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Monday, 19 August 2013

Travel, and work…

Hello again everyone, I hope you've all been keeping well in what feels like a while since I last gave you an update. So what’s new with me? Not a great deal to be honest, I've been working full time at the University, which takes up most of my week. I really hope that I can adjust to the 9 to 5 mentality soon, because this time next year I will hopefully have my degree and be looking for work!

Anyway, enough about work, I've been considering going away again over Christmas, ever since I went to California for my holiday, I feel more confident travelling alone. I would like to see more of Europe as well; apparently I've only seen 17% of it (according to an app I just downloaded to my phone called “been”). One of my friends and myself were discussing the idea of going Interrailing, which should make it easier to see more of Europe, and for a decent price too!


By looking at this map it looks like I've not been to many places, but I have just been to some countries several times. I would certainly like to change that and see more of the world. All I need now is some money… does anyone fancy lending me several thousands of pounds? If only it were that easy to get money, just have someone give it to you. Obviously that is not how it works, and if you want anything in life, to work for it. A lottery win about now would be great.


I have managed to put away £400 into a savings account though, which I am trying not to touch… how easy that will be, only time will tell…


Anyway, until next time, take care everyone!

Monday, 29 July 2013

Work, work, work…

Hello everyone! Hope you are all well; it certainly has been a tiring month! As you may remember from my last blog entry, I had just gotten back from my holiday to California. I really wish I was still there, having time to relax, none of this full time work malarkey!

Not a great deal has happened to me this month; I haven’t been able to do anything, because I've not had the money to do so. That was the only downside to going away, because I wasn't working, I wasn't earning any money, so the pay for this month was… well, only enough to cover my phone bill and a few other direct debits I have. To be fair, I've been so tired from both working 9 until 5, and from the hot, humid weather, that I've not really wanted to go out.


The only thing I've done this month is going to the house of one of my flatmates for her birthday weekend. It was only in Surrey, so it didn't cost me much in train fare, and the club we went to on one of the nights was in Kingston, and wasn't too expensive when it came to entry and alcoholic beverages.  Overall it was a fun weekend, even though it did leave me feeling quite hung-over (I've not been drunk for a while, and I hadn't eaten much on the day). The only downside to the weekend was I couldn't afford to go to Thorpe Park, so whilst everyone else went there, I had to make my way home… it was sad times, but I can always go another time.


At least next month I will be able to actually do things, as I will have some money from all the work I've been doing this month, and I also should have gotten used to working a 35 hour week, meaning I should have more energy to be a more sociable person!

Hope you are all having a good summer so far and are keeping cool, or if you are away on holiday, I hope that you’re having a great time wherever you are!


Until next time, take care!

Monday, 8 July 2013

Back from California

Hello everyone, it sure has been a while since my last blog entry. As you may remember, I was going away to California on holiday for 3 weeks, and unfortunately I am now back. I say unfortunately, as like most holidays, I was having too much of a good time to want to come back.

So let me tell you a little bit about my time away. The first thing to any holiday is getting there, obviously. My journey to Los Angeles International was sadly not direct, and I had to go to Dallas first, and then catch another flight. Because Heathrow doesn't seem to have many runways, there was a queue on the runway for a before the plane could took off, which meant that there was a delay taking off. I was already worried, because I only had 2 hours between landing and catching my next flight. The journey to Dallas wasn’t the best experience I had, it was just under 10 hours, and I had to sit behind someone who had their seat reclined for the entire length of the flight, meaning I had very little room. Well, less than you normally get in economy.

Fortunately for me (but unfortunate for some) my flight from Dallas to Los Angeles was delayed due to bad weather… bearing in mind when I arrived in Dallas, it was 32°C, with a clear blue sky. But apparently there had been thunder storms earlier in the day which had delayed all flights for 2 hours, which did work in my favour.

I didn’t do a great deal of travelling, in the sense that I only visited a few places during my stay, including: Santa Barbara, Bakersfield, Fresno, and ending up in San Luis Obispo, which was my favourite of all the places I visited. The view in the evening of all the places I went to was stunning; this is more or less the view I had in all locations.



Whilst I was in San Luis Obispo, there were a couple of places worth taking a picture of. One was of an alleyway full of chewing gum. That’s right, you read that correctly. It was amazing to see, but at the same time was incredibly gross.

And the last one is of a theatre called the Fremont, which is one of those amazing movie theatre places that look like it’s from a film in the 50’s, this was my attempt at trying to take a photo of it (I was in a hurry to catch a bus that comes every 40 minutes). If you want to see a better version of it, a Google image search will come up better photos.

