You're going to need a cup of tea for this one...

Okay, I know...it has been 2 months since I last did an 'I'm going to try and write every week' blog post. Rather than dwell on my utter failure, I'm going to go through my diary from the last time I blogged and update you on what has been happening...and don't worry, I'll try to include some pictures to make it fun! 

Okay so for starters, we actually have started classes, in fact, we are almost done with this semester...where did that time go...anyone?! 

Our modules this semester are generally okay, one is really hard the other two are completely dull...either way, my current situation is that I have A LOT of work to do in a very short space of time so better get on with the rest of this post. 

The first major thing that happened since my last blog post is that I got tickets (along with some friends) to go to V Festival this year. I've been twice before for the whole weekend and I always have an absolutely incredible time...seeing live music is one of my favourite things in life to do. This year, due to certain circumstances (mainly financial) we are only going for one day..one very special day. Sunday the 18th of August WILL be up there with one of the best days of my life because we are getting to see my favourite artist in the entire world..BEYONCE! 

 I know some people may disagree, but I consider her a role model and I have listened to her music since the Destiny's Child days, there's not been a single or album I've disliked...I won't bore you with my Beyonce obsession and all the reasons I love her, but know that I am BEYOND excited because we missed out on her World Tour tickets because the only day she was performing in Italy is the day of my Dad's wedding in England. Also know that (as I did when I saw my other favourite performer Eminem live)...I will cry. 

Moving on...right after we got those tickets. One of my best friends from home, Charlotte came to visit me in Italy. It was so wonderful to have a friend from home here with me and the fact she stayed for a week meant we had lots of time to relax and see the sights of Northern Italy together.

A few days after, I had an interview over Skype for a teaching module next year which meant I would be entering a Leicestershire Secondary School and acting as a sort of classroom assistant with perhaps the chance to teach part of a class...and I actually GOT the place! I was utterly surprised and immediately filled with dread at the realisation that I will be going back to Secondary School with the shoe on the other foot..being the person that my friends and I used to make fun of when we were the pupils. 

During that week, myself and Emma had a little realisation of actually how long we have left here and on the 15th of March, decided to take ourselves away for the weekend to another place at the top of my 'To Visit in Italy' list...Florence. 

If you have never been before, GO. It is honestly up there with Venice. They're both my favourite places I have ever been too. Florence is beyond beautiful, everywhere you go there is incredible art, architecture and scenery. We stayed at a great little hostel for the night to make the most of our trip...rather than try and describe it anymore, I will post some pictures. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside of the Uffizi Gallery and the Accademia Gallery (Where 'David' is) but I would HIGHLY recommend them as a must do when in Florence. 

On the 23rd March, I went back to the UK for 2 weeks for the Easter holidays. It was so nice to go back and relax for a couple of weeks, and let myself forget about all of the work I have to do, that I should have been doing!
I had lots of fun with my Friends, Family, Niece and my wonderful Boyfriend. 

However I did go from a picnic in the park in Bologna....

to snow so deep it was up to my knees, all within 24 hours...quite a shock to the system.

So that brings me almost up to date. Apart from the last week, which has been fantabulous because Alex, one of my besties from Leicester came to visit. 
I'm sure you regular readers will all remember (or you can just scroll down) that I went to visit him and Sophie on their Erasmus in Amsterdam and now it was time for me to play host. 

We honestly had SO much fun..we climbed the top of the Asinelli Tower in Bologna (all 500 steps of it..I nearly died I tell you).. the views were amazing and it gave me a moment of realising how lucky I am to have had this opportunity to study for a year in such a beautiful place! 

I showed Alex around pretty much all of Bologna, we ate A LOT of Gelato and pizza..and we even managed to sneak in a cheeky trip to Venice as Alex had never been before. It was the most glorious weather half way through the day and we just soaked up the atmosphere. 
I even 'vlogged' the day. There will be a YouTube video soon, I'll link it on this blog. However, because I filmed it on my HD camera, it means it's going to take like 400 minutes to upload...so might not be for a while yet ;)

For now, here are a few snaps from Alex's trip! 

PHEW! That's it..the last exciting thing that happened here...I'm now up to date. 

