Edinburgh Exchanges

Well what an eventful couple of weeks it has been! When I arrived back from France two weeks ago I was in a thoroughly summery mood, having spent a lovely weekend basking in French sunshine. This feeling was spoiled somewhat by the snow here in Vienna!

Today has been the first properly sunny day and the forecast is showing a rise in temperatures over the coming week, just in time for returning to a hopefully not too rainy, Scotland! At least it means that Spring has (hopefully) finally arrived in Austria. It has been a long, cold, dark winter and I really want to start wearing some summer clothes without adding in the necessary winter coat, scarf and gloves!

Last weekend, Sarah and I headed to Holland on the night-train. A journey which took 17 hours and felt (if possible) even longer when we were cramped into a carriage with 4 strangers. Despite that we arrived in Holland in high spirits, having spent the last two hours of the journey playing 'spot the dutch stereotype' - points were given for finding windmills, clogs, bikes, house-boats, canals and anything orange. Needless to say we found ourselves in Amsterdam slightly delirious with lack of sleep and a number of in jokes which were rather lost on Ellis and Caroline... and probably would be to anyone who hadn't shared in the pain of such a long train ride.

We were amused to discover that 15000 Scottish people had also descended on Amsterdam that day. They were easy to spot as they were all wearing kilts, had obviously been drinking since before they boarded their easyjet flights from Glasgow, were speaking in broad Scottish accents and came complete with bag pipe music - much to the bemusement of our Dutch friends, who had never seen (or heard) anything like it! The atmosphere in Amsterdam was great, lively and friendly. Even after they lost 3-0 on Saturday, the dutch news showed them to be in good spirits (probably helped along by the copious amounts of alcohol they had been drinking). You've got to love the Tartan Army!

We spent the day in Amsterdam. Our tour guides got lost trying to find the red-light district so we settled for something more sombre and headed to the Anne Frank house. Which was really interesting but of course also really sad. After a long day, we took the train on to Groningen, which is where Ellis and Caroline actually live. It was a really lovely weekend and it really felt as though the four of us hadn't been apart at all. Holland left a great impression on me, I lived there when I was younger and though the particular area we were in is very different to where I lived, I felt as though I'd come home in a way. I really want to go back and spend some time there - perhaps a summer working.

On Sunday, Sarah and I went our separate ways. She took the train back to Vienna from Amsterdam but as it wouldn't have got me into Vienna in time for work the next morning, I flew back from Muenster in Germany. I wasn't looking forward to this week of work. I'm heading home on friday and thought the five days would drag but I've had a really good couple of days of teaching. This particular school has finally allowed me a little more responsibility and the chance to take full classes on (with the supervision of the teacher) and I've really enjoyed the challenge. The sense of pride you get after standing up in front of a class of 26 rowdy 15 year olds and actually manage to engage them is amazing - I really love teaching and feel like I've finally found my calling.

I have mixed feelings about heading home; I really can't wait to see my family and friends again but I also feel like I don't have much time left in Vienna (only 2 months left) and I now just want to soak up every last minute of it. Though I also know that I would have been bored this week with everyone else also heading home for easter holidays and it'll be nice to have a break from work - I feel like I need it! Going home also reminds me that it won't be long before I leave Vienna for good and although I'm really looking forward to being back in Edinburgh, I'm sad that this year is nearly over. It has given me so many amazing opportunities to travel and as cheesy as this will sound to discover who I really am, outwith the comfort of home and familiarity. I now know that I can handle almost anything thrown at me. I always considered myself an independent person but now I know what true independence is and I hope I don't lose what I've learnt through my time here.

Until next time!

A whole week late! I have no idea what happens to time, I always think on Sunday that I’ll write then I forget then I think oh I have Monday and Tuesday before I know it it’s Wednesday and now it’s Saturday… I’m confused! Anyway last week, I’m trying to think back as it’s not been entirely eventful!

Mainly I’ve been working on my literature review and trying to get somewhere in labs though it is very slow work, the one experiment I am working on just won’t separate so I’ve just been trying lots of different things. I still don’t feel any better about working in the lab, I don’t know why I can’t shake it, no one tells me off or tells me I’m doing something wrong but I still panic. The thing is; I just want to finish my literature review!

The strikes are still going on all over the place but I don’t really hear anything about them except on the radio as the researchers are employed by a company and are not university funded so no strikes for us, which I couldn’t be more grateful for! I know a lot of other people are affected by them, Rob and Sarah, Shusaku, people in my French class. We got round to organising the fancy dress party this week, inviting people and making a crown for Rachel (Aphrodite), it looks very impressive, I will post a link to pictures (since I do not know how to load them on to here) after the party. We spent hours cutting out leaves, putting twine on for the veins, covering them in shiny gold crepe paper then glitter and sequins. We stuck them to a hair band with superglue, it looks awesome, if I do say so myself. We caved this week and decided to buy some Malibu, because although we are not drinking wine, we didn’t say ‘no alcohol at all’, although we were very sensible and I think we ended up watching a DVD. Wow, we’re so boring sometimes!

Not through any fault of our own I hasten to add, we all had a lot of work to do, Rachel and Andrew have some distance space learning to send to Glasgow, forgive me for not feeling more sympathetic after having done nine assignments since I arrived, and this literature review.

I have to admit I am getting slightly worried about all this work, and choosing a project for next year, the university forgot to send me my work. How likely is it that they’ll forget to send me the project choices? I really need to sort them out quickly because I need to do something relevant to antidepressants, or drug delivery, to keep heading in the right direction. I really want to do a PhD on this stuff (yet another thing to worry about) and so I don’t want to loose any chances. This however does bring up another problem; I have been speaking to Anna, another student on the year in Europe placement from Chemistry. She has found the same problem; the support from Edinburgh has been pitiful! I don’t know what I expected and I know we’re old enough to get on with it on our own but a little support to provide information about work needed to be done, timings and some advice wouldn’t be bad. I guess it must be quite difficult to keep track of everyone and as it happens I seem to have survived…

French class was alright, it’s still not ideal, we are being taught how to pass an exam, i.e. how to construct an argument! I may not be an English student but I do remember how to write an essay and if I didn’t then the literature review is refreshing me somewhat! I don’t really care about what we’re taught, the best bit is the ‘petit pause’ and afterwards when we can chat to people in French. Friday night was fun though, I went to Shusaku’s because his girlfriend is here at the moment; she speaks both French and English (and Japanese, of course), and spent an odd evening speaking in three languages. Japanese is so difficult but hearing them speak makes me want to learn it even more!

Anyway I’m surprised I managed to ramble so much, oh the weather was great this week! It should be like that all of the time!

On tuesday 14 of us embarked on a little trip to Riga which turned into one of the funniest things we've done on erasmus. Basically, it all began about a month ago when a friend and I were looking up ryanair flights. It turned out we could go for 24 hours for 2 cents return including tax/everything as we've got visa electron cards. Gradually more and more people learnt about it and it ended up that 14 of us booked flights. Then a week later we saw ryanair had cut their prices again and we could stay an extra day and come back for 3 euros.

