It's 2015! Been a long time since I last posted, school + winter break was completely packed. I don't even remember how I survived Term 1 with 2 rehearsals a week, 5 concerts, 6 mods and 1 essay due. And there was so much stuff for Music Soc, hopefully Term 2 won't be so bad as it's just going to be opera and strings have one concert and I'm so thankful that I've found a proper concert venue. Was literally freaking out over the past week after having emailed about 20 churches in the vicinity and getting quotes going up to 800 quid a night?! But at last one of them replied and I went to see the church yesterday morning and it was a perfect location. So that's one thing done.
Over the winter break I travelled for about 3 weeks which explains why it's the night before school reopens and I've still not completed my work. I went to Switzerland and Italy the first Monday of Christmas break, and came back a few days before Christmas. In Switzerland we were in Geneva but didn't really do that much, I can't really remember what we did except going around the city center, travelling to Montreux to see le Chateau de Chillon, going up to La Cure and trying to find the Old Town on the last day. Switzerland was really expensive, the cheapest meal we could find around was 17CHF and I'd only changed 150CHF for 3.5 days which was not enough. For one thing the train tickets costed about 40 or 80CHF for a return so a lot of our money went out to transport. Food was also really expensive with the exception of Lindt chocolates so we ate mostly bread and ham and chocolates there. I felt so unhealthy as we didn't eat any vegetables for the whole time so I had to get a coleslaw on the last night.
We took the train from Geneva to Milano Centrale. I really wanted to visit Milan and it was primarily because I wanted to go to the Brandy Melville stores there. Upon arriving at Milano Centrale, we got scammed while buying the metro tickets. It was a lot harder to read and communicate in Milan as opposed to Geneva because the people spoke French in Geneva so I could at least understand and reply in French, but Italian was just foreign. Anyway, we were having difficulties reading the instructions on the ticketing machine and not realising that there was actually an English option when this HORRIBLE man came up to us and offered his help. I was quite confused at that point in time so I stupidly accepted his help. The metro tickets costed 3 euros and I had exact change in coins, but the man claimed that the machine doesn't accept coins?! So I wanted to put in a 5 Euro note and he pointed to the machine where the 5 Euro words were scratched out and said I could only put in 10 Euro. I should have realised at this point he was a freaking scammer but no I don't know what was wrong with me then. So I put in the 10 Euro, he gave me the tickets after they were dispensed when I could've just picked them up myself, swooped away all the coins and handed me back a 1 Euro coin. WTF??? He was still holding another coin in his fingers so I actually snatched it back and then he disappeared with a smirk. And then I realised I'd only gotten back 3 Euros in change which means he just stole 4 Euros from me?! Was completely shocked that things like this could actually happen in public and we couldn't get any help. I later found out it was actually a common tourist scam. Ugh Milan is SO DAMN DODGY but lesson learnt.
The airbnb that we got in Milan wasn't as nice as the one in Geneva as well. The son of the person that I booked with messaged me via airbnb at the last minute saying he had work and won't be around that evening but obviously I wouldn't have had wifi on the train so I didn't see the message until we were like at his doorstep. Thank goodness his flatmates were in so they opened the door for us. I mean the room was pretty decent and all but the whole place reeked of cigarettes so I've learnt to check for No Smoking when booking airbnb. The only consolation was that food in Milan was actually affordable in comparison with Geneva, and I had some extra Euros left over from last year's trip to Barcelona so I was feeling a lot less poor than I had felt in Geneva.
We only had 3 days in Milan so we didn't really do much besides shopping and visiting Lake Como. Lake Como was really beautiful and I definitely spammed a lot of pictures there on instagram LOL. It was quite misty on the day we went but nonetheless the scenery was still worth it. We wanted to visit Castello di Vezio and climbed all the way up only to discover that it was apparently closed in winter ... Also had 2 gelatos there hehe. BTW in Italy if it's a single scoop of gelato it actually means double LOL cause they allow you to mix up to two flavours! And who cares about painstakingly making sure that the scoops are perfectly round balls (ahem sg), the Italians just slap the gelato onto the cone and voila the taste makes up for everything! I think I had 8 scoops in 3 days hehehe.
