alice

Must… not… scratch…

Wow its been ages (sorry cant find the apostrophe key on this keyboard) since Ive written something up here, sorry!

So whats been happening avec moi?

Well, last time I posted an entry I was coming to the end of my stay in Gent with Nic, and from there on I went to Brugges, further west in Belgium. I spent 2 days there which was lovely, Ive visited before, but about 10 years ago (managed to find the hotel I stayed in then tho hehe), so it was nice to come back and revisit. The weather wasnt so great, sunny when I arrived and left, but on my only full day there it was cold and a bit rainy, oh well!

And then last Thursday, April 24th, I went southwards to Paris for about 5 days. Bob came over to meet up with me, as he lives in London its relatively easy to hop on a Eurostar and visit le city of love, aka Paris. So he arrived on Thursday night at la Gare du Nord, and we stayed in a cute little hotel pretty close to the station AND the centre, score.

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Helloo all!

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks so far on my travels. I passed the 2 week mark yesterday, so I’m officially one quarter of the way through my trip right now! I’m in Belgium at the minute with Nic and really having a fantastic time.

Before that I was in Brussels last weekend (after leaving Cologne in Germany), which was also very good. The weather has been pretty much perfect so far, tiny bit of rain a couple of times this week, but other than that, dry and sunny every day (though sometimes quite cold, but tis still better than rainy!)

Ha took me a while to get used to this Belgian keyboard. All the letters have moved round again from the German one

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That and a few people, that´s pretty much all I´m missing right now. The water here just ain´t the same.

Rightio well it was my last day in Cologne today, I leave tomorrow morning and go to west to Brussels yay. I´m having the time of my life, this wonderful feeling of being absolutely free and independant. Words can´t describe it.

The hostel I´m staying in at the mo in Cologne is really nice, and I´ve met so many people already, from all over the world. There´s a few other English people (strangely mostly from Manchester), some Germans, Americans, Canadians, French-Canadians, Finnish, Indian and Japanese. It´s really nice to all sit together in the hostel bar/lounge and just talk. Everyone here is on their own adventure, it´s fun to discuss it all.

Anyway, so what have I been up to? God, so much!

Before I came to Cologne I stayed one night in Unna, I arrived pretty late that night so nothing happened then. The next morning I went to a German university in the morning with Jutte and I met lots of people there. One guy was very enthusiastic to hear I was from England, and even more so that I was Northern, he said he loved to go to the Lake District.

Then to Cologne. I´ve been walking and exploring the city for the past 3 days and speaking lots and lots of German. Yesterday was my first full day, I explored the Dom (cathedral) and walked all the way to the very top, which was very tired and it was super hot. But the view was amazing and the clamber was worth it. I went for a long walk along the Rhine and over some bridges to the other side etc. I went to an amazing museum in the centre with lots of 20th century art, which was most wonderful.

I´m also quite tired now. Last night some of us from the hostel went out for drinks. Was fun but I don´t like beer much, and apparently Cologne is famous for it´s beer.

What else! Dunno.

Dunno. Took lots of photos of course, but you´re gonna have to wait for them

Anyway I need to write an email to my parents so they don´t worry. It´s 5.30pm here now, I think I´ll go out again while it´s still light. Luckily my hosstel is dead central, and even more luckily, the weather so far has been wonderful.

Anyway. I´m off. Cheerio.

Right so I leave tomorrow. 7am in the morning, to be precise.

How am I feeling? Very very very nervous and scared, but also incredibly excited. This is going to be amazing. You know when something happens in your life which changes it forever, this is one of those. I can’t believe it’s actually happening. Maybe it’s all a dream and I’ll wake up…

Things I envision could go wrong and my solutions:

• I get lost - well, I will pick up a map of every city I’m in, and I will mark on it where I am staying. I have a document of directions to all my places of staying. I can always ask someone
• I lose my money - credit/debit cards. Emergency store of money.
• I lose my train ticket - I will break down and cry. Erm, after that, I’ll go to the train station, British embassy, sort it out.
• I lose my camera - I’ll buy another one
• I lose my passport - British Embassy will have a visit from moi
• I get, um, mugged… - give them the old one-two
• I miss a train - duh, I get the next one! No problemo
• I slip and break my leg - free European health care ftw
• I lose my credit/debit cards - ring up and cancel them immediately, survive on what money I do have until they can send me a replacement. Hmm this one could be tricky…
• I forget a German word for something vital - meh, they can get over it.
• I miss home - meh, I’ll be back soon enough.

I’ll try and put another update up where and when I can See you all later x

I had one of those feelings today. Up til now, I’ve not really believed this was all real, in a way. I mean, obviously I’m dead excited and really looking forward to it. And I’ve been planning and organising like crazy so everything’s sorted. But I still didn’t believe it. Not really. I mean. In three days time I’ll be in Germany. And I won’t come home for two more months.

Doesn’t sound real. I don’t feel sad to be leaving. That sounds awful. Obviously I’m gonna miss home and my family a lot, but I’m not as sad as I expected me to be. I feel kind of distant.

So yeah, but now!

Well, I went to the student travel agency in Leeds to get a Student Travel Card so I can get nice discounts on stuff abroad. It was quite busy so I sat on a waiting chair and looked at all the brochures they had out. It was all ‘backpack through Australia’, ‘TAKING A GAP YEAR?!?!?!?!’, ‘Things to remember when you’re abroad’.

I watched these people around me, the ones talking to the staff, sorting out their own travels, their own plans. People walking about the office, discussing where they’d go, what they’d do. All the staff were really young and helpful. And encouraging. A young guy came up to me as I was off daydreaming, and he said ‘Hi, so where are you going?’

And of course I answered and didn’t just sit there like a lemon not saying anything. But inside I was thinking. It was like, this is normal. He understands what it’s like to be planning and organising and GOING ON a trip abroad. And not a holiday. A student travel thingy. Backpacking. Sightseeing. I can’t explain it.  And suddenly it dawned on me that for the next two months I’m gonna be living out of my backpack as I move from place to place, doing nothing and everything.

And I walked back into town, somehow distant. I felt like I was standing on the edge of a volcano which is bubbling and getting hot. It’s gonna explode soon and it will change my life. And it’s scary and dangerous but you know it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity and you don’t wanna miss it. You can’t help being curious, peering over the edge to see all that lava.

Except instead of lava it’s a train ticket around Europe.

I didn’t actually get the Travel Card cos stupid me forgot a passport photograph. DOH. I’ll go back tomorrow.

Okay, so it’s 6 days til I’m off. I spent today sorting out what to pack. I made a nice list of what I need to take and I began collecting stuff and putting it in a pile. Doesn’t seem to be that much, but that’s surely a good thing. I’ll try packing my bag maybe tomorrow. I’m going shopping tomorrow to buy some more stuff to take.

I’m getting quite nervous. Stuff I still need to do:

• email Jutte
• phone Elaine
• print off all stuff
• learn Italian? haha yeah…
• find exchange rate for Swiss Francs and Czech money
• find out what Czech money is even called? I have a 100-something note in Czech currency, but I have no idea if that’s worth about a quid or £100?
• PACK

Hmm. I’m getting so excited as well though! This time next week I will be in Cologne! Ace.

I now have two companions on my travels as well, marvellous:

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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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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