Riga is really nice and I'd reccomend it, its much nicer than Tallinn and had a really friendly feel about it. 48 hours was just enough time to see everything and just generally chill. We went to several resturants and coffee shops just because we could - we're living in Helsinki where it costs 6 euros to get 330ml of beer, so coming to somewhere without the Euro where we could get a full meal and beer for 4 euros was amazing. For this reason we also stocked up on cheddar cheese as it doesn't seem to exist in Finland as they're into their edam and gouda, meaning every time someone goes to Russia, Estonia or the UK we place an order of cheese. We stayed in such an amazing hostel too - they were lovely people - and just had a really cool couple of days drinking and chilling.

We went to the Latvian Occupation museum which was an eye opener. I don't really know an awful lot about what happened during the Soviet Occupation years and I always feel bad as here I have friends from Czech, Slovenia, Poland, Estonia and Lithuania who were all obviously born during the period when their countries weren't free. This is one of the failings of the British education system I think, because I choose to study geography at GCSE and A level meaning I've studied no form of History since I was 13 years old. It turned out that 25th March is actually a commemerative day in Latvia - the same as November 11th in the UK. So we stumbled accross a big parade of people around a statue in the main square - everyone was there to lay flowers and the President actually arrived whilst we were there too. There was the national anthem and various salutes plus a military procession. It was so interesting even though at that point we didn't understand what was happening bar the breif explaination we'd got from someone in the crowd. Then we went to the museum that afternoon and it felt so much more real. The 25th is the day in which the Russians came into the Baltic states and deported hundreds of thousands of people to camps in Russia. A lot of these people died and those who survived never saw a lot of their family members again. One of the Lithuanian girls who came with us said her grandad was one of the people taken, which again put it into perspective even more.

I have my first formal exam here tomorrow, at least I assume it will be more formal as it isn't just in the normal class time. I've not really done any revison for it so I need to start doing some now.

Money is such an issue at the moment. I need my next loan installment so badly as I can't even afford to pay my rent this month, but its ok as they only charge you an extra 5 euro fine if you pay it late regardless of when you actually pay it. I've never been in the situation where I can't afford to pay rent as I literally don't have the money in my bank account and it's scary. I'm not sure what to do about it either other than keep begging Halifax to extend my already maxed overdraft. I can't believe how awful the pound is in relation to the euro. It's an utter joke and I hate the fact that there is nothing we can do about the fact we're loosing money on a daily basis just due to the exchange rate. Since being here I've decided that if there ever is a vote in the UK, I will vote in favour of joining the euro.

Also last week I joyfully mentioned that there was sun and blue sky. It is no more - our excitement was short lived and Helsinki has now plunged back into darkness, snow and grey skies. It's snowed twice this week and each time for the entire day. Next week it is going to be April for crying out loud, we're not supposed to have snow now!!!! The people who arrived in January were saying they've never actually seen Helsinki with grass which surprised me until I realised that was reality. There hasn't been a day since mid November where there has been so little snow on the ground that there has actually been grass to see.

Thought I'd best write this week's post a little early due to a list of impending visits over the next few weeks and most probably very little time to do so whilst people are here! My friend C is coming from Edinburgh tomorrow, and despite the fact I still have classes to attend and a semester essay discussion meeting with my tutor (who happens to be the leader in the field in Norway and internationally recognised for his work, NO PRESSURE), I am so looking forward to having someone to stay! I tend to forget how lovely Oslo can be until I take someone to my favourite parts and realise all over again, it's a lovely experience. One thing I found rather funny was that when my neighbour discovered I was having a visitor from Scotland, his initial reaction was "CAN YOU ASK HER TO BRING SOME NUTELLA???" - Nutella is weirdly unavailable here, and in its place stands Norway's attempt:

Norway, I love you, but Nugatti has nothing on Nutella.  Whilst hardly a very British export, Nutella is one of those unavailable everyday bits and pieces that one begins to miss living so far from home (by "bits and pieces" read Marmite, Heinz Beans, shortbread, roast chicken and all the trimmings, Pimms, Heinz tomato ketchup, and Campbell's condensed soup!)  Not the kind of thing one would eat everyday, but when unavailable act as an insatiable craving!

University has been super busy lately, which bizarrely enough has resulted in super time wasting on my part: I have watched more films than I care to remember.  I read something interesting about the success of Norwegian films abroad, even those that don't do so well here in the country of their making.  There is a tendency to market any Norwegian film exports as darkly exotic, playing heavily on connotations of isolated life in the bitterly cold north of the country where daylight rarely penetrates.  Whilst I cannot ignore the fact that many films do have a slight characteristic of this kind, it would be wholly unfair to name a few good examples of Norwegian film that I have recently experienced with a few to perhaps changing the outsiders' perspective of where I currently reside!

The first of the images above is from Max Manus, a film released just before Christmas that was the most expensive in Norwegian film-making history and covers Norway during the war years and the actions of a national hero, Max Manus.  The film is partly set in Scotland, as it happens, and with that includes various dialogue in english, and I can only hope it merits a UK release.
The second of the shots above is taken from a film, Den Brysomme Mannen, translated as The Bothersome Man.  It's the most surreal piece of cinema, a massively ironic yet humorous take on Norway with some beautiful cinematography.
The third of the above is perhaps that which those unacquainted with Norway would least associate with the country.  Uno is a film about the immigrant, criminal underbelly of Oslo that I have (quite thankfully) never become particularly associated with, but which certainly exists, despite Norway's generally prosperous and successful image.  It's a tad violent, but a very good example of the unexpected from Norway where films are concerned.  When I head home I will miss being around to experience films and book upon their first release, and it's only beginning to sink in that that will be the case very soon.

The last couple of weeks have gone by really quickly and have been a bit strange. I was delighted to have all my friends come back from their trips home over the holiday, especially as they brought fantastic weather back with them! We have adopted an extremely British attitude to the sun and are constantly in strappy tops and flip flops, refusing to come inside because we want to ‘make the most of the weather’, much to the amusement of the French students, who are still all bundled up in their winter woollies! It hasn’t sunk in at all that the sun will most likely be here from now until we go home, which is suddenly seeming like a remarkably short time away!

