time's flying !

a looot of time has passed.
only little time is left.
and still - so many plans, so many things I would like to do.

anyway, this'll rather be a list of trips I've done over the last few (yes I can actually say it) months than a great text, don't have much time. though I hope you enjoy flicking through the pictures; and of course I'll also spend a few words on the places I've been to.

February. February.. rather calm month for me, apart from studying (for all those who I haven't told yet, I'm preparing for my uni entrance exam now so that I hopefully can start my medicine studies in october), rugby and a dafna party (3.0) there wasn't much happening.

then in march, life slowly got more exciting again.

13-03-15 volunteers day in london:
lovely day with a lot of new volunteers, our nice volunteer managers anna, david and renalda, games, bring-and-share-lunch and bowling; camden and pub afterwards.


at midnight kat, julie and me took the megabus to plymouth, south west england where we'd stay for a few days at a friend's place and enjoy cornwall:

14-03 - 17-03-15 cornwall:
after a rather tough night on the coach we arrived in plymouth early morning (6:00). luckily we found a costa (<3) which opened at 7. breakfast there, followed by a nice train ride to st. ives, a marvellous little town at the coast. wonderful beaches, interesting shops, and everywhere the smell of cornish pasties.

typical travel picture

f.l.t.r. julie, me & kat

wonderful st. ives

in the evening we eventually arrived at nadine's place, a volunteer from tirol, austria, who we had met in october on our on-arrival-training. nadine was (by now she's back home) a volunteer at mount edgcumbe, a big garden project near plymouth. to get there and to her place we had to take a small ferry, cute somehow.
nadine was a great host, we felt really comfortable at her house.
sunday she showed us her project, monday penzance, tuesday plymouth itself and eventually back home in the evening. all in all a fantastic trip, if I may give some advice - go to cornwall!

@mount edgcumbe

kat, nadine, julie & me

st. michael's mount

march also brought us guys at dafna a very spontaneous (and awesome) party, very enjoyable!


03-04 - 06-04-15 belfast:

over the easter weekend kat and I stayed at yet another volunteer's place, anton from sweden was our host in belfast. again a great weekend, particularly the trip to the giant's causeway left a strong impression.
but also the city of belfast is very interesting, a place with intense history, coined by a conflict which is definitely not processed entirely yet. we saw the impressive docks, where by the way a couple of decades ago the titanic had been constructed, the "peace wall", city centre, botanic gardens, ulster museum and a few other places.

"I'll tell me ma.." - peace wall

giant's causeway

between my belfast weekend and the next one which I spent in london, four of my austrian friends stayed here at dafna for two days, quality time, really relaxed!

10-04 - 12-04-15 london:

boys weekend in london. together with jesus I stayed at julian's place near newington green. perfectly laidback, walking through nice streets, markets and parks on the days, exploring the neighbourhood in the nights.

f.l.t.r. jesus, me & julian

18-04 - 20-04-15 liverpool & manchester:
frankly, one of my favourite places here in the uk - liverpool. since I had seen it for the first time in august 2014 (we went with a coach from there to creamfields festival) I had been buzzing to go back there, to the beatles' home, I'll remember it as the place with that wonderful library in front of the st. john's gardens, a tiny but for me special spot.

library of liverpool

the guys -f.l.t.r. manu, finn, kat, elisa, nuno

in liverpool I also met sophie and her service user nadia, who I spent some nice hours with, walking around the centre, seeing the immensively huge cathedral and the docks. hope I can see them again before I leave!

24-04 - 26-04-15 hemel hempsted:

4th weekend in a row not at home - this time due to rosi and zhanna's farewell party. celebrating with a small but nice group made friday eve a rememberable one, had a lot of fun! saturday zhanna showed lea and me around the radio station she's been working at for the duration of her EVS project, really cool! we even were on air for about 30 minutes, exciting :D
delicious pancakes then started a great harry potter night (which we had to interrupt after the second part - fatigue is a pain :D). before lea and me had to leave then on sunday we at least continued with the third one^^ though - to be continued.

me, zhanna, lea & rosi

serious conversations

at radio dacorum with zhanna

there's not much left to say, at the moment I'm preparing for my next trip which will start this friday - scottish highlands for 6 days! I'm totally excited now, hiking on my own in the uk's highest mountains with backpack and tent!
will try to report as soon as I'm back home (:

until then, enjoy yourselves,
see you soon!

