Wales

Finishing final exams earned me and my flatmates a vacation so we ventured out to Wales hoping for an exception to the usual rainy weather that Wales seems to be famous for and a nice break from spending all day in the library.

We began our trip by visiting Cardiff, an awesome, progressive city that offers fee wifi in the whole city centre fast enough to call people online as one of us found out.

Only in Cardiff could you have a shrine to a fictional character from Dr. Who 

After walking around the city and stopping for some interesting photo opportunities we came to the docks where we got mesmerised by  Tim Cronin - a busking musician and ended up chilling for 3 hours listening to him perform. The sun was out, children and elderly couples were dancing and people were enjoying bank holiday Monday out in town.

After trying a local Clark's pie and listening to more lovely music we took a boat taxi back to the city centre passing the most swans I had ever seen in my life, a little foreshadowing of our next destination which just happened to be Swansea.

Ok, we didn't see much of Swansea, instead, we went to Mumbles (or Mwmbwls in the local Welsh), a small town just about 9km away in the Gower peninsula. We spent the first evening walking on the beach, and taking silly photos, one of which ended in a bit of a collision... we did not follow health and safety precautions that go along with jumping photo attempts...

Bit of a posh neighbourhood

You and I collide... :P

The next day we decided to go for a longer walk and reach Three Cliffs Bay- in our host's opinion the nicest beach of the peninsula. What we thought was going to be a 45-minute walk turned into a 4-hour walk, but totally worth the sore feet (didn't think I would need proper walking boots for this...).

The next day after visiting the castle and lighthouse we braved the walk to Swansea (I know, the 16km walk the day before was just not enough for the likes of us). Walking by the coast was great, but left us in pain by the end resulting in us spending the rest of the evening resting in a pub before catching our bus back to Brum.

The three of us spent a great three days, finally resting from the books, notes and past papers. Guess we're done with uni now... interested to see what comes next :)

Bremen

On our way back from Lithuania to the UK after the winter holidays, my friend and I made a short stop in Bremen, as you do. We were only there for one day but seems like we managed to fit in a lot of what this lovely city has to offer.

Having always associated Bremen to the Bremen musicians it was a surprise to themselves advertising themselves as 'Bremen- city of trams'. Trams? Really? Oh Bremen, give yourself more credit. Not that I have anything against trams, they're great, just not the reason I would go somewhere... Bremen: come for the trams, stay for the music :P 

After filling up on some flammkuchen at one of the only open cafes we could find in the area (great thinking flying on a Sunday...) we set off to the old town in search of the Bremen musician sculpture - the one monument we could not miss.

Feminist traffic lights ftw!

Having successfully found the sculpture, overjoyed that we managed to take some photos without other people in the way and inspiring others to take pictures with poses we used, we set of to the narrow streets of Schnoor, another must see in Bremen. 

We decided to walk back to the tram stop via an alternative route walking passed by a very artsy area unfortunately not so lively as again, Sunday... However, many more touristy areas were accidentally found which led to us managing to see practically everything the city guide recommended seeing.

Funky side of Bremen

We finished our day at a restaurant splitting a traditional dish and made our way back to the airport where our journey back to the UK was with its own surprises, Ryanair never fails to make your journey an experience...

All in all, loved Bremen, Such a cosy and lovely city, would love to come back someday in the future, maybe not on a Sunday, to experience it in a more lively light.

Last dance show

Every year of my being at uni (other than my year in New Zealand...) I have been in the Birmingham University Dance Society dance show. It has left me with memories that I will look back at with warm nostalgia and keep me reaching for those show DVDs, dragging my friends to watch them with me for years. 

This year's theme was 'A Night at the Movies' and as the name suggests all dances had to pick a film to be the inspiration for the dance. As I was pretty busy  it being final year and all I had to downscale to 3 dances from  the 4 that I managed to be in during my second year. Still, this was enough to really feel part of the show and a good chance that I would be seen in at least one. Actually ended up being in the front row for most of one dance so there you go.

Commercial - Step up

This was a style of dance I had never tried so I thought I would give it a shot and did not regret it. Found the first class a bit intimidating as the dance was incredibly fast and I was confused about the moves for most of it... Decided to stick with it as the dance itself was pretty cool and the teaching style was one I worked well with. Practice makes perfect and the following classes got easier, I picked up the moves and hopefully wasn't half bad in the performance :D This dance reacquired the most prep as we decided to use glow paint which looked incredible, but was a bit of a pain to remove every night. Worth it though.

