The Filling Station

this is where we spent most of our evenings (and our money) towards the end of our stay...

Brighton!

Once upon a time, two girls enjoyed a sunny Sunday on the beach of Brighton - racing after birds, watching football and recovering from a hangover... :)

Punting...

That's Olga and me on a punt (that's what you call a punting boat, right? ;)) on the last day... it was so great!

Hey bird! :)

No comment... :)

Pix!!!! :)

Hi again...

sorry for not writing anything for such a long time! This week back home has been complete chaos! But instead of telling you every detail of what I did in the meantime, I start posting pictures now - got them on Saturday and have been showing them to everyone ever since! :)

Here we go:





This is the "A-Team" of Cambridge.... :)

Journey Cambridge – Zurich

On Saturday, I woke up feeling a strange mixture of apprehension, joy, regret, annoyance, tiredness…
After a normal breakfast and a last short chat with my host mother, I took the taxi at 10 o’clock. As I closed the door of my mini-room behind me, it was so clearly “this is the end”, that it almost made me laugh – or, as Olga said “part of me laughed, part of me cried”… not that I’m going to miss this tiny room (in fact, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate my biiiig room at home now!) but you know what I mean… Sitting in the taxi, I looked out of the window as we drove through all these now well-known streets and every corner seemed to have a connection to some or another memory – I was glad the taxi driver didn’t say a word and just left me to my thoughts…!
When I got out of the taxi at the coach stop and the driver helped me with my suitcase, I couldn’t believe my eyes: The only person who was already there waiting for the same bus as me was Jelmer! It was good fun to see him again and it got even better: He was waiting for another Dutch girl who would take the same flight as him from Stansted and when she arrived she was with two other girls who turned out to be heading for Heathrow as well as me; and, as I found out, one of them is also from Zurich and would be on my flight! In Stansted, we said goodbye to Jelmer and his friend and continued our loooong bus ride to Heathrow (almost 3 hours). When we finally arrived in Heathrow, we had to find out that the bus stop was basically as far away from Terminal 4 as possible, and of course Jessica (the Zurich girl) and me had to get there… The two of us and her friend (who’s German and had to go to Terminal2) first got a trolley to put our luggage on it (I had 5 pieces of luggage, can you believe this??), I was so glad, I wasn’t alone, I wouldn’t have managed it with all that stuff! Anyway, the trolley was not of much help, as our way led down stairs and one wasn’t allowed to take trolleys down there – greeeat system! When we had somehow arrived at the bottom of the stairs without breaking our necks, we first needed a coffee. It was about 13.30 and Jessica and I had to catch the plane at 15.45 – so plenty of time… we thought… We had coffee with her friend and around 14.00 started off towards Terminal 4. What we had not known was that we had to take a little train (again, of course, up and down stairs without trolleys, it was a real nightmare!!!) to get there and of course, we had to wait 15 minutes until the next one came (I won’t ever complain about the Gate E at Kloten again – that train is great!)… Once in the Terminal, we had to face the next challenge: checking in… thank God we both had e-tickets and could get our boarding cards at the machines (otherwise, we’d have had to queue for hours!) but this didn’t help when it came to the luggage issue… we cheated as much as we could (holding each others bags to hide that there was one more piece of hand luggage etc…), but I still had to pay 36 £ for excess baggage – for that, I had to go to another desk which again cost us some minutes… - to make it short, we arrived at the Gate at 15.19, one minute before the time indicated on the boarding card! We were soo proud to have survived this marathon (it really was one!) that we didn’t even care anymore that we had not had the time to get something to drink or buy magazines or anything. On the plane, we annoyed everyone because we wanted to swap seats in order to sit next to each other – there were some very stubborn elderly women who would never in their lives give up their seats although it would not have made any difference to sit on the other side of the aisle or whatever – we didn’t know whether to laugh or get angry, the whole thing was so ridiculous! In the end, we could sit next to each other and of course started talking about these annoying people, realising too late that we were now on our way back home and that Swiss German was no longer a safe secret language…! ;)
As always, a flight passes so fast if you’re talking and we really had a lot of fun – it’s so cool to get to know someone who you get along with that well immediately and the fact that we had had more or less the same experiences in Cambridge and lived in the same city at home made it quite special!
We landed perfectly on time and as soon as we left the plane, we realised that we were back in Switzerland: no more queuing, no delays of little stupid trains between terminals, quick passport controls and hardly 3 minutes before we had our suitcases! J
As soon as we stepped out the door into the waiting hall, we could just quickly say goodbye to each other and then we were already more or less surrounded by people who’d been waiting for us! She was, that is… I only saw my grandfather and he showed me that the others were still looking for me on the other side – which gave me the opportunity to creep up on them and surprise them, it was sooo funny! J And it was simply amazing to see them all again, my mother, my grandparents, my “little sister” and Isa – gooosh, guys, I love you!!!

