Edinburgh Exchanges

Sunday: 11.35 AM

I will start with the most recent (and rapidly fading) alcohol induced memories, I got home about five and a half hours ago- yes I stumbled through my door at 6AM. Though by that time the stumbling was due to exhaustion, and knee and ankle pain, rather than drunkenness- that part happened earlier.

Friday night, relaxing after a stressful week at work, sipping wine, having a good laugh, we suddenly though it would be a great idea to use this bank holiday weekend (yes another) as an excuse to go for the infamous ‘all-nighter.’ I don’t know if I have mentioned this before but in Lille, if you live at the Cité Scientifique, going out presents a problem. There is of course our trusty metro which stops service at 00:19 and starts again at 6:30 on a Sunday so if you want to go clubbing you are stuck in town until the metro starts up. So, without thinking too hard about it we made the decision to just go for it (but we had a taxi number just in case).

So at ten past midnight we made our way excitedly to the metro, we were sensible, taking a nap in the afternoon (a necessity in my case as I had woken up at seven to go take my French oral exam) and not starting drinking until about nine, we met Sarah and Rob at the station and off we went, feeling absurdly over dressed! The club was called b-floor near Wazemmes, we must have arrived at about 12:45, it was free which is partly why we chose it. You could buy an entire bottle of vodka for € 80.00 which between five was reasonable and gave us many more drinks than buying separately would- it was apparently the thing to do.

To cut a long, long night short once the dancing started I was glad we didn’t get kicked out at 3AM like we do in Scotland, the five of us were in the middle of the dance floor and soon enough word travelled round that we were ‘Britanniques’ and we quite literally became the centre of attention- it was very bizarre, but also a lot of fun but by about half four we were shattered and seriously dehydrated.

We decided to cut the evening short when Rachel fell and hurt her ankle rather badly, we’ve both had bad ankles and knew it was daft to wear heels but sometimes you have to bear the pain- this time it seemed it wasn’t worth it. So by five AM we were outside waiting for taxis, and not even here could we avoid the glances ‘wow they’re speaking some foreign language, let’s imitate them’ arg! I was glad to get home (even though it cost € 30.00), although four hours sleep is really not enough.

I have a feeling today will be a day of recuperation! However, that’s not all we’ve done this week, on Thursday we had the DELF exam (written, listening and written), I do not think I did very well but my oral went much, much better so fingers crossed I will pass! To get over the exam on Thursday we went out with Shusaku to ‘Akira’ which he said was a fairly good Japanese restaurant, no where near as good as in Japan of course, but we had sake and I tried proper sushi (raw tuna is possibly the nicest thing I’ve ever tasted!) It was even good for vergetarians and people who don’t like fish, Andrew had the vegetarian menu- a lot of rice, and Rachel had yakitori. We even managed to eat with chopsticks, I was impressed that i could pick up cucumber! It was well worth it, and I really enjoyed it, but knowing this would be one of our last evenings with Shusaku made me sad.

Wednesday night we finally finished our Lord of the Rings quest, the fourth one is very, very long! The beginning of the week was marred by the fact I had a cold and seemingly chronic hay fever which was not pleasant but I bought some good antihistamines which really did the trick!

Labs have been alright this week, just been trying to get everything done and I keep having to remind people of my deadlines and when I’m leaving- that is rather frustrating but things are very busy at the moment. Talking of leaving my parents have booked the train home, for midday on the 12th of June- in two weeks I will be home for good! All this time I have been looking forward to the end, when we arrived I thought ‘it’s only nine months’ but what I didn’t take into account was how horrible it would be to leave Rachel and Andrew, Rob and Sarah and Shusaku. But I’m not thinking of that now, not until Thursday when we have our official ‘goodbye’ meal (Rob is the first to leave on the 9th and we’re in London all weekend so that will be our last chance!)

Anyway, no more sad things, I need to rehydrate myself some more! I’m thinking a laying about, watching Angel day is in order….

As I said last week I came back from Milan with the sudden realisation that we said we were going to do so much that we just haven’t done, so trying to rectify that we have been planning things left right and centre! I will first mention that during the day (except the Ascension (Thursday) I have been in work and working on my reports and doing the last few experiments, but who cares about that!

We had been invited over to Fanny’s Tuesday night so after work (nipping home briefly to put our summer clothes on) we all got in her car and she took us back to hers for dinner. She apologised for not making a big effort but she had made a quiche and a cake which is more than a lot of people in Britain would do! The wine was promptly opened- starting with some sparkly, of course- and we spent the evening just chatting, and of course gossiping!

The following night we were planning on going to see Star Trek but we could only go if we saw the dubbed version- dubbed films are never good- so we gave up on that and after a lot of to and fro-ing on Facebook Rob eventually told us that we were having an impromptu BBQ chez them. We got together some nibbles and went over for about seven; another glorious evening was laid out in front of us, sitting on throws on the grass basking in the sun drinking wine. Rob had his rugby ball and by the end of the evening we were all playing catch (the five Anglophones, Anna and Anne (the German girls))- which was much funnier than it sounds. We were all fairly ‘merry’ by this point…

We had to leave eventually- didn’t want to have a hang over for our Thursday morning jog, we got up at 8.30 despite the bank holiday (I love France, 4 bank holiday’s in one month!), we had to leave for Philippe’s at 11.30, that is Rachel’s ‘chef de stage’ or supervisor. He had invited us over for lunch, I imagined it would be a small affair but how wrong I was! He had taken on the vegetarian challenge with determination and come up with an amazing 5 course meal! We started with the obligatory aperitif- crément d’Alsace and nibbles at 12.30, then moved on to orange and vegetable samosas with soufflé for a starter with some white wine. This was followed by a cumin quiche (delicious) and curcuma quiche with salad, then of course cheese with a nice Bordeaux (also obligatory), dessert was a café gourmand but not only were there macarons (and 7 types of espresso to choose from) there was ice cream, waffle, biscuits, sorbet, melted chocolate… I was in heaven! It was about four in the afternoon by the time we had stuffed all that and Philippe suggested a walk in the park, it was a lovely day and the park was beautiful. It felt very French and it was nice to experience that before we left.

What I also noticed was the fact that we all spoke French the entire time and it didn’t bother me on iota, there was nothing I didn’t understand despite topics ranging from Chemistry (very little) to politics and on to music! I think I can say my French has most definitely improved!

