Fear is a funny thing

The words on the photo taken at the London Dungeon last attraction. Well I do agree but not when it's my face offering amusement to everyone else. Yeah, yours truly managed to pull such a funny face when being dropped a down on the freefall attraction meant to imitate being hanged. It wasn't that scary but just the moment when your dropped comes as a surprise, hence my face which I later saw in an honorary place in the giftshop. Thanks a lot. Mr. Special obviously found it extremely funny, you can guess what I thought of it.

The experience on the whole was very enjoyable, very recommend. You were moving in a fairly big group and at every room there was an actor portraying that time and what happened: a ghost, Mrs. Lovett, a judge, Jack the Rippers next victim etc. All the bad things that have happened in London and every once in a while someone from the group was called forward to help with the demonstration or to be put in a cage. Mr. Special got his moment too, at the courtroom where he was found guilty of sheep stealing ( a little confusion there about the circumstances at first if you know what I mean) and booed, all in good humour obviously. 

Ttyl ;)

Jazzz...

Playlist

Playlist time again :)

Starting with the theme song of one of the best animations. I just loooove the minions :)

Cassie magic :)

Jennifer Aniston stripping brought me here ;)

Another pearl from "The Originals" soundtrack

Estonia! :)

Ttyl ;)

Jazzz...

No dresscode?!

Imagine London West End, evening show of Phantom of the Opera and you turn up in jeans and a t-shirt, furthermore no one even blinks an eye at your direction. Perfectly normal behaviour. Quite sad actually. I was all prepared with my new black warm dress, nothing too fancy but still appropriate for festive occasions etc. when asked Mr. Special what's he gonna wear to the theatre he claims to be topclass and practically the equivalent to Broadway in the U.S. And you know what he said, standing there in his jeans, t-shirt and aber uni hoodie? "This!" meaning the outfit he had on at the time. What? I couldn't believe my ears, no way. To me going to a theatre is a special occasion that you dress up for, not something you turn up to in your favourite baggy pants. Boy was I wrong. Don't get me wrong, there were some people in nice clothes but they were more of a minority. In Estonia you wouldn't even get in through the front door looking like that and I think it's a matter of respect and how it should be. And again I'm not talking about some random backdoor theatre by new and upcoming actors, directors etc. I'm talking about a respected theatre with world-class shows that people buy tickets to months in advance.

They also sell little icecream tubes during the interval, again am I the only one who finds it a bit weird? What if you get it on your dress? Oh yeah sorry just on some jeans you wear every day, no biggie.

Ttyl ;)

Jazzz...

Halfway done

My last night in my bed this year... Kinda sad actually, the time has gone by so quickly. Everyone else (Erasmus) is gone, I'm the last woman standing, because of exams (ok theres another Swiss girl here), I've had 2 in the past couple of days. Went pretty well if I say so myself :D although I'm not expecting any good marks but hopefully won't fail ;) Like usually I didn't really study study for them like normal students do :D Instead I waste time thinking and freaking out about it for a couple of days... I'm not proud of it especially this year since I don't really speak the language so should study extra hard but nooooo not me pleaaaaase.

The atmosphere of the exams is more relaxed in France than in the UK, students come to the exam hall with their huge bags etc. and leave them on the side, no biggie whereas in the UK you even have to take the label of the water bottle off, just in case... The empty papers mark where you can sit an unlike in the UK after everyone's took their seats our lecturer comes up and gives us our exam sheet, it isn't previously planned that these people sit here and those taking that modules can only sit there. So you can't run around stupidly in the hall because you can't find your designated spot. Yeah it's more laidback, they do not freak you out with all the regulations in case of fire etc etc etc. I'll say it again, I prefer this uni to Aber (if I had to choose and the language barrier didn't exist).

When I come back in January I'll start the tourism lectures immediately and I still have a couple of exams to do including an oral exam in human geography!!!! OMG an oral exam, pretty nervous and it's a hard subject but the teacher is really nice so fingers crossed :D Soon I'll have to finalise my timetable for second semester: only tourism and economics timetables are up at the moment, so I have to wait for the languages departments timetable too.

But between now and then: London (Harry Potter studios, Madam Tussauds, Phantom of The Opera, Jack the Ripper), Estonia (family time!!!!!!!!! miss you my precious people!!!!!!) and... drumroll... Amsterdam for New Year with Mr. Special :)
Exciting times are ahead of me, I´ll try to keep in touch but no promises lol :P

Ttyl ;)

Jazzz...

Early Christmas

A sad one actuallyL. Almost everyone’s leaving!!! Next year only I and most of the Spanish people will be left and the other Aber girl until April because her German uni semester starts then and since she has a boyfriend here, she decided to stay here and not go home for those couple of months. Hopefully there will be a couple of new Erasmus students coming for the second semester. You might think why haven’t I found any French friends, but it’s not so easy you know! :D Especially as practically in every lecture I am with different people – my own fault. Don’t get me wrong I’ve found a couple of French friends :D yay but they’re doing a course that consists of one week of lectures, the next week working somewhere (internship at an hotel etc) then a week here etc and most of the students go home Friday evening and come back Monday so the town is almost empty on a weekend :D So the poor Erasmus students who are constantly here have bonded J I’m not even going to mention the language barrier that paralyzes me when I try to talk to someone for a long time :D I can cope with small talk and answering questions but holding up a long conversation is too much for me. Even now after spending 3 months here lol. Next semester I will make more of an effort to speak French, I promise!