Saying Goodbye

Last Friday certainly was one of the most emotional days of my entire life... In the morning, when I wrote my last post in Cambridge, I wasn’t really aware that this was goodbye, but afterwards, it dawned on me, slowly but steadily! Olga and I first went punting (finally!!!) and it was simply beautiful, we didn’t punt ourselves (too afraid to fall into the river and have to pack wet jeans…:P) but joined a 45min tour with a guide – it was the perfect thing to do on our last day, take a last look at all the colleges from the water, enjoy the sun, take pictures, you get the idea…
Afterwards, we met Pascal in the city centre to take our bikes back to the store where we’d rented them. It was such a strange feeling to leave our bikes (which we had really learned to appreciate, I must confess…) and walk out the door on foot – suddenly walking seemed so slow! ;) But we had no choice and on the way back to the city centre (the bike shop is a little outside, further down in the south but we all lived in the north) we walked past many places that had a meaning for us, like the Rat&Parrot pub – it almost made my stomach turn when I realised that we would never (or at least not too soon) go back there again!
Our last “activity” together was a last coffee in the Office. There, it was even worse – how often had Olga and me visited Pascal there when he was working and how many “desserts” did we have there after dinner before moving on to a bar… Needless to say that I already felt quite weird even though we were still joking and teasing each other! Olga’s parents then joined us and we walked towards our homes all together. At our usual meeting point which was no the point of goodbye, it got unbearable – Pascal stayed quite cool (he can be terribly rational and realistic sometimes!!!) and started saying goodbye to Olga and while he thanked her for this great time etc I felt the tears coming up in my eyes and at the latest when Olga turned to me to say goodbye, we both couldn’t hold back the tears anymore… can you imagine what it is like to say goodbye to a person you’ve spent three months, literally every day and also most evenings with?!? It’s as if you abandon a part of yourself… But we knew there was no way around it and I guess, we were both glad that we didn’t have to walk away from each other alone: she was with her parents and I still had Pascal, that really helped me – although not for long as I had to say goodbye to him only about 5 minutes later! At least, he finally admitted that Bern and Zurich are not THAT far apart and that he thinks it is possible that we can stay in touch… ;)
The moment he turned into his street and I walked on, it really hit me that this was it. The whole adventure was over. Everything I had experienced over there was part of the past, there would be no one around me who shares all the memories, who laughs about the same inside jokes and, after all, who knows me the way I was in Cambridge…
In a way I was almost relieved to hear that Lissette couldn’t make it to the city to watch the Mexico match as it gave me time to finally get packing…so I stayed at home and did my packing which was horror! I was so frustrated, I had way too much luggage, almost couldn’t close my suitcase, was tired, already missed the others but at the same time just wanted to be home, was annoyed with the prospect of another endless journey home the next day – I really was in a bad mood…

Back Home!

Hi again!