We had to rush home at six however to be on time for Rob and Sarah coming over to start watching Lord of the Rings- the extended version! The original plan was to spend a weekend watching them back to back but our weekends seem to be disappearing! It was easy though to just sit back and watch. We carried in on Friday night but won’t be finishing until next week!

Still in my hyper organisational phase, and thanks to Rachel’s weather watching, we decided Sunday would be perfect for our picnic at the zoo and so Saturday Rachel, Andrew and I got everything we would need for the perfect British picnic. Now the French may know how to do bank holiday banquets but give the British a picnic to plan and there’s no stopping us. We prepared salad, pasta salad, tomato salad, fruit salad, we took bread and cheese and crisps and wine and settled ourselves on a picnic bench for the foreseeable future. By the time we went into the zoo it was four in the afternoon, but also the hottest it had been all day (it must have been edging up to 28 Celsius.) I was pleased that everyone had a great time at the zoo, Andrew loved the red pandas, and the baby Tapir was just adorable, the baby Gibbon had grown a bit and was trying to run about. It was fantastic.

So, not wanting to disappoint I’m already planning next week, trying to fit in everything, we have the DELF French exam (not looking forward to that) but are also going out to a Japanese restaurant and finishing Lord of the Rings. No plans for the weekend yet but I’m sure that will change!

There’s only three weeks left, I don’t know how to fit it all in! I don’t want this to end!

The past couple of weeks have been quite strange. Today I finished my placement, and having only one class today meant that the whole thing seemed a bit anti-climatic. Nevertheless, I took advantage of the extra few hours and have spent the day closing my bank account, paying my last month's rent (I have to pay a full month's rent despite moving out on the 3rd of June, something to look out for if you're with the OeAD.) and trying to work out what I still need to do. Still, despite being quite organised I did find myself somewhat hyped up last night - a bit like back in September, apart from the fact that I know what I'm moving on to.

Despite finishing my time in both schools and my leaving party last friday (in Charlie P's of course with various erasmus friends and friends from halls, though it felt like Ellis and Caroline should have been there as well)it only really hit me yesterday that I was actually going. This sudden realisation was brought about by the reminder email for my flight home on wednesday - thank you BA! I found myself thinking about my time here overall but I think I'll write about that next week, once I'm back home and have gained a bit of perspective on the whole thing.

So the leaving party last week was really good; Sarah, Juho and I went to Sly and Arny for some farewell pizza and cocktails. They've been my closest friends here since everyone from first semester left and it was good to do something together. Juho gave me a German guide book to Finland as a leaving present, which I thought was really sweet and will definitely encourage me to go and visit him there! I got some really sweet cards from my Austrian friends in halls as well which is nice.

As well as the leaving party, our entire corridor decided to head out en-masse to 'the best ice-cream parlour in Vienna' (according to Anna, a German girl I live with) This involved changing u-bahn stations and traveling to the end of the U1 line (Reumannplatz) where we found Tichy. It seriously did not disappoint, and if the weather is good while my mum is here (which it's forecast not to be) then we'll definitely have to make a stop there - in fact, even if it's raining I don't think I'll be able to resist!

Last Thursday was also a holiday and since it fell on a Thursday they stretch it over to the weekend. In German, this is called a 'Bruecketag' but in Austria it's a 'Fenstertag' - I'm not entirely sure why... the German makes more sense, what with it bridging the gap to the weekend, I don't know where windows comes in to that. We decided to take advantage of the good weather and headed to Baden and 'Austria's largest beach', which turns out to actually just be some sand plonked beside an outdoor swimming pool. The Strandbad is amazing though and so much fun! Baden will always be one of my favourite places in Austria, I really could live there.

So today I'm off to Prague until Sunday to visit my dad who moved there earlier this month. I'm really looking forward to seeing him and spending some time together in Prague, which has definitely become one of my favourite cities! On monday, my mum arrives and we'll try and pack in a few things before I head off - though the majority of my plans seem to involve eating or drinking in 'insert name of restaurant/cafe/bar here' for the last time'. At least she'll be fully acquinted with Ottakringer and Schnitzel by the time we head home on wednesday (as well as pizza, cocktails, ice-cream and oriental breakfasts!).

Until next time (the last time!)
Tschuss!

Hello my intrepid readers!! (I haven't said that before, but it seems to be something that a blogger must say at least once!) Once again, sorry sorry sorry for not having been very good at updating this! I'm just really busy, and the there's always been some important deadline coming up which forces me to work instead of write blogs.

It's all going well though, don't worry!

Aaaanyway rather than ramble on about the usual “this week I went to a nightclub and then did some work” shenanigans, I'm going to give you a wee run-through of a standard Tuesday so you can get an idea of what Informatics life can be like once the initial “crazy-woooooo-erasmus parties-I didn't understand a word of what he just said-oops I slept in-how the hell do the printers work” phase has passed.

8.00am
"♪ La radio... de los éx-i-tos! Los 40 principales! ♪ Son... las ocho! Las siete en Canarias." Time to get up then. Shower, shave, breakfast, teeth, prepare stuff for uni.

9.30am
Walk down Carrer Nou de La Rambla, catch the metro (doing some Catalan homework on the train)from Paral·lel to Palau Reial, then walk up the hill to uni.

10am - 12 noon
2 hour CDI Lecture (compression of data and images). Today we're learning about the "discrete cosine transformation" and its use in JPEG compression.

11.15am - 12 noon
I have an overlap in my timetable, so leave the CDI lecture early to go to ER lecture (Requirements Engineering). Today we're contrasting Kano and Volere's methods of classifying requirements.

12-2pm
PROP theory lecture (Programming Project). All about how we should be using the Model-View-Controller pattern in our projects.

2pm
Go down to the menjador and queue to heat up my lunch in the microwave (leftovers from last night's tea... it's kinda the done thing here!)

2.10-2.30pm
Sit in the Plaça de la FIB (School of Informatics Square) and eat.

2.30-4.30pm
Go to the labs and work on my Cryptography project; at the moment I'm trying to get my implementation of the Advanced Encryption Standard to work in "CBC mode" but it's not working and I can't see why.

4.30-6pm
Catalan class. Today we were reviewing the imperative... by the way, you do know that we use the imperative to give orders but the subjunctive to give prohibitions, don't you? We have been told this a trillion times. We know.

6pm – 7pm
Preparation for DSBW Lab (Design of Web-Based Systems), today it's about Struts so I'm trying to get myself up to speed so that I'll manage to finish the lab practical in the allocated time.

7pm – 9pm
DSBW Lab... high speed stressful programming! Got it finished just in time, and submitted with 1 minute to spare. Phew!

