#erasmus blog

[miasbritishteapot]

LEEDS - WEEK ONE!

Here we go then! My first week in Leeds. I still can’t quite believe I’m actually here now, living in the UK. It’s a bit hard to grasp and a little bit overwhelming, but I have probably had one of the best weeks of my life. I’ll try and sum it all up for you.

MONDAY was basically just a long, long day of travelling. My parents gave me a lift to Munich Airport and we had a really quick drive up there and traffic turned out to be just fine, so we had a lovely lunch together and a wander around the airport before it was time to say our good-byes. The flight to Manchester was just fine (although rammed) and as I landed Liam had been already waiting for me to pick me up. We dropped my stuff at his and then went to Red Hot World Buffet for dinner which was just such a nice end to such a long day.

On TUESDAY we went to town in Manchester and did a bit of shopping and stopped for a pint and a game of pool at Bierkeller at The Printworks. I cooked up some dinner later that night and we went to the pub with Liams housemates Ben and Ollie to watch the football. So it was just the calm before the storm.

WEDNESDAY was the day I would finally move to Leeds! We caught the train from Victoria Station and passed through the astonishingly beautiful Yorkshire countryside — it was breathtaking! We got a taxi to Leodis and I got my keys to go to my room, which is absolutely lovely. It’s an en-suite in a 5-bedroom flat and the kitchen is so nice and spacious. My flatmate Dan moved in on the same day and he’s just such a nice lad. Liam and I headed out to Wilko’s to do some essential shopping for bedding and kitchen stuff and I still haven’t managed to get everything sorted! I did my first big foodshop at Morrissons which I loved as well haha. Finally, we had a look around J block to see if there were any people up for going to the pub and that was the night I had met some of the loveliest people in my life!!! Everybody is so nice and friendly and we had such a good laugh at the pub called The Library and then all hung out at Dom’s flat downstairs. It was a great, very exhausting, day that I’ll remember forever.

On THURSDAY Dan and I went to get our student ID sorted (which looks awful by the way) and he showed me around the actual Uni Building, including Parkinson Steps and the Union. Leeds Uni is a proper Campus University which makes it just so much more exciting to have everything in one spot. From 2pm-6pm I then had the first big Welcome Meeting which was quite interesting, but just a tiny bit too long. I have met some more lovely people though and it was all fine in the end. After that we had a flatparty at ours and then went to the bar called Terrace at the Union, where we had 2-for-1 Cocktails. Dont mind if I do!

FRIDAY was quite a busy day for me as well - lots of errands to run! I had my second Welcome Talk, registered with the Student Medical Practice, got a bank letter, booked an appointment to open my account and did more kitchen/bedroom shopping. My second flatmate, the lovely lovely Charlotte had moved in by the time I got in and we then decided to go to Fruity which is the clubnight the Union host every Friday - it was such a good laugh!

On SATURDAY Liam and I made our way back to Manchester to go and see Alt-J playing at the O2appollo and OMG.. it was such an amazing night. Words just cannot describe how good the gig was and they just completely swept me off of my feet. If you ever get the chance to go see Alt-J live, do it!

Today, SUNDAY, I went back to Leeds by myself and had a look around Trinity and yes, did some more essentials shopping. When I got back I met my two final flatmates, Emily and Ben, which all are just so nice. Then I skyped my little nice, cooked up some dinner before going to another flatparty and had such a nice time.

So that’s it - my first full week in England! :) I just couldn’t have had a better time and want to thank all of Block J and friends (you know who you are) for making me feel so welcome and loved during these past few days. It feels like I’ve known you guys for ages and we’re a little (big) family already! I can already tell this time here in Leeds is going to be one of a lifetime! :)

Goodnight! x

[miasbritishteapot]

The Amazingness that is Yorkshire

While London and Paris are still bickering about who gets to be "Europe's best city", another contender is silently swooping in. The World Travel Awards named Yorkshire, England Europe's leading destination for the second year in a row....

Read through the Link above - this has made me so excited to move to Leeds!! Ahhh I can't wait to explore all of these destinations. Absolutely stoked.

[miasbritishteapot]

Booked my flight then, haven't I?

Yes I have indeed. It's all sorted now... I'll be flying on the 15th of September from Munich to Manchester. Sounds like a bit of a pain-in-the-bum route seeing as I'm neither from Munich nor am I going to live in Manchester.. but it's actually brilliant. Munich is not far from Salzburg and with the Bayern Ticket for the train it will be the most convenient travel for all of us - you definitely don't want to have to catch a connected flight with your heavy bags full of crap!