Back to why it’s an early Christmas though: Because everyone’s leaving their stuff that they can’t take with them to me :D Like pots and pans and plates and bowls. Coffee, salt, broom etc. :D My room is once again filled with stuff that I most likely have to throw away with a hardened heart, but it’s all good right now :D

And yesterday was a Christmas Party with free food and small gifts for everyone! Organise by some student Society and unlike Societies in Aber, here you do not have to be a paid member of any society to take part of their parties or activities J Sooo yay free food, and good food not just some snack you’d imagine, but pasta with vegetables, ham and cheese baguettes, baguettes with their Corsican sausage figatellu, little toasties with pate or salmon etc, crisps, mandarins, fruit salad for dessert and probably something else I forgot, oh yeah beer :D yeap... The good life in one of the richest unies in France apparently J Me likey. They played good club music unlike the crap you can usually hear at the clubs in Aber so I just mostly sat there listening to the music, it wasn’t a club atmosphere so no one danced and that would’ve been weird. At one point Father Christmas showed up and gave little gifts and Christmas hats for everyone. The little gift included candy and a small lighter :D You know you’rein France when a lighter is part of a gift for EVERYONE lol :D No complaining though free stuff is free stuff.

Ttyl ;)

Jazzz...

First snow!!!

To be honest I can't remember seeing the first first snow since living in Tallinn 3 years ago... And I haven't noticed that until last Tuesday when I was walking to the cafeteria to have lunch and saw and felt little snowflakes falling down :) I was sooooo happy, although a bit surprised since I thought it wouldn't snow here! So I stood there on the street for two minutes with a stupid smile on my face and wondering why this makes me so happy, lol, but it did and got me wonderind that I do miss the snowy cold winters of Estonia, in Aber we only get some cold rain slurry snowrain at best... eew me no likey, I want proper snow! :) 

Anyway don't be alarmed the only snow I can see now is on top of the high hills bordering Corte and the weather's back to normal warm (warm as in winter warm up to 10 degrees) which is rather nice, especially when it's a sunny day, that's the mediterrenean weather I was hoping for :) And not to worry I'll get my snow (I better!!!!) in Estonia for Christmas :) A perfect Christmas I hope.

Ooooh I wanted to tell you about the chinese lantern party as well that the town organised, well a party is a wrong word actually, like a festive gathering in town center. At first I thought that they were gonna light the town's christmas lights but it was even better :) Everyone was there, I've never seen that many people in Corte! Wow, crowds :D When you go to town during the day, and I don't often, then you can hardly see a soul there ooooh spooky :P But yeah there were hundreds, lol, of people with their chinese lanterns and they all released them at once, a couple got stuck in a tree or lantern but the view was amazing with them in the black sky :)

The view from the top of town

Palm tree and a snowy mountain tip

This is our christmas light!!! 

Street view

The main street is blinged up! + you can still see tables outside meaning that yeap people still eat outside!

Ttyl ;)

Jazzz...

Like a holiday week

It's 3.45pm on a Monday, Arab wasn't on this week - only one more session left :(, getting ready to go to my Corsican test, final revision time. Then go out of my building and see students in front of the faculty building, took a few steps closer and see through the class doors that there are tables and chairs blocking the entrances... tha hell? Looks like the building's in lockdown, on the other entrance there is a huge banner in corsican saiyng something.. oh well go back to my room then...

Later on at dinner I found out that some corsican students have been arrested and apparently in France students should only be held in prison for two days but they've been kept there for longer (that's what I heard)  so now the Corsican nationalists amongst us have formed a solidarity - if they can't attend lectures neither can anyone else... not bad :D But it wasn't just the students, the building was properly closed (although the table barricades were funny :D) - you could see the caretaker walking around inside. Anyhow on Tuesday every lecture room on this campus was still barricaded with tables, so no lectures but the thing was that my lecture was supposed to be on the other campus and that had been functioning the day before... it's about a 20 minute walk there, should I go and check or not??? I was all ready to go when the other Aber girl who is also in that class told me that the campus is indeed closed as well, her boyfriend who normally has lectures there confirmed it, so we decided to go to the supermarche yay (btw thats the highlight of the day here :D what a sad life) and when exiting our residence we saw our lecturer, so apparently indeed, the lecture wasn't on :)

Wednesday everything was back to normal. My first lecture of the week could finally commence, with a rant from our lecturer about the protests :D She doesn't believe that the university should take part in politics (in this case Corsican nationalists) but since there is a lot of Corsican nationalists here, they force themselves on the uni if needed. Last year apparently they had just walked through the classrooms shouting things and making it impossible to teach anyone in anything. And she said there was a lot of people marching and disturbing her work making it impossible to do anything against that protest other than to just sit there with the confused Erasmus students who don't understand anything.

Thursday I was supposed to have another Corsican lecture. Got there, waited for ten minutes with the other students when they proposed leaving. Well... to be fair she was only late for 10 minutes which is not unusual for her at all, I'm pretty sure we've waited longer before but who am I to start arguing with the others so when everyone left, and the other Aber girl just got there lol we made a slow exit as well, would've been pointless for just the two of us to wait there... Later on the French class was cancelled for some reason as well, luckily checked my phone as soon as I locked the door behind me and saw the text that said no class, so instead I went for a nice walk and took some pictures of the snowy mountains. The town was soooo quiet.. Creepy :D

Got up at 8.40 on Friday checked the timetable, shoooot my lecture was about to start at 8.30 so got my things together and ran to the lecture room. And guess what, no one else was there -.- So waited for a bit maybe it was supposed to start at 9 then after all, saw another girl from my class and she didn't know anything as well. Since she had the numbers of other students she texted them and taraaaa... no lecture today + the afternoon one I was suppose to have with them had taken place Thursday... well perfect... I didn't want to go to my human geography because there was homework for that which I obviously didn't do, because I was planning on going to the other lecture...

Soooooo only one lecture that week... not too bad :D

Ttyl ;)
Jazzz...