Speaking of theatres, whilst I was away, I went to see Monsters University, which came out whilst I was there, and doesn’t come out in the UK until the 12th of July. It was an amazing film, and I would recommend it to anyone who loved Monsters Inc. Unfortunately I didn’t see it in the Fremont theatre, but the cinema that I did see it in, the ticket only cost me $7.50 (not even £5). I don’t know why this genuinely shocked me, maybe because cinema tickets here seem to cost an arm and a leg. The smell of the popcorn was also the most amazing thing ever.

Speaking of food, one thing that I discovered whilst away, and is something that I've not found in the UK (from all searches I've done) is white sauce pizza. It’s basically a white sauce similar to that found in a lasagne that replaces the usual red sauce on pizza. It has the most amazing flavour, and I can’t even describe the taste, only that it is better than any pizza I've ever had.

My holiday mainly consisted of some travelling, but mainly just of me catching up on some much needed relaxation time. There were days (especially the one where it got to 40°C) where I didn’t do anything, and just spent my time taking it easy, leaving me feeling very relaxed.

My journey home felt like a never ending journey, totaling around 18 hour’s total. The last place I was in was San Luis Obispo, which is just under 200 miles away from Los Angeles, where I had to catch my flight from. To get there, it meant getting another train (I traveled by train to each location) except this was the longest one, taking me 5hr30 station to station, with the journey starting at 6:55am. Although the trains are rather large, and had two levels, they were so slow, which was the main reason why it took so long.


After a flight just over 10 hours, I arrived back in rainy London, where I found out Sharon Osborne was on my flight! She was standing at baggage reclaim with her body guard who collected her bag for her. If only I had someone to do that for me!

In other news, I officially passed my second year of university! Only one more to go, hopefully! Fingers crossed that all of you manage to pass as well.


Until next time, take care!

Wednesday, 29 May 2013

End of Exams!

Hello again everyone, I hope you are all able to control your sanity and stress levels during the exam period. For those of you who still have exams going on, the best of luck to you, but for me? I’m all done! That’s my second year over. What a year it’s been, I can’t wait until I go away on my holiday, sunny California for 3 weeks should do me the world of good. If anyone else has plans for summer, I hope you have a nice time away, and if you don’t have a holiday booked, then enjoy some well-earned rest from working hard.

I am so glad that my exams are over though; I was getting far too stressed whilst revising, which led to me breaking out in anxiety rashes, and meant that I was unable to sleep. Although, being stressed was not the only thing that was keeping me awake… some selfish person had been maliciously setting off the fire alarm of an evening where I reside. Having a fire alarm going off for 30 minutes at a time is definitely not how I wish to spend my precious slumber time! Needless to say, I wrote a strongly worded email to the accommodation office in regards to the security, or rather lack of, in terms of their speed in turning off the fire alarms. I know it isn't them setting it off, but surely it doesn't take half an hour to turn off a fire alarm.

Moving swiftly on from those pesky fire alarms, it’s time for me to relax, before I have even more relaxation. Actually, during the next few weeks I am going to have to start packing up my room, and move out. That won’t be a fun task, mainly because I live on the top floor, so moving all my stuff out will require me to go up and down the stairs at least a million time! Okay, maybe that is a bit of an over exaggeration from me, but at the time, it definitely feels like it is never-ending.


Until next time, the best of luck to all of you who still have exams, and have a well-deserved rest for those of you who have finished!

Friday, 10 May 2013

California! And more revision


Hello again everyone, hope you've all been working hard with exam revision. I don’t know about you, but I certainly feel that I could have done a lot more revision than I actually have… And what is even more of a scary thought is that my first exam is next week. The next couple of weeks are going to be awful. But, I booked a flight to California this week for the beginning of June, so that’s something to look forward to for after my exams. I’m so excited! The only thing I’m not looking forward to is the length of the journey. I have a 9hr55min flight to Dallas, where I catch my connecting flight to Los Angeles which is 2hr30min… I hopefully will be able to sleep on the flight to pass the time.




One thing that still hasn't hit me yet is that I am so close to finishing my second year. Only one more to go! That, in my opinion is quite a scary thought! I am quite excited to get my degree though.

Just going back to the topic of revision (I make it sound like revision is my life at the moment, which it more or less is) earlier in the week, I made plans with a couple of my course friends to revise… big mistake! Not only did it cost me £9 in travel and took me ages to get there (they both live in Essex, so I went to them to revise) we didn't actually do any revision. Initially we went for lunch in Nando’s, and then we made our way to Costa to revise. Just for the record, Costa coffee is not coffee. As you may remember, I am a Starbucks fan, and after tasting the coffee in Costa, it just isn't the same.