Just a very short post to let you all know that I've arrived safe and sound at home, that everything went fine and that my "normal" life has already gotten hold of me again... I hope I can squeeze in some time tomorrow to tell you all about the journey home and everything that's been going on in the 50 hours I've been home so far!
The camera film rolls are on their way, I'm now waiting for them to be developped so that I can sooooooon post some pictures! :)

...1...

so here we are now, the last day in Cambridge... buhuuuuuu...
As Olga once quoted a song (embarassingly by the Spice Girls), *part of me laughs, part of me cries* - this is exactly how I feel right now! On the one hand, of course I'm veeeery much looking forward to coming home (do you realise that I just wrote "coming home" and not "going home"?), but on the other, it makes my stomach turn to leave everything here behind and say goodbye to Olga and Pascal!
At the moment, Olga and I are sitting in the computer room at school one last time - the reason we had to come back to school is that a dictionary I ordered about 5 weeks ago has finally arrived... it's just so ironic that it is an exam preparation dictionary which weighs about 3kg that I would have needed before the exam - so now I have to carry this bloody thing home without ever having looked at it! As if I didn't already have enough luggage... I'll let you know how much I had to pay for excess luggage, I already know that I'll spend a fortune at the airport tomorrow...!!!
Afterwards, we are finally going punting (yes, we managed to be in Cambridge for 13 weeks without going punting...) and then bring the bikes back. That's going to be strange as well! Saying goodbye to our bikes, not wearing helmets anymore - and having to walk all the way back to the city centre to have a coffee in Caffe Nero!
I'm already dreading the moment that follows that: saying goodbye to Olga and Pascal! No, I don't want to!!!!! :( And I'm quite annoyed that I'll have to sit at home alone on my last evening here as the two of them are spending the evening with their hostfamilies while mine won't even be at home! At least I can meet Lissette, the mexican from our class, to see the Mexico match tonight in a pub! And then it's packing, packing, packing! I haven't faced this challenge yet, but I'm quite worried about not being able to close my suitcase! ;)

so, basically, that's it! This was my time in Cambridge - thanks to everyone who's been reading all that rubbish! I'll continue writing when I come home, at least in the beginning to post pictures and to look back on what I've experienced...
Now that I'm writing this, I have another 22 1/2 hours in Cambridge and it's 30 hours until I'm back in Switerland! Schwiiiiz, ich chume! :)
Mues das jetz eifach schnell uf Schwizerduetsch schribe - liebi Luet, ich freu mi sooo druff, eui wider z'gseh, di einte scho morn am Flughafe, alli andere hoffentli mega bald im schoene Zueri! Han eui vermisst...!

...2...

THE BIG DAY

Wow... so this is the day we had all been working for... it was so strange to get up in the morning and to realise that everything I've done in the past three month actually just leads to that day - the day of the exams and the day when we have to say goodbye to all our classmates!
I'm not going to give you the details of the exam, let's say, I'm just glad that it's over! I have no idea if I stand even the slightest chance of getting my Grade A, but we'll see - the results will be published online on the 4th of August....

After the exam we met our teacher Barbara in the Regal, the biggest pub in the UK (which is in Cambridge and I've never been there before!) for a drink. It was nice to sit together with our classmates and Barbara again, but when it came to saying goodbye, it was more than weird... I don't know, somehow I didn't realise consciously that it was really goodbye, maybe forever... of course everyone says that we'll stay in touch via e-mail and everything, but except for Olga and Pascal I don't know if I see the others ever again! :(

the evening was the last evening for the three of us: Olga's parents had come over from Holland and they wanted to get to know Pascal and me and invited us for dinner. We went back to the "big Buddha" where we enjoyed another delicious dinner and had a lot of fun. Olga's parents are extremely nice and I'd love to follow their invitation to visit them all in Holland soon! :) After dinner, we had to continue the typical course of an evening out by going to the Filling Station - when we walked out there, I really almost cried - this place had become such a fix spot in our lives and it was strange to know that this was the last time... :(
We walked home as usual and agreed to meet again today to bring our bikes back and have a last coffee in the office.

...3...

