Photos from Manor Park & campus

Nothing of much interest has happened around here. Yesterday, I had the first session of my "Quality Assurance in Translation" seminar. A girl told us that the lecturer would be a hottie, but I don't think so. Too smooth. Probably gay. Anyway, I like them with broad shoulders, striking blue eyes, unruly curls and strong arms :)! After the seminar, Svenja and I went to Tesco's. She refuses to cook in her kitchen because it's absolutely dirty and crowded. Maybe my flat is really worth its rent. Then I had to finish the book I had to read for today's class, The Handmaiden's Tale. It's a really depressing book, but it's a page-turner and it really makes you realise how happy we are to have everything we have. Books. Music. Sexual partner of choice.

The seminar today, "20th Century Utopian and Dystopian Literature", consisted mainly of English ladies about 60 years old. None was younger than 40. There was always a heated debate going on, without raising your hand or such. It was unbelievable hot and sweaty in there and I was so happy to get out, even though I liked the topic. My Shakespeare lecture was just as lectures are in Germany, just that the voice and accent of the professor were not at all a pleasure to listen to.

Tonight we'll go to a quiz at Chancellor's. You go there in a group, pay 1 pound per person, and the group that wins gets all the money. We surely won't win as there are probably some pros with encyclopedias on their mobiles, but it's gonna be fun anyway. I hope.

Here are some pictures for you, as no entry is really worth looking at if there's no photo, is it?

My house. I live on the second-to-last floor. In front of the building, you can see a trolley stolen from Tesco's. 

That's the inner yard I can see from my window. You can also admire the street lamp that kept me from sleeping last night, because I just have a curtain and not a proper shutter.

I really pity the guys who live in those flats because everyone walking along the main street looks into their kitchen.

Manor Park main street. All these buildings are for student accommodation only.

Inkeri.

Me and some guy.

The English department is on the fifth floor in the building on the left. That's pretty much what half of the campus looks like.

Not all of it, though.

Guildford Cathedral, right next to the university.

I took that picture when we were looking for a Bed & Breakfast my mom was interested in. It was cold, we got lost, we never found it and I wasted my break, but the neighbourhood was sooo English.

Obituary

Today, we had to let Lucky go. I'm so sad I couldn't be with him in his last days. I just try to tell myself that he doesn't suffer now and that I should be happy for him. But it's not as easy as that.

London is great!

Today, we went to London. "We" is nine girls and one boy from Guildford. No Englishmen, though. We had a group ticket that was really cheap, I think about 8 pound per person for the way there and back and using the underground.

Some of our group in front of Wellington Arch, where the free tour started.

Yeah, you'll want to watch out when you cross streets.

 That's a special path for horses in Green Park. In the background you can see Wellington Arch again.

We came just in time to Buckingham Palace to see the change of guards. Well, actually we didn't see it because there were too many tourists blocking the way, but I asked a little girl who was sitting on her daddy's shoulders to take a picture for me. Turned out pretty well, eh?

Vera, Blandine and Inkeri.

Here you can see our guide in front of Buckingham Palace. He was a real fun guy and told some great stories, though you were covered in spit when standing in the first row.

 Me in a guard box in front of St. James's Palace, which is where Princess Diana lived after the divorce from Prince Charles. 

The next stop was Trafalgar Square with a statue of Lord Nelson on a column. As you can see, there are NO pigeons. They achieved that by handing out pigeon food containing contra-ceptives to tourists.

Here we're standing in front of Westminster Abbey, listening to the story of Guy Fawkes and an explicit description of how some of his friends were killed. Uargh. It was soooo cold.

After the tour we warmed up with some great food. Mine was.. I forgot, but I could fill fried vegetables into tortillas and spice them with cheese and three different kinds of sauces. It tasted awesome.. I really have to copy that when I'm back in Germany and have my own kitchen again.

Michaela (with fish and chips) and Noora (with a burger and fries).