9-9.30pm
Travel home on the metro. *tummy grumbles*

9.30pm-10pm
Cook dinner and eat. Since it's late, it's good old traditional Spanish... Heinz Beans and a baked potato. Can't be bothered being a culinary whiz this evening!

10pm-11pm
Doing some more Cryptography, time is running out for the deadline on Friday!

11pm-midnight
Writing up up the report for our CDI practical, measuring the average length of a grain of rice by using a picture of... a plate of rice. Never said the word arroz so many times in my life.

Midnight-12.45am
A cheeky bit of revision for the SO Partial exam on Friday. I hate partial exams!

12.45am
Bed! Got the usual 9am meeting with my PROP project group tomorrow, need to be up in good time to get my laptop all ready and organise what I've done.

No exaggeration. And there are many worse days than this! Future informatics Erasmusers, do not expect to be able to come here and be lazy!! Admittedly Tuesdays are generally a busy day, but every day is a busy day. Obviously I don't have class until 9 every day, only twice a week... but still!

Socialising during the week usually just consists of catch-ups and cocktails, and lately a bit of "let's just go and have ice cream on the beach"... but the actual fiesta time only really happens at the weekend.

Time is running out, and the most annoying thing is that I want to be making the most of every day, but there just isn't the time to do everything I would like to.

But it's hot again now and I think it's going to stay hot. My Catalan teacher moans a lot about it, "no li agrada gens." Well I like it, although it's not as though I actually go out and enjoy the weather if I'm slaving away in the labs!

I’ve been back in Dijon for just over three weeks now and although the time has gone by quickly, it still seems like ages ago that I was in Vienna. As I said before, coming back to France felt like coming home, which was a really weird feeling that I hadn’t expected at all. I was pleased though, because if I can feel perfectly at home in another country then it must mean my Erasmus year has been a success!

The past few weeks have been busy: the university was still blocked when I got back and the striking students were taking it in turns to sleep in the building to prevent anyone but the teachers from getting inside (legally they can’t deny anyone access to their place of work). It was decided that the teachers who weren’t on strike would relocate their classes their classes to other buildings on the campus that hadn’t been blocked – that way, the students could still have classes in the week leading up to the exams, which were going ahead regardless of the strikes, but the government would see that officially we were still striking and the blocage was still going ahead. Then, in the first week of exams they held a secret ballot which decided to unblock the building. Up until that ballot, all the votes were being decided by a raising of hands, which meant that some students were too intimidated to vote ‘no’ to the blocage and the strikes. Either way, the deblocage didn’t really affect anyone because exams had started by then and there were no more classes anyway.

The exams were pretty much the same as the same as the ones we did last semester, but I only had three this term because some of the striking teachers didn’t set exams. Once again I was surprised by the lack of rules during the exam – everyone had their phones out and people were passing each other notes and answers along the pews of the lecture theatre and walking around to get more paper or borrow a dictionary from someone sitting on the opposite side of the hall! I think going back to Edinburgh next year is going to be a bit of a shock to the system!

All in all, the exams weren’t especially stressful and most of the Erasmus students viewed them as nothing more than a bit of an inconvenient detraction from sunbathing and partying. The weather has been absolutely amazing these last few weeks – it’s been above 30 degrees nearly every day although we’ve also had quite a few storms at night time. We’ve taken to sitting outside at one of the cafés in the main square most evenings, drinking wine and watching the world go by –it’s all very French! There are fountains in the main square as well and a couple of weeks ago we spent a memorable few hours playing in them and taking photos of each other running through them and jumping over them. That kind of behaviour in public is quite frowned upon here (I think mainly in bourgeois towns like Dijon rather than France in general) and we generated quite a crowd of people staring in disbelief at the crazy ‘anglaises’! Incidentally we’ve also been getting a lot of stares lately for our summer clothes – the French never seem to wear shorts or skirts, or even strappy tops – no matter how hot it is they always wear jeans or black trousers with long sleeved tops, or if it’s really roasting three-quarter lengths! I have no idea how they do it – they must be so uncomfortable! But judging from the stares and pointing, they seem to think we’re just as crazy!

As well as sunbathing we’re trying to see and do as many things as possible before we leave Dijon in the next few weeks – the first day everyone was back after the Easter holidays we sat down and made a list of things to do and we’re trying to work our way through them – although a lot of them involve food and sunbathing opportunities! So far we have seen the new Audrey Tautou film about Coco Chanel, had drinks at Café Gourmand (the one in the main square – we’ve done this quite a lot of times!) and gone to Parc Colombier which is a massive park quite near the campus with a petting zoo and ice cream parlours and lots of sunshine and ponds and exciting things like that! We also visited Besançon last week, which I think I’ve written about before. It’s the nearest university town to Dijon and has much more of a studenty atmosphere. Although I’ve enjoyed Dijon, I think I would have really liked to have spent my Erasmus year in Besançon, just because it’s a bit (a lot) livelier! We spent our day there at the citadel, which I’ve never been to before. It was really interesting and has three or four museums, including a fantastic one about the French Resistance, and a zoo, which was ace!

Another thing on our list was to do karaoke at Hunky Dory, Dijon’s best and only karaoke bar. I had never done karaoke before and to be honest I wasn’t especially keen to do it now, but it was on the list so it had to be done! We went along last Tuesday, which was Megan’s last night here before she went home for the summer. It turned out to be a fantastic, although slightly surreal, evening. The place was quite empty when we arrived with only one table of about six French teenagers who were singing song after song. When we went up to sing they cheered and applauded as though they had never been so thrilled about anything in all their lives and so when they sang, we did the same. It was all very friendly and mutually encouraging and everyone was getting more confident, so while I had agreed to sing just one song, we ended up singing about fifteen! About an hour after we got there, we were about to leave the stage after a particularly brilliant rendition of ‘Everybody’ by the Backstreet Boys, when the screen came up with ‘les anglaises’ and the other table of people gestured to us to stay up and sing again. The French version of ‘My Way’ came on and they rushed up onto the stage to sing with us. When it ended the screen showed ‘les françaises’ and we sang ‘Yesterday’ by the Beatles with them. It doesn’t sound like anything too special but we were really touched that they had made the effort to bond with us and to sing an English language song. After that we sang with them a few times – them making the effort to sing in English and us to sing in French. At one point we put on ‘Colours of the Wind’ from Pocahontas and while we sang the English words, they sang the French – it was lovely! When the bar closed we went our separate ways and I doubt we’ll ever see them again, but it was a really lovely and memorable evening! On our way home we passed the cinema which had discarded as massive cardboard cut-out of Bob from the film Monsters vs Aliens which we stole and paraded around the town and took photos of next to all the landmarks we could think of, which was, I think, the perfect way to finish Megan’s time in Dijon!