Wednesday: shopping...

In the morning, we went back to school once again to do some last revision (of course not very effectively), before we started our shopping tour. We paid a last visit to the Grafton Centre and spent hours there before we went back to the city centre, to the market square, to Sainsbury's - to put it short, everywhere where we could spend money and where we had already been thousands of times. I felt quite some nostalgia but still I was not really aware of the fact that this was really the last time we did all these things...
We decided to go home rather early to get some rest, take a last look at our notes and then go to bed in order to be fit for the exams - but then Isa called me and my plans for not speaking swiss german were lost: we spoke on the phone for almost one hour and now I must say that this was the best thing that could happen! I was totally relaxed afterwards! Thanks, Isa! :)

...4...

Tuesday: Hoooooppp Schwiiiiz! :)

We decided to be good students and go to school to do revision in the morning. Of course we ended up sitting in the computer room, but we also did some serious stuff - if that's still of any use, I'm not sure... We stayed at school until around lunchtime and then went to the city centre for lunch. During lunch, Olga and I worked on our list of Cambridge-songs which we started last week - we're trying to put all the songs that remind us of our stay here on a CD (or rather 2 or 3 CDs...) to keep all the memories... but as you can imagine, we always get quite sentimental when we talk about this and yesterday again, we were somewhere between laughing and crying... one of us would start singing a song and the other would burst out laughing and then we'd get all serious and sad like "oh god, I know I'm going to cry the first time I put this CD on..." and that's it then...

The afternoon was - of course! - reserved for the Swiss match. We went to the Green Dragon (the pub where we had the Quiz with our teacher and which is famous for its good food) to watch it - realised too late that there were no other Swiss people and that we were the only ones actually watching TV in there. Adding the rather tedious nature of the match, you might guess that it wasn't as exciting as we'd expected.. apparently all the other Swiss people from school had arranged something to watch the match together but as always, I seem to have missed that or at least no one has bothered to tell me... anyway, I was a little bit upset! The match itself was... well, what shall I say - I guess you've all seen it as well, right? I'm glad we got at least one point there, but the impression that I got was that these two teams are just fed up with playing against each other... And can anyone tell me why our team played in WHITE shirts??? Olga and I turned up at the pub, both wearing red shirts and felt quite stupid, when these white guys walked onto the pitch! ;)
After finishing our dinner at the pub, we went on to the Filling Station once again because actually I wanted to meet my conversation partner there one last time - but (as yesterday seems to have been the day where nothing went according to plan) he didn't make it... instead, Olga and I watched the Brazil match there and at least got some (rather) good football in a nice atmosphere -there were a lot of Brazilian people and consequently, the mood was great!

...5...

Monday: after posting the last text, I met Olga and we went to school to do some revision. As it was very hot and sunny, we sat in the garden and of course didn't do much (by now I regret it as the exam is coming closer...)... it was strange to be at Embassy, sit where we've sat all the time now but somehow to know that we're not supposed to be here anymore!
We went home rather early then and met again at 7.30 to go to the Curry House for dinner (we're going back to all the nice places...). It was delicious again but so different from the first time because again, it was just Olga and me and it makes such a difference if it's the two of us or the three of us with Pascal! But still, we had a lot of fun and at the latest when we went to lie down in the park after dinner our tiredness showed and we had some laughing fits as usual... :) Around 9.30 we decided to watch the last quarter of an hour of Italy's first world cup game in a pub next to the park - it was already crowded and we had to sit on the stairs to get a clear view of the screen but it was worth it as we just saw the second goal the Italians scored. That moment I was so proud of the small percentage of Italian blood that's flowing in my veins (12.5% if I'm not mistaken...:))! ;) And Italy is definitely one of my favourites to win the world cup...

...6...

