Home, sweet home

Like I mentioned before I fully love being back home for a bit. Life´s good: free food, do not have to think about going to work or uni and TV - the last one is rather crap to be honest, I can totally live without one, but it´s still nice to just flickr through the channels in order to find something to watch, I usually make at least 3 rounds until I stop at MCM - the french music channel.

10 days home after being away for 6 months, I do need a couple of days more but all-in-all managed to do everything necessary: played with my little babies, cuddled and hugged them a lot, had Jägermeister shots with my grandparents (Eastern Europe Style! :D), celebrated christmas and got two books + a perfume for presents, had a reunion with 3/4 of our old gang - wow - it felt like no time had passed since we all were total nerds at school ;) Oh god I literally managed to upset Rachel in a game of cards - yeah, I´m that good :D ;), visited Tallinn's christmas market which is so magical and unique :) and of course got to go walking until my feet were literally numb from the cold :D

Now back to the warm UK in two days ;)

Happy New Year!
See you then!
Jazzz...

Playlist time

Fortunately or unfortunately depends on your own point of view no Christmas songs, me no likey.

Song that´s been on replay for the last two weeks now I think, on it´s own for the last week for the simple fact that I just LOVE Louis´ solo, his accent, his voice and just omfg, wow, dude, wow!

The song that´s been sharing time to be heard by me with the previous one. By the band who wasn´t picked to be a contestant on the X-factor because the guys were slightly older than your average boyband and it was thought they wouldn´t be as attractive as the younger ones... pfffft: look at them bodies :D plus they can sing and do my kind of music.

Some oldies I´ve re-discovered :)

A little twist for y´all :) It´s so catchy and I will learn the "words"!

The ending is a bit sketchy though :(

Some comments about Emma´s post

As I´m a well-known commenter, surprise surprise, I have something to say in regards of the earlier post Emma wrote - nothing bad don´t worry ;) just justifications :P So sorry, I can´t help it - it´s in my nature :P

• We missed our Oxford circus stop because there wasn´t one on our route and I refused to step off the bus in some random stop. Ummm... it was like 2am or something like that, we were in London, we had our luggage with us, we didn´t really know the city or where we were, need I say more? I really didn´t want to push our luck of not getting raped :D Ask yourself what would you have done? I preferred to stay on the bus, where at least the bus driver is hopefully a decent guy and if really needed would help us and not to descend the bus in a pitch-dark alley with who knows how many criminals lurking around. Was I wrong? No :D Because when we did get off the bus (at the last stop :D ) and found the bus stop where the buses would take us back, we found one that took us straight to Picadilly! All´s well that ends well ;)

• Didn´t get raped - win :D - best line ever!!!! :D made me laugh so hard :D

• We didn´t just take a bus for 3h during the night, but we slept in them a bit :D yeah, antisocial behaviour to the max :D I luckily have this ability to sleep very lightly, so I can kinda hear everything that goes on around me but still get some sleep but during that one bus ride, I thought I´m doing just that but at some point when I opened my eyes a guy was sitting next to me, who wasn´t there when I shut my eyes previously... ooops :D Didn´t get raped though - win! (I´m gonna start using this!)

• I love awkward escapes from restaurants :D they´re the best :D especially, when the waiter has shown you to your table and given you the menus... I can jut imagine him returning to the table to take our orders and oops, no ones there anymore, or it is a thousand times worse when he sees us leaving LOL :D not at the time though...

• My dear EMO, I will always cherish the memory when I told you I started liking 1D (yeah hate me now, I don´t care). She almost broke her leg! that´s how surprised she was at my announcement, thanks dudette.

• To say that it was upset at my train ticket mess-up is putting it mildly. I was freaking fuming and hating that stupid woman who I couldn´t hear properly while buying the tickets. I can guarantee you that I wanted tickets to Luton Airport itself, not just half-way! If someone is ever travelling there - be careful when purchasing your tickets!!!! I´m really considering an angry letter! That´s what we do in Britain - complain about every little thing! About time I should do that! That´s how made I am (might make a sign :D)!