Megan and Sophie with the newly rechristened Jean-Luc

I have to admit I haven’t been all that great with writing my blog, but I seem to be so busy all of the time. I suppose with just three weeks left to go it’s hardly surprising, when my parents left I suddenly realised how much needs to be done before we leave so I promptly started organising. Last week was a bit calm but it’s going to get crazy!

Coming back to the cite scientifique after being in Milan was a bit of a let down, and the prospect of a five day week was no more welcoming but as always time marches on. The week started in a particularly sad way, I finally made the decision about going to Japan. It’s been on my mind for months, since before Christmas and even over Easter I still really wanted to go but in that first week back I started to have serious doubts. I know people say to take every opportunity but my mantra is usually to follow my instincts and they were telling me to say no. I can’t put into words how horrible it was to sit in the class watching everyone else get so excited about going and me knowing I’d thrown it away but even then I still knew I’d made the right decision.
The stage was in a hotel, and the wage wasn’t great although accommodation and food were included I had visions of me cleaning dishes due to lack of Japanese ability and not many day trips… Also I know next year is going to be tough enough without coming back from Japan and wanting a break straight away, I have so much to think about with my chosen career path anyway. Finding a PhD isn’t going to be easy.

I was sort of wishing the week away since my parents were visiting at the weekend (which I now say in a French accent) but Rachel’s Dad was here on the Tuesday and Wednesday so we all went to the 3 Brasseurs, also known as ‘the flammekeuche’ place. Not wanting to break the tradition we also went with my parents on the Friday but we managed to get the table inside the brewing thing- I’ve no idea what it is, but it’s a huge brewing thing which is normally full of beer but they cut holes in the sides and put a table in the middle- it’s the best table in the place and we’ve always wanted to sit in there so that was a real achievement…

Before weekend fun could start we had a French test, it was actually horrific, none of us were really in the mood and so I forgot to listen in the listening part, my essay was okay, maybe a little off topic but since Rachel started to write about communism (‘look at Russia’) I don’t feel too bad. I think we were all a little fed up.

My parents, my brother and I went to Bruges on Saturday, I’d already been but it was on a snowy, rainy, awful day (even though we had fun) it was nice to see Bruges in the sun. Roughly translated that means walking from bar to bar drinking the local beer ‘Brugge Zot’ which means the ‘Bruges Joker.’ We did manage to get a ride on a horse and trap which took us around the town for about half an hour, it was fun, if not a little worrying that the driver couldn’t really control the horse! We ended up back in Lille for dinner, moules frites of course although they weren’t very nice, I don’t think it’s the right season… Sunday we ended up in Lille again just drinking beer, what a surprise, but before that we visited the zoo.

The zoo is a-m-a-zing! It’s free for a start but for a ‘tiny’ zoo it has some great animals like zebra and alpacas, a rhinoceros, lots of gibbons and one of them with a little 6 month old baby which was so cute and in a bizarre, surreal twist one of the girls from the lab was working there! It’s odd to know people in Lille, I think my parents found in bizarre and I found it odd talking in English; we donated some money to name the gibbon Hylo but I don’t know which name was chosen yet.

Anyway I’m organising a picnic to the zoo some time soon, everyone should see the meercats and the weird animals like the flying foxes and some of the pens are so flimsy, I could have touched the alpacas and the peacock managed to escape. Sorry, I was very over excited about the zoo.

Anyway, it’s Friday now so hopefully I won’t be so late next week, since I have some work to do I’m sure I’ll procrastinate by writing!

Until next time…

As one of my final weekends in Oslo, the past one was as good as I could possibly have hoped for.  Beginning on Friday with the medical students' review show (thinking re-writing of popular songs into hilariously clever rude Norwegian versions and lots of nudity), and continuing onto Saturday's big event: Norway's Eurovision win!  Alexander Ryback pulled it in at a record breaking score for Norway, and being in the country when they won was amazing (despite the fact my whole student village's television signal went down and everyone had to resort to internet viewing)!

Saturday was a night of great celebration for many, and Sunday was another big calendar event: Norway's National Constitution day, 17. mai.  A massive day of celebration for all, everyone got on their lovely national costume, the royal family stood on the palace balcony and huge parades walked the entire length of the main street in Oslo and round in front of the palace.  Despite the fact that celebrations were marred slightly last year by sudden snow, this year was brilliant sunshine all day, it was lovely!  We had an early start with a traditional breakfast at a friend's: smoked salmon, prawns, gravadlax, fresh rolls, coffee, a huge range of delightful things!  After that we headed out to view the parades in the company of enthusiastic parents, siblings, friends and grandparents awaiting their children walking past in the parade.  After a little while watching, we met some friends, had some ice cream, enjoyed good company in good weather, and eventually headed onto a park for a barbeque, it was a delightful day all in all.  Here are a few pictures from the day:

Above is one of the buses I wrote about in previous entries: on the side of the bus are rather revealing photos of the students whose bus it is, they seemed to be enjoying the attention they received as a result of their kinky photoshoot!

Anyway, the weekend was a dream, but this week hasn't been quite as good: today I had my first exam of this semester, Contemporary Literature, 4 hours of not-quite-as-successful-as-i'd-like essay writing!  This weekend I have a translation conference to attend, and a bit of work to do in preparation for it, and next week another exam.  Basically, work is once again taking over, but I suppose I ought not to complain after such a good weekend!  A wee bit of work and a wee bit of play and a hope to make the most of the past few weeks here!

I haven't written on here for such a long time, almost a month, as its been absolutely crazy here and I don't know where the time has gone. I'll backtrack a wee bit because I never wrote about Vappu which is a celebration on 30th April through to the morning of 2nd May, and you can't really have done erasmus in finland without experiencing vappu. Basically, Vappu is the May day holiday here which means everyone gets 2 days off work. It is tradition that the students have a huge festival over these days and it was manic, sort of like Hogmanay on Princes Street back home but crazier. All of the main streets in Helsinki were closed and literally the entire population of Finland was out partying, there were various traditions taking place in the main square in the afternoon such as giving the statue in the main square the cap which people get when they graduate from high school but essentially it was one big party. We started the celebrations early in the morning on 30th with a picnic - which obviously included alcohol - and then that set us up for the day of more barbeques and merryment, ending in a trip to the hospital (my friend thought she had broken her arm) and finally back home at 8am. To have a few hours of sleep and then back out again for the traditional picnics in the park early on 1st, which then followed on with a day similar to the one before ending at 9am on 2nd. We'd been hearing about Vappu from the Finns since we arrived so it was a huge event for the erasmus students, and I dont think we were really disapointed!