Brighton!!! :) After Saturday's party, it was quite a short night, given the fact that we had to be at the Police Station at 8.15am to catch our coach! But honestly, it was worth missing some sleep! Yesterday was just the perfect day to visit Brighton, a beautiful summer's day, bright sunshine, a slight breeze - and us, walking along the beach and doing shopping! :)We arrived there around 10.45, walked through the Lanes (the famous pedestrian zone with all the posh stores and little restaurants), but as it is quite frustrating to do windowshopping when you know that you can't afford anything you see, we soon gave up and headed for the beach instead. I realised how good it was to get away from everything in Cambridge, not to think about studying for a moment but just enjoy the sea and the sun and the freedom! But shopposaurus as I am, I had to see some other (cheaper...) shops which led us to Northern Line, the other area where they sell basically everything. First, we bought a slice of watermelon in the most amazing store I've ever seen - it looks like a farmer's market inside an old factory hall and you can go and buy fruit and vegetables and bring them to the buffet where they make something fresh of it for you - or you can take it out. They did juices, smoothies, salads, but also Sandwiches, pizza-like bread - I was stunned, I'd never seen anything like this in my life! But we just took our melon away and looked for the next green spot to sit down and eat it. As I ran across a street with no traffic light and had to avoid cars, still clutching my melon, I felt like one of those stupic birds from Ice Age1 who're trying to save the last melons they had - when I described this to Olga, she had a laughing fit and the best was yet to come: no sooner had we sat down on the grass and started eating the melon than there was a big bird standing close to our blanket and watching us... I went like "hey... bird!" and we couldn't stop laughing anymore... God, I'm going to miss Olga so much, I already know that!!!
After this "melon break", we walked around that area for some more time before we went to the pub "King and Queen" to have lunch and watch the kick off of the Holland match - a must for Olga, of course! We saw the first half and were very pleased of course (Holland 1:0 - we saw the only goal there was in that match, yeah! :)). We had another 2 hours before the coach would leave again at 5pm and decided to spend these on the beach. We were so lazy and it was just great.
Less great was the way home: instead of 7.15, we arrived back in Cambridge at 9.10! 4 hours in this bloody coach with little to no aircondition, about 50 people sweating like crazy in about 27 degrees inside a coach that had to find another way home because one of the highways was closed... that really finished me off! Two nights with very little sleep, a lot of sun, some alcohol the night before and now that...! :) We were already worried that we would not even get dinner anymore, as most pubs don't serve food after 9 and we didn't know what was still open on a Sunday evening... But it turned out well and we did something we'd never done before and had a laugh: we went to the salad bar in Pizza Hut, took our salad bowls out and sat down in Parker's Piece. It was strange but very cool to sit in the park at half past nine, eating salad, lying down on a blanket and looking back on a crazy but fun weekend... :)
When I got home, all I wanted to do was take a shower and go to bed but neither was possible: in my room it was about 35 degrees, no kidding - but I couldn't open the window while I was inside, as spiders and mosquitos would come in... of course my host brother had to take a shower at exactly that moment and he took his time - by then I felt like in a greenhouse!
Anyway, that was my weekend!
Right now I'm in the library again, am going to meet Olga afterwards to do some revision - hopefully we can find a place where it's not too hot - Cambridge is literally boiling at the moment! Can you imagine?

...7 (part two)...