Last weekend I had my friend Shaun come and visit for a few days from Edinburgh, which was great – I like to show Dijon off to people who have never been here before, it really is a beautiful little town and I never realise how much I take it for granted until I see it again through someone else’s eyes. Max came down from Vienna to join us for the weekend and although it was a squash to get three of us into my tiny room, we had a fantastic time. On Friday night we went to a flat party at my friend Claire’s place – what was supposed to be a quick drink before going out to a club turned into a full-on party, complete with an accidental lock-in when Claire went outside, leaving the flat door to lock behind her, and then broke the key to the outer door so that we couldn’t get out and she was stuck outside. This would probably have been quite concerning in other circumstances, but as it was, it was an excuse for a lot of amusing banter: we decided that the best plan would be for Claire to throw the keys up to us so we could let ourselves out and then go downstairs to let her in, so Sophie and Megan hung out of the window and dangled a bucket for Claire to throw the keys into while the rest of us desperately clung onto their legs so they didn’t fall. This, as you can imagine, did not work terribly well and the lock-in lasted nearly two hours, during which time Claire made friends with the guys living in the flat opposite hers. The situation finally came to an end when the boys took over proceedings – one of the guys outside threw the keys and Shaun caught them. Problem solved! Sometimes you really do need a man around - although why they waited 2 hours to take over I can only imagine!

We didn’t do too much when my friends were here; even when we had a day in Paris before their flights back, we just lay around and soaked up the sun, but it was good to spend some relaxed time together instead of doing loads of sight-seeing, which I can find quite stressful.

I only had three days in Dijon before I took a long-awaited trip back to Scotland to see my family and my boyfriend with my brand spanking new passport! These three days were an extremely sad time for all of the Erasmus students in Dijon though as we learned of the loss of our friend Joey Kett, who passed away on Sunday morning. It was a terrible shock for us all and Joey will really be missed.

It was a sad note to be going home on, but I still had a good time and was especially glad to have been able to see my mum on Mother’s Day. It’s always good to go home and see what’s changed (shops closing, new amusing Cadbury’s TV ads featuring children with strange eyebrows, the closure of Princes Street for the trams) and it’s always comforting to go back to things that haven’t (Teviot, people speaking English, my dad’s truly awful sense of humour). What surprised and comforted me most though, was that while I was sad to leave home, and especially my boyfriend, again I was genuinely happy to come back to Dijon and have a laugh with friends that it now feels I have known for years. I think it will be a real struggle to say goodbye to France when the time comes – who would have thought?!

Spring has sprung, finally! Months of darkness, serious cold and snow is slowly being banished by the gradual return of the sun, it really couldn't be more welcome!  Every day the lying snow melts that little bit more, and in between sessions at the computer typing up a plethora of essays I have been dramatically throwing my windows open and basking in the light in a way that suggests I may never have encountered the sun before (semi-true, Edinburgh is hardly hot-spot for that kind of action).  Anyway, it's beyond lovely to have light back in my life, and the beginnings of barbeques and picnics and things happening OUTDOORS are taking shape, hurrah!

Contrastingly, I have been indoors all weekend in an attempt to work sufficiently: whilst these credits are superfluous, I would hate to take this semester's courses and turn up to the classes each week, etc, and fail on a technicality, that technicality being the semester assignment for each subject that must be passed before on can sit the end-of-semester exams.  With that, I have sidelined any remnants of a social life and got my head down this weekend, a tedious routine broken only by visits to the gym to thrash out my frustration over my own terrible choice of assignment topic!  Norwegian 'dirty realism' in 1980s literature, oh dear!

Most excitingly over the past week has been a steady stream of new faces that I have managed to make acquaintance with, rather pleasantly.  First up is the fact that I finally was matched with a TANDEM language partner!  She is very lovely, we meet once a week for coffee and lament the business of university and exchange bizarre language oddities, though coming from the south of Norway she has a very pronounced dialect which is a challenge.  However, dialects are something I do need to work with as they form such a massive part of society here with some even speaking what is formally acknowledged to be another language, and so it really is a very good match, all things considered.
Secondly this week, the empty room next to mine in the flat was eventually moved into!  I heard shuffling and voices and didn't meet my neighbour until the following day: a tall, hulking Norwegian man from the western side of the country currently studying to become a priest, from what I gather.  My flat had previously been deathly quiet at all times: my neighbours barely spoke to me or one another, it was a bit of a depressing situation.  However, my new neighbour, whilst rocking the boat in a previously completely female-zone, is friendly in the extreme, knocking on my door, having a chat, lending me things and teaching me humorous idiomatic Norwegian expressions.  Last night he and I and a few friends watched a film on his enormous flat screen television, an accessory which is accepted as the norm for Norwegian students moved away from home, and it was at this point I met another person: my neighbour introduced me to his friend from Scotland, who it surmises is an Edinburgh University student on a Law exchange!  I was hugely surprised to find out there was anyone else in Oslo from Edinburgh besides myself and the two other girls, as was she!  It seems a shame not to have been put in contact before now, but life is full of amazing coincidences when one thinks about it considering the above.

Strangely, semester already seems to be wrapping up in a very long-winded way here: whilst planning trips here and there I suddenly realised how little time I have left here.  I'm happy to be heading home in the summer, with lots of things to look forward to there, but this feels so very much like my home that I can't quite imagine leaving it behind.  The less I think about it the better, I should think.

I haven’t written a blog entry in forever. Well, two weeks. I would go back and fill you in on midterms week and China, but they can be summed up in two words: horrendous and insane. Once again, writing a decently-sized essay for every class whilst (finally) constructing and exhibiting our sound project from last semester does not for an easy week make. I’m glad that the sound project is over as it was becoming far too stressful towards the end, and we (Jack, Scott and I) were extremely surprised and happy when approximately thirty people (twenty-eight more than expected) showed up, took off their shoes, and experienced our sounds as we intended.

China was sort of insane. Shanghai is probably the strangest city I have ever visited. In the city of the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (I went to the museum and lost count of how many times the words ‘bourgeois’ and ‘imperialist’ were used) the skyscrapers are immense, modern and entirely commercial. I ate pretty much everything I came across, including turtle and frog (turtle was delicious), and enjoyed how a litre of beer costs approximately 30p.

And then, after twenty-four hours of travelling in each direction (a total of 17,000 miles), I was back at Haverford, unable to believe I was in my room once again, and not entirely able to grasp the time change for a couple of days.

On Thursday, my friend Lizzie, from Edinburgh, arrived after her semester abroad at Dartmouth courtesy of the theology department. So far I haven’t been a particularly good host, although I’ve made sure to introduce her to as many people as possible in a lot of different social situations.

We went into Philly to go see a film (Watchmen – well worth seeing), and because I don’t really know Philly all that well still, ended up in a bit of a ghetto area. After getting off at the 69th Street Terminal, it turned out that the metro wasn’t working and that we’d have to get a bus instead. So we hop on the bus, take our seats, and watch as the areas we pass through get progressively rougher and rougher – there are lots of derelict and partially demolished buildings, burned out cars, crazy-looking people, and suspicious-looking men standing on corners trying not to look anyone in the eye. There were approximately thirty blocks between the terminal and our stop, and when there were fifteen blocks left I was practically praying that the area would drastically improve in the coming blocks. Luckily, it did.