The early morning picnics, and celebrations in the statue:

So, that was Vappu!! We all felt very Finnish over these few days and there is a lot of talk of everyone coming back next year for a reunion over Vappu, but I don't quite know how that would sit with 4th year finals in Edinburgh!

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Now we're into the final 2 weeks of our lives in Finland, everyday we are going to parties for "last night of ....." and its getting crazy. Each day almost someone goes home and I don't like it. It doesn't feel real, it's very sureal and very strange. Everyone is going home at different times because we all actually finished classes before Vappu at the end of April so this has been one crazy party month (as if our lives in Finland needed any more than that) meaning people have been going home whenever depending on their commitments back in their home countries. I'm not quite sure how I feel about going home - I'm really scared about it because I know I have to go back to reality and sort out so many things, not only on a pratical administative level but also rekindle relationships with people in Edinburgh and at home who I haven't seen for over a year. I left Edinburgh at the start of May last year to start my epic journey to Russia, Mongolia, China and then finally into Finland. I've done so much since then and met so many people that I can't quite imagine what it will be like going back to my every day life in Edinburgh because it feels so long ago. For the last year I've had such close relationships with people who I potentially will never see again, or at least, if and when I do see people again not everyone from our groups will be there and also, it will be different because we're no longer erasmus students. Everyone will have commitments and life to deal with, here we can just forget everything because certainly at the moment we have no schedule on our lives. We have no university commitments so this last few weeks have essentially been lots of socialising without having to deal with anything like an adult. In 2 weeks I'll be back at my parents house and I'm not ready for that. On another note, loads of people have booked flights to come to Edinburgh for the festival. I can't wait.

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I've also been to Stockholm a week or so ago which was really fun - we didn't do much but had a good couple of girlie days too. It only cost 70 euro in total too which was amazing - the ferry was 27 euro return including a cabin (okay, it was the cheapest one and we slept under the cars) which was a great oppertunity for my friends to learn lots of sea life related vocabulary which is clearly essential to life such as shark, jelly fish, sting ray and whale. Then I spent around 40 euros over 2 days in Stockholm. It was a really cool city.

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Eurovision happened over the weekend and it was brilliant. If I'm at home I've always watched it at home with my mum and it felt quite fitting to watch the Eurovision towards the end of my year of travelling fun, because last year I arrived in Moscow on the day Russia won the contest, so there are great memories attached to the entire year. A group of around 20 of us went to a pub to watch it on a big screen - we had various nationalities represented: UK, France, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Malta and Lithuania. As well as the obvious joint "nationality" of Finland. The Italians were there too but they had no idea why, apparently Eurovision does not happen in Italy. It isn't that Italy are awful and never make the final, it is simply that they don't enter and before we left a fair bit of wikipedia'ing took place to explain the concept of the programme. So we cheered and laughed at the awful nature of our countries entires, as France and Germany were shambolic, along with Spain and Lithuania who tried too hard. Obviously no one thought much of the UK entry too. So we decided that the winner should be Portugal, and then Azerbaijan and then Iceland. And wow, how wrong were we with our predictions!!

The Finnish song is actually very famous in Finland and it has been played in all of the clubs over the last few months, so we already knew the words although no one realised it was an actual Finnish song, or it was Finlands eurovision entry until we were looking it up online. So when Finland performed, the entire pub went crazy with people dancing on the tables, jumping around and singing loudly persumably to counter balance the fact that whenever one of our countries sang we all cheered loudly too. But sadly the excitement was short lived with Finland bringing up the rear of the table with a shambolic 22 points. I really don't know why as there were loads of countries who had a much worse song than Loose Control but I guess its all down to the politcal voting as Terry Wogan would say!! Although if this is the case, how did the UK manage to do so well?!

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Photo from the Sit Sit I wrote about last time, and also a photo from our trip to Riga in March:

My times of teaching at the University of Oslo are over!  It feels really, very bizarre to know that, and I'm sad too: whilst teaching in the department at home in Edinburgh is always good, here I was overwhelmed with course choices, always provided with the most in-depth assignment feedback not to mention pre-assignment discussion meetings, and the facilities of the most super library I've ever experienced.  I will really miss the academic aspect of this year abroad, but am so glad to have experienced it and wouldn't think twice before applying to come back.  The language thing (that is to say, studying solely in Norwegian) was a thought that intimidated me greatly in the beginning, but was never as difficult as I had imagined, and now presents no problem at all.  For me, the fact that I study courses alongside Norwegians and receive no special preference is a milestone for me: something that I never imagined would happen, but proves to myself that I must be better than I often think.  I now have to start thinking about exams!  I have three coming up over the next few weeks, and am specially keen to do well in my Nordic Children and Young People's Literature course.  The exam for the subject is a difficult one for me, an oral exam lasting half an hour where we go in unaware of the topic we must present on until given a short passage from one of the course texts and have to instantly recall all the relevant secondary literature and points in question.  I am nervous, but I'm hoping that sensation will drive me to revise harder!

Before entering the period of exam havoc, C and S and I decided to take advantage of one of the best things about studying in Scandinavia: living here gives such ease travelling to other Scandinavian countries at a good price and without having to consider flying due to excellent train services (much more environmentally friendly and pleasant!)  We took our final trip to Sweden, to the capital, Stockholm, for three days:

The weather was a godsend, the company was lovely and as a last trip of sorts, it was a really very lovely way to sum up this year in Scandinavia.

This weekend is going to be a big one: tomorrow the Medicine Students' Society stage their comedy 'review', which I saw last semester and am subsequently hugely looking forward to this week.  Saturday is a goodbye party of some friends (in addition to the highly important Eurovision Song Contest, which I firmly believe Norway to have an excellent chance of winning with a young man named Alexander Ryback violining and jigging away!) and Sunday is an early start: Norway's national day that I have mentioned before.  Friends are I will be meeting for a traditional breakfast, as is the custom, before heading to the main street to watch the parades before the day descends into inevitable barbecuing and merriment.  As such, I predict my revision to be very nearly null this weekend, and must get on with some now in preparation for Wednesday's exam!  The sooner it is over the sooner I can... well, begin revising for the next!

