London to Milan

Back at Stansted again ... 5th flight in a row HAHA but okay this is the last one already! Super tired didn't manage to sleep last night cause I was trying to dry my clothes + pack ... I managed to bring back most of the stuff I wanted to bring back to SXB but still left some stuff at C's place like my new Topshop white bucket bag :( And some of my clothes didn't manage to dry in time so am gonna just leave them there for now ...

I'll blog about Copenhagen days 2 and 3 another time (if I ever remember HAHA), but I spent the whole of yesterday in London. Arrived at C's place at about 12.30AM, by the time I showered and all it was 4AM. LOL. And I had a bunch of errands to run and stuff to collect from WT's place in the morning, so I had to get up at 7. Very amazed at how I'm still functioning with so little sleep lol. But then again I've been sleeping on all my bus journeys and the whole plane journey (like literally before take off until landing) so I guess the little bits count ...

Anyway, I met WT slightly before 9 to collect my postal slips, then went to the delivery office to collect my parcels. And I finally tried Starbucks' pumpkin spice latte! Remembered at the last minute to change to soy, so I didn't get any stomachaches this time. But it was so good!! I don't think there's any Starbucks in SXB haha so I don't know when will be the next time I can drink it again T_T

Spent 2 hours packing my stuff, I have so much stuff ugh. But we shoved everything into the storeroom. I feel so bad for taking up so much space with my stuff T_T Then went back to C's place and then I went to UCL to print my airtix and stuff. Then Oxford street. I wanted to return my stuff at Topshop initially but the queue was terribly long and it was so crowded even though it was just Thursday, so I'll have to return them by post instead. Then C, J, JY and I had dinner at ASSA! I haven't had Korean food in the longest time ever but it was so good hehehe!! Then I had sharetea hehe favz yakult green tea which I won't be able to drink again for a long time ... And we went to Primark before it closed. So it was a really long day!! But I did everything I had on my to-do list, except for returning the Topshop stuff.

Okay I think I have to go board now but Ryanair gave me priority boarding again woop woop!!

---

Okay managed to just board in time LOL. It was gate 33 which is the same gate as when I took my first flight from LDN - SXB!! They were already boarding when I arrived but I had the priority queue thing so I managed to skip the waiting ... And I just realised I actually got allocated the exact same window seat LOL. But I'm sitting on the aisle seat now because the couple on my row were there first and they wanted the window seat and I don't really mind I'm just gonna sleep the whole way haha. But yeah the last time I had the window seat too and it was a Chinese couple next to me instead. Deja vu much?! Hahaha. Okay gonna take off soon!!

Copenhagen: Day 1

Woop so I made it to CPH!! Despite the horrible experience of hobo-ing in 6 deg temp in the middle of the night without sleep. But yeah after waiting for an hour plus finally the bus arrived and then the station was opened T_T So I sat inside to like, defrost for a bit. Slept the entire bus ride cause I was so tired, then slept a bit more at the airport but I was scared I'd fall asleep and miss my flight so didn't sleep very well. Apparently Zherms said that the food hall at the airport is open 24h (it's very small though), so perhaps the better plan would've been to go there earlier. Well hopefully I won't have to do that again!!! But yes to €5 plane tix still.

Anyway, I slept the whole flight cause I was so tired like I didn't even know we took off until I realised my ears were blocked. And I only woke up when we landed HAHA. The view was amazing but I was so tired I could barely open my eyes. We were flying pretty low I think. I have photos HAHA but it's difficult to add from my phone so maybe another time!! But it was so cold before we boarded!! There was the white mist even when I breathe.