Oh my goodness, was that really just a weekend? It seems that the last post happened to a different person or in a former life, seems so far away! :) But let's stick to chronological order... therefore Saturday afternoon:
After writing my last post we bought lunch and wanted to go to Parker's Piece but the park was crowded - we'd completely forgotten that it was the first England Match of the World Cup and they had put up a huge screen there! Of course these crazy English people were already sitting there in the sun more than two hours before kick off - not wearing any shirts, drinking lots of beer, healthy lifestyle! :P
Anyway, we didn't want to sit in the middle of this crowd, so we went back to the Eurocentres language school, where we had the exams. We met Pascal on the terrace and had a relaxed lunchbreak. Most of the others came back quite soon as well and joking and chatting with them all took away the nervousness. I was determined to make up for the Listening by doing well with the Speaking and the fact that Jelmer, the Dutch guy from our class, was my partner helped me a lot. We'd already done two Speaking mocks together and all the teachers called us an absolute dream team - we both talk a lot, there are no awkward silences and somehow our interaction is good as well. Before we went in, Jelmer went like "come on girl, let's kick some ass!!" and basically, that's what we did! Believe it or not, we even had fun in the exam room! :) The topics were rather easy (compared to some of those our classmates had...), all connected to "spreading the news". No wonder that we were in an excellent mood when we came out! :)
Afterwards, we sat on the terrace for some more time with all the others before going to Parker's Piece to see the last few minutes of the match. We had hardly arrived when the match was already over and all around us, everybody started screaming with joy, beer cans flying around (that's the way English people celebrate a won match... :)) - it was quite fun!
In the evening, Olga and I went out for dinner (had actually asked Pascal to join us because we wanted to go back to "ASK", the restaurant where the three of us had our first dinner together - but he couldn't make it, so we went there alone...) and then walked to the students' residence to celebrate Jelmer's birthday. It was so much fun and although we didn't have the intention of staying there long, it was 2 o'clock when I got home... We were all in the kitchen of the residence, they played music from one of the guys' laptop, we had drinks, crisps - and a lot of fun! It was obvious that everybody was extremely relieved to have the first part of the exams over and consequently, some people were rather drunk which only added to the fun we had! ;)

...7...

Ouf, that was something.. we're sitting in the Library at the moment, needed a moment away from it all, this morning was the Listening test and to be honest, I think I've screwed it up... But what is quite reassuring is that most of us found it terribly difficult, so there's still hope for a lower pass mark... ;) Rather frustrating though, especially as I was pretty confident about the listening part... and it's a bad start into the exams! :( But we'll see, right now we need to get that out of our mind, there's no point in crying over spilt milk - and in only 2 hours we have to be back in the exam centre for the Speaking...

Apart from that, I'm fine, yesterday was a great day, Granchester turned out to be such a beautiful place! It's an apple Orchard and they sell tea, scones, cakes - everything! - that one can enjoy while sitting at one of the dozens of tables in this huge garden! All the exam classes from our school were there (FCE, CAE and our CPE class) as it was the last school day for all of us. We were all busy exchanging e-mail addresses, taking hundreds of pictures of everyone and finally saying goodbye... it was such a weird feeling to realize that these people that have been around me fo the past 3 months are suddenly disappearing from my life - Although I didn't spend much time with them and new most of them just from saying hi in the canteen, I felt so sad about it! When Liz, our teacher kissed us all goodbye, I was literally on the verge of tears - don't make me think of how it's gonna be when I have to say goodbye to the people I've really gotten close to...

I gotta go, we're off to buy lunch and then sit in the park for a moment before we go back to the centre... I'll keep you updated from Monday on! :)

...8...

The last day with our class lies ahead of me, I'm in quite a strange mood; I mean, of course we'll see each other at some point or another next week and at the latest when we all sit in the same room for the exam but still, it's going to be different and I've so gotten used to seeing them all everyday!
But hey, we're going to enjoy this day outside in the sun! Just have to be careful not to get a headache before the exams tomorrow...
Yes, the first part of the exams is only 25 hours away from us - I don't know if I should be nervous... I guess I'll know that tomorrow morning! ;) We have the Listening Part at 10.15 in the morning and Jelmer and I have our Speaking at 14.20 - just in case somebody wants to keep their fingers crossed for me! ;)

I don't know when I'll be able to update my blog next time, tomorrow might not be possible and on Sunday we're off to Brighton for the day! Yeah! :) The weather forecast is simply GREAT, about 29 degrees and sunshine - perfect for a day near the beach!

I wish you all a great weekend, enjoy the sunshine and hopefully talk to you soon!