So my parents will come with me to the airport in Munich and help me out with all my luggage and Liam (my boyfriend) is going to pick me up from the airport in Manchester, which is where he's at uni. I'll stay there with him for a day or two to get phone and bank stuff sorted and buy some essentials for my new room in Leeds, which I will be moving into on the 17th. Liam's also going to help me with that which I'm so so grateful for. On the 20th we'll then head back to Manchester to go to the Alt-J gig (YAY) and then I'll go back to Leeds again on the 21st for yes, you're right, FRESHERS WEEK.

It all feels so real now that's all sorted. Exciting times, eh?

So that's that then... I'll leave you with a picture of my beauuuutiful (not) mugshot for my new passport. It's still better than my old one though seeing as that's got a picture of 12 year-old Mia looking super fly. Cough.

Toodlepip! x

[die-sinfonie-der-grossstadt]

A Break.

My second semester at Humboldt hasn’t been particularly easy. After our mammoth two month break in between semesters, to head back for another round at German university knowing that while our peers still in the UK or in other European countries, or indeed just people who studied German but sensibly didn’t go down the university route would have been finished with the academic year at the start of June, we wouldn’t be done until the middle of July wasn’t the nicest of feelings. I’m well aware that the life of an erasmus student is generally pretty bloody awesome. I’m aware that there’s perhaps not as much stress or pressure to do well on your year abroad (although this varies massively from institution to institution), and mostly the erasmus experience is a whirlwind of partying, heavy-drinking, debauchery, and perhaps a little bit of learning about other countries and cultures. However, I don’t think that just because some aspects of erasmus life are easy, that should invalidate any issues that you do encounter through living in a different country. While I love Germany in general, I haven’t particularly enjoyed the university aspect of my time here. While I’ve learnt some really interesting things, and I’m sure my German has improved a lot through the academic experiences I’ve had out here, the bureaucratic issues, the constant feeling of inadequacy due to your linguistic failings, the attempts to get used to a completely foreign system of university, the fact that you can never really say anything without sounding like at least a little bit of a moron, all these things add up to make the experience slightly stressful. Again, perhaps not too stressful in the grand scheme of life, but valid nonetheless.

  Anyway, by the time it got to around the middle of the second semester, I was pretty done with it all, and needed a brief comfort break to refresh myself and set me up for the last leg of the German university experience. So I booked a slightly spontaneous trip back home for a long weekend in June, which would be the first time I was home since Christmas and the last time before September. My time at home was exactly what I needed. I saw my two closest friends, Grace and Ailsa, my parents, brother, his girlfriend, granny, aunt, uncle, and close family friends Jean and Ken, and most importantly my cat, Gizmo. I honestly didn’t do a lot, besides just enjoying doing nothing, eating good food, drinking and chatting with my family, especially my brother who I don’t see as often as I should do. 

[die-sinfonie-der-grossstadt]

Self-analysis and a visit from my best friend

In some ways my life here in Berlin feels very separate from my overall life; the majority of my friends here are people I had never met before this year or people whom I barely spoke to outside (or indeed inside) of lectures. While I’ve now secured a really lovely group of friends here with whom I feel I can truly be “myself”, it’s only when old friends are thrown into the mix when you realise that you have several different versions of this “self”, which you tend to switch between depending on the situation. This isn’t to say that I’m currently working through some split personality issues- the differences are incredibly subtle. Often you can convince yourself that they don’t exist at all, but they stay imbedded in your psyche, each variant representing a certain stage of life, a certain influence, a certain experience.

  When I look back at the general trajectory of my life, there are clear distinctions between how I felt, how I acted etc. at different stages. Obviously, there are some aspects of yourself that will never change, and even when you feel like you are totally on top of your personality-related shit, it’s only with hindsight when you realise just how wrong you were. I shudder to think how I will look back on the person I am at this precise moment in time, but sitting here right now I’m pretty happy, and I guess that’s the important thing when it comes to carving out a self-image. Fuck your future self- she’s a critical, whiney little bitch, and she’s old and probably still single, so hey, joke’s on her!

  But yes, the thing that got me going along this dangerous path of self-analysis was that my best and most long-suffering friend came out to visit me in Berlin. I had one of the most amazing weekends I’ve had in the Hauptstadt, fully embracing my inner-tourist and attempting to give Grace as fun a weekend as possible, because trust me, there is nobody who deserves it more. Highlights included drinking bubbly at the top of the Fernsehturm in Alexanderplatz, stroking goats at the Berlin Zoo, wandering round the interactive DDR museum, and getting chatted up by an incredibly drunk German version of Chris O’Dowd. It was great to show Grace the city, and to get her GCSE-level German up and running again (“It says a lot that the one area I really don’t need help with remembering my German vocab is when reading menus”).