So- the first week back after Easter gives us a long weekend (muchly needed) and we packed our bags and headed of to Milan for a weekend in the sun. Twenty six degrees – so happy!

In order to save money we travelled from Charlerois in Belgium which involved a two hour train journey (including changes) but we had booked in online and only had hand luggage and sailed through security, and since it was Belgium to Italy, no boarder control. The only need to show passports was for proof of identity on the plane so we went from France to Belgium to Italy and showed out passports once! I know it’s an open boarder and all that but it’s still weird to have no boarder control in an airport!

All went according to plan and Milan was hot but we were fed up after trekking to the metro station to get a weekend ticket (48 hours for five pounds; that gets you unlimited travel on metro, bus and tram.) We then trekked back to the bus stop and had to count the number of stops to make sure we were at the right one- the club below the hotel ‘The Rolling Stone’ was a dead give away!

We stayed in a place called ‘hotel America’ it’s labelled as a hostel and you can get rooms really cheap, ours were thirty euros a night but we chose a room for just the three of us and our own bathroom (although the water wasn’t exactly reliably hot…) We had a nap as we were so tired and we were planning a big, big night out.

So at six we started to get ready- the water was still warm at this point- but had no idea where to eat, hoping that our lack of Italian- not for wont of trying- would make us endearing we asked the guy at reception who was wonderful! He drew it all out on a map, and pointed us to the student area for aperitifs where we started with a cocktail and found a nice, reasonably priced restaurant of which I didn’t even notice the name! We didn’t care, we were so hungry and the calzone was delicious!

Two bottles of wine later, one in the restaurant and one in the room, we were dressing to go out, deciding to stay local and go down to ‘The Rolling Stone, two floors down. We spent an hour looking over the balcony waiting to see people go in. Eventually we gave in and not having a clue what to do, and not wanting to wait, we got ‘drink cards’ for thirteen euros which let us in right away. The drink cards were a good idea, you don’t pay for any drinks to the end! The measures were really generous and we were dancing before long, after a while we came to realise it was a gay night- it was brilliant! Semi- naked men dancing and some bizarre Italian comedian… I think…although research suggests he was on TV but that could be a bad translation…

We left about two after much dancing but were exhausted and decided to have a late start, the hotel provided a small breakfast and then we were off to visit everywhere! We got on a tram to the centre and found the Duomo (Cathedral), it was not hard to miss, it is enormous and absolutely amazing- there has been a church on the site since the 5th century! Inside there are five naves and forty pillars, the nave is about 45 metres high! We then wandered on to the castle (which is also huge, and impressive) back to La Scala (the opera house) wandering through the covered walkway ‘Galleria Vittoria Emmanuel II’ built in the 19th century which now houses nice restaurants (too pricy for us) and designer shops (it is Milan.) We had a long lunch before heading out in the afternoon sun to a few churches, a drink by the canal and home for a rest before grabbing a bite to eat in by the Duomo; we only went to a pizzeria which was pricy but you could see the Duomo from our table (even if the view was obscured.) We headed home early (about ten) and watched some bizarre Italian television before crashing for the night. We knew we would need to be prepared for the long seven hour journey home.

We checked out at eleven this morning, saying an extended thank you to the guy at reception whose name I never asked but who was so kind to us! We discovered that he gave us a free map which he was making other people pay for (four euros fifty!) and he gave us the balcony table this morning at breakfast, he told us that last night was the closing night at ‘The Rolling Stone’ had we known we might have gone down, but we would have paid for it by tonight!

All in all the trip was amazing, no glitches and thanks to Rachel’s forward planning we weren’t too lost! She organised everything so I have to say thanks to her for that, and to Andrew for putting up with our stressing a particularly my minor panic attack at Charlerois train station today- fifteen minutes to catch a train and we couldn’t find the ticket place- I was stressed! Sorry!

I know I have yet to write about my first week but it pales in significance next to this, just general chem. work, maybe I’ll add a bit during the week… we’ll see.

Anyway, the first blog of the last term- that’s terrifying- anyway, until next time…

Righty-ho, just back to class after the “puente” of the 1st of May. When we have long weekends, they're called “bridges” here. So. Since I didn't let mum and dad come to Barcelona in Easter we decided that we'd meet up in Granada (Andalucía) for the long weekend in May, whaaaat a great place it is! More about that in a second. Last week was so insaaaanely hectic, I really could probably count the number of hours' sleep I managed to get on one hand. It was just basically deadlines galore and partial exams and all kinds of torture. I didn't even go out at the weekend, I was all cooped up like a recluse trying to figure out why my program was producing 03 e4 3c instead of 52 f6 01... or something like that :S Wasn't fun!

On the Friday (1st of May) there was no class, so I was up at like 4am or something ridiculoso like that to get the first train to the airport and scoot on down to Málaga. It's a wonder I didn't have to pay for excess luggage for the bags under my eyes, I tellz yeh! Mum and Dad obviously thought I looked a bit run-down (which I was!) so I got stuffed with lots of good food. No complaints there.

We all met in Málaga airport, and then caught a bus to Granada (a bit of a hassle, but worth it). Granada's really not as famous as other cities like Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia etc, and I really hope it stays that way because it's so nice; Sevilla was brilliant too but I think I'd give the edge to Granada. It's probably Edinburgh-sized in comparison, and it felt like... if I was studying there I would manage to get to know every nook and cranny of it quite intimately, unlike the hugemungous BCN with its endless supply of discoveries. And it's really cool because it has the Sierra Nevada mountain range around it, so although it's blazin' hot, you can still see snow!

We stayed in an apartment in the Albaizín, the old Arab quarter... look how beautiful the view was:

The weather in Andalucía is generally a bit warmer than in Cataluña but that weekend it was particularly warm. Probably the most famous thing in Granada is La Alhambra. Here's a picture I took of it, see if it rings a bell:

It is amazing... those moors really knew how to live. It's so huge, so intricately detailed and just generally awe-inspiring.

Apart from that, we went to Sacromonte, a “sacred mountain” where the houses are actually caves with a door on the front. People still live in caves!

Also, we were there for the “Santa Cruz” festival, which I'd never heard of... but was a big deal to them! Every barrio of the city made a big deal-style tribute in the square, usually a cross (cruz) and flowers and sculptures and stuff. On the Saturday night we went to see a great flamenco show.

