Next stop: UK

Heyho :)

Don't you just love the UK? I most certainly do! And that's why I want to explore it as a tourist destination. First thing that comes to your mind? London, obviously!
I just realised that this entry seems massive and never ending, but actually it's 99% photos.

LONDON

I've been to London so many times I stopped counting. I just love it. We usually go there for a weekend trip. We fly to Stansted Airport, which leaves you at Liverpool Street Station. Most of the times we stay in Victoria. Additionally to the obvious sightseeing and shopping stops such as Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Tower and Tower Bridge, London Eye, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Street, Carnaby Street, Covent Garden, etc... we like to explore one or two more sites, like for example the Strawberry Hill House or Kew Gardens. Every single time we go to the theatres or see a musical, which is just such a great experience! London has so many impressions, you can't see everything in just one visit.

   Big Ben

   London Eye

 

 My Mum and I in Jamie's Italian Restaurant December 2012

 Carnaby Street

 

 Chinatown

Westfield Shopping Centre in Shepherd's Bush

                         

During the celebrations of the Royal Wedding 2011

 

 

  Leadenhall Market

I know, I didn't go into detail, so if you have any specific questions regarding London, sightseeing, shopping, accommodation, food and so on, just tell me. I just wanted to give you a brief overview why I adore the UK. So I'll continue with Cornwall, Edinburgh and Scotland in general. And another time I will go into detail about the beauty of the Lake District. I don't want to bore you with too much about it at once...
So, let's continue:

CORNWALL

Cornwall is a peninsula in the Southwest of England. At the very end of it, between the English Channel and the Celtic Sea, is Land's End, a very interesting location and good start for hiking or biking tours. Due to its long coastline and the very rough, windy weather the county is very famous for surfers. The must-sees in Cornwall are St Michael's Mount, the Eden Project (housing thousands of different plants), Penzance, St Ives and The Lost Gardens of Heligan. Of course you also have to try a Cornish Pasty! I can also recommend to visit Jamaica Inn, scene of the Alfred Hitchcock film written by Daphne du Maurier, and smuggler's museum. What else is there to see? Penzance has a really nice marine water pool. Every single time I went to Cornwall I told myself, this time I'll try it. But let's face it: It's feezing!

 Land's End

 Beach of Newquay

  St Michael's Mount

The two biosphere domes of Eden Project

 

The Lost Gardens of Heligan

 

Jamaica Inn

Fancy 5 course dinner in Jamie Oliver's Restaurant "Fifteen" June 2011

 

Okedokes, that's all about England. Of course there are so many more beautiful places to visit such as Brighton, Torquay, Dover and the chalk cliffs, and so on. But London and Cornwall are my two favourite places of England. Closely followed by the Lake District which, as I already said, I will explore in a lot more detail with you another time. So let's continue with Scotland and its beautiful capital city Edinburgh.

SCOTLAND

Scotland has the perfect combination of beautiful landscape, a very interesting culture as well as so many castles and monuments to visit. You can see the adorable Scottish Highland Cows, make excursions to hundreds of islands, start hiking trips from Ben Nevis or search for Nessie in the famous Loch Ness. Most people will have heard about the Scottish culture, about the famous dish "Haggis", the kilts as well as the Celtic music which is similar to the Irish Folk. Scotland's capital is Edinburgh, whilst its biggest city is Glasgow. Further interesting cities to visit are Aberdeen, Inverness, Stirling, Dundee or Perth. You can also go island hopping.

Scottish Highland Bagpipes

Urquhart Castle at  Loch Ness

Eilean Donan Castle at low tide

Glenfiddich Whisky Distillery in Dufftown

 

And of course the Whiskey!

Dunnottar Castle near Aberdeen

Glasgow Science Centre June 2014

By the way, to all the place I am presenting you I have a lot more photos and infos, so if you're planning your next trip, just feel free to ask!

EDINBURGH

The capital of Scotland is a beautiful city to visit! Obviously the first thing that comes into mind is Edinburgh Castle. But I also love visiting the National Museum, sitting in "The Meadows" or shopping on Princes Street. But let me warn you: It is a very hilly city...

 Sir Walter Scott Memorial opposite Princes Street

Edinburgh Castle (which is really beautifully illuminated at night)

 

Calton Hill

Holyrood Palace, the official residence of the British monarch in Scotland

 

St Giles' Cathedral

Okay, so let's talk a little bit about food and shops. No matter where I go in the UK, there are a few shops and restaurants I always have to go to because I love them, and I don't get them at home.
If you're visiting a city and you're hungry but don't want to eat in a restaurant, I can really recommend you Pret a Manger, a chain with freshly handmade natural food and drinks. It is really healthy and very tasty! Another take away or eat in chain is Wasabi. They have dozens of branches in London but hardly any outside the city, and only one internationally - in New York Times Square. They offer prepared sushi and bento. Staying with the Japanese cuisine, I love love love the Yo! Sushi restaurants. First of all, I adore Asian food and sushi in particular and secondly they have really cool restaurants! And if you want something a bit more special, check out one of Jamie Oliver's restaurants. Whenever you're a little bit hungry you can also get a Meal Deal in various shops such as WHSmith, Marks and Spencer or Boots. Which leads me to my next category, shops. I am in love with Boots! I always have to go there and buy for example the Boots body spray, the Vaseline (which now I actually wouldn't need to anymore because you can also buy it in Primark which we have in Germany) or the Johnson & Johnson baby products which are really good for your skin. And then there are shops such as Topshop, River Island, New Look or Next, which we don't have in Germany.