Everything was pretty smooth upon arrival. I was surprised that there wasn't any border control like there usually is, but perhaps cause it was a Stockholm-Copenhagen flight. Took the metro to Norreport, then changed to the S train. The Danish trains are so posh omg?? Like the carriages are really wide and the seats are blue and velvety like first class HAHAHA. But I think they're made to fit bicycles because almost everyone cycles here and people bring their bikes up onto the trains (just like in Strasbourg actually). But yeah was pretty cool. I arrived at Zherms' place at about 9.30, then I meant to take an hour nap while waiting for my phone to charge but ended sleeping all the way until 3pm. My precious sunlight time T_T

Went out to walk around in order to catch the remaining sunlight hours, so I took the train back to Norreport which is basically the city centre. I love Copenhagen already! I think the best feeling is when you step out of the city centre metro station and you just step right out there and just kind of take in everything ... I don't even know how to describe it but it just feels so amazing and so inspiring every single time and for every single city. Like I was thinking about this just now during the moment and I was so inspired but now that I'm back the feeling is gone and I cannot recall what was it that was so inspiring. Okay next time maybe when I visit a new city HAHA. And same goes for the feeling when you just wander around a new place not knowing where you're headed for, but still going on all the same. Perks of travelling alone HAHA in all honesty I love travelling alone and just exploring places sans itinerary even though the only down part is that it does get a bit lonely at times and scary when you're going back alone at night. But other than that I think I appreciate my freedom very much.

Walked past the botanical gardens and then to the canal and the sunlight was amazing. Then it got dark so I went back to the city centre where the shops were and went to find the chocolate store that C wanted chocolates from. They were closing and I managed to get there just in time. Then I just wandered around while waiting for Antoine. There are so many H&Ms HAHA. And Tiger has so much cute stuff I would totes buy everything to decorate my room if I could ever be bothered to decorate my room.

Met A at 6 near the station then we walked around a bit more and he was showing me places to visit (need to find my way back there again tomorrow). Then we had dinner at this Danish restaurant called Restaurant Kultorvet which was really good and just talked for like 2 hours catching up! Miss orchestra times hahaha omg I really wanna find a violin rental place in SXB ...

Okay anyway now I'm back now hehe and I spent the whole day wondering why my phone had no memory space and just discovered that the new iOS update downloaded itself and took up all the space. But I'm going to sleep now because I am seriously damn tired like my eyes cannot open anymore and long day tomorrow don't want to waste anymore sunlight hours!!!

Stockholm is not a night city

Currently stranded at a macs in town that's about to close in 15 min. It's 1.45AM, and my bus to the airport is only at 3.30AM and I literally have no place to go ... Unbelievable how EVERYTHING is closed. Everything!! Even the train station!! There is NOTHING to do, and nothing to eat. As much as I've hobo-ed I think this might just be the worst because it's so cold outside :(

Left HX's place at 12.15AM and caught the last train to T-Centralen. When I got there I spent a long time looking for: a) The airport bus stop, and b) somewhere warm to sit for a few hours. After meeting a few drunk people and asking for directions from various people behind counters, I finally managed to find the train station. With benches!! My single ticket was still valid since it was within 75min, so I tapped in and comfortably sat myself down on an empty bench. Then I saw that I had wifi. Thank you eduroam! I thought it was going to be a comfortable night, so I settled down to read my John Green book on my phone.

- PAUSE while I just got chased out of the macs because they were closing, so I've made my way back to the bus stop and it's fucking freezing. This is not good. Also I am typing this because I have absolutely nothing else to do for the next 1.5 hours. -

So anyway, I thought my plan was settled! Then the guards came over and said something to me in Swedish. I didn't understand. They repeated a few times before switching to English, telling me that the station was going to close in 15 min. This was at approx 1.15am. Oh shit. So I asked them if there was anywhere else I could go to wait for my bus, but they didn't know. Well it's not really their obligation anyway to help ignorant travellers who don't bother planning in advance. So nvm, at least they pointed me towards the direction of the airport bus stop, which turned out to be the correct one. I am grateful for that.

I walked over to the bus stop and managed to find the one that goes to Skavsta Airport. The earliest bus is at 3.30AM. I found a bus stop opposite with seats, so I crossed over and thought I'd sit there and read my book until the bus comes. IT WAS FREEZING. Within minutes my fingers froze until I could barely even feel my phone screen, and only 10 minutes had passed. I could not stay like that for 2 more hours. So I got up, walked back to the train station and took an elevator down to the lower street level where the macs was. And got myself a cheeseburger for 10kr. And sat for 10 min before being chased out again. :( Where do people even go in Stockholm at night?!?!