After that, we went to see the National Gallery. I saw great works of van Gogh and Picasso and Monet and Klimt and I loved them, especially those of van Gogh and Monet. To see those pictures on prints or screens is nothing compared to seeing every single brush stroke and places where the fabric of the linen becomes visible.

Group photo in front of the National Gallery.

From front to back: Blandine, Noora, Inkeri (all three in my flat), Helena, Svenja.

Confusing tube maps. Note the woman in the background, haha.

 

Don't know what I was thinking.

From left to right: Blandine, Inkeri, Svenja, Noora. All of them single, mail me if interested ;D!

NDN (Next-Door-Nora), Vera, Michaela and me on our way back to Waterloo.

Extremely busy!

I've been so busy in the last few days, and I'm in a hurry now because we're planning on going shopping and exploring Guildford, so here are just a few pictures and descriptions. The good thing about being stressed is that I don't have time to think about Lucky and Michi too much.

FRIDAY

Michi left early in the morning and I guess you can imagine how sad we both were. At 9:30, there was a get-to-know-breakfast at university, but I'm glad I had half a muffin before, because they just offered sausages and yogurt D:! Then we registered officially and got a tour through the library. As I had learned the evening before that for one of my courses I have to read a book until Tuesday, I tried to buy it from the book shop on campus, but it was sold out. So I bought a university sweater instead :)

In the break, we went to a Chinese restaurant on campus, but the food tasted like fish and I couldn't get down a lot. After that, we had to take an English test. We had to write an essay on "Are examinations necessary in a good school system?". Just great. Before the meeting with full-year-Erasmus students, me and two German girls snug out and went to Guildford before the shop closed. I got the book and a salad bowl :)! The meeting turned out to be kind of boring. We left early and went to the sports centre, trying to get a membership for only the next 4 months, but that didn't work out. I would have had to pay 90 pounds for 6 months. That doesn't really pay off for me, because I just want to do sport courses like aerobic or pilates, and not use the gym. So maybe I'll just book the aerobic course without becoming a member. And GUESS WHAT - I could even do Zumba here!

When I got home in late afternoon, I called my mom and my grandma. After that, I cooked myself some ready nut-and-vegetable-burgers with salad and sushi, which tasted great. Except the sushi, which started off great but got worse with every bite. After 7 pm, the kitchen suddenly started to fill up because I had invited the Germans, the French had invited the French AND Spanish and the Finnish had invited the Finnish before we planned to go to a party in the Manor Park common room.

On the left, there are three Finnish. I don't really know the guy, but the girls are Inkeri and Noora and the are just soooo nice and live in my flat. The there's a Turkish guy called Övünc, the NDN (Next-door-Noora, Finish), then Helena (F), Veera (F), Michaela (German) and the back of Blandine (French).

 On the left you can see Blandine, me and Inkeri making a funny face. The boys in the back are mainly French and Spanish. 

The German girls, Svenja and Michaela.

Me and Blandine, who also lives in my flat.

Don't really know the guy, but on the right is Noora, who interestingly enough pays the same as we do, but has a bigger room. BUT it's next to the kitchen, so every one used her bathroom yesterday, haha.

The boy in the gray shirt is Bertrand, a French guy and a flat mate. There are two more boys in my flat - they're from Hongkong and really shy and don't participate in what we do. They even seem to store their food in their rooms instead of the kitchen. We asked them to join us, but they didn't come.

Here we are on our way to common room. This room turned out to be smaller than our kitchen, so part of our group went back, and eventually we all met again in a bar in the town centre. Everything was very small and crowded there, but we found a nice place where it wasn't too loud, and I talked a lot about Oktoberfest and my holidays in Spain. We took a huge taxi back at half past two. It was a fun night. I really like the Erasmus group, it's just a pity there are no English. A girl from Germany who has stayed here since autumn says it won't get any better :(

THURSDAY

On Thursday, I had the first part of my orientation programme, consisting mainly of short speeches on organisational stuff and safety and of an icebreaker game that wasn't really so much of an icebreaker. After that, there was a short tour over campus, but that sucked because it was raining, and anyway the campus is like a labyrinth on a hill with many narrow alleys and stairs and well, I'll take pictures for you one day. I also have to say that it's not as green as I first thought it to be. After the programme, I started working on my timetable, which means going to the department offices and asking which courses I could take.