Okay, I'll better stop it here. I just wanted to tell you so much about travelling to the UK, and I already feel like I left out so much. I guess I have to leave it like this, and now with a broad overview you can ask for more details. And I will see you next week when we are going to talk about starting the year well prepared, finally applying the "Next year everything's going to change.."!

See you,

Jen

Denglisch

Hello everybody!

Today I want to talk about living at Boarding School. I think the best description in one sentence would be "it's like one big family".
First of all, we shared a room of four, that does not leave you with a lot of privacy or tranquillity. But it leaves you with a lot of communication, fun and experiences. At night time we used to annoy our "neighbours" through the paper-thin walls by each saying good night to every other girl, which took us about 10 minutes. But it was a lovely new ritual. I could hear my neighbour's phone vibrating through the thin walls, but I could also hear her sing to the music we had put on. She never ever complained to the high volume we used. Every morning, my other neighbour would pick me up to catch the bus together. Those are the little things that make school bearable. I felt like I had a family around. One that might not know me as well as my real one, but a family that dealt with the same situations. We developed the weirdest traditions. Like ordering cheesy chips, a cheeseburger and chips & gravy to the Boarding House, taking a taxi to get Chinese takeaway or spending three hours walking through every single aisle of the supermarket. We knew what days not to eat at Boarding and how to find our way through the millions of meadows around. Because we lived in the middle of nowhere. Heversham, a teeny tiny village in the countryside of North-western England, right next to the Lake District.

 

Moving to England being only 16 years old, I obviously didn't speak English very well. But living in an international flair you pick up very fast. We actually had more misunderstandings among the German group. Of course we spoke German, but threw in more and more English words, which got very confusing at some points. Easiest example: Chips. In Germany just like in the US chips means a bag of potato crisps, while in England chips equal fries. I really enjoyed those conversations and my stay in the UK and I am so thankful for this experience and speaking English fluently after those two years. As a matter of fact, afterwards I even chose an English taught university. But I will come back to that some other time.
Living abroad also made me become even more of a "tourist". Every six to eight weeks we were on holiday which meant I was flying back and forth a lot. I really should have collected miles :D
I got used to not being at home and got to know other cultures. It increased my desire to explore the world!

Did you make similar experiences?
Next time I want to discover England and the UK in general as a tourist destination. I am really excited, I just love every single part of it!!!

See you soon

Jen

Moving to England

Welcome in 2016!

How are you? Did you spend a great New Year's Eve? Did you make New Year's Resolutions? Today I want to tell you about one big change in my life: Moving to Boarding School in the UK.
When I was still in Year 9 at my secondary school in Cologne, the teachers approached us and told us about the possibility to do one year abroad at the beginning of Sixth Form. It sounded really exciting and like a great opportunity to broaden my horizon. As a matter of fact, I didn't like going to school in Germany, although, that's really understating it: I hated my school, my peers and being bullied. Moving away for a year sounded perfect to me! An older friend who'd already spent his year abroad in England and extended it to finish Sixth Form over there told us all about it. So my parents and I planned everything, visited and applied for several Boarding Schools in the UK and I decided to do the IB - International Baccalaureate, an internationally recognised graduation. That made Year 10, my last year in Germany, actually more bearable, because I had all the planning and anticipation. And it was worth it! I was so incredibly happy when I arrived, you wouldn't believe! In the first year I shared a room with three other girls, one of whom became like a sister to me. School in England was still like any other school. You have different groups of people, you have bullies, you have pressure. But the difference was, that I found MY group of people. What I learned during those two years is that you don't have to be friends with everybody. You just have to be yourself, be happy with who you are and find people who tolerate, respect and value you exactly that way. Of course I didn't just wake up with self-confidence one morning. In fact, most of the time I still felt like a bit of an outsider. But I had taken the first step in the right direction and my confidence grew a little bit each day. So, thank you to all my friends I got to know in those two years, thank you to those who I can still call my friends three years after I left school, no matter the distance between us.

I met my best friend Simon at Boarding School. This picture was taken at a party in Aachen October 2013.

At this point I should probably mention that, despite the bad experiences I made at school in Germany, I am still friends with one of the girls from my class.

Next time I can tell you more about my Boarding School experiences and England in general. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

See you next time

Jen