Okay but anyway that was all a stupid rant because I chose to book cheap flights (think €5) with Ryanair at shitty timings. It was either hobo outside for 2 hours or walk through a forest for 15 min from HX's place to catch a night bus to central station at a nearer timing. To be honest I don't really know which is worse at this point. I am also being very wary of drunk people and strangers in general loitering around (there are many people wandering around and they are scaring the living shits out of me). The bus stop opposite has also been fully occupied and I have been reduced to standing, at the bus stop, behind a barrier to hide myself from the wind. As much experience as I've had with hobo-ing and being up for all sorts of adventures (??) and in general jumping into things without planning I think this is too much for me ... It's boring, it's uncomfortable and it's cold.

What's the moral of the story?? Don't spend your night outside if you're in Stockholm!! (Unless maybe during summer.) And choose your flight timings properly HAHAHA. Okay but seriously it really depends on what you prioritise. #cheapflightshittytiming

It's 2.15AM now and I can barely feel my fingers anymore haha 75 min to go ON Y VA J'Y VAIS.

Let's hope I survive to publish this post!!! (Oh I will because there is wifi from the buses LOL.)

SXB - LDN: Deuxième fois

Typing this at Stansted now. It's 2.35AM (London time so 3.35AM France time) and I've just spent the past 4 hours sitting in Costa Coffee ... But there's so many changes to Stansted like the Costa is 24h and even the M&S!! Or maybe they were always here just that I never noticed HAHA. I remember back in first year there was once we just spent the night at Stansted but now I can't remember for what trip was it Romania?? But everything was closed and we slept on the floor it was so bad lol. But now I actually don't mind, except that the free wifi is only for 1h but giffgaff does this gigabag thing now so I just bought a 500MB gigabag for £5. Spent £7 on food so far, so total damage of £12 tonight which is not too bad considering that a trip back to centre London would cost much more ...

Anyway, I had my second French exam today for Syntaxe. Completely forgot the stuff for the second question, I remember she went through a similar example in class but I just couldn't remember what it was so that's half the paper gone ... Hope my first question went okay :( But I'm so glad that it's the holidays now!! I swear French uni is so much more intense than in UK, like I legit have twice the number of hours I would have in the UK plus all the tests are kind of spread out so there's always things to do. But yeah, feeling rather accomplished that I've survived half the term so far! Have a bunch of exams coming up in the beginning of December and some coursework due in November and I'm not going to be travelling much in November so I foresee myself spending a lot of time in the library HAHAHA. But I really love working in the library though, definitely more productive there than I ever would be in my own room. I think I should just not study in my room at all.

So anyway, the 10AM class that I was supposed to have yesterday was cancelled, so that was great because I spent the 2 hours getting extra sleep (had a massive headache in the morning and I rarely ever have headaches) and then spent lunchtime doing revision in the Portique library. However the exam for that class is going to be right after we come back from break, so I'm feeling a bit unprepared since we didn't have a proper last lesson before the exam. Then I went for a class and for Syntaxe it was supposed to be class for the first hour then exam for the second hour, but she had a change of plans so we didn't have class and just had the exam and we could just leave after the paper! Which makes a lot of sense because it's true that we'd be too distracted to focus for the class anyway. Went back and ate dinner, packed and cleaned my room within 2 hours then made my way to la gare avec O. We were early for the train and made it to the airport in good time. Met a few other Erasmus students on the flight lol seems like everyone is going back early!! Then we arrived at Stansted where I have to wait for 10h until my next flight so here I am. But I'm already halfway through!! Slept a bit just now and I think I am going to try to sleep a bit more before I head off again. Very very excited to see HX and Zherms later!!

First French Exam

Had my first exam in France today. I feel I should've apologised in advance to the tutor for my bad French ... but anyway it's over. One more exam tomorrow then I'm off!!

Anyway I wanted to post because I honestly thought this week was a shitty week but things turned out fine in the end, like:

- I had a panic attack on Tuesday because I suddenly realised that since I missed my last VISA appt for the medical check up they've not yet sent me another convocation and the 3 months deadline is approaching rather soon. Then it turned out that I worried for nothing, because the very next day they sent me 3 emails reminding me of my next appt, which I can finally make!!