Anyway, back to my point about revision, once we were in Costa, and we had our drinks sorted, we decided to attempt some revision. We had a bit of trouble getting connected to the WiFi  and then the portal wouldn’t work, and so after about what was probably 10 minutes of revision, we decided to call it a day… quite the waste of time, as you can imagine!

Anyway, I still wish you all the best of luck with your exams and revision during the exam period. Until next time!

Monday, 29 April 2013

Exams… again!

Good day everyone, I hope all is well. What a busy few weeks I've had! I know I always say that I’m busy, but I really am. It would be nice to have a bit of a break, a weekend lying on a hammock, reading a good book. To be honest, any kind of holiday would be great…


I didn't realise until the other day just how close exams were. They are quickly approaching, and I don’t feel as though I've done enough yet in preparation for it. I need to get myself in gear and actually get my head in a book. I really am not looking forward to 3 exams, 7 hours in total. Hopefully none of you have the same number of exams, and they don’t last as long. I do wish all of you the best of luck though, and for any of you who don’t have exams, I am slightly jealous. 


As soon as I had my student loan in, I decided to do an online shop with ASDA. I decided to buy a lot of items so that I wouldn't have to go shopping again for a while, so I spent £122 on stuff, which may sound like a lot, but I think I’m good for a very long time. When the delivery came, I thought they had only charged me £57, as that’s what the receipt said. However, I checked my bank statement, and they had actually charged me the full amount, which was indeed a sad, sad time.

On a more serious note, I’m sure you've all heard about the Boston marathon bombings. It’s such a tragic occurrence, and my thoughts are with the families of those who have been hurt or killed during this horrific event. It’s things like this that make me question the people on this earth, and wonder what actually goes through their minds when they plan such a thing. Maybe it is just something within their heads that’s a little bit messed up, or maybe it’s the pressure of a group, but I want to know how and why people wake up one day and think that it will be a good idea to do such a thing.

To end on a cheerier note, at least the weather seems to have picked up a little. It seems that in Britain, as soon as the sun comes out, everyone just takes their clothes off. Shorts go on, t-shirts and vests come out, and everyone lies on the grass trying to get some form of a tan.

Until next time everyone, keep well and good luck with exam preparation and any coursework you have!

Tuesday, 9 April 2013

Amsterdam!

Hello there again everyone. Here’s hoping that all is well and you've been enjoying your Easter break so far. As you may remember from my last blog, I mentioned that I was going to Amsterdam for four days for one of my friend’s birthdays. Overall, we had a great time, but things didn't quite go according to plan… on the day we were due to leave, we were all sat and waiting for our airport taxi to pick us up to take us to the airport, which was due at 4am. 4am came, and 4am went, the drivers phone was off, so we couldn't contact him, no one was answering the phone at the office, and we didn't know what to do. 4:30am came and there was still no sign of him, and we really needed to leave. Luckily a few people I was going with had their cars, so we had to drive to the airport.

The airport we were flying from was Southend Airport, which I didn't even know existed. It was the smallest airport I've ever seen as well! Walking through the doors, you’ll see a check in desk, and a waiting area for arrivals, and then you go up the stairs to security, and then there is a waiting area where there are three gates, and three shops. I always hate going through security at airports, even though I know I haven’t got anything bad on me, I always feel like they’ll find something on me. I don’t even know why.


By the time we were called to our flight, I had already been awake for over 25 hours, so I was feeling pretty sleepy. All I remember of the flight was the strange noises the plane was making as we took off and thinking that I was going to die on the EasyJet flight, closing my eyes, and then waking up as the plane began its descent. To be fair, it was only a 40 minute flight from Southend to Schiphol (the airport in Amsterdam) so it’s not like I was asleep for long.

Getting to our hostel was fairly easy, as Amsterdam has a pretty good transport system. Although we couldn't check in until 3pm, and we got to the hostel at 11am, so we decided to go into the Centre of Amsterdam to have a look around. We ended up just buying a travel card and going to McDonald’s, which is so much better than in the UK. The chicken satay burger is a must if you go to The Netherlands!


Although the trip went rather quickly, we all had a great time nonetheless. I would definitely recommend Amsterdam to anyone, as it’s a great city, and there are lots of things to experience, and to see, and if you fly with EasyJet, the flights are fairly cheap as well, although Amsterdam is a lot like London in terms of the cost of going out, although in one bar I got 6 shots for €6! By the time we got back on Thursday, pretty much everyone went to sleep to catch up from the previous days.

Until next time, take care everyone!