alice

I’m having a run of wonderful days.

I feel especially good today because I did what I’d meant to do for ages (but being abroad got in the way…) and purchased a Flickr Pro account for Belen aka not polish, so that made me happy.

At 9h30 I left the house and met Lucy and Ash and we went into town together, as we were getting our hair cut at 11h. In the end Lucy didn’t get her hair cut because her hairdresser was ill or something. Not to worry. First we went to Accessorize because I needed a small purse to fit in the tiny bag I bought in Paris, I got a pretty purple one for a fiver. Then we went to a cafe to kill some time because there’s nothing else to do in town. At 10h45 I went to the hairdressers and I came out at 12h15 with (I think) a beautiful haircut. Ha that sounds weird but I really don’t care! I proper love it:

Then I met back up with Lucy and Ash, who were by this point having lunch with Ben and Emily from school, and it was ace to see them cos I haven’t seen them in like 3 years or so. Emily and I semi-arranged our trip to Thailand next year, as Lucy and Ash are moving there, we’re going at Easter for 2 weeks. I’ll need lots of jabs.

Then we spent ages reminiscing about Orchestra and Band and other music-related things at school. And at 13h30 I came home because the others had to go to work, or in Lucys case, drive up to Scotland.

Today has been a perfect day. I got up at 6h30 because I set my iPod alarm for 7h30 but it’s still on Continental time so it went off an hour early. Not to worry, it was bright and warm and sunny and I felt awake so I got up and I had a shower in the beautiful new bathroom. Dad went to work and Mum went shopping so I got all ready, had a nice coffee, and organised some more of my stuff whilst waiting for a phone call from Lucy as for what time to meet.

My mum returned just as I set off, about 10h30, and as I walked up the road I lost one of my earrings. It fell out. At the end of the road I realised this and I walked back home looking for it. I changed my earrings and my mum and I walked back up the road looking for it again. We didn’t find it, but it’s okay. These things happen and it’s not the end of the world.

At 11h I met Lucy and we got the bus into town (£1.50, what a ripoff). In town we did some shopping in the few decent shops the town has (there’s like 3) and we had lunch at the ace cafe. We decided to make appointments to get our hair cut, so we went off to the hairdressers and booked us in for Thursday morning at 11h. Yay. I almost bought a dress today but it was £30 and I need to not spend. I didn’t actually buy a single thing today, except a fairtrade chocolate bar (and lunch, and bus tickets) from Oxfam because we spent ages in there looking at the books and I felt a bit guilty because the old man on the counter was so nice. I should buy something.

We sat for ages in the lovely sun, talking. It was wonderful. She’s moving to Thailand in September for a year, so I can hopefully go out and see her. Emily and Becky are going to go and visit next Easter, so I will contact them and see if it’s at all possible to join. I’d love to visit. She’s going to have the most amazing time.

I haven’t seen her in so long, so it was great to see her again. And I’m seeing her on Thursday too. And we discovered a random Thai noodle place has opened in town, so we planned a trip there for the next couple of weeks.

Later on I phoned my old manager and enquired about having a job for the summer. He sounded hopeful, but not definite. Fingers crossed.

At 17h I came home and my mum said she asked our postman to look out for my lost earring. Aww. The postman is sweet. Then I applied for a student loan. I sorted out all my bank accounts and I need to go into the bank to sort things out fully. I’ll do it on Thursday, when I’m back in town. I have so much to do, but today has been so productive. I’m going to get up early everyday from now on. In the warm summer sun it’s amazing. I feel amazing. I love this being busy. I love this applying and sorting out my uni life. I can’t wait to begin uni. It’s weird how I will graduate in 2012. It’s so far away. I’m going to enjoy every second of it. I’m going to be in so much debt, top-up fees and all, but I’m good with money. I’ll stay on top of things because that’s who I am.

Sometimes we rock and roll, sometimes we stay at home, and that’s just fine.

Today was a really really good day. I got up nice and early to a bright and clear sky, and I went into town about 10ish to meet Joanne. I’m trying to see as many people as I can before I leave on Sunday, and cos it’s Easter holidays everyone is home from uni at the mo. Good timing eh.

I went to three cafes today with three (well, technically four) different people. Ace.

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EEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Eeee I’m so excited. I have finally organised it! A FINAL and DEFINITE route and I have done the scary and daunting and looming task of booking stuff. I have now booked all my stuff for the trip. ALL OF IT.

Overall I’ve spent about £1500. That includes 2 x Inter-rail card and 2 months worth of hostels/hotels. Money well spent!