In the afternoon, Michi and I went to town centre to get a UK mobile for me. Guess who we met there...

 Killerkarnickel!! It cost 15 pounds *__*!

We just had a cosy evening that night because Michi left the next morning. I think that was the last time I was truly relaxed. 

WEDNESDAY

 On Wednesday, Michi and I went to see London. We got away late and arrived at London Waterloo about 1 pm.

 Then we went to London Eye. A ride is really expensive, but it was even impressive from the ground.

 

 After that, we crossed the Thames.

 We wanted to use my new Navi to get to Buckingham Palace by foot, but it didn't really work, so we took the underground.

 Here we are. The Queen was even home, but she didn't look out of a window.

 That's me looking strange in front of Piccadilly Circus.

 That's me in one of my favourite places in London: Covent Garden. We had to spend 3 hours there because we couldn't travel while peak time, which is why we had dinner there. I had a great vegetarian hamburger that tasted just like it does at home.

We still had time, so we walked to St Paul's Cathedral. Unfortunately, it was already closed. We had a hot chocolate at Starbuck's because it was quite cold and wet.

Souvenirs.

Back in Guilford, we met Svenja, who had just arrived from Heidelberg.

Landed

We've arrived in my room and are both doing fine. There were some difficulties during the journey, including traffic jam, crowded stations in London, buses driving at the wrong side of the street and non-transparent distribution of bus stops. It was truly exhausting, but we've made it! 

After unpacking we had a little nap in the 90-cm-bed and took the bus to campus in order to get free Internet access. Then we went shopping, and as I had to buy pots, cutlery, dishes and some basic food stuff, the whole thing got pretty expensive. And the liquid soap spilled out, so that my room smells of magnolia now. 

Guildford (BTW, the first D is silent) is a nice small town with lots of brick buildings and half-timbered houses. The campus is very green; there's even a lake. The place must be beautiful in summer. The weather is mild and a little bit rainy, and we haven't seen a single snowflake since boarding the plane in Frankfurt.

My flat is fabulous! I think the house was only just finished, so I'm the first one living in this room and it's all clean and tidy. There's a nasty air draught though. I have a room + bathroom on my own and share the kitchen with six others. I've already filmed a tour, but I don't have the software to load it. Probably won't make it tomorrow, too, because we're going to London, and in the evening we'll meet another Erasmus student from Heidelberg.

It's about three minutes to the launderette and ten to fifteen minutes to go to a huge Tesco market. Don't wanna test how long it takes to walk to the campus. I live in Manor Park, a new facility about two kilometres away from main campus that consists of a large number of boarding houses. It's like a little town in itself. You can't find it yet in Google Earth or Google Map, but it's across Research Park.

For dinner we had spaghetti with fresh Chinese vegetables and disgusting chicken rip-off. Only one of the other students who live in my flat has arrived yet and I asked her (Nora from Finland) to join us, but I'm happy she didn't, because it tasted awful. Don't know why I asked her in the first place. She's really nice though, and I could sell her a pot and some cutlery I didn't need :) Maybe I've chosen the wrong job after all and should go into houseware business.

Sorry, this entry is too long and not really well-structured, but I'm soooo tired. Good night.

Packing & Skype

I'm packing. Michi's coming home from work at 6 pm, then we'll eat and finish packing, go to bed at 7 pm, get up again at 12 pm, get ready and drive to Frankfurt Hahn. We've doubled the driving time because of the snow. Our plane takes off at 6 am. I've decided to take my video camera with me, so maybe tomorrow you'll get a visual tour trough my apartment.

I've also got a Skype account now and my name there is tanjainengland, so you should add me to your contact list if this blog is too impersonal for you :)