sorting out the B's - BRISTOL, BATH, BIRMINGHAM & BRIGHTON

BRISTOL & BATH
saturday 24/01/15
09:33am - in reading station's waiting room. quick look at the destination board - more than half of the trains cancelled or at least for half an hour delayed - a situation which should not be experienced for the last time within the following few weeks. motivation good though, prospect of staying in bristol for three days with dani. bristol is england's sixth biggest city with a population of about 450k people, has got its own currency (the bristol pound) and is famous for the clifton suspense bridge, banksy and actually quite a lot of other things.

anyway, dani and I arrived there somewhen arround noon, lovely january weather, sun, not too cold (respectively warm enough clothes), no strong winds. on the way to our hostel which was located at queens road (quite central) we already accomplished almost half of all the goals we had set for this city trip :D st mary redcliffe church, queen square, centre promenade where we had lunch, and some of bristol's nice streets. I have to say, I didn't expect bristol being such a good place - both dani and I were totally impressed by that friendly, warm and open city.

st mary redcliffe church

hostel was fine, perfect location, pubs, take away restaurants and supermarket all around. only our room mate was a bit stinky but since we hardly spent any time in our room apart from sleeping he was bearable.
after our arrival at the hostel there were still some sunny hours left which we used for a walk to clifton bridge, a stunning place especially with that light we had.

evening at wetherspoon's where we discovered a funny thing - the room we sat in had kind of a dome-shaped roof which enabled one to hear conversations from the other end of the room. the really disturbing thing was that it sounded as if the person was standing right behind you and talking into your ear. throughout the whole evening we amused ourselves with watching people turning their heads, trying to find out how's talking so close to their ears and eventually figuring out that it had to be due to the dome.

on sunday weather was not as good as the day before, however the two of us had a great time exploring some interesting places, strolling through bristol's shopping area (which appeared enormous to us) and teaching/learning spanish. after enjoying dinner at mission burrito I decided it was time for having my first spanish lesson - obviously with dani as my columbian teacher.

banksy's signature

monday bath - basically walking around, enjoying this lovely small city, the light, our conversations. however, we both had already been there before, so we didn't really do any sightseeing.

cute bath from one of its hills

on the way home

alright, that was our lovely trip to bristol, surely one of the best journeys so far.
not enought with that, the following weekend should come up with yet another one:

BIRMINGHAM & STRATFORD-UPON-AVON
from friday 30/01 to sunday 01/02 bianka, kat, dani, julie and I (so the whole family) went on our trip to birmingham and stratford. I don't want to tell too many details, it was a lovely time, altough we made some strange and also annoying experiences - from a hostel which actually wasn't a hostel but a place for homeless and asylum-seekers to birmingham's rather confusing bus system to the cancellation of again half of all the trains in that area on sunday eve - which led to a very interesting odyssey.
however, we made the best out of all that and had a good time, first in birmingham and on sunday also in stratford.

a few words about birmingham; it's a bit city. it is actually even the UK's second biggest city with a population of a bit more than one million. its apperance the evening we arrived was alright, rather loud and crowded though, loads of cars on the busy streets which reached right into the middle of the city. the one-hour-walk to our "hostel" also revealed some other areas to us than just the centre, seemed not too bad though, I think we were in a part of the city inhabitated by the lower middle class. the centre itself offers some nice places to go, library for example, also the train station is okay, a big shopping area, nice buildings every now and then. I personally also liked the canals, gives it somehow a bit of a mysterious appearance.

in the weird "hostel"

at the canals

birmingham library

on the roof

sunday stratford-upon-avon, naturally on the trail of shakespear. when we left the train station in stratford there wasn't really anything waiting for us apart from grass and a few buildings some hundred meters in the distance - frankly not very spectacular and historic. however, this gradually changed the closer we came to the centre of this tiny village and in the end our expectations got satisfied. cold but good day which was completed by this horrendous journey back.

shakespear's birthplace

the family - f.l.t.r. bianka, me, dani, kat and julie

river avon

crazy train/bus/taxi journey back home

well, so far so good, there's not much left. though, last weekend I had my second rugby game which was absolutely fantastic for me! felt great to be on the pitch, confident, with my great team which has been on top of the league for weeks now (and hopefully will still be there after those last 5 games we're playing in the next one and a half months). played the first half (=40min), enjoyed it a lot and I learned a lot, yet again.

one last thing to be said. my friend dani has left to his country columbia now, that's why I went to brighton (the last one of the four confusing city's with B) two days ago - saying farewell. I'm really glad that I can count him to my best friends and I'll certainly visit him there at the other side of the world.

(btw, on my journey back, my train which was the last one on that evening obviously was delayed again and I almost couldn't catch my connection^^ those lovely english trains)

brighton's beach at night

stay tuned, next blog entry hopefully in a few weeks, after our next dafna party end of february maybe.
see ya!