  I’ve been friends with Grace since I moved to Warley, the quiet village outside of Halifax, West Yorkshire. I made the (to an 8 year-old mind) huge leap across the Lancastrian/Yorkshire border and wasn't particularly excited to have to leave my friends and suburban home in Bolton where the process of “playing out” was incredibly easy due to living on a street with row-upon-row of semi-detached family homes filled with children my own age. Warley, although being far more beautiful, and boasting fields, grass, trees, and general safety as opposed to concrete, tarmac, tiny back-gardens and a promise not to go as far as the busy main-road, was to my “townie” mind incredibly dull. Thankfully however, I met Grace at the local Brownie group, realised she lived “down the snicket” (Lancastrians read: ginnel, Southerners read: alley) from me, and promptly arranged a play-date, and the rest is, as they say, history.

  When you’ve been friends for so long, despite having grown and changed as people, you hold within your friendship a shared memory of the people you used to be, in the form of inside jokes or shared experiences. You can be open with these people- they’ve seen you at your awkward tweenaged phase, they’ve listened to reports of every failed romantic endeavour, every fall-out, every fashion faux-pas, every high, every low. The people who you meet more recently may have some idea of the path you’ve been down to become the person they’re currently speaking to, but they haven’t lived through it (and let’s be honest, it takes a good friend to stick by you while you traverse the choppy (not to mention stroppy) waters of puberty). With Grace, as it became apparent upon seeing her outside of our usual habitat, I do act differently. As unsettling as this realisation was, it actually felt really amazing to be able to reminisce, to sing along to the songs we used to sing in choir on the top of our voices whilst pre-drinking, to have someone with you who knows you as close to inside-out as is possible. More importantly, it’s good to have someone who will keep you grounded. I’m sure as Grace is reading this she will probably be thinking ‘stop psychoanalysing yourself you pretentious little shit’ not that she would word it quite like that of course, but man, you need people who will call you out on your bullshit in the nicest way possible, and because they care. And that’s pretty much all I’ve got to say on the topic; here, have some pictures!  

[erasmuslith-blog]

End get started...

All good things come to an end and of these is the Erasmus period.

Yesterday one of the Erasmus students in Vilnius Academy of Arts and really good friend,Douglas Stevens left from Vilnius to go back to his country. He is the second person i met here,i spent a lot of time with him and he was also one of my flatmates the last weeks.

He studies scupture in Edinburgh and he does some performances,too. I had the opportunity to have a lot of interesting conversations with him about arts etc.

Yesterday we spent almost all day together and with some other friends and we stayed awake until early morning when it was time to leave.

I have say goodbye to other Erasmus students before in my home university but this time the feelings were totally different. I'll miss him and i hope to meet him soon!

So, Doug see you soon!!!!! Hipster House is different without you!! 

[die-sinfonie-der-grossstadt]

About 3 or 4 weekends ago (we're working on a pretty bad back-log here) one of my closest friends came up to Berlin from Munich to visit. Liv has been through a lot of things with me- we were both orchestral managers in our university orchestra's sometimes (okay, often) dysfunctional committee, and both studying German + another subject the other is interested in (history and music), we've always got a lot to talk about. For this reason, it's a bit of a shame that we didn't end up in the same place on our year abroad. However, the two of us being self-professed strong, independent women, we've both learnt to cope without one another. And while it would be lovely to be able to share our regular news exchanges face-to-face over a large glass of pinot, facebook messenger is a good enough alternative. It's an incredibly nice feeling to know that there's somebody on the other side of your messages who is not going to get fed up of listening to your very specifically German issues or woes, and who is going through if not the same, then at least similar things as you are. Also, it's great to be able to visit Liv in an amazing German city- I've already enjoyed a fantastic weekend in Munich, and I was glad to be able to repay the favour for her in Berlin!  So in the few days Liv was here we managed to: 

Meet up with a lot of fellow King's guys for drinks and then an impromptu night out at an event entitled 'Kill all Hipsters' due to its unashamed lack of "cool" music and its devotion to all things mainstream. After months of droning techno, a return to mindless pop and indie music was actually a nice change, even if the whole night didn't feel particularly German or true to the spirit of Berlin (yes, I am aware that that's the point of the event).

Went for a walk around Tiergarten, seeing the various monuments that are scattered around this huge area in Berlin's centre. What I love about this park, is that you can go into it on multiple occasions and find different things every time. There are so many different sections, so many different paths to take, and so many hugely impressive things to see, but given the amount of trees surrounding these things, it's always a pleasant surprise when you happen upon them. One of the surprises we happened to find on this occasion was an iPhone 5S lying unattended on the ground. Being the good Samaritans we are, we picked it up and took it to a local member of the Polizei, using terms usually found in the back-pages of phrase-books. Hopefully the Spaniard who stupidly not only left his phone in the middle of a field, but who also didn't password protect said phone will be one-day reunited with his presumably not particularly prized possession. If not, there's a police officer near the brandenburg gate who's spending his breaks playing angry birds right now. 