• Emma went first in line to the security check, I was appointed to another line on the other side, went through it pretty quickly - no drama :D although I had a bad feeling beforehand for some reason. Got my stuff and went near the exit, knowing Emma was ahead of me before started looking for her - she was still waiting in line for her check -.- not really sure if I was allowed to wait for her in that area I proceed a little further where I couldn´t see her anymore and waited... waited... our gate information popped on screen - stating it would open in 17 minutes, waited some more, saw a Lithuanian girl I met in France three years ago! small world, waited ... waited... started to worry... waited some more, worried some more, thinking all the bad things that could´ve happened and what should I do now... but luckily after abut 12 minutes she came, whooooh :D 

I will hopefully write another blog on how I love being home before new year + monthly playlist is about to be posted in a couple of days :D yay excitement :P

Ttyl ;)
Jazzz...

Let me outta here

So it's my second full day back home and guess what, I want back, been here, done that, can I please leave now???
Our journey with Jazz started on Wednesday, train at 5.30 pm to Birmingham, I have to say that for the first time, I couldn't wait the train to arrive, usually I enjoy train journeys here, but this time, time couldn't go any slower. In Birmingham our train to London was late, bcs of the heavy train traffic there or sth like that. On our way to London, we were later than promised after the late departure because there was an unhappy customer in Rugby...
Finally arrived to London, as Katherine, my friend in London didn't answer to my texts, we decided to go to St. Pancras train station to kill some time and look for the places to eat. Obviously the luggage hold was closed, so no eating somewhere else, as we didn't want to walk with our luggage. So we went to Costa, open 24/7 and sat there until Katherine answered and we left St. Pancras to meet her. managed to top up our oyster cards, found the right bus stop for Oxford Circus to alight for Piccadilly, where we were supposed to meet Kath. But we managed to miss Oxford circus stop, as it was not said, so we are sitting there, kinda obvious that we have missed it, I tell Jazz that let's go out in the next one, she says, no, it's dark and empty and so on, so we drive even further, until we get out and take another bus straight to Piccadilly. Oh, as my le bf is from London he was shocked that we are going to London at this time of the year and are so unorganised, as he said, we were asking to get raped. So in this bus someone indeed approached us, asking if I'm from Norway, luckily we got rid of him soon. And then there was another guy asking where we wanted to go, while we were waiting our Piccadilly bus, but didn't get raped, win :D Arrived to Piccadilly, waited for Kath, after meeting her waited for her bus to arrive, but our brilliant plan leaving our suitcases to hers didn't go that well, because she lives in Bromley, too far away to get our staff again before going to the airport. So we drove there 1,5h, saw where she lives and drove back 1,5h, what can I say, time well spent :D At least it was warm in the buses. Arrived to Trafalgar Square, saw the Christmas tree, and like Jazz's friend, who we met later said, this tree is like the ultimate troll from Norway, which is true, sorry, but our Christmas tree in Tallinn is better. While looking for the bus to St. Pancras we got our fair share of the night action, some kind of car accident, nothing special really.
We were lucky to discover that the first bus stop was the one we needed and the bus we needed was coming too, only to stop 20 metres before the stop, turned off the lights and driver started to read a newspaper, I was pretty furious there, because the whole time had been raining, so my feet were wet and it was cold, and waiting for the driver who reads the newspaper wasn't my favourite activity at this time. Finally, in the bus and on our way to St. Pancras, where we discovered that the luggage thing cost over 8 pounds, which was more than I wanted to spend for that, so we didn't left our suitcases there, pointless trip to there, as you can see. Oh well, tried to find somewhere to eat, including some I think Italian restaurant in the station, we even sat down, but didn't find anything to eat, so we did our awkward escape and decided just to go out and see what we can find. Ended up at Euston, in Britannia (if I remember right), the not pleasant thing about finding a decent place to eat around 9 in the morning is that all the places serve only breakfast, but all the beans and bacon mambo jambo doesn't appeal to me at all, sorry.
After eating we headed to the centre again, to do a little bit of shopping and not to fall asleep in Britannia. Met Jazz's friend, who lives in London and as she reads our blog then sorry, if I wasn't very sociable, the level of tiredness was quite high :D Anyway, we sat in a sushi restaurant, although I ordered take away, oops, but it was the cosiest option.
Again bus to St. Pancras, I bought my train tickets for January, people outside Wales never know wtf town it is where I want to go, so funny to spell it, because I usually freeze and can't spell it, so it takes always ages to get the right tickets.
Happily in train, one boy sat opposite Jazz, he ate his crisps, almost like in a trance, after finishing those he sat calmly some time and then all of a sudden started to play with my suitcase's zipper, as I watched him like 'are you serious???' until his mother noticed it and said something to him he stopped for a moment and then carried on until the parents asked him sit opposite to his mother.
After almost an hour we arrived to Luton, where we had to take the bus to the airport, bad surprise for Jazz, who had the ticket only to the Luton Parkway, not to the airport, Jazz was kinda upset to the lady who sold her the ticket, because it's obvious that she is a foreigner and why the hell she should go to Luton Parkway only??? 1,50 for the ticket and we got to the airport.
Everything as usual, only the security check for me was long, because of my tweezers, which are obviously very dangerous, the guy asked me to open one bag, then close another, put my suitcase through again, wasn't fun, but got through eventually.
After that nothing interesting, only one lady with four bags and the Ryanair staff said that she can have only one, no idea how she managed, but she was on the plane.
Almost 3 hours sleep and here we are now, eating good food and 'enjoying' snow :D Would prefer being under my duvet until the leaving day, but I guess it's not an option.

