews and on live tv, he has used words such as 'bimbo' and 'dog' to refer to female journalists, he has been caught groping women and yet some people still think that he supports women's rights.

Women are not the only group of people who have been subjected to Trump's gross nature: If you are a member of the LGBTQ+ community, seemingly in particular if you are trans, if you are Muslim, Mexican, Latino, Black African American, hell if you aren't white there is no doubt that Trump will have said something offensive towards you. His policies on immigration aren't just racist, they are highly dangerous and if implemented could set the US way back. It is infuriating that these communities have come out and expressed why they wouldn't feel safe with Trump as president, how it would damage their lives and even though so many people who voted for Trump are now standing by lines like 'It doesn't make me racist or homophobic' it generally just gives off the impression that, well, you don't care too much for your fellow Americans. The amount of racist attacks and hate crimes reported in the UK after the announcement of Brexit's win was astounding, it was terrifying and it is upsetting to think that more people will have to go through that in the US. (Day 1 in Trump's America)

The amount of comments I have seen from friends online lashing out and asking for people who support or voted for Trump to remove them from social media, is completely understandable. If it wasn't just that the American electoral system is a mess and that Donald Trump technically won with less votes than Hilary Clinton did, then it is that people are angry and scared...genuinely scared. I would usually jump straight in and begin to share my views but this time I stood back and just watched for a little while. It really surprised me that, out of the very few Americans I know that voted for Trump, these people were less gloating about their triumph but calling for love instead of hate. They were upset with the posts other people had made against them, didn't understand the necessity of demonstrations and people marching in support of their LGBTQ+, Muslim, ethnic minority brothers and sisters and instead posted things like 'We voted for different candidates, can't we just let the election be over and love each other?' As if politics and political opinions are completely isolated and only matter when there is an election. Your political view is incredibly important, it emanates your views of the world, it shows what and who you care about, and so of course if your view is to support someone that wants a hostile and less accepting place for people who are not the same as you then of course people aren't going to just be 'accepting' of you.

I didn't want to act like an internet troll, I wanted to find out why people voted the way they did and explain to them why I wouldn't have done the same and expose them to some of the grossly offensive things that Trump has said and done. Unfortunately I can't change everyone's opinion, but I hope that some of the things I have said did make people read a few more articles or talk to some people that have different lived experiences from their own - I am very lucky to be a cisgendered white female in today's society and if it wasn't for the incredible friends I have made in the past 6 years I am not sure what my thoughts would be. I wouldn't know about half of the issues facing LGBTQ+ and Black communities as I do today, and so to those friends who have educated me and inspired me to educate others...thank you.