Having gone to school in a succession of pretty interesting areas, I usually feel at home in the sketchier ends of towns, but American ghettos are something else. The cinema was definitely worth the interesting trip there, however, as it had comfy leather seats and was surrounded by restaurants from all my favourite cuisines, which means that this is an area definitely worth exploring (but keeping away from the ghetto-y bits).

Keep safe, kids.

Hi!! Soooo hectic. I'm now in week 5 of the second semester and I'm still surviving! Although there certainly aren't enough hours in the day to do even stop and breathe, I feel like, academically, this semester is going much better. I am actually interested in my courses, and I feel like I'm learning real Computer Science, so that's cool.

Eep, I hope I haven't just jynxed it.

But I'm doing Cryptology for example, it's quite hard work but it's really interesting so I am actually motivated to work. I'm also doing two subjects which need me to work on group projects (somehow I ended up being the coordinator for our Requirements Engineering group, ahem...) I'm also doing Data and Image Compression which is cool. A few of my courses have new Erasmus students in them who have asked the professors to teach in Spanish instead of Catalan, it's quite funny at times because they keep switching into Catalan by accident and then oopsydaisying and backtracking.

Still chugging away with the Catalan, although I've lost a bit of the enthusiasm for that and am really focusing my efforts on Spanish now that there are only a few months left here. Still I feel like I'm absorbing more and more, and I'm doing new things like watching “Friends” in Spanish, so progress progress!

So after having a telephone interview with Sun Microsystems back in February I got invited for an interview in person in London... this was for a job for summer. I haven't heard the outcome of that yet so I can't tell you anything, but I had a very flying visit back to Britain.

I had to miss one of my “Design of Web Based Systems Problems” classes, which are obligatory... I had explained to the lecturer that I wouldn't be able to attend, but said I would I would do the work and get someone else to hand it in for me. Basically though, he said if I didn't go to the class I couldn't get it marked, so it was like... err, screw you then.

I was back in Barcelona in less than 24 hours, it was nice to see the UK for a wee minute anyway. I do still love Britain!

So far this semester though my attitude has been kinda “surviving uni is enough, anything else is a bonus!” So I'm going out at weekends and having drinks with people during the week but it's not that crazy party-wise at the moment.

It seems like I brought nice weather back from London with me. The change seemed instant, and suddenly the weather is beautiful again! It's not roasting like it was in September, but it's certainly T-shirt weather! One day it was particularly toasty so I wore my shorts... my delightful Catalan teacher was like “humph, do you think this is summer or summin?” YES!

What are some of the other things I've been up to then? I went to a jazz conert at Jamboree at Plaça Reial which was really good and was shown this really non touristy bar with guitars hanging all over it, seriously everywhere, gone for cocktails and food, and I've had some great nights out and only one single flat party!

Stupid credit crunch is still making the € kick the £'s bottom. It's a pain.

Easter is coming though, and I'm getting more visitors!

This week I joined this group on Facebook.
It feels appropriate to say the least - I'd love to say that I do loads of work here, but that would be a blatent lie.
Right now I've actually got the most work to do than I've had in the entire time I've been here - 2 essays to write and an exam, and about 300 pages of texts to read. Fun times ahead for me given that now doing work consists of going to the library to get a book. If anyone of us actually do any work at all for an hour or so - to quote my French friend - it feels like we need to go out for the evening and get drunk to celebrate how hard we've worked that day!

I really do not know how I will survive at Edinburgh next year. I got an email this week about dissertation stuff as anthropology start them in third year. It scared me, I don't understand the meaning of work anymore!

On to more pressing matters...

It's been a fairly relaxed week this week, we went out on Friday for Chris' birthday. He's one of the fellow British crew members here. Then we went out last night because it was wednesday and we always do. I'm not sure whats happening over the weekend yet but we're certainly going out on Friday and Saturday as there are parties happening. I'm starting to feel the pain of going out so much now which has resulted in a change of drinking habits. Normally we drink cider or beer at preparties which are both 2 euros for one measley small can in Lidl. Thus you need about 10 euros worth for it to be any point. Now we've started drinking wine - one bottle of the shittest wine is 5 euros and that gets you drunker for less money.

I'm doing some quite cool courses this period. Each semester is broken into 2 periods as I've said before, so we're now in the second period of sememster two. I'm doing one which I signed up for really randomly called the Italian Renaissance and it is run by a husband and wife team who are Canadian and only visiting Helsinki for 3 weeks. They're from York University. It's about the underground side, so the normal people during the Renaissance period, and things such as honour, language, power, gender etc. They're so funny and it's really nice to actually be in a class where you're expected to chat, contribute and the lecturers make jokes. There are usually only 10-15 students on a course so its more like a tutorial but no one says anything, and then the lecturers never ask questions, so it's more like a huge lecture at Edinburgh in that respect. However these Canadian two have come in and ask loads of questions - which the Finnish students don't quite know how to handle - so me being the only international student in the class ends up contributing far more than I would actually like to do! But it's really cool as it actually feels more like a tutorial and they're really relaxed too whereas in some of my other classes the teacher just literally stands with their notes in hand and talks for two hours solid. No powerpoint, just them talking and every so often they write a random word on the board. This is where I become thankful that Edinburgh classes are only 50 minutes long so even when a lecturer is dull, you're out relatively quickly. Also at home, it's not noticed if you don't attend due to the size of the lecture group. Here it's blatently obvious.

Today it is; according to wikipedia; the Day of Equality in Finland. We all knew something must be happening this morning as we woke up and there are Finnish flags on every single flag pole. I can see 4 from my room now and I live in an enclosed courtyard! This means that it must be some special national holiday or something tragic has happened. They had a flag day in the autumn when the gunman went into the Finnish school and shot the pupils, for example. However being the non Finnish community that we are, we had no idea what todays flags are signifying.

Also - THE SKY IS BLUE!!!!
It's strange, really really strange.
This is the first time in months that I can remember there being a blue sky and actual sun. That's right, Helsinki does have sun sometimes.
It was funny as in the unicafe (student cafeteria at the university) they shut all of the curtains to keep it dark and not let the sun in. So my Italian friend went to open them to feed her sun withdrawal symptoms since coming to Finland. At which point all of the Finnish people looked around like she was doing something scandalous!! It seems that even when there is sun, people here prefer to live in the darkness!
It's really beautiful today though even if it is strange, I am going to develop a squint I think as we're just not used to this much brightness.

Despite the fact there is still snow everywhere, perhaps maybe, this means that the spring is finally on it's way!

I'm going to Riga on Tuesday until Thursday. It cost 2 cents return. (Plus 18 euros to get to Tampere from here!)

I shall leave with a photo of what I've lived in for the last 5 months of my life. I do love Finland, but sometimes (as the Oslo blogger also said) the snow and the dark just gets too much. I never thought I'd get to a stage in my life where I would say that. This is why I am so excited and so happy about the sun today as its literally the first time I've seen the sun here since October.

This photo was taken at around 12:30 in the afternoon. The "sun" was setting.