- Was so unprepared for my exam today but V was so sweet she went through the stuff with me at noon before the exam!! Very very grateful omg :D

- Came back just now and neighbour opposite was having a party and I was worrying whether if it's gonna last through the night (because I have an 8am class tmr and I really need my sleep) and I really didn't want to be the bad person but ... they've all left before 12 so all's good and quiet now.

- Supposed to have 5 hours of class tmr before the exam but just checked my email and one of the 2h classes is cancelled so I have a 4h break now!!!!!

Cheap thrills, I know. But I am so happy and thankful!!!

Anyway I've discovered the joys of studying in the library again. I like the libraries here, but it's just annoying that all the libraries close quite early i.e. no 24h libraries like UCL. Like the one in Portique closes at 7pm but from 26 Oct (Idk if it's like that for the rest of the year or just Vacances Toussaint) it's gonna close at 5pm. 5pm. LOL. But the U2-U3 closes at 11pm, so that's not too bad. I definitely am more productive in the library than I ever am in my room. But anyway massive accomplishment today when V and I were the last ones to leave the Portique library!! But we were only there for about an hour or so HAHA. Still, we went to the U2-U3 after dinner for another library sesh. And we had BROWNIES for dessert!! Woop woop good timing. Spent an hour in U2-U3 then went out for drinks with the English gang before we all go on break next week (or this week, or tomorrow actually). V and O and I shared a bottle of Pinot Gris (something that starts with S) and it was really good and the bar was so chill too. I'm super super grateful for having found such amazing friends here really <3

Okay so this post turned out not so much to be about the French exam after all but still! I'm going to stop here now because I want to do some readings for the exam tomorrow and sleep early!!

Le weekend avant la dernière semaine de cours

Oui, c’est la dernière semaine de cours au moins avant les vacances Toussaint ! Donc j’ai trois jours de cours avant que j’aille encore à Londres puis à Scandinavie. Mais j’ai 2 examens cette semaine donc ce n’est pas bon du tout ahaha. En fait j’ai un cours à 8h demain matin, mais j’ai déjà dormi pour tout l’après-midi donc je pense que je devrais faire un petit peu de travail avant je dors encore …

Le vendredi je suis allée à centre-ville finalement après quelques semaines ! Le temps passe très vite à Strasbourg c’est incroyable. Mais j’ai dû faire un retour à Galeries Lafayette pour un achète en ligne, mais le procès était assez facile et vite. Je voulais acheter des autres choses mais il n’y avait rien que j’aimais … Puis je suis allée à Le Grand Shanghai, qui est le restaurant chinois et j’ai choisi une boite pour emporter. J’ai mangé chez V et après cela nous marchions chez O pour le risotto ! Au début le plan était que nous sortirons ce soir-là, mais enfin nous avons décidé de rester et regarder un film. Le film que nous regardions était Wolf of Wall Street, qui je n’ai jamais vu mais c’était cool. Et après le film nous voulions encore sortir, mais après beaucoup d’hésitation ça ne marche pas. Alors !

Le samedi B et P et moi nous sommes allés  à nouveau à Le Grand Shanghai pour le déjeuner. J’ai mangé plus que la dernière fois que j’étais là-bas mais comme toujours c’était très très bon. Nous sommes rentrés chez nous après le repas, et j’ai essayé de faire un peu de travail mais sans succès LOL. Le soir V et moi nous avons rencontrés avec S et son amie qui sont venus de Lyon pour dîner a Au Brasseur, parce que Le Michel ferme à 7h tous les samedis. Mais j’adore les tartes flambées ! Après le diner V et moi nous sommes allées à MUI chez P pour boire avec le reste du groupe, mais enfin c’était seulement nous trois qui sortions. Nous sommes allés à LIVE, et c’était bon ! J’adore beaucoup Strasbourg !