I'm sorry about the mammoth blog post but I really want to be able to look back on this and remember everything I did..it's my own fault for not blogging more regularly *slaps wrist*

Tomorrow at midnight I am leaving for a very exciting trip to the South of Italy. I will update this blog on my return, I promise! :)

Back on Italian time

So I'm just sitting here and realising how easy it is to slip in and out of different mindsets and lifestyles.  I mean, last week, I was British, organising, queuing, being on time...and this week, I'm Italian, crossing the road without looking, being the complete opposite of organised and generally just not really worrying that much. 

There is no real method behind that musing, it is just something I'm observing about myself. It's like one sleep in my small single Italian bed and I wake up craving pasta and listening to Pavarotti (slight exaggeration..maybe). 

Unfortunately I don't wake up being able to speak Italian. This is something that is still really bothering me. I am signed up to CILTA classes this semester, which are Italian language lessons. But I already missed 4 as I was still at home (and they didn't tell me when they begun), and one of them will always clash with lectures so its futile even attempting to attend. I do want to put in more effort to learning this language, but I will have more uni work to do this semester, as well as wanting to travel more and meet new people so it should be...interesting, or, predictable as I sack it all off in favour of a Friends and pyjama marathon. 

I really am going to make an effort now I am back, to make the most of it as I have worked out that essentially, if you don't include exam time, we only have 3 months left here (12 weeks, approximately 84 days), and knowing how quickly time flies, I should pull my finger out and start taking advantage of this opportunity. The language really does hold you back though, I can't communicate with 6 out of my 7 housemates, I can't just go and sit in the kitchen with them because I don't have the foggiest what they are talking about, it can be pretty isolating. I'm just happy I do have English friends here because I can truthfully say I don't know what I would do without them! 

I currently need to shower and get out of the house and be sociable! I am supposed to meeting people today, no real plans but just 'okay, I'll probably see you around tomorrow' - standard Italian socialising. I also need to do some food shopping, buy some notebooks for the new semester and some other essentials. 

Emma and I have finally managed to pull something together with our timetable. It seriously takes hours to work out anything on the bloody 'UniBo' website. We've probably spent over 6-7 hours combined trying to figure out what we will be studying, their days and times, and whether they are taught in English. Nothing is set in stone yet but the modules definitely look...different. There is one I am looking forward to on the 'swinging sixties' and literature from that time. Another one on the 'antihero in post-postcolonial literature' or something along those lines, which sounds like it's up my alley apart from the teacher being generally terrifying, and then there's a random module called 'English Literature', however, it is on the 'folk revival' and has the words 'Bob Dylan' in it's title...this will be the real mind boggler. 

Anyhow..

I will write again next week and let you know how the modules are looking and how I have settled in.

Ciao for now <3 

Belonging

The title of this blog post came as easy to me as beer on a Saturday night, or eggs on a Sunday morning...it just makes sense. 

These last few weeks have been a whirlwind...many of my days relaxing at home, pondering life whilst stuffing my face watching This Morning, Loose Women and Jeremy Kyle. However, there have been a few days of pure bliss and a few hours of insightful thoughts so I thought where better to share them than on my own little slice of the internet.
To begin with, the main antecedent to this blog post, my recent trip to Leicester. As I am sure most of you know, I attend the University of Leicester, and I am currently on a year abroad in Bologna, Italy (although at home in Wales on a break at the moment...confusing I know!) 

Last week I got the chance to go back to my home University to celebrate one of my best friends Alex's 21st Birthday, as well as visit friends and meet the landlord of my house next year. 

I stayed with Lilian, Kayla, Azka and Meghan and if they are reading this, I would love to say thank you for letting me stay with them. 

General highlights of the few days I was there were Republic, Emma's concert, Nando's with my old flatmates, eating out 3 times in one day, San Carlo's, seeing my future house and meeting the landlord and generally laughing constantly. 

Perhaps it is because I have already spent 2 years there, perhaps it is because it is the first place I lived away from home, or where I've met so many of my best friends...but I feel like I belong in Leicester. I don't necessarily mean forever, but I mean for now. 

I recently discussed this with some friends and we are not sure whether it would feel the same if all of our friends left and it was then just an empty city of people. But there is something about the city that just feels right. The people are friendly, there's everything you could want in terms of shopping and entertainment, culture and food, it's neither too big nor too small, it's just right. The fact I feel like this made leaving on Thursday horrible. Instead of feeling like I was coming home, I felt like I was leaving it. 