For me it's probably the last post this year... Merry Christmas to all our readers and see ya in 2013!!!

Ems

Double-Dinner

Our lovely Emma is now 21 years old :) Happy Birthday again and again and again :) In order to celebrate that joyous fact, me, Emma and Scarlet went to dine in Little Italy restaurant. Mmmmmm... omg they can cook :D At last a meal that you'll remember. The atmosphere of the restaurant was very nice, darkly lit with christmas decorations tastefully put up, not too much :) I finally got to eat an amazing lasagne in this country (tip for traveller's who are not familiar with cafés/pubs/restaurants in Britain: Wetherspoons, which should be in every town and city here, is horrible with food quality, basically they do not have a proper kitchen - they warm up pre-made food and then simply put it on your plate, they could at least mix it a bit so that I wouldn't see the box edges on the food, but if you like that sort of thing go ahead :) - I think it is too expensive for that kind of food). Emma and Scarlet both ordered pasta, I was so amazed by my meal that I don't even recall what they said about their food, but I am 100% sure, it wasn't anything negative ;)

Our waitress was lovely and funny, cudos for her :) But the other one, who cleaned up our table and gave us the bill wasn't that awesome... Nothing particularly negative, but she kinda made it obvious that she wanted us gone (sounds nastier in writing than it was in real life). We were just sitting there and enjoying the house wine - sorry, I can't down a glass of wine, yeah I'm still an amateur at drinking huge amounts of alcohol quickly, my bad and it wasn't like other customers had to wait for our table to open up or anything, there were a couple of free tables in the restaurant, so why not let us enjoy our first time there? We have to go back sometimes though :D Decent foooooooood! :D After that we went to Emma's and Scarlet's flat to indulge in the delicious cake they made earlier :) Thank You for that!

Our second big dinner experience was the very next day, when our Christmas meal with our work colleauges took place in Pier Brasserie, another decent restaurant in our little town (we do have a lot of pubs and cafés to be honest, and we must go to everyone of them at least once in our time here!). This was a proper three course meal. I started off with fish paté mmmm... I've forgotten how much I actually love fish. Then for the main course I had a pheasant - something new - so new that I actually had to translate it to know what it is :D It was quite alright, though the knife they gave us should've been more sharper 'cause my hand actually got tired from trying to cut the meat off the bones. But overall, I loved it. Dessert time: chocolate Yule log with cream. Mmmmm... chocolate... need I say more? Didn't think so.

After the meal the restaurant turned into a nightclub. Most of the people there were middle-aged women (a lot of the local shops had their christmas meals there too). I quess we were one of the few, if not only party with students, so a bit awkward, but hey, could've been worse. It was fun to see our bosses, who are 40/50 something men on the dance floor :D Overall a pretty decent night :)

Home soon!
Jazzz...