P.S.: Let me know when you want the interpretation for the psychology test! ;)

...9...

don't worry, the sun hasn't burnt my brain completely, I can still count the days - and I know it's only 9 days to go.. shock!
Today was the last real school day with lessons, tomorrow we're going to Granchester with our teachers, a little place outside Cambridge with beautiful gardens (according to what they said - I'll tell you if it's true!;)) where we are going to have real English tea with scones and everything! And that's it then... I can't believe my time here at Embassy is over! I know I'm going to miss everything about it so much - when we walked out of the classroom today, Olga said something and then she started singing a song with exactly her sentence in the lyrics and I couldn't believe it because I was just about to start humming exactly the same tune! This just shows how close we've got and how hard it's going to be to say goodbye, not to be able to send useless text messages to each other any more just because they are for free, chat on the way to school, spend lunch breaks together... but for the moment, I'm trying not to think of that!

We're going to the city centre now to buy Ice Cream and two thank-you-cards for the teachers for tomorrow - and to enjoy the sunshine!

The final countdown: 10...

Actually I wanted to post this yesterday: this time it really is the final countdown, from yesterday on another 10 days to go...
Still bright sunshine, all of us as suntanned as never before, none of us in the mood for revision - I guess you get the picture, right? ;) Already now (not even 9 o'clock in the morning) it's almost too warm to do anything, cycling seems to make me melt - the girl with the five jackets isn't wearing anything more than a short sleeved t-shirt! :)
But we're not complaining of course - if it weren't for the exams, we'd all be lying in the garden all day long!
Have a nice day! :)

Psychology Test - just for fun!

So here's the test I mentioned in the last post- don't take it too seriously, I really just mean it for fun! I'll give you the key to the interpretation next week - together with some of the results we had, which were the reason for some rather hilarious discussions... :)

so here we go: take a piece of paper and a pen and follow the instructions:

1. think of an animal (any that comes to your mind spontaneously) and describe it with three adjectives

2. think of another animal and again give three adjectives that characterise it

3. do the same again

4. think of the sea and write down what you associate with it (also in adjectives, if possible)

5. think of a vessel (ship) and describe it - how would you travel across the sea?

6. think of a well (something like a "Ziehbrunnen"..) and describe your associations

7. think of a building, describe it and say what has to be in it

8. make a mental picture of a wall - would it be a low brick wall or a high stone wall or what...?

be honest, don't think too much, and I'm sure you'll have fun analysing it next week! :)

Sunshine!!!! :)

Hi again! Sorry, guys, I've been rather lazy with writing over the last few days... but who wouldn't if they had the choice between lying in the sun and sitting in computer room??? ;) There, I've already given it away: it's summer over here!!! Can you believe it? Somehow we just skipped spring and went straight into summer - or what do you call days of bright sunshine with about 25 degrees, no clouds to be seen anywhere, people lying in the park...? Jealous? I'm sorry! But I think I really have the right to tell you since it's been the other way round for almost 3 months now! ;)

