A couple of months ago I was fortunate enough to be invited to a friends 22nd birthday where she decided to go on a wine tour in the Hunter Valley. The trek was quite the distance, me living over 2 hours away and having had a 21st birthday the night before. I was strategically planning out my moments of sleep. Having the other 21st birthday the night before, I went to bed at 2am and woke up at 5am to begin my journey up to the central coast to meet with my friend for her birthday. My gosh I was tired and the first thing I did that morning was go through macca's drive thru and order a coffee in the hopes that would keep me awake while driving. I got to my friends place at around 8.30am where we met with warm hugs and excitement as we hadn't seen each other in AGES. We spent the next hour just talking about everything that's been happening in our lives; from relationships, career prospects, you name it. We then met with about 12 other girls on a what I like to call a 'party' bus and made the journey up to the Hunter Valley. While the wine tasting was fun, the party bus was certainly were all the good times happened. We took on board plenty of cheap Aldi wine (which is surprisingly delicious), cheese, crackers, dip and (of course) ferrero rocher's.

We spent our time on the bus, talking, dancing, laughing and drinking. The only person I knew was the birthday girl but I got to meet a heap of awesome chicks that I never would have met if I didn't go on this trip. What was even more shocking was that I wasn't even tired. I throughly enjoyed every minute of this visit. Truth be told, if I was invited to this a year ago, I wouldn't have gone. In the last eight or so months, I've completely transformed myself and have lost a tone of weight (story coming shortly). I was so self conscious, lazy and had no confidence to put myself out like this before. Now t I've completely changed the way I look at myself and am now enjoying my life. I put myself out of my comfort zone and I'm so glad that I did and I've definitely noticed that I'm doing this more often. I'm now excited to meet new people as I see it as a chance to connect and maybe even start some new friendships (really trying not to be cliché here). After all five winery stops (yes you read correctly) and the plenty of wine we put into our bodies on the bus we then headed out for a night on the town. Take it from me, I use to see putting myself out there as a chore and something that I just wasn't interested in. Now I see it as an opportunity to meet some fantastic people and on the tour I got to met some pretty awesome chicks! Don't be afraid, just embrace.