Then we went wandering the streets in search of life, I wanted to find a pub that had Licor 43 to show Mum and Dad the greatness that is Licor 43. Licor 43 is a Spanish Liquor, if you ever see it, buy it! For it is great.

Anyway eventually we found out that in past Santa Cruz parties too much damage had been done, so the mayor decided to ban them in public areas. Anyway long story short we ended up finding ourselves in a private Santa Cruz party in some random's garden!

It has been a while again, but this time I think I have an excuse! If you've been following Hannah's blog as well then you'll know that I've had visitors for the past couple of weeks. It was really good to have people to show around and I knew straight away that they would re-awaken my appreciation of Vienna.

Having met them in Bratislava, we decided to take a taxi from Suedbahnhof since Sophie and Hannah had been on enough public transport already. The taxi-driver decided to take the scenic route around the Ringstrasse which was great for Sophie and Hannah as it showed them all of the main buildings lit up. They were awestruck and it really reminded me of how I felt when I first arrived here, although they of course lacked the sense of panic and all of the tears...

They didn't have much time to settle into Vienna as we headed to Budapest early the next morning, which is just 4 hours on the high speed train and definitely worth a visit if you're already in Vienna. It didn't quite live up to my expectations, I'm not even sure what exactly I was expecting but I think my impression was affected by the fact that Budapest looks like a construction site at the moment as they're overhauling their entire transport system. It also just didn't feel as safe as Vienna, though very few capital cities do. The architecture is amazing though and the city has a really interesting history, having once been two cities; Buda and Pest. We took advantage of the cheap spas, which was definitely needed after we climbed St. Gellert Hill in the heat. We also visited the cave chapel (which I absolutely loved) and the castle as well as taking a boat trip on the Danube which included a walking tour of St. Margaret Island ( a tiny island between Buda and Pest).

After arriving back in Vienna on the Sunday afternoon we had quite a hectic week trying to do as much sight-seeing as possible. By the end of the week we were all absolutely exhausted but psyched ourselves up for another weekend away, this time to Prague. Again Prague is only 4 hours away from Vienna (by bus this time because it's so much cheaper!) and definitely worth visiting. This is the second time I've visited Prague this year and I still absolutely love it, especially the Jewish Quarter which we did visit last time but were too cold to fully appreciate. The weather this time round meant that it was too hot to do any hardcore sightseeing but in a way that was better because we got a good feel for the city just from wandering around. We stayed at Sir. Toby's again and met loads of backpackers and exchange students there, it's always so interesting to hear everyone's stories and to chat to people you probably wouldn't meet in any other situation. On the Saturday night we went on a pub-crawl, which although expensive (by Czech standards, cheap compared to Edinburgh) was a great way to sample Czech night-life and I will cherish my t-shirt forever.

After another weekend away we took Han and Sophie's last week in Vienna a little more slowly which I think was appreciated by everyone. We still managed to fit in quite a lot of sight-seeing and managed a couple of day trips to nearby towns. Baden bei Wien was really pretty and we attempted to head to Seegrotte, Europe's largest underground lake. It's only 17 km from Vienna and is supposed to be quite easy to get to...

After being left stranded in a random village just outside Vienna and having the question 'how do we get to Moedling?' answered with 'not at all, right now' we weren't so sure. Giving up on trains we decided to catch a bus. It was then that I realised I hadn't until that point encountered a non-touristy Austrian town, and used to the Viennese accent which as far as Austrian accents go is fairly well-pronounced, I couldn't understand a word anyone was saying to me. After about an hour of hanging around Moedling bus station, we eventually boarded a bus headed to Seegrotte and were immediately stuck behind a May-Day parade, which although was nice to look at (and listen to, as we had discovered at 8 that morning as a brass band passed under my open window) with the adults in traditional Austrian dress, it did mean that we were even longer getting to Seegrotte. In the end we completely missed the stop and got off in a random little village, which to be fair was gorgeous! We had almdudler in a little Gasthaus and then got the bus back to Moedling (Seegrotte was closed by this time) - the bus driver looked at us as if we were completely insane, which to be fair was our general feeling at the time as well.

With it being Sophie and Hannah's last evening in Vienna before boarding their night-train to Strasbourg at 11 pm, we headed to Charlie P's for a goodbye dinner, which after a long day was very much appreciated. We had enough time for Sophie and Hannah to repack, having somehow acquired an extra suitcase worth of stuff (as is usual) and watch some television before heading to Westbahnhof for our goodbyes.

It was a really good couple of weeks which really allowed me to re-appreciate Vienna and has made me a little sadder about leaving here. The past week I've been ill and so have had a bit of time to reflect on what I'm going to have to get used to when I go back to Edinburgh in a month's time:

- living in a flat with other people.
- working in pounds.
- not speaking or hearing any german.
- how early restaurants close.
- lack of Austrian beer as well as missing almdudler, kinder, milka and good coffee.

I'm definitely going to miss Vienna but having just booked my flight home today, I am getting used to the idea of going back and I know that it'll take a while to settle back in and I'm sure after a while it'll be like I was never away.

To continue with my last post we had a really brilliant time in Vienna! We took full advantage of it the first week we were there – pushing through the tiredness of all our travels. As well as the things I mentioned last time, we went on a tour of the Parliament building (which is really impressive and grand, like everything else in Vienna), visited several more Viennese cafés, visited Schönbrunn, the Hapsburgs’ summer palace, which houses the oldest zoo in the world as well as mazes and a desert house did quite a bit of shopping and generally just soaked up the atmosphere of what rapidly became one of my very favourite cities!

The maze at Schonbrunn and the Reisenrad

At the weekend we took a bus to Prague which I definitely recommend doing as part of a trip to Vienna – it’s really cheap and only takes around 4 hours. Taking the bus is never really the first transport option to occur to me and I’ll usually take a train if I can, but I have to say that it was a good way to see lots of Austrian countryside, which is really pretty. I know that there are better routes to take for natural beauty – this one was mostly flat farmland and little villages, but I was impressed anyway and we saw a lot of deer and other animals (well, two of us did – Max kept missing them!). We were staying in a youth hostel just outside of the tourist centre of Prague, which Max has stayed in when she visited the city back in November and which is without doubt the best youth hostel I have ever encountered (I know I said that about the one in Basel too, but they keep getting better!) It was full of backpackers, which gave an atmosphere that reminded me a bit of Fresher’s week – everyone wanted to talk to everyone else, was interested in why they were in Prague, where they’d been and where they were going next. It was also good that everyone was either travelling alone or in pairs because it made it easier to get a conversation flowing. We stayed in on the first night there and chatted to people in the hostel’s bar before crashing into bed, which was fantastic after spending a week sleeping on Max’s floor!