Le dimanche je me suis réveillée très tard donc je n’ai pas fait beaucoup, mais le soir nous sommes allés pour le quiz au bar irlandais. Et j’ai dormi beaucoup jusqu’aujourd’hui. J’étais en train d’acheter des billets pour mes voyages en ligne quand B m’a appelé, et nous avons mangé au café avec des pâtes pour le déjeuner ! C’est comme des très longues vacances woop !

Et demain, j’ai des cours … on y va !

Days are getting cold

It's actually quite late and I really should be sleeping but so many of my friends who are on their year abroad right now have been posting links to their year abroad blogs which look really cool so I felt this sudden obligation to update this space! It's been what, 3 weeks since I last posted? Life is going on at full pace and I've been meaning to update for a while but never got round to it and I want to kind of quickly record things down before I start to forget what happened!!

So, I stopped at 27 August. Mid-Autumn Festival!! My craving for Chinese food got satisfied that day because right after I posted V and B and I decided to go for lunch at this Chinese buffet place. Actually, it's the only Chinese restaurant I know of here in Strasbourg. V introduced it to us and it's called Le Grand Shanghai and it's located near Homme de Fer tram stop. And did I mention this already but the best part is that it's a buffet! A BUFFET! I don't fare well at buffets in general but I love desserts ahaha. Their lunch costs €12,80 and dinner is €16,80 I believe, and they also do takeaways which is great. The takeaway boxes come in 3 sizes but I've yet to try so I have no idea how big the boxes are. Anyway, the food was amazing. I tried one piece of every single type of meat before I couldn't eat anymore. And the fried rice!!! Omg I missed rice so much omg. And they also have SUSHI. It was AMAZING. I am getting all hungry again just thinking about the food. But I have pictures!!

So basically, I had 2 rounds of mains and 3 rounds of dessert! One can never have too much dessert. And of course every French meal comes with wine. I had rosé instead of vin blanc for a change.

ALL IN ALL I NEED TO GO BACK AGAIN. Probably this weekend ahahaha.

Anyway back to Sunday. So there was the amazing lunch (probably the best I've had in Strasbourg so far legit crying), then in the evening we went to the Irish Bar for the Sunday pub quiz! And proud to say that we didn't come in last or close to last this time, in fact we were 6th from the bottom which was a massive improvement from the last time :D Then the rest of the week passed by pretty quickly, finally got a French SIM card, went out on Wednesday night (bad idea LOL), was so tired on Thursday and then V and I had to rush to catch our flight back to London!! We'd booked the same flights for Thursday and to return on Monday. So the weekend was spent in London, which I think I'll do a separate post on sometime because it was such a hectic weekend I was just out the whole time and didn't even have time to meet everyone I wanted to meet :'( But yeah, going back for the weekend made me realise how much I'd missed London, and also how much I didn't miss the weather LOL. It was drizzling on Monday when I left, so I was actually glad to be going back to SXB though the weather here that evening wasn't much better tbh HAHAHA. But it's less dry here than London I think? Like my skin doesn't dry as much here as it does in London. Oh and I brought back like 12kg of clothes or something HAHAHA. Didn't actually weigh it but I'd bought a new duffel bag which was bigger than my other one so it was freaking heavy my arms were totes aching the whole week.

Classes again for the week (this was last week btw), I managed to wake up for the 8am class on Tuesday despite only reaching back at 11 the night before which was a great accomplishment, but I was SO tired the whole day haha. Went to Topshop after classes and managed to buy the last piece of the indigo denim jacket that I was searching for in London in my size!! But I've still not worn it yet the days are too cold ... V and I went to O's place for dinner on Wednesday. Carbonara! But they did all the cooking I am absolutely useless in the kitchen ... then on Thursday night I was bored and made a last-minute decision to go to Basel on Friday for a day trip. The tickets were €24 with the SNCF carte jeune, and the timings weren't that bad for off peak, except that the Friday evening off peak starts later and I was actually really tired in the evening but had to wait an extra hour to take the next train back. Once again, I'll do a separate post on Basel with lots of nice pictures aha but that'll be another time. But Basel was amazing! I love Switzerland but everything is so expensive there :( Anyway after I got back from Basel on Friday night we went out again but I was so gone it was horrible omg and I was such a burden I felt so bad T_T Was hungover the whole weekend can't believe it's taking me so long to recover aha. So I literally spent the rest of the weekend including Monday in my room. But I did lots of work, so that was a good thing. And I was doing my own laundry by freaking handwashing my clothes even my jeans and shoes!! The thing is that the laundry here costs €4 per wash and when I went to check out the machines they didn't look very ... desirable for me to put my clothes in. And most of my clothes can't be machine dried and I really don't want to ruin anything. It's good now though because they've turned on the heating now so I could just dry my stuff near the heater. I also finally cleaned my New Balance shoes after one year!! It was amazing watching the laces turn from grey to white again lol. But I left my shoes on the heater overnight and I think the sides touching the heater got scorched ... Fml this is the type of thing that always happen to me ugh. But yes, my shoes are clean. I don't know how to get rid of the scorch marks though!!