The highlight of my Milan trip was actually Brandy Melville LOL. Went to both the stores on 16 via Statuto and Via Cesare Baccaria (sp?) and I spent a hundred euros there LOL. The first store we went to actually had this sale basket with everything going at 10 Euros holy shit! I didn't even see the basket at first so I spent a long time looking around because I couldn't bear to leave the place without buying anything. In the end I picked out 2 striped long sleeve tops, one in a navy base with white stripes and the other one vice versa (my problem of having to buy the same thing in different colours). They were only 15 Euros each and actually costed cheaper than if I were to buy it in the US (cause of US tax and shipping and all). So I paid for those and decided to take one last look around and that was when I saw the sale basket. OMG. Apparently it had been there the whole time but I just don't know why I didn't see it earlier! So yes I raided the entire basket and found tons of things from the summer collection that I've been wanting for ages like the Heather skirts and Kaitlee skirts and this blue suede skirt that I've been looking for. So super happy with my buys ^_^ At the other store they didn't have this amazing basket unfortunately, but they had those cute wooden signs in the Brandy Stores and I've ALWAYS wanted one of those. There weren't many designs though and I contemplated getting one of Paris but it didn't really make sense since I didn't apply to Paris for my year abroad which means it won't be relevant to me in the near future lol. The one that I really, really want would be one that says LONDON or one of those proper Brandy Melville ones with the pink wooden heart in the center! There was also this really nice food market next to the Duomo, and lots of shops around the Duomo as well. We discovered shops that were really similar to Brandy - what is with Italian labels taking the American style anyway?? And then walked to this outlet (can't remember where) which was rather disappointing ... Didn't do much on the last day because to be honest Milan is actually quite boring after you've seen the cathedrals and the shopping so we went to the airport a few hours early and used wifi there hahaha -_-
Came back to London for Christmas and didn't really do much except playing Pokemon LOL and had a relatively peaceful Christmas except for the I Hall christmas gathering! Then it was Boxing Day which was quite disappointing this year and the sales weren't that good. I ended up only buying like a bar of soap from LUSH (which wasn't even on sale please) and a down jacket and 4 heattechs from Uniqlo (which I ended up returning 3) so yuppp. Trying to cut down.
The day after Boxing Day we left for Norway! It was absolutely freezing there and I was wearing like 4 layers - heattech, fleece, down, hooded coat (cause my other jackets didn't have hoods). The cold really hurts LOL like my hands were hurting even though I was wearing gloves. We actually reached the airbnb place at about 4pm and decided to laze around and watch tv and not knowing that the Oslo Brandy Melville does not open on Sundays T_T And it also does not open on public holidays i.e. New Year's, and those were the only two days we were going to be in Oslo ugh. This is my major regret lol. We brought food to Norway so hooray for Nongshin instant noodles! On Sunday we went to visit some of the museums, and did I mention it was the first time I saw proper snow! The snow in Switzerland didn't count because it was mainly ice flakes. But WHITE SNOW. SO PRETTY.
We took the train to Bergen the next day and stayed in Bergen for 3 days. It was snowing the morning we arrived and we took a long time to get to our airbnb place because it wasn't that near the city center and the snow from the previous days were knee deep. The place was on the top of a hill so it was quite difficult to climb up as the snow had covered the steps leading up. Some of the snow on the roads had melted so it was more like dirty slush. BUT SO MUCH SNOW. I've never seen so much snow before.
There wasn't much to shop in Norway, but I got some cute socks from this shop called Cubus and the material feels very soft, almost exactly like Brandy's micromodal material. The highlight of our Bergen stay was the Gudvangen Fjords tour and also NYE fireworks. The Fjords tour took one whole day and it was on a ferry so it was really cold but it was all worth it. We stopped at Flam and had lunch there and walked around the very small town before taking the bus back to Bergen. NYE was pretty chill, the view of the fireworks was amazing since we were at the top of the hill. Travelled back to London on 1 Jan so that was the end of my travelling for now!
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