Stupid Neighbours

Firstly, my bedroom window has a view to a parking lot, yeah so awesome, then a house and on the other side of the street from that house, I can partly see another house, a door and three windows to be exact. And one of the lights from those three windows for the first month of the term was always on. I've positioned my bed exactly so I can look out the window and now that constant light is in my face the whole freaking time I'm trying to go to sleep: I do not like curtains for some reason, although they would make my life easier. But taking into account that I go to bed at around 2-3AM then why??? don't they turn off the light, I've seen someone in that room only twice, but the light was on every single night. Luckily for me, they realized that lights do not have to be on the whole night. Maybe that household was scared of the dark or something but I'm glad they've gotten over it and it's now so much easier to go to sleep for me.

Yesterday was the second Saturday in a row that I got woken up by people yelling at each other. Last Sat it was about cleaning their flat, mainly about dishes, yeah I do not normally hear anything like loud music or something like that, just doors opening and closing and footsteps occasionally, but when they were full on shouting it woke me up! Mainly because the girl has a really high-pitched voice, I honestly thought that glasses in their flat were going to break because of it. But the cause of the fight made me snicker and reminded me of my flat last year when my flatmates only cleaned before the inspections. The fight lasted a really long time too now that I recall it, probably got everything out of their chests.

This Saturday I realized that they are a couple, because now the guy was shouting at the girl something along the lines that he didn't do it! Whatever it is. Hilarious, sorry, I'm a bit mean. For some reason I got out of bed to hear where they are. Upstairs neighbours then and I think they were on top of my flatmates room. Then I opened my front door to the hallway and omg you could hear everything they were saying perfectly from there. But unfortunately someone came at that exact moment and to avoid an awkward situation, I closed my door. The fight was over soon anyway.

OMG I just now made the connection: The night before the last fight - the night between Fri and Sat, someone was trying to get into the hallway buzzing random flats at around 4AM or smth. I could hear someone elses buzzer go off for a sec, then ours, the other one longer, ours longer, the other one 4 times in a row, ours the same after. Obviously I do not give enough fucks to get out of my comfy bed to see who it is, especially if I can hear that our buzzer isn't the only one he/she's buzzing. My flatmate on the other hand is nice and went to see what's happening. The next day she told me that it was some drunk guy, who'd apparently forgotten his keys then and the girl wouldn't let him in - that's the upstairs flat that had a fight about a night out the morning after! HAHAHAHAAAAA

The End
Jazzz...

Mid-Uni crisis

As Ems quite accurately pointed out, after our exams in January, half of our undergraduate degree is done (I'll just not count the year abroad for me here, for arguments sake). And what have I gained from it?

• Well I think my English is better than before. 
• Ummm... long pause to think. 
• I know that essays aren't as easy to write as in Estonia, because you practically have to find a reference to every sentence or it is plagiarism. You do not have your own ideas or viewpoints. There is always someone else who said the same thing and if there isn't you probably did not look very hard. 
• France is the number one tourism country in the world! yay, but the third when it comes to earning money from tourism. 
• Dolphins rape each other. (I'll elaborate on that and other just plainly weird facts I've gathered while dying in a lecture on another post, sry guys). 
• You can still get a pretty decent mark (2:1) for the exam if you start studying the day before. WHAT?
• Another long pause...

That's pretty much it, besides all the little facts that I've gathered on different subjects. Kind of sad, I think. Makes me think what's the point of paying them 3 thousand a year if all they do is provide me with suggestions of what books to read (today was the first time I loaned a book from the library this year, and it was for Emma -.-), make me do essays and exams. Yes, I admit, I'm not the hardest working student, but I like to say that I'm as lazy as I'm allowed to be. I've just lost motivation to do stuff for some reason... And I'm studying the area that I chose, that I was interesting in, yes, it is a little more businessy than I had expected, but having business knowledge is not bad at all, but they have managed to kill every yearning for knowledge in me. And I've let them. (I don't know who they are)

To sum up, my main point is: are the only things I'm getting from this uni a diploma and a chance to write it in my cv? (yeah yeah extracurricular work is important and blablahblah but I honestly do not care for the societies here etc.). Is that it really? And it's just not me, who says that this uni isn't challenging enough, or not just my course. The people who seem to be happy with what they do and do not complain as often as others are the ones doing science or criminology usually. To be fair, I have to admit I'm just waiting for life to happen, but instead it seems to be passing by...

Anyway home soon :) yay :D
Ttyl ;)
Jazzz...

'Crap' music time

The song I have been listening the past few days over and over again. 

And all the other favourites:

And something really old :)

Ems