Hosted a late Bonfire Night gathering. Bonfire night is one of my favourite strange British traditions. It's an excuse to eat and drink a lot, dress up in your most unattractive winter clothes, play with fireworks, and light an effigy of a 17th Century Catholic terrorist on a huge fire. We're nothing if not dramatic us Brits. Anyway, Liv and I made flapjack (American: "They sound gross, aren't they just pancakes?") and parkin which is something which is native to Lancashire and Yorkshire, but hasn't seemed to spread much outside of there. I'm surprised it made it past the border of those two historic counties to be honest, although the borderlands being as strange and disputed as they are (honestly, Todmorden remains one of the most bizarre places I've ever had the misfortune to visit) it's not surprising that some things managed to slip through the gaps. Plus, it gives the yorkies and lancies something else pointless to quibble over, 'ere right, parkin comes from Yorkshire, not bloody lancashire' 'are you havin' a bloody laugh?' etc. I also managed to find some very cheap rather underwhelming fireworks- think the firework equivalent of premature ejaculation. However with a few drinks down us, and feeling like 13 year old yobs lighting fireworks and drinking in the local park at 1am, we got creative ("maybe we could tie them all together!" "let's tie it to the tree!") and much laughter ensued. And thankfully no neighbours were disturbed, and no polizei were called. Gosh, it's hard living life on the edge... 

A hangover-curing döner kebab eaten at Tempelhofer Park, and then a cultural visit to Schloss-Charlottenburg, the old house of the Hohenzollerns, and later the Prussian King Friedrich I. It was interesting to see this palace, which is one of the few historical things I've seen in Berlin which hasn't had a direct link to WWII. I mean, obviously, links can be made between the rise of the Prussian Kingdom and the build-up to WWI, but what I saw at Schloss Charlottenburg was very much the attempts of a group of nobles, trying desperately to increase their power and influence in a European aristocratic setting in which they were simply late to the party. Even the palace had a strange mixture of being overly grand in places, but still slightly underwhelming, as if it was trying too hard. Of course, given that the palace suffered huge damages during WWII, we weren't seeing it in its old glory. Nonetheless, it wasn't the most impressive palace I've been to recently (though I have been to an awful lot of palaces), and when I say impressive, my scale of measurement is usually how physically sick the ostentatious displays of the inequality of wealth reflected within the palaces make me feel. 

So all in all a brilliant weekend. But one which seems like five minutes ago rather than a month ago. Year abroad is fantastic, but it's going all too quickly. 

[die-sinfonie-der-grossstadt]

Definitely about time for an update

Because I'm sure you're all feeling bereft without my generic study abroad blogging...

Last week was crazy. It involved: 

Another Shisha night with the girls

My first test in my language course (I passed, Gott sei dank!)

A guided tour (auf deutsch natürlich) of the Neues Museum which has an amazing collection of Egyptian artefacts including the famous bust of Nefertiti. The tour was really interesting, especially regarding the history of the museum which was almost completely destroyed in WWII and work to repair it didn't begin until 2 months before the fall of the DDR (zu wenig, zu spät). Unfortunately we didn't have much time to actually roam the museum ourselves so I'll definitely be heading back here at some point in the future.

A trip to another museum 'The Story of Berlin' which was good, if a little basic and reminiscent of GCSE history lessons. The highlight of this museum is definitely the guided tour of a Cold War Nuclear Bunker which could house 3000 people in case of Nuclear War. In theory. It was incredibly creepy and dark down there with the rows upon rows of bunks, and the blue-tinted lighting. 

A visit to the theatre to see 'Ein Volksfeind'. This was an amazing evening, so far I have nothing but good things to say about the German theatre I've come into contact with. The play was incredibly political, very hip, and very entertaining. I would definitely recommend it- and it had the benefits of English surtitles. Also it obviously struck a chord with the incredibly liberal audience members, especially given how close it was to the election (which was today by the way). At one point audience members were encouraged to question the actors (in character as townspeople at a town meeting) with hilarious if a little baffling consequences. One woman in particular obviously had a lot of pent-up anger at the political system in Germany which she was eager to release. 

A 15 minute spoken presentation on my degree, why I study it, and one area I find particularly interesting. I actually really enjoyed this because I love history and will find any excuse to ramble about it, even if that means having to do so in my 2nd language. I think it went well, and my classmates were very complimentary so we'll just see how the marks turn out. 

A meal out and then drinks with the gang again. 

My 21st birthday 'party' or more like casual drinks do. Had a really lovely evening and a lot more people came than I expected which was a really nice surprise, and it was great to chat to the people from my language course in a more causal way, as well as getting to know my new friends a little better. I'm really very very happy at the moment. Just thought y'all should know. 

And today has been my actual birthday which has involved much skyping, much sleeping/lazing about, and then a birthday 'meal' of halal fried chicken and wedges with my flatmate. It's the simple pleasures in life!

So now onto a brand new week in the geilest city there is!