Don't get me wrong, I love being at home, well the people, I actually despise my town itself. But my family, friends and boyfriend are here and I wouldn't go without them for the world, home is where they are. But if I could pick up all the people I love, and drop them all in Leicester, life would be perfect. 

As I write this blog post, the University of Leicester has just officially announced it has discovered the remains of Richard III. They have already discovered DNA fingerprinting, and now this. It makes me feel very proud that I attend such an amazing research University, especially as I am employed by the University as an ambassador :)

I must be honest, having all these great things happening at home makes me really not want to return to Bologna. I'm having such fun with my boyfriend and friends here in North Wales. I know a New Years Resolution of mine was to be more positive about my amazing opportunity but having just had a week where people say 'Oh my god you must be having the best time' or 'I bet it's so amazing' and my response is a smile and an unconvincing nod, I don't want to go back yet.
Hopefully things will change because I am going back on the 15th February. Maybe when I actually know what I'm doing this semester and the Italians pull their finger out, things will be better, but so far, I'm happy here.

About me :)

A wonderful friend of mine Josie is blogging every day this year :) I am addicted to reading them!!! You can read it too by clicking here!!

Her last post was an 'About Me' tag and considering I don't have anything interesting to blog about at the moment but I don't want to give up on this lovely little online space of mine...I thought I'd take inspiration and do the same. I hope you enjoy...and don't forget to go over to Josie's blog and tell her I sent you :)

1. Are you named after anyone? Not as far as I am aware :) 

2. When was the last time you cried? Yesterday watching something sad on tv (standard) 

3. Do you have kids? No!

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot? haha, it's my favourite form of communication!

5. Will you ever bungee-jump? I'm not sure. I'm going to skydive but something about bungee jumping scares me more. 

6. What's your favourite cereal? Frosted wheats 

7. What's the first thing you notice about people? their hair...and clothes...so superficial but that's where the eyes go initially. 

8. What is your eye colour? Blue

9. Scary movie or happy endings? I do not watch scary movies...so happy endings!

10. Favourite smells? the smell of petrol (lol-I bet I'm not alone here), perfume (alien/lady million/green apple) and all things soap and glory.

11. Summer or winter? neither...I'm an autumn/spring girl all the way :) 

12. Computer or television? Computer, because at uni, it's how I watch my television!

13. What's the furthest you've ever been from home? I think Tenerife (about a 4 and a half hour plane ride)

14. Do you have any pets? 2 cats :) 

15. Favourite movie? any chick-flicks!

16. Do you have any siblings? 1 sister who's 2 years younger

17. What do you want to be when you grow up? That's currently a question I'm battling with. I don't know..perhaps a teacher, maybe something in the media/journalism. 

18. What was your favourite subject in school? Religious Education/Art 

19. What's your favourite drink? sprite/coke (but my NY resolution is to cut out fizzy drinks-so apple juice)

20. Favourite song at the moment? One Direction - Kiss you (DUH!)

21. What would you name your children? I'm not sure, something traditional with a modern edge.

22. Do you participate in any sports? lol.

23. Favourite book? Hmm..I love The Book Thief, The Hunger games trilogy, The Divergent series and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 

24. Favourite colour? Pink 

25. Favourite animal? Penguins or Panda's. 

26. Favourite perfume? Thierry Mugler - Alien 

27. Favourite holiday? Christmas. 

28. Have you graduated high school? Yep - living the University life. 

29. Have you been out of the country? Yes..I currently am living in Italy for a year 

30. Do you speak any other languages? I'm learning Italian as we speak. 

31. What's your favourite store? H&M, Forever 21, Debenhams

32. Favourite Disney character? Pluto

33. Favourite restaurant? Nando's (No Brainer)

34. Did you like school? so cheesy but they were the best years of my life.

35. Favourite youtubers? the whole Luke/Ingrid/Joey gang in America and the Alfie/Marcus/Zoe/Louise in England 

36. Favourite tv show? Anything about Birth or Marriage generally. I'm a reality tv ADDICT

37. Pc or mac? A recently converted MAC. 

38. What phone do you have? iPhone 4! 

39. How tall are you? No idea..I rekon about 5'5 ish! 

Italian Exams

I'm blogging in my sheer excitement at the fact that my exams are over (woohoo!)