Our first day in Prague was ridiculously hot and after heading into town, getting separated from each other (we had picked up a crew of backpackers and were, by this time, a group of about 10 people, which is hard to keep track of in a busy street), finding each other (which cost an awful lot of phone credit) and watching the astronomical clock on the town hall strike the hour, we were too warm to continue sightseeing and so headed for the nearest bar, which was on the roof of a hotel in the main square, giving a fantastic view of all the main tourist attractions! We stayed there for ages and once we had cooled off and the sun was a bit lower in the sky we went on a walking tour of Charles Bridge, Wenceslas Square and the Jewish quarter, which was deserted because it was Saturday, but still really nice to wander around in.

The Astronomical Clock

In the evening we went on a pub crawl we had heard about from some guys staying in the hostel. When we arrived we were a bit concerned to discover that there were two separate stag parties on the pub crawl and apart from two Americans, we were the only girls there. Although I probably wouldn’t recommend this particular pub crawl (there was an expensive cover charge, it went around all of the pricey, touristy bars and ended up in a really bad club) we still had a good time. We bailed on the club at the end as it was full of guys ogling the pole dancers on the tables and headed to a massive 5 storey club near Charles Bridge instead, which was much better.
The next morning we were obviously not in much of a state to do sightseeing but after an extremely leisurely breakfast (we’re talking a couple of hours!) we wandered over to the castle and spent the morning there before heading back to Vienna.

The leisurely atmosphere carried on for the rest of the time we were in Austria – we were so exhausted by the time we got back that we slept in most days and just did gentle sightseeing in the afternoons! We still managed to go to the Hofburg (the Hapsburgs’ palace in Vienna, which is huge), visit the Museums Quartier, see the Rathaus and the main cathedrals, go to the Prater (the permanent fairground on the site of Hapsburgs' old hunting grounds which housesw the Reisenrad, a ferris wheel constructed in 1897), visit the Wien museum which gives the history of the city from Roman times to the present day, take a couple of trips out of the main city and attempt to go to the Seegrotte, the biggest underground lake in Europe which, sadly, we didn’t manage to do because there was some problem with the rail track on the way, leaving us stranded in some random town. We got a bus to another random town then waited over an hour for another bus which should have taken us to Seegrotte, but we missed the stop and ended up, once again, waiting for a bus in some random village! It wasn’t the most successful day of my life, but at least we saw a lot of random Austrian towns!!

The trip back to France was long and uneventful – we took a night train to Strasbourg which was surprisingly comfy and pleasant, even though we were sharing a carriage with a baby, which could have been disastrous! We left Vienna at 11pm on Friday and got to Dijon at 3pm on Saturday. It was strange to be back after almost a month away, but mostly because it felt so much like home, which I didn’t expect. It’s been really good to see everyone again, although it’s sad to know that we only have a few weeks left until everyone starts leaving.

The month of May is always an important one here in Norway: the 17th of May is Norwegian Constitution Day, a celebration of the constitution declaring Norway to be an independent nation. As a national day it is easily among the most important of the year, and already preparations are underway: on the day people wear their national costume, the bunad, and the national media is currently publishing various articles on the best way to care for and wash your bunad, polish your silver and how best to carry yourself whilst wearing the ensemble, among other items. Strange in my opinion, but clearly the demand for such things exists! On the day there will be parades on the streets whilst the Royal Family stand on the Palace balcony and wave to the gathered crowds.

A major part of the parade on the national day will be the Russ, the young people graduating from high school and about to head to University or other avenues. The Russ celebrations are a massive part of society here and traditionally begin on the 1st May, though this year were evident a few days before that too. The school leavers all wear special overalls which traditionally shouldn't be washed throughout the three week stretch:

Over time these overalls accumulate signatures and badges and different signs that signify the different 'knots' they have achieved through a range of agreed 'daring' challenges. These challenges change each year and are published annually for the new school leavers, but here are a few russ knot examples according to Wikipedia:

Spending a night in a tree (earns a stick from the tree)
Eating a Big Mac in two bites (earns a piece of the wrapping)
Drinking a bottle of wine in 20 minutes (earns the wine cork)
Crawling through a super market while barking and biting customers' legs (earns a dog biscuit)
Spending a school day crawling on hands and knees (earns a toy shoe)
Spending the entire russ period sober (earns a fizzy drink cork)
Drinking 24 beers in 24 hours(girls) 12 hour (boys)
Have sex in the woods
Have sex with 17 different people in 17 days from 1.May to 17 May(norwegian national day)
Go for a swim before the 1. of May earns a popsical
Break up with a random 16 year old very public.
Run over a local bridge or from the school to the sentre or similar place naked.
Sit in a round about with a sign that says "We'll have drink if you honk your horn!"
Host an aerobic class at the local pub and get at least ten people to join.

Reading the list it becomes quite clear that Russ is regarded as a right of passage more than anything, and often the 'knots' are a controversial topic in society. In 2004 a group of female leavers eager to fund a Russ bus to ride in (a common part of the parade) agreed to make a pornographic film with a well-known Norwegian adult film actor in order to make 20,000 Norwegian Kroner, a mere fraction of the end sum they spent on their bus (well over 200,000 Kroner). Asides from that rather extreme example of Russ celebrations the month of May is more taken advantage of as an excuse to party in the lead up to their exams and the national day, and all in good spirits.

As you can imagine, focusing on University isn't among my top priorities in this month of celebration and my final in the country! Exams are important to me, nonetheless, and having already completed one and in the lead up to others, I am spending time reading, etc. However, being able to do it in the sunshine and company is a massive bonus. I have also received feedback on recent essays: the system for feedback here is so advanced compared to home. Each student is given a personal meeting with our seminar leader to discuss our essay. In his office I noticed that he had made 2 A4 sides of notes about my essay alone, and his feedback was positive and helpful, most importantly. The fact that personal feedback meetings existed was surprising enough for me, but to discover how good they were was also a revelation.

Anyway, asides from University things are in full swing: I am meeting my TANDEM partner as often as possible now in our last hopes at improving our requisite languages skills! I am spending a lot more time in the very efficiently run student unions, where volunteers operate the places in a highly admirable system, and on Friday some friends and I are taking the train to Stockholm in Sweden for a weekend which should be a lot of fun. Packing things in is becoming more difficult but I somehow always manage to do so, which is comforting at the very least.