It’s sunny! This makes me so happy, it’s actually getting warmer now which makes such a change; I went shopping yesterday in my spring jacket! Rachel and I had to go get food in Carrefour so as a spur of the moment thing I decided I wanted to go clothes shopping too, we had a nice couple of hours and stopped for a drink, I had a ‘café gourmand’ which came with three macarons, I love macarons so much!

Yesterday was the opening of Lille 3000, I can’t really figure out what it is but it happens every two years and is some sort of Europe wide celebration or Europe; except we don’t do it in Britain- of course not, we don’t seem to be a part of Europe. Essentially it involved standing along the road waiting for a parade which was short but bizarre although the fact that there was a marching band suspended from a crane like a mobile was amazing, there was even someone on a trapeze! They just appeared over the roof of a building and drifted around! There are crazy statues every where and there were flames coming from the top of Gare- Lille Flandres! There are lots of things going on in Lille from now until July but I’m finding it hard to get information.

Friday night we had a mini-party with Sana, Shusaku, Rob and Sarah; everyone contributed something so we had a little buffet with dessert and we sat around chatting in French and teaching Sana and Shusaku some English and I was trying to do some Japanese but it’s very hard. I really want to do more Japanese with Shusaku but it’s difficult to know how to go about teaching it in that kind of environment, I think books would be good but my Japanese really isn’t good enough yet. Talking of Japanese I must do some work today to catch up on what I missed on Monday, I was ill so couldn’t go, I essentially just slept Monday to Wednesday but I did go to labs Monday morning to have my chat with Gabin which as I guessed didn’t go as planned.

It didn’t go badly, it was just rather quick and he understood what I was worried about but told me there was no need and thought I was crazy to worry so much and yet I still do! Although now my project is nicely set out, I know what I am aiming for, it’s quite difficult and will take a while but hopefully I’ll get there eventually. I must keep asking questions and pushing forward.

Anyway due to my weird illness I was off work for a while and didn’t get much done this week, at least I felt better by Friday. I was really looking forward to French class this week but it really didn’t meet my expectations, I don’t think it is too easy, well I guess it is a little bit, but it’s just not challenging enough, I don’t think they’ve put a lot of effort into grouping people. They want twenty per class regardless of if there are enough people of a similar level to be able to do that! That’s just me being angry though, in general I like the people in my class and when we do our group chats it’s quite fun although the topics aren’t really inspiring. Oh I have French work to do as well! I feel so overwhelmed with work at the moment, time is running out and I just don’t know what to do! I think Rachel and Andrew are beginning to feel the pressure too, we’re in such a relaxed routine here thought that it’s hard to break out of.

Oh well, I'm sure I will manage to sort it all out... Eventually I will get myself in gear!

A plus!

Today I experienced a previously unknown side of ERASMUS life, but one which I feel is extra-important to share: the health service of my chosen country. Having heard various horror stories of ERASMUS students take ill in various European countries (“then the doctor suggested that we drove over the border and tried the hospital there instead!!”), I was dismayed to become ill in a way I could not ignore. My throat/body/ears/head ached horribly, and having endured it for three days, mostly with help from C’s trusty supply of Tesco painkillers from home, I decided it would be best to seek a bit of professional reassurance. I made my way to campus and entered the most serene, quiet surgery possible. Having taken a number on a slip of paper from a machine, rather like the ones favoured by Sainsbury’s deli counters at home and yet prized above almost all else in the retail industry here, I waited for my number to be called. I was then directed into a small room with a very qualified secretary. She questioned me on my symptoms in depth, taking various notes, and found me an appointment later that day. However, before leaving I was told to wait outside to be called to the test room. I waited just a few minutes before a tannoy announced my name and destination, and followed a narrow corridor where a friendly doctor proceeded to take a swab of my throat, detailed temperature note, and two blood tests. Now, let’s not forget the fact that I essentially entered with a sore throat, their efficiency was beginning to alarm me. I was tested specifically for streptococcus, which came back negative, and then sent home with a cotton wool bud hiding my poor pricked vein (the doctor looked genuinely surprised that this was my first experience of blood tests and now most probably has a terrible opinion of the comparatively neglectful British health service).
Later that day I returned to be poked and prodded a bit more by another doctor, receive my results (relatively normal, hurrah!), and given my bill.   Yes!  Unfortunately as an international student I’m not here long enough to make a permanent doctor a worthwhile arrangement and, as such, I had to pay for my consultation fee in addition to the regular charge paid by all Norwegian citizens each time they visit the doctor, all in all making my bill around £20. Whilst I wasn’t over the moon about this, it is clear to see that even the fee paid by everyone is a deterrent to time-wasters, making for such an efficient, well-oiled service.
Asides from doctors surgeries and the like, I have been lucky enough to avoid anything as serious as a hospitalization during my year abroad so far (touch wood), though am friends with an unusual number of medical students. As such, I have visited the local hospital on a number of occasions with them (not to mention their student bar in the basement), and still can’t get over the place, which resembles more hotel than hospital in my (albeit narrow) experience:

I suppose it's rather comforting to know that Norway's general prosperity extends to the healthcare of residents, and must admit to feeling far more prioritised here than I ever have at home in the UK.  I shall simply do my best to rid myself of all possible illnesses before my return home, and consequently wait for my bank account to burst into tears.

Not the most exciting week ever known; in the absence of having a laptop at home I’ve been excelling in nap taking and reading story books.  Of course I have made a number of trips to the library which, in theory, was so I could make progress with my projects which now have deadlines looming in the near future.  In practise I have spend a number of hours trying to make decisions about term papers so far with a very low success rate.  It’s great that the staff at UBC give us the opportunity to chose subjects that are of interest to us but in my case this opens far too many doors and it consequently takes me almost as much time to decide what to write about as it does to write the paper.

At the end of last week it was a fellow Edinburgh exchanger’s birthday which was a thoroughly entertaining evening during which we ventured to Chinatown for food then to quite possibly the most British pub I have come across in Vancouver.  So much so that they even had Tennants on tap – a beer that I don’t think I’ve ever seen outside Scotland!  This caused much amusement for the true and token Scots among us and needed a little explaining to the French, Kiwi, Norwegian, and Canadian members of the party.   At the end of the evening we found ourselves in The Cambie; a bar where the drunk could dance - even if it did require them to create their own dance floor between pool tables.  With the birthday boy suitably inebriated it was a longer walk than usual back to the bus which took us back to campus. 

At the moment there are (I think!) a total of 11 Edinburgh University students at the University of British Columbia none of whom I knew before embarking on the international exchange adventure.  Whilst this year has prompted me to meet many people from all corners of the world it’s also been good to meet a few folk from home I’d never met before.  It means that every so often we can sit and chat about the quirks and student haunts of Scotland’s capital without having to explain what the likes of KB, Teviot and Potterrow are.  Plus when we’re back in Edinburgh we can meet and chat about the SUB (student union building), Mahoneys (Irish pub on campus) and all things Vancouver.