But seriously, what have I been up to? well, the last weekend (or rather the end of the last week) has been almost too much: After the mocks on Thursday, Olga and I went out that evening, first to "our" bar, the Filling Station for a drink - where we were first thought to be Americans but after we told the barkeepers that we're Dutch and Swiss, the one guy told me that I looked rather like Mexican or something... :) - and then on to one of the students' nightclubs, Ballare. Unlike other students who go there about 3 times a week, this was only the second time we'd been there, but it was quite fun. We met some people from school and especially because one of them was completely drunk, we had a good laugh.
By the time I got to bed, it was at least 2.30, so you can imagine how tired I was the next morning at school (after getting up at 7.15...) - but I even managed to to the listening part of the Mock, even quite successfully, we were so proud because we were only three people in class, the rest didn't turn up due to hangovers... :)
Not very surprisingly, we gave up our plans of going out again on Friday night, at least not to a club... instead we decided to go for "dinner+" with Pascal whom we'd met in the afternoon in the "office". We even managed to convince him to join us for Tapas in "La Tasca"... :) After dinner including Sangria, we went on to the Filling Station where we had a drink - Olga was sooo funny, although she denied it she seemed to be a little tipsy (she's going to kill me when she reads that, I know it... :))... anyway, we had sooo much fun! One of the topics we had was a "psychology test" we had done that morning at school, which was quite interesting - I'm going to post it afterwards so that everyone will get an insight into their psyche... ;)
As usual, we walked home afterwards, so it was 1 am again before I got to bed - consequently, Saturday was just all lazy, lying in Parker's Piece, literally doing nothing (Olga and I had brought some books for revision but didn't even take them out of our bags... :))...
For the evening, we had made a reservation in an Italian restaurant called "Pizza Express" for 8pm and despite the name, it was a very nice restaurant with excellent food (especially the dessert was heavenly...:)). After dinner, we went back to the Filling Station (don't wanna know what they think of us there, coming back three evenings in a row...) to kill some time because we'd booked the cinema tickets for 11.30. Sitting there with our drinks, all three of us regretted this decision as we were almost falling asleep... :) We saw "X-Men" which, as I'd expected, was not exactly my cup of tea, but it was alright... after the movie, Pascal asked me what I thought of it and I said something like "I'm still trying to figure out what that and that's supposed to mean..." and he just laughed out loud and said he should have written it down before because this was exactly the answer he'd expected from me... :P sometimes it's almost scary how he seems to be reading my mind! ;) By then, it was 1.30 and the way home from the cinema was quite far - unlike last time, we did find our way, but it was still 3 o'clock when I went into my room (having noticed that it was already getting light again while I was still talking to Pascal outside the house...). Therefore, Sunday was even lazier than Saturday and the weather and Parker's Piece were just great...

So now we're in our last week at school, this really is a strange thought... But most of the teachers are rather easy-going and sit outside with us now, doing some revision but also plan some last activities such as a farewell drink etc...
Tonight we're going to the Pub Quiz one last time, which I'm really looking forward to!

I'll continue tomorrow (or the day after...:)), right now I want to enjoy some more moments out there in the sun...

P.S.: If this post sounds a little crazy, it could be that I have something close to a heatstroke...! ;)

Photos

completely forgot to write that down just now: several people have already asked me about photos, if I'm not taking pictures or if yes, why I'm not posting them: the truth is, I'd loooove to post some pictures, but unfortunately technology is working against me! 1. my digital camera isn't working anymore, 2. we're not allowed to upload anything onto the computers here at school and 3. - I haven't figured out yet how I can use pix from e-mails... so, my dears, be patient! :) I promise, I'm going to post a lot of pictures as soon as I'm back home!

2 weeks to go...

It's the final countdown... 2 weeks from today, we have our exams (the written ones, that is... the speaking and listening is already on the 10th)! Today, we had our last mock exams, I'm absolutely exhausted and I'm not very confident about the results because I was quite distracted today and my motivation is gone completely...! but from now on, we really intend to relax, not to study too hard - after all, we've already reached this level of English where there's not much to improve, right? if anyone wants to deny that... :p

no matter how tired we are, we are going out tonight, probably also tomorrow night and then it's already our second but last weekend in Cambridge! Pascal and Olga want to see "X-Men" in the cinema, so that doesn't leave me much of a choice for Saturday night... ;) After already making a fool of myself in any conversation with them when it came to movies and TV series, this will be even worse, I don't even know what the film is all about! :) But I'm going to join them, I almost have to! :) and of course, I want to, I wouldn't want to miss an evening with my two best friends here - this is a situation I hate, I know that the moment I'm back home and have all my friends there back, I have to leave something behind here that has become so important for me... But I'm not going to be all sentimental now, not here!

the weather forecast is not too bad for the weekend either (but who believes the forecasts? It was supposed to be warm and sunny today, but instead we arrived at school like drowned rats and have been freezing throughout the tests...), so perhaps we'll have the chance to enjoy another lazy afternoon in the park - I think we'd deserve it! :)