Jazz - Footloose 

A very fun, upbeat dance and honestly the only one after which I would get of the stage panting due to all the 'pretty' sprinting and jumping it involved. Had  a blast dancing this one with two of my flatmates who it was so nice to be in the show with. I think this was the dance I had practiced the most or at least the only one I could hear the teachers directions in my head as I danced it (*back-back-front, triple it, triple it-step-spin-triple it*) and apparently I was not the only one that did...

Musical Theater - Hairspray

So, a funny thing happened with this one. Originally we were learning a dance to songs from Grease, but the class was way too big (imagine over 60 dancers on our little stage... would not have ended well...) so it was split in two. The half of the class I ended up in was tasked to learn a completely new dance, part of which to a song I had danced to every single year in the classes including the year 2 dance show and a class in the first term of this year (a bit confusing when you already know so many ways to dance to one song). Anyway, the dance was great and I really enjoyed it despite feeling the pressure due to being in the front row for most of the show (an extra push to learn the dance really well! :D ). 

Gonna miss not being in this ever again, but it has been an incredible experience. Can't wait for this years DVD :D

Tramping in the Lake District

Just before starting to suffer nature withdrawal I managed to get out of Birmingham for a weekend trip with the Wayfarer hiking society to the Lake District. This was a must as the stress from multiple commitments was beginning to get to me and I am so glad I managed to get away from it all, clear my head and relax.

Gotta say, the trip surprised me. Was not expecting such incredible views on the first day and so much snow on the second. Throw in great company and you have the makings of a perfect weekend.

The trip kicked off with a bit of adventure. We arrived at the barn we were to stay in at around midnight and as we got out of the van the clouds parted to reveal billions of stars, most I've seen in England. Ever. We then proceeded to wait for the trip leader to go get the key to the barn so we could get in and much to everyone's surprise the people who were to give us the keys were nowhere to be found and could not be reached... We contemplated what to do, playing some murder detective story games, because being stuck outside in the middle of the night wasn't creepy enough already... Eventually, we did what anyone would do in this situation - we simply broke into the barn.

The barn was luxury compared to most of the huts I've stayed at on previous hiking trips. I mean there was hot water and electricity! This was basically a holiday house. This was nice as there were also pillows and blankets we could use which came in handy since it was freezing so I ended up using 3 after shivering throughout the first night (note to self: buy proper sleeping bag asap).

We woke up to some really lovely views: hills, mountains in the distance and grazing sheep in a field just beside the barn. The site reminded me of the port hills in Christchurch and I got all nostalgic. The sheep being there played a part in this too I believe... We also solved the mystery of the barn. Turns out we went to the wrong one... oh well, we rented this one instead and fixed the door, so no harm done.

The day continued with more incredible views and awesome conversations with all the wonderful people that came on the trip. Love how there were people from all over- France, Italy, Australia, you name it. As my friend always says, the best people come on hiking trips and she couldn't have been more right about it this time. 

I tortured people a bit more with the riddle games that I knew and was surprised how fast some of them would figure out the answers, gotta find some more for next time! The wind picked up as we got to the summit at around lunch time, but this didn't scare us off, we continued forward splitting up into two groups, taking slightly different paths but finishing at about the same place.

We then ventured down to the pub to warm up before coming back to the barn for dinner and games. Many rounds of Mafia and all sorts of card games later, I went to bed hoping that 3 blankets would do the trick to keep me warm.

The next day was a bit rainy, but as we walked up the mountain, rain turned to snow and we were caught in a full on blizzard. This was a cool experience, but not so fun after the first hour or so which is why eventually we decided to turn back and go the way we came. Some careful manoeuvring by the trip leaders was attempted to disguise the fact that we were simply turning back, but we somehow saw through this. Guess a 10 metre loop around to the path just isn't enough to trick our brilliant minds.

Back in the minibus and 5 hours later we were back in Bham. Basically coming back meant returning to my hectic uni life and so I proceeded to race home to fill in an application for an internship, answer emails and the like. Hope to get another weekend like this soon, feel like days like that are what's keeping me sane with everything going on.