The week was rounded off by Sunday’s rugby match in North Vancouver.  Whilst it wasn’t a particularly fine display of athleticism and skill on my part it was a good to have run around and knock a few people over.  Plus having played 70 minutes of rugby (we play shorter halves here) I felt that I was justified in having my beer and burger afterwards!  All in all a relatively chilled week before life returns to its usual manic pace!

Hi everyone,

So I think I promised a blog last week, as it should be weekly! I apologise once again and am making it my march resolution to blog weekly!

I've thoroughly settled in to my little routine of teaching which is really good. Going home the other week was amazing (apart from my best friend not being there! ) and it actually didn't unsettle me the way I thought it would. It just brought to my attention how little time I actually have left here! With that in mind and a few extra euros in my bank account, I began to plan some travels for this semester.

The first thing I wanted to do was visit Hannah in Dijon, and so, with both my bank balance and the environment in mind (by the end of May, I will have taken over 20 flights this academic year... which is not something I'm proud of!) I decided to look into getting the train to France. The easiest way seems to be a night train to Zurich or Strasbourg and then onwards from there to Dijon. I decided to go for Zurich as I absolutely love Switzerland and my love is based almost entirely on how efficient their public transport is (as well as the fact that the people speak German, are amazingly friendly and the country is beautiful!) The night train to Zurich was fairly cheap at 45 euros for a seat. Considering that my TGV from Neuchatel to Dijon is 63 euros, I thought this was a fairly good deal! So tonight I will be braving 14 hours on a train. I had to opt for a flight back as the night train doesn't get me into Vienna in time for school on Monday morning.

School is going really well at the moment, I feel like I've now settled in and know what's expected of me. The teachers are all really friendly and I feel like my conversational German has definitely improved, as well as my understanding of the Austrian accent! I had to plan a lesson for an 8th form class yesterday. The teacher was supposed to be there with me but she was called away and so I took the class solo - which was scary at first, but as soon as I realised that they weren't about to attack me, I settled into it and it turned out to be quite good fun. The lesson was on dialects and accents and their importance. I let them listen to a Burns' song (The De'il's awa' wi' the Exciseman) and had them work out what the words meant before talking to them about contemporary Scots dialects. The children here are so lovely! Especially the first years, I'm astounded every day by their enthusiasm for learning English, I know we definitely weren't that happy to sit in a French lesson when we were younger! They also really love to talk to me, which is great. I actually got a cheer from a first year class when I walked into the room today - I could get used to that sort of welcome!

Now that term has started at the University as well, I've decided to take a few lectures in English as I have every afternoon free and was beginning to get bored. I was looking into lectures in German but there were none that really appealed to me. I'm taking two Cultural and Regional Studies classes; British Culture and the USA. I haven't studied cultures in this way since I was at school so it has been really interesting, it also gives me an objective perspective of British culture which I can use when teaching. The other class is called 'Alice, Harry and Co.: Literature in English for young readers' which is really interesting. The same theories, which are applied to literature can be applied to children's literature and it's fascinating to look at books you've known so well for so many years in a completely new way. The lecturer also teaches in the Education department and so she will be linking a lot of the course content to that, showing us how we can use these books as teaching materials - which is really useful for me.

In other news, I've started to apply for summer jobs. I have a telephone interview for one today which I really hope I get. It's a job as an English teacher at one of the summer schools in Edinburgh. I'll let you know how it goes, needless to say I'll be watching my phone closely this afternoon!

Sarah and I have booked trains to go and see Ellis and Caroline, our two dutch friends, in two weeks time. This time we'll be attempting to survive a 17 hour night train to Amsterdam but it looks like there'll be a fun weekend waiting for us at the other end. I've been told, plans have already been made! It won't be long after that, that I'll be back in the UK for Easter holidays. I still feel like there's so much to pack in before I go home at the beginning of June, and though I'll be looking forward to coming back and to being in Edinburgh once again, I think I'll definitely miss Vienna, my pupils and the friends I've made here... but I've still got a little while to go!

Wow.
The last time I blogged here was a month ago and the time has just flown by since then. I have done so much and been to so many places, and I'm loving it.

The crazy times began 3 weeks ago, when I sent out to Venice with 5 of my friends. We left Helsinki at 4 in the morning and with the beauty of Ryan Air arrived in Padova, Italy 14 hours later. Via Germany, obviously, as cheap flights have to happen. We were going to the Venice carnival which is around 40 minutes on the train from Padova, so we were staying there as this is where my friend is at university. So much happened on this trip... lets just say that lots of cheap Italian wine took its toll... and we left, after going to Milan to head to the next place on our agenda: Dublin. As I said, we were making the most of cheap flights so we went back to Finland via Dublin.

My friends stayed the night in Dublin but I took advantage of a 5 euro flight and popped back to Edinburgh for the next thing on my agenda: my birthday. I turned 21 last Tuesday so wanted to spend some time in Edinburgh with my best friends there for my birthday which was really cool, then I got the train home to see my mum for the day, and then finally came back to Helsinki on my birthday to celebrate it here in the evening. My friend from home came back with me too which was amazing.

Then since then I do not know what has happened, all I know is that we've celebrated 3 birthdays in a week and have another 2 to go this week and I haven't been to bed before 7 am for the last 4 nights... and I am still alive! To top it off one of my best friends left Helsinki for good yesterday, so our late night/early morning adventure yesterday was to the airport to take her and her 27kg of luggage back to Vienna. It was such a strange goodbye, and we were all crying. It feels so strange to be saying bye to people you now love and have spent so much time with in the last 6 months. Its odd because we all knew before we came here that any friendships would be for only 9 months maximum before we all moved back to our home countries, but when you're here it doesn't feel that simple. I will really really miss her.

I'm really loving being in Finland right now and I don't want to come home in May. It feels so close yet so far now Lisa has left - we're all making plans for May as our courses finish in April. This has been such a drunken and happy 3 week period that after next week it will be strange going back to reality and doing work again... classes finally started back again today. I didn't like it as Febuary ended up being such a holiday do nothing month... we're off to Riga in another 2 weeks time!

I will find photos soon...

After a week of snow, sun, sea and sand in California my first few days back in Vancouver were mostly spent in the library in my attempt to compact “reading week” in to a reading weekend.  Technology defied me once again with my laptop having a motherboard related mishap which apparently means I now need to go buy a new one.  I have since become closely acquainted with the library computers to the extent that I now know which ones are best avoided due to having a very loud spacebar or a mouse which randomly wanders round the screen.

Minor inconveniences aside, the midterms and papers were completed in a relatively stress free few days and I’m now beginning to contemplate the projects I have to start and finish before the end of term.  Generally speaking, my courses over this side of the pond have been far preferable to any of the studies I’ve undertaken at Edinburgh.  Smaller class sizes, engaging professors and a wide variety of choice has meant that the academic part of my exchange has been really positive (as well as every other aspect of it!)  Whether this is direct consequence of studying in North America or merely the progression through university to higher level courses that are of more interest to me, I don’t know.  Ask me again when I’m going through fourth year hell back in Scotland!