I know that over half the people who read this blog are students and I'm pretty sure almost all of you still have exams, so I'm sorry for this gloating but I can't help it and I KNOW you'd all do it in my position. 

There's nothing like the feeling of literally having nothing to do! (although I'm sure I will be bored of it pretty soon.)

Just thought I'd write a short blog post about the Italian exam system, because it's been an eye-opening experience to say the least.

I had one written exam on Romanticism and one oral exam on Detective fiction. To begin with, the written exam. 

For those of you who are not students, a quick insight into an English University exam. Once you enter the room, you must be silent. A clock is clear on the main wall you are facing. You can only take in water, and you must take the label off the bottle. Technically no phones in the room, definitely no phone on you personally. You cannot leave ANYTHING on the desk other than your pen and student card. You cannot leave the exam (unless emergency toilet break - even then with a chaperone)..etc etc.

To begin with, we had no idea how long the exam would be going into it, half way through, she casually decided to just add on an extra 15 minutes on to the end of it. There was no clock in the room; one of the chaperone's phones went off, she answered it (in the exam); the papers didn't turn up for 10 minutes, whilst we were all sat at our desks waiting, at this point, everyone was talking; the exam was split into 2 papers and half way through we could leave the exam hall for a 'break' to get coffee/chat with friends; I had a can of coke at my desk. The 'literature' exam had some multiple choice questions (I know, wtf?!), and the longest answer we were required to give was half of one side of A4 (compared to a usual 8 sides of A4 answer in a usual English Literature exam).

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it was easy...it wasn't. I didn't know the answers to some of the questions because it was so date/historical context based but hey...it was an experience...and you only need half to pass and I think I can safely say I've passed!

This morning I had my oral exam. It lasted around 20 minutes and most of the time was spent with our lovely teacher telling me how much he enjoyed having the Erasmus students in his class. My problem with oral exams are their subjectivity. My tutor even said, if the teacher doesn't like you, you're screwed (in not so many words)...luckily, he LOVES us. It didn't feel at all like an exam and I was over the moon with my mark. The best mark I've ever had in an exam, ever! (and I only spent 2 days revising for it...think I'm starting to like this Erasmus thing :P)

This time, the fact is was an oral exam worked in my favour, but who knows what will happen next semester!

Anyhow, I am going home the day after tomorrow (Saturday) for a whole month before next semester begins.

 I get to spend time with friends and family and just relax, watch lots of tv, read books for pleasure...not because I'm being forced to, and play an unlimited amount of Sims 3 (which I am re-installing as we speak :P) 

I am also going back to Leicester on the 28th until the 31st of January which I am SO excited about because I have missed those guys so much!

Now, all my student friends..stop reading this and procrastinating and go do some work ;)

Ciao

2013

First blogpost of 2013..yay!

Firstly, I hope all you reading had a lovely Christmas and New year! I did. 

To begin with, Vlogmas is over. It was such fun to do, I'm happy I finished it, it's great to know I can look back at what I was doing at this point in time. I'm also really relieved it's over. I have so much respect for the people I watch on YouTube who film daily vlogs, it's so tiring and time consuming, just remembering to film followed by the endless hours of importing, editing, exporting, uploading, YouTube doesn't make it very easy to upload let me tell you!

Christmas time in general has been really lovely. I was so happy to go home, Hollie my niece met me at the airport which was lovely, especially considering Emma and I had been delayed at Verona airport on our way. 

It was of course so much fun to catch up with all of my friends at home. The majority of them, I've known since the early days of high school, so over 10 years (wow - that's the first time I've ever thought of it that way! I feel old!) I'm so excited that they might be visiting me here in Italy really soon!! 

Here's a picture of us from our Christmas reunion <3 

Christmas Day was filled with its usual general merriment.  You can see my Christmas Day vlog here: 

I got to spend the day with loved ones and open presents (I was definitely on the 'nice list' this year). Favourite thing about Christmas day - FOOD! (yes, I have lamb..I don't like Turkey!)

In between Christmas and New Year I have my anniversary. Such an inappropriate time of year when it comes to present buying but I very much look forward to the 29th of December each year. My boyfriend and I celebrated our 5th year together this time, which was pretty difficult for us to comprehend...I mean, where has the time gone? Nevertheless we had a great day shopping in Chester, followed by a lovely meal in the evening and a champagne fuelled night. 