I’m not going to post up my itinery here cos like, no offence to you lovely reader, but what if a stalker/scary person reads this :/ unlikely but still possible some general stuff though is that I AM SO LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS. Along the way I am stopping at Jutte’s, Uka’s and Terry’s, spending 5 days in Paris with my boyfriend, a long weekend in Rome with parents, and so on.

Anyway.

I’m so excited and so deadly scared at the same time. In a way I can’t believe this is real and it’s happening. In a month I’ll be on the road. TRAVEL TIME. I’m no longer scared about being by myself. It’ll do me good.

OMG this is amazing. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’m proud of me, in a way, haha. I know I’m going to have a fantastic time. I really cant wait to get to Belgium and see Nic. I hope my Dutch will be good enough! Will be fun, we’re going to visit the Photography museum in Antwerpen too, and I will see Joris as well if he is around at this time. I’m going to visit Terry in Switzerland, and he lives quite near Zurich and stuff so that’ll make some nice trips.

Eeeeeeeexcited.

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Last weekend it was Amy’s birthday, and seen as I had yet to go and visit her at university, she invited me to go up and stay with her. So I booked some train tickets to Durham (tis nice and cheap and fast) and yay, I was going to see dear Amy again!

Despite getting progressively more ill through the weekend, I had such an amazing time. It was great to just see Amy again, I miss her so much! We write to each other all the time though, so much nicer getting a hand-written letter through the post than a ‘you have 1 new notification’ on Facebook

Anyway… I’ll try to keep this short and not too boring.

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Hahaha it makes me laugh to still think about it.

Read this for more info.

Long story short, there was a competition at Clare College, Cambridge to display some photos on the wall in somewhere so my brother entered for me and I won 2 spots on the wall! Here, look!

We had a lovely weekend in Cambridge about which I cannot be bothered to write every tiny little detail (it’s boring anyway). Basically we had a nice day out on Saturday and I met up with Joanne briefly for lunch, and then later on we had champagne, wine and Thai food (in that order) to celebrate Alan being 21. I slept at Ted’s house on the floor and got up dead early as he was going to Bedford at some ridiculous hour (well, 8am, that was my lie-in of the week).

Then we came home and I curled up on the backseat of the car and slept with Okkervil River on repeat in my ears. It was a good weekend.

Right so I spent last weekend the weekend before last in London with the lovely Bob. I say weekend, it was more of a longgg weekend. I went down on Thursday night, straight after work, and came back Monday daytime. So really, that’s 5 days I got to see him for!

I’m not going to blog out each day as before because it is: a) rather tiresome; and b) not that interesting. Instead I’ll do an overview of what we managed to get up to. Nice and succinct.

Here I am sitting on a stone thing in a pond outside the Barbican.

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It is the day I am leaving.

I feel a bit scared and a bit worried and a bit nervous, but also incredibly excited and impatient. I know this is the right thing to do. I know that there will be times where I will panic and think I’ll want to call it all off, and I will think wtf am I doing, I can’t go travel all around European countries all by MYSELF for a few months, what if something bad happens, what if something goes wrong, I am all alone in a foreign country. It makes me feel very small.

But I know this is the right thing to do. It’s an opportunity. I have 5 months of absolute freedom, starting in April. I finish work around March 23rd, start uni in mid-September. And inbetween? Nothing, no commitments, no duties. So I see this as a true opportunity to get out there and do something. Travel many countries. That’s it. Yes it’s a bit scary and a lot to handle, but that’s life. It would be incredibly and utterly stupid to waste this perfect time. I have the money to fund it, I have the means to fund it, and most of all, I have the will to fund it. I want to do this so badly. You have to take some chances in life. This is one of mine.

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Today Amy and I went shopping to Leeds, maybe catch the end of the sales and just a general catch-up since we don’t see each other that often anymore. And and and. I bought myself a dress! It’s little and black and pretty and it looks SO good. I never ever usually buy dresses, but I wanted something smart for Bob’s graduation ceremony next week, and I found this in the shops.

I’m not going to post a picture (yet) cos I can’t show what it looks like, going to be a surprise next week for Bob and all But ooh I love it. It fits so perfectly and I think it looks great. I tried it on again when I got home to double make sure it’s okay (I always do this with clothes) and it’s just so comfortable and pretty I could wear it all day every day. I wish.

I just tried it on again. God I love it. Maybe I should start wearing dresses more? Comfy dress! I’m not doing anything fancy for New Years, going out briefly to a friend-of-the-family’s house, then coming back before midnight, but I feel like dressing up in the dress when I get back home, so I can start the New Year in STYLE.

Hmm.

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