Passing the six month mark of Canadian living took me by surprise and with it came the realisation that I only have two months left.  This seems to have brought back the Vancouver tourist in me so at the end of the week I took myself on an exploratory trip of Gastown and Chinatown.  Gastown forms one of the oldest parts of the city and is known for its cobbled streets, galleries, native art shops and nightlife.  It was an interesting place to wander round and temporarily made me want to buy a Totem Pole for my back garden at home.  I think my purchasing a postcard was a wise choice in hindsight.  Vancouver’s Chinatown is apparently the second largest in North America (to San Francisco’s first) which is a fact I find hard to believe.  There didn’t seem to be a whole lot there; a Chinese garden, an impressive looking gate at the entrance to the neighbourhood and a lot of food shops and restaurants.  After a quick nosey I then headed for the Sea Bus (the ferry connecting downtown to North Vancouver) where I watched the sunset over Stanley Park and the sky scrapers. 

My Saturday was rather less eventful and rather rugby orientated. I woke up to watch the last forty minutes of the England vs. Ireland six nations game which had to be one of the most frustrating periods of rugby ever played for a fan of the boys in white and red.  I then ran touch for the women’s game before watching the UBC men play.  My match on the Sunday was cancelled which meant I ran out of excuses for not being in the library… And so the eighth week of semester two began.     

Somewhere my numbering system went really wrong, but including holidays and counting from September the first this is the end of week twenty seven. When you say it in weeks it seems even shorter than it feels!

Not a lot happened this week, I started to feel ill on Tuesday and now (Sunday) I am definitely ill, but at least it’s the weekend, I had planned to do my assignment, and I still might, but I am going to do Japanese first- it’s more fun…

I have been worrying again this week, mostly about how I can’t seem to really communicate when I’m talking in French, especially when I’m talking to people in labs; I don’t know if it’s because they are actually French; or if it’s because I feel so insignificant. I don’t think I’m explaining it well, as a British masters student I am the least qualified in the lab; which in itself doesn’t bother me, everyone does it and it’s a good experience but couple that with having to talk to people much better than me in French and I just fall apart. I am reduced to a body that smiles stupidly and nods a lot. It’s frustrating; I wish I had the confidence to just say what comes into my head; I wish people would give me a little more time to reply because I have to think about word order, and grammar and more and more I am realising which bits should be subjunctive, and that I should have pronounced it differently but still no one corrects me and I had really hoped my French would be better by now…

Of course this then added to my usual worries, my literature review which is now 2000 words in, this is the most prepared I have ever been for a piece of work, it is due the end of April and I have done most of my research and written, at least, half of it! This should make me feel good but it just makes me want to write the next bit, I’m never happy with what I have, I’m always looking to the next thing, always worrying about next weeks tasks, that is why I decided to take action. On Friday, just before I left, I asked Gabin (from my lab who is now helping me, I don’t know if I have mentioned him before?) if we could have a meeting on Monday, of course now I’m panicking, but I’m locked in now which means if I am sensible and don’t get all silly and nervous all these little insignificant worries should go away. Hopefully the more important ones will be solved too. I feel like I’m taking a test!

French classes started up again this week, Andrew and I are both in B2 now, so one class up; I hope it’ll be more challenging but it doesn’t seem much different from the last class in the division of levels. There are five or so of us who seem more willing to speak out that the rest, just like before, although when she suggested we all say a bit about ourselves she must have seen everyone’s face drop and so quickly changed tack and decided to start off with something a little more interesting: she asked us to get into groups with people of different nationalities and then to think of a word which best described our country. I found it very interesting that people of the same nationality in different groups came up with the same key ideas. The Italians came up with a sense of contradiction, Spanish was a sense of camaraderie, Germany was change, even Andrew and my ideas were complementary I came up with diversity for England and for Scotland he thought of identity… I don’t think anyone else was as surprised by this as me, or interested in it. At least our teacher, Dominique, actually let me speak though instead of just ignoring me like Anne did, in fact she was so different, smiling at me encouragingly and even though I didn’t speak that well she helped me and was pleased that I was trying to say more difficult things. This is such a change from Anne’s lessons, it’s a shame Shusaku isn’t in the class anymore because we always had such fun, but I still actually enjoyed the class!

It’s been a quiet weekend I’m afraid, Sarah and Rob were over last night and we stayed up until one, not good for my cold, but the company cheered me up. Rachel, Andrew and I are not drinking wine (but trying to not drink any alcohol) for the duration of lent- Rachel is actually religious, Andrew and I are just supporting her, and possibly doing it just because we like a challenge…

Anyway Rachel just knocked at my door telling me Andrew is making tea so I’m going to finish rambling now. I have no plans yet for next week but I’m sure there will be some kind of drama- there always is!

I find myself with increasingly little to blog about at the moment: academic life is taking over in all manner of ways!  My subjects this semester are more full-on, but I am enjoying this fact, I feel a lot more as if I have something that actually challenges me.  Last semester I took more study credits than was strictly necessary and as such, my year's worth of ECTS credits are already in the bag, and so this semester's subjects are more challenging, less pressing and simply an opportunity to improve upon my credits, rather than leaving me in the stressful situation that some people encounter where every credit of this semester counts!

Despite a hectic academic schedule, I do feel very much more like an Oslo resident than ever before, rather than simply an ERASMUS student at the city's University.  The other day I had to return a piece of clothing to a shop for the first time, which was quite an experience.  Having never done so, my vocabulary clearly wasn't entirely correct as the girl working there proceeded to laugh at me, tell me exactly what it was that I was trying to do, and talk about me to another shop assistant whilst I stood in front of her, as if I was deaf/really rather stupid.  Anyway, like any good story she got her comeuppance when the cash register failed to work and made her look a bit silly.  She tried to credit my card, which apparently didn't work, and then had to give me cash, and you just can't possibly guess how much I am hoping the card credit also went through, as I suspect.  The sad thing is that I wish this purely on principle, not simply for the £25 I may gain!  Yes, I really am being petty in the extreme.

Recent very good news is that I have been invited by NORLA, Norway's government funded translation foundation, to attend their annual conference in May.  I am really interested in pursuing translation upon graduation, should that fateful day ever actually come, and the invitation took me entirely by surprise (I really haven't a clue how they got my details though suspect my lovely tutor in Edinburgh may be responsible).  As such I will be staying outside of the city in a hotel for three days, attending seminars and meeting translators from around the world (with all expenses paid, cha-ching).  Norway has a massive literary culture for such a small country, and the number of respected authors attending the weekend also surprised me (rather bizarrely, whilst others might feel childish glee at the thought of meeting Hollywood's latest hot young things, I get the same thing about potentially meeting Lars Saabye Christensen, Dag Solstad or Helene Uri, I KNOW, it doesn't really get most people hot but what can I say?).  I feel a bit of intense fear that I may manage to make a massive fool of myself, but the following week I will be trekking in the arctic, which I think is far enough away to get over any potential embarrassments.

