Adios Inglaterra, hasta el fin de Junio!

Here we are again, the night before I leave.  It's been great to be home for a few weeks but the only problem is now that I've got used to being here I'm off again.  Tomorrow morning at silly o'clock my grandparents will be here to take Mum and I to Stansted for our flight to Malaga.  We have spent the majority of today packing and unpacking and weighing and measuring... we got there in the end, partly thanks to Easy Jet and the fact they let you have an unlimited weight hand baggage as long as it is the right size to fit in the over head locker.  Result= My hand luggage weighs a tonne but I've got everything I want with me.  When it comes to getting it all back in June things aren't quite so certain, but I'll just have to cross that bridge when it comes to it in 4.5 months time I guess!

I guess I won't be writing for a few more days now, tomorrow will be spent travelling and getting myself moved into my room and working out what I need to go and buy from the shops as well as stocking up on food and going to a couple of meetings at the uni.  Getting the last minute worries about it now, but I know that once I've got there and into my room, met the girls I'm living with, been to the uni for the first time and my Mum has gone home I'll get settled into it just like I did in Brussels.  As I keep repeating this should be an easier term as it is my stronger language.  No matter what I tell myself though, I know the first week or two is going to be hard, it always is, but this time I know I've done it all before and it'll be fine.

This is the last time that I'll be doing this, once I come back from Spain I'll be working for the summer and then off to Lancaster for final year, and leaving to go there is a hell of a lot easier than this.  I'm already looking forward to living off campus next year, I think the changes and independence living abroad gives you it would be hard to go back to living in the bubble that is the Bailrigg campus!

So this is it I guess, Spain- here I come!

♫ Adieu, adieu to you and you and you ♫

The time has come for me to write my last blog post from the UK until I come back at Christmas.  Ideally I'd like to be writing this knowing that I'm off to Brussels to move in to my new home and can worry about other things like making sure I have a mobile phone etc but as you'll know by now that just wasn't to be!  Instead I'm off to spend at least a few nights on the sofa at the apartment my parents are renting for the week.  I have a few flats lined up, one tomorrow, one Sunday and one Monday so fingers crossed I'll be able to have one of them.

I'm looking forward to it all now, but I won't be happy about it all until I'm sorted out, I just want to get started on the basis that the quicker I start classes etc, the quicker it will be Christmas and the quicker I'll be home again (or so that is the theory).

I guess I don't really have anything much to say.  I don't know when the next post will be but it will no doubt be when I actually have somewhere to live- without that there won't be much point in writing!

Aurevoir Angleterre.

Good-Bye Valencia

6 weeks ago today I was at home, in Essex, all ready to head out to Valencia for the first part of my year abroad adventure.  It feels like just last week, everyone told me the time would go quickly but I don't think I 

really appreciated quite how fast it would go until this weekend.

But what have I actually done over the last 6 weeks?  Well, to catch you up if you don’t know I’ve been working in a real estate company doing Spanish to English translation, English to English re-writes and writing exciting blog articles.  But that only covers 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.  The rest of the time I have tried to be a touristy as I can possibly be!  I’ve been walking in parks, sunbathing on beaches and eating ice creams as well as more cultural things like seeing the sites, climbing towers and of course eating paella and tapas.  I even managed to squeeze in 3 days in Barcelona.  There are plenty of photos to follow when I’m not using this silly pay as you go internet.

I think some people thought, and in fact told me, that I was completely crazy coming out here before starting my year abroad properly, and I’m inclined to agree in a way but I have to say I think this experience is only going to serve to make the rest of this year easier.  I’ve got over the first hurdles of living in another language, all that culture shock and stuff they kept telling us about, living in an international atmosphere and doing things I wouldn’t normally chose to.  I can move on to Brussels now easier, despite the fact that I have now got the delightful French language to struggle with instead.

On Thursday I finally fly home, but don’t be fooled, I won’t be sticking around!  Mum and I are off to Brussels to sort out somewhere for me to live for 5 months.  I’m going to try and fit as much as I can into my 2 weeks back at home but I know I won’t get to see everyone.

All that I have left to say today is roll on 2011-2012 and I’m sure I’ll be back in Lancaster for Freshers 2012, and final year, before I know it!

Below- The team in the office, photo borrowed from Lydia!