Riga, Latvia

Some pictures that our guide took of @marley.rude and I when we went kayaking on a tour of Riga (a surprise from Marli for my birthday but the tour company took a while to send the photos) #wholesome 💦

Pullman Riga Old Town Hotel

Thanks to @marley.rude for a banging birthday/first day in Riga, excellent party hat construction and birthday card Photoshopping (not quite suitable for showing on Instagram), and conspiring with the hotel to have balloons and booze waiting in our room!

Casa Pepe

Finished up the trip with more drinks, more tacos, more murals, tequila shopping to take home, gross spicy/salty mango sweets to take into work (sorry guys), and sunset drinks on the hostel roof!

Teotihuacán

But then I went in a hot air balloon over Teotihuacán and everything was well again! I'd booked on a combined balloon ride with a guided tour of the pyramid site after, but everyone else on the balloon had only booked the balloon trip so in the end I ended up with a one on one private tour of the pyramids with me and a guide, which was a bit intense but also pretty cool!

For the next few days I tried to hang, cycle (on Sundays Reforma, a massive road, gets closed for the afternoon for people to cycle/scoot/jog on, which is pretty cool, but I was _far_ too hungover to fully appreciate), eat, and culture my way out of a persistent hangover and sense that my body couldn't quite handle so many street tacos...

Xochimilco, Distrito Federal, Mexico

Next up was a day of some driving around archaeological sites, a brief jaunt into Coyoacan, but really we all just wanted to start daydrinking on boats in Xochimilco! Later we'd have a really nice dinner and then frantically work out why there were so many zeros on the drinks part of our bill... Turns out the restaurant had been serving us £125-a-bottle tequila without any of us knowing (or asking them beforehand) just how high end it was... Oops!

Zócalo

My first day started at 5am local time or something ungodly like that, and finding out the early check-in I asked for wasn't available, so hanging out at the hostel till breakfast and the obligatory walking tour, then my first round of tacos, some beers, and finishing the day with Lucha Libre and more tacos! 🤼🌮

I'm finally doing a dump of all my Mexico (from the end of April) photos before Marli and I go to Riga tomorrow for my birthday! 🎉🎊 (God forbid my Instagram grid becomes non-chronological!) This post is mostly just photos I took while trying to pretend to be completely chill and totally used to flying Business class and having Mile-High wine and cheese and a duvet to sleep under... More interesting (and colourful!) photos to come!

It's not a super obvious or uncomplicated place to pick for some winter sun, but I had fun in Tel Aviv last week (tempted by cheap flights via @jacksflightclub, as per usual). I was expecting to see more security and military presence but Tel Aviv felt like a super chill city, people were friendly, and the coldest day was about 15°c warmer than Manchester was when I left!

Siren Asylum

Getting messy (figuratively and literally, UV wise) at @space_cassette_mcr

'Dress as a pun/idiom/play on words' NYE with me as 'under the weather' and Marli as 'reigning cats and dogs'... Photos stolen from myself, Aoife and @cjporterphotography!

Porto, Portugal

🎤🔊 Sound on! @marley.rude and I are PROFESSIONAL TRAVEL VLOGGERS/INFLUENCERS now, can't wait to retire off all that sweet sweet #sponcon revenue! #ad #partnerships #influencers #vlogsquad #vlogginglife #travelblogger #travelcouple #giveusfreestuff

Porto, Portugal

We took a funicular railway, bridge, cable car, and about a million photos to cross over the river Douro

Porto, Portugal

A bunch more Porto pics featuring more wine and tiles! Plus viewpoints, bridges, and seagull terrorism

Porto, Portugal

Our first afternoon in Porto, featuring towers, rainbows, lots of wine (unpictured), Francesinhas, and two visits to Portugal's poshest McDonalds... 🇵🇹🌈🍷🍻

MediaCityUK

@marley.rude and I being adults and not at all like children distracted by flashing lights at Lightwaves. If you make it to the photo with my leg out then there is a reason for that, honest! To make the heart thing light up you had to hold hands and touch the metal contacts at either side, but we wanted to see if it worked through lips too... 😘⚡💡

Castlefield

The new Night Mode on Pixel phones is really cool, it's kind of a mix of HDR, long exposure, and some clever AI stuff. I took this in the dark at about 8pm last night but it looks way earlier, except with vivid reflections that you wouldn't have got if it was as light as the sky looks 🤓📱📷🌛

YES

@roosevelt_music with @marley.rude was very very good!

Hulme

So autumnal tonight! First time cycling the whole way to and from work with a hoodie on since before summer 🚲🍂🌅🌇

Beat Herder Music Fest

…and a bunch from Beat Herder too!