New Years eve was a quiet one for us, we spent the night in and got pretty drunk off pale ale - rather random I know. Going out on New Years Eve is so stressful and expensive, triple time taxi's and waiting at an understaffed bar, sticking to the floor all night, personally, I think a night in is always the  safest option. Although when we sat there watching the fireworks, I made a pact with myself (and Charlie) that we must go to London one year to see them in person. 

I have three resolutions this year:
1) to cut out fizzy drinks
2) to use all my make-up/body/hair care products before buying any more (I seriously have 2 x 4 draw sets FULL of them!)
3) to make the most of my experiences and opportunities (not moan so much about spending the year in Italy haha)

Since New Year, other than double my bodyweight, I have been trying to begin revising for my exams. It's Saturday night now, they're on Wednesday and Thursday and I can, hand on heart say, that I've done about half of the revision for one of the exams, and absolutely nothing for the other, so I'm starting to feel the pressure slightly! Although, I'm not worried, I don't get stressed about exams generally, I just hate feeling unprepared in anything. But it is completely my own fault for never learning from my mistakes. 

This is how I've started my New Year...I hope yours has been sincerely more fun! 

Ciao

Semester 1...Done.

This post has been a long time coming but I have a lot happening so thank you for baring with me. 

For a while, nothing was really happening with my life exciting enough to blog about...I was going about my day to day student life in Bologna.

I knew I was going to wait until after my trip to Amsterdam to blog again, and here we are. 

I was so excited to go to Amsterdam, I have been before, and adored it. Having friends there this time would mean I could not worry about seeing all the sights and just spend time with them having fun, and oh boy, did we have a lot of that.

I'm going to insert several pictures because I know how text-heavy blog posts can be boring. We managed to pack a lot into those 5 days. A few of my highlights were ice skating outside the Rijksmuseum (and not falling over), space cakes, the Anne Frank house, NEMO science museum, vlogging, laughing - a lot, eating - a lot, losing two tram passes (despite being someone who neve loses anything), consuming an insane amount of cheese from the Dutch in a random bar, intense facebook stalking and generally spending time with amazing friends. 

The other thing I can update you on is 'Vlogmas'. This was a project I embarked upon at the beginning of December. I wanted to do something fun, and every year I watch these videos on YouTube. It is a phenomenon (if that's the word you would use?) whereby people in their thousands take to the internet and 'vlog' their daily lives. Just carrying a camera (in my case, my iPhone) around with you from the 1st-25th December and capturing anything that might be worthy and that you would like to remember. It's a great chance for my friends and family at home to see what my life and surroundings are like here, as well as a way for us to be able to look back and remember a part of our Erasmus journey more clearly. I will be sad when it's over but as much as I've developed on iMovie, I will be happy to not have to edit and upload everyday.

Just a very quick shout out to the BEST lecturer in the world, Prof. Ascari..genuinely a legend. 

I guess this blog post also means the end of Semester 1 of Erasmus as I go home tomorrow (thank god). I have made some wonderful friends from across the World and made memories I will never forget. I'm really sad to say Goodbye to them, especially those of you who are not returning for a second semester. I don't believe the hype of Erasmus lives up to all you are told, there are definitely down days but overall I have loved most of these last 3 months. There are so many highlights, here are a few. 

Progressing in learning a new language

'The colony'

Making friends with people from France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, America, Austria, Netherlands etc

Venice

Verona

Gelato (all year round - last week in fact)

Cheap and unlimited pasta

Gigantic fresh pizza slices for €1.50

Italian dogs

Riding the bus for free

Acquiring a coffee addiction

Brioche con Zucchero 

My housemates

Surviving 3 months of Italian roads

Cheese/Prosciutto

Il Rosso

Brachetto

Meals at Chris and Vicki's 

Teaching Italians 'ring of fire'

Italian Christmas celebrations

There are so many more but it's difficult to remember and summarise an entire 3 months. 

Whilst it truly has been incredible, I am so ready to go home. Back to English food, English supermarkets, My bed, My cats, and my friends of family (not in order of importance obviously).

Finally, well done everyone for surviving the end of the world.

Buon Natale
<3