Once again the last week or so has flown by, which was a surprise because I expected to be having a pretty miserable time for most of it! Our half term winter break started last Friday and my passport didn’t arrive in time for me to go home, which of course was really upsetting, especially as it meant missing my boyfriend’s 21st.

Before that though, my friend Sophie was also turning 21 and we wanted to celebrate before the holidays. We picked the day for her ‘Dijon Birthday’ and bought her presents and cake while she was in class then turned up in her room and announced we were taking her out to dinner. I’m not sure how clearly it has come across in previous blogs, but my new group of friends and I are big fans of dinner – and most meals to be honest! For Sophie’s birthday we decided to go to Tiger Wok, a restaurant we’d been wanting to try for ages. It was really good and I definitely want to go again soon! You get given a plate which you take to a sort of vegetable buffet and pile up with loads of different kinds of mushrooms and bamboo shoots and other veg, then you take it up to a row of woks and choose two kinds of meat, a sauce and a topping and then watch them cook your dinner right in front of you! We asked the staff to give Soph her cake afterwards and by the end of the meal we were literally struggling to move we were so full!

Now I think of it – this week has really been marked by just how much we’ve eaten! We made cookie dough and watched films earlier in the week as well – we don’t have an oven so we couldn’t actually cook the dough – we just ate it raw while we watched the cheesiest, girliest films we could find! Our eyes were much bigger than our bellies though and we were all a little bit sick the next day!

After everyone left for the holidays there were only 3 of us still here so we’ve been hanging out together quite a bit. We had an old-school sleepover on Sunday night, complete with pizza, marshmallows, face masks, makeovers and five litres of boxed rosé wine - so that was a good laugh! I’m not quite sure exactly what we found to talk about for such a long time but the sun was nearly up by the time we went to bed! I know we spent quite a while looking through the Lonely Planet guide to France trying to find somewhere to go on a day trip, but we appear to have exhausted Burgundy’s supply of interesting towns within day-trip distance, which is a bit distressing!

As I said, I spent a lot of time this week trying to find out what was happening to my passport and when it would be ready and whether or not I could go home before the end of the week. I’m considering writing to Watchdog about the fact that a 3 minute phone call to the British Embassy in Paris was billed to my credit card for £5!!! (Is Watchdog still on TV?) In the end the passport arrived – complete with worst picture ever – this morning, so that’s a real weight off my mind. For the rest of the time I’ve been trying to get some homework done as our classes are slowly but surely starting up again and watching a lot of French TV at my friend Megan’s flat. Incidentally, Nouvelle Star, the French version of Pop Idol, is classic television and well worth a look! The show I watched was the first round of auditions – always my favourite part of these kinds of shows – and it was made even more amusing than usual by the fact that the contestants had to sing one song in English as well as a French one, so their awful warbling was ruined (as much as that was possible) by their truly terrible English accents! It was hysterical. ‘Anuzzer one bites ze dust’ was my favourite part by far and I will definitely be tuning in again soon!

So here I am blogging on a Sunday evening! It has been a while, sorry about that. Anyway! We're now well into the second semester and I'm certainly not any less busy!

So the start of term was stressful. I got back here pronto because I had to go to my Catalan class and also matriculate for my courses. Wellllll that was an experience! The system is SO stupid. I'd chosen all my courses and agreed them with the Erasmus co-ordinator woman here, and that was all fine. However the night before my allocated matriculation day I checked online and discovered that some of the courses I wanted were already full... @%#*(@#!!!!!! They give priority to the straight-A students, you see. Anyway I started pulling my hair out about that and stayed up half the night researching other courses, scribbling millions of combinations on bits of paper, counting credits, converting them to ECTS credits, checking for clashes... it was awful! After many hours and a throbbing headache, I found alternatives I was reasonably happy with.

So I went to uni first thing in the morning to matriculate, knowing that there were only 2 spaces left in one of my 'new' courses and desperately hoping that nobody else took them. You get told to wait in this lecture theatre, and then a man calls out numbers... when your number gets called, you go through the door. And join a queue. Then you go into this room and log on to a computer, where they have a “sophisticated” matriculation program. There they were, the courses I had originally agreed on with the woman, but error messages because they were full. I then was like, fine, I´ll just put in my new courses instead and all will be well, but it wouldn´t let me make any changes. So I asked one of the helper people for help... and was told “no se puede.” NO SE PUEDE?!? (You can't!)

I was somewhat stressed out, so after explaining the situation to a few people and getting nowhere I went to see the relevant secretary, who's always proven to be equally as, err... helpful. This time was no different. Their advice was to just go to the classes I wanted, because “changes” to matriculation couldn't be made until next week. I was kinda dispairing at this point because I knew those spaces in the courses I wanted were bound to get filled up, but other than sending emails pleading for help to whoever I could find, there wasn't much else I could do.

In the end though, I did get places on the courses I wanted (although I think a special exception was made for me in one case), but I made myself ill in the process of it all! Administration in Spain is about as efficient as... I don't know, a log powered jumbo jet. i.e. Ridiculous. Banks, the post office, the police, even shop cashiers – you better bring your mp3 player and be prepared to wait.

ENOUGH COMPLAINING!!

So after that little adventure, my mum, dad, brother and his girlfriend came over to visit for a few days. As always, lovely to see them :-) and go to nice restaurants, and just wander and things.

One of the things we did was go up Montserrat in a cable car (literally Serrated Mountain in Catalan), a really unique monestry on a weird mountain, but it's very famous and has great views. There's a statue of “the black virgin” who is cased in glass, but has an “orb” in her hand sticking out of the glass... so you get to touch her orb. OoOoOh.

They were staying in a hotel near my Residencia, Barceló Raval. Such a cool hotel... just for the record. I will, also, give y'all my difinitive guide to “my places” and hidden gems which only the experts know about... but not quite yet. So watch this space.

Anyway after my family sadly had to leave, it was back to the grind! The first week went quite smoothly actually, and by the end of it I actually had a “YUSS!! SURVIVED!” kinda feeling. And! I had another group of people coming to visit me from home that weekend! Oh yes, it seems that if you're in “Sunny Spain” and such a cool city, people don't mind coming to visit!

That was great as well, I could probably get a job as a tour guide now! A few of them went to see FC Barcelona play against Espanyol (basically like a BCN equivalent of Celtic vs Rangers) but sadly Barça lost... ah well.

As there were about 8 of them, they stayed in an apartment rather than all kipping on my floor... and during our pre-drinky sessions we discovered a wonderously great local radio station – Ràdio Flaixbac (“flashback.”) Their jingle is even surprisingly similar to Northsound 1 in Aberdeen!!

Anyway that's all for now, more soon!