Then this week was the 17 intensive hours of classes again, and I have 2 exams next week before Vacances Toussaint!It was freezing this week like 2 deg when I woke up for my Tuesday 8AM. Went out on Wednesday night (bad idea again never gonna do that again) then couldn't fall asleep and I had another 8AM on Thursday (which is today/yesterday) so I've literally been up for like 36 hours maybe?! But I had a nap over lunch. Classes were okay though, I'm really liking the stuff especially linguistics because it's actually really practical for grammar. And it's cool that I have a chance to finally take linguistics, because I still slightly regret not taking ELL over physics in JC it would've been a lot more fun and would've spared me the torturous hours of toiling over physics which I never understand ... But yeah. Also I did a French oral presentation today in FLE, and my tutor just confirmed the suspicion that I've had for so many years that I speak French with a Chinese accent. But what she said actually was that it was a melangé de chinois et anglosaxon (??) because I have the tendency of cutting my words instead of letting them flow like how the French speak. But it's so hard since I'm trying to concentrate on the pronunciation ... and also how I focus on chaque mot like in English instead of a phrase. So there was this sentence which she separated into basically just 2 phrases and it felt so long! No wonder I always feel the French speak too fast for me sometimes, I've been getting it all wrong ... But yes, useful things to know!

I have no classes tomorrow, but I need to sleep now anyway hahaha need to do my London and Basel posts soon but probably over the weekend. I've posted about my spacious flights though :D And need to studyyyyyy. Then it's London again + my 10 day backpacking trip!!! So hyped :D

Ryanair: SXB - LDN

En fait j'ai oublié de publier cette poste le vendredi dernier donc voici la poste sur Ryanair qui est un petit peu tard ...

1 Oct 2015:

Sitting in the Ryanair plane now and enjoying possibly the best flight I've ever had (also the cheapest?!?!)! Basically when I checked in today I found out they'd given me priority queue again, which was great but unfortunately it was only for the outbound trip and I kind of need it more for the inbound trip but oh well ... And then it turns out that I had the whole row to myself! So now I've just got my macarons and my bottle of airport water next to me. There're 2 more empty rows in front but no one's moving over. So basically this is a summery of my €15 flight, out of which €8 was spent on the macarons, €2 for the mineral water and €5 for the actual ticket. Less than €5, technically. I love Ryanair!

---

5 Oct 2015:

Oops I'd actually forgotten to post this when I was in London! So now I'm sitting in the Ryanair plane (again) and waiting for take off. The seats next to me are still empty even though I'm in the middle of the plane and all the other rows around me (even the ones across) are full. Plane is supposed to take off in 12 min. Hoping that I'm getting the whole row to myself again!! I mean it's not a big deal but having some space would be nice :D I'm at a window seat this time ahaha. And this is a bit like déjà vu but the row in front of me is empty again too ...

1900: Game plan changed: got moved to the row in front instead (row 17) which also happens to be the emergency exit row. There wasn't anyone else in my row so the flight steward asked me to move. The annoying thing is that I can't lift up the armrests for this row but on the other hand I have like A LOT more leg space so I guess it would also look less hobo if I stretched my legs in front instead of horizontally LOL. But I still have the whole row to myself!! And my original row behind is still empty. Omg I love Ryanair LOL.