Switzerland - Fox Town
10 sharp did the troups gathered for take off, but due to rental-issues only one of them started at somewhat correct time. So me, Sanaz, Sabrina, Antoni and Kubilay took place in the car and happily singing "Like a hobo" we took of to Switzerland! So now I can check that country off my list of places to visit, even if we didn't see so much of it...because we had another destination in mind:
The outlet was a huge mall, and it was thankfully not impossble to find your way around inside due to many maps. What was a bit confusing was that you had to think in swiss currency instead of €, it's funny how quickly you get used to some things. Still liked the £ in england more though, Elizabeth looks more charming than buildings.. On the way back we stopped at Lake Como, the second largest lake in Italy. We also had a little detour on our way to Fox town to Lugano in Switzerland, an adorable little place up at the foot of the alps!
- Lake Como -
Castellanza - Missed things
I just thought I'd upload some pictures from the previous days, so you can get a picture of what I've been up to lately!
Also, the first trip around Italy has finally been booked, so in 16 days I'll travel from Castellanza to Verona, Venice (Venedig) and Padova! Since it's arranged by the ESN crew, it means that I'll not only do that trip, but I'll do it with all my new awesome amici <3
Milano - Finally
We finally managed to get to Milano for the first time, but absolutely not the last! Due to poor weather (for once) we had to spend all day in the shops....like that could be a bad thing!
Prada, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, D&G, Jimmy Choo, Fendi, Vivianne Westwood, Micheal Kors, Alexander McQueen... Milano truly is the fashion heaven it's said to be!
Castellanza - Pool Party
Castellanza - McDonald's
Castellanza - Campus Cave
- The Cave at Campus Park -
Legnano & International Dinner
Anyways, since we were free we decided to take a walk to Legnano, one of the many other little towns next to Castellanza. With us we brought Michelle from Belgium, and off we went! It took about 15 minutes to reach the village, and another 5 to get to what we thought was the center (we found the shopping center, but apparently there's an avenue that we completely missed...), so it's really close :) Today was also one of the sunniest days yet, I can feel how the tan is creeping up on me!
Castellanza - First Night In
Since we had the night off I played cards with some other exchangies, from spain and belgium. I laughed so hard when I found out the Queen in a deck of cards is called "the Horse" in the spanish version! Also giggled way to much when the scots tried to heat their lasagna...it's not easy to live alone for the first time. Their cooking wasn't that smooth, and that's kind to say.
Tomorrow the Italian course will start, but I'll send you off with my current favourite words:
1. Sono Molto Contento = I'm very happy
2. Pomodoro = Tomato
Castellanza - First Night Out
The ESN group (the party-fixers) had arranged for all the new exchange students to go to a local pub (30 meters from school, which is great) to get to know each other a bit. It was a really nice idea, the music was low so you could actually talk, it was warm enough to stand outside in t-shirt even though it was late, and the people were awesome. There are about 10 Swedes here, which makes us one of larger groups of nationality, but we do our best to not just join and hang out with the other Swedes but all nationalities. Compared to the French for example...;) So far I hang out most with (apart from Sanaz & Gabriel) a group of Scotsmen and three girls from Hong-Kong. Going international is always awesome!
A Green Beer
- Already a legendary drink around here -
Here are some photos from Castellanza take with my phone, since I don’t have gotten a hold of a camera yet. Today we’ll have the “Italian test” (which means that I will look at the paper, shrug, write my name at the top and hand it in), and since there are no scheduled activates we created one of our own, so there’ll be some sort of game night down at the reception. You must dare to be social to get friends, that’s the one rule to rule them all when you go abroad!
- Campus - Campus - Castellanza - Castellanza -
Castellanza – off to the Grandi Magazzini
But that is no dance of roses, oh no. We started walking around in the village, which is in a much higher state of quality than I had expected, and with the weather like the one we have you simple must go outside! After a while and still without breakfast we started trying to get a hold of a supermarket. Only not one single person seems to speak any English here. After a body-language instruction we set off to what we thought was the right way. After some time we decided to ask another person, who just shook her head and by understanding words of Italian and again the lovely body-language we were actually offered a ride to the food store.
Castellanza - Arrival
So the time has once again come for me to pack everything I might need in the coming 4 months, approach the airport and fly off on exchange. Which is awesome! This time, as most of you probably know, I’ll go to Castellanza outside Milano in Italy. However this time I didn’t go completely alone and spent the night in McDonalds with a crazy lady from Greece, thankfully. Sanaz and Gabriel are my companions from JIBS, and we all flew down here together. The flight arrived 19:40, 25 minutes erlier than expected, which helped since we had to travel for 71 km to get from the airport Bergamo to our university town. So, without having to show our passports (!) we left Bergamo and got on a bus to Milano. After admiring the grand station and gobbling pasta (we’re in Italy, it HAD to be pasta!) we hitched a train. Here it got difficult, since no station had a sign with the name of it. You just see a platform and hope for your dear life that it wasn’t your final desitnation. Thanks to a local person on the train it all went well though, and we got off in the not-so-pleasant weather at the Castellanza station.
Here comes the first impression of this semester: the first thing we see is three Italian guys (with the names Mario, Fabio and Paolo) doing “the wave” and happily cheering at us. Without the slightest hesitation they take our heavy bags, like gentlemen, we all squeeze together in a car (apart from Gabriel who had to wait for another ride) and got to the campus. Such an awesome first impression, you felt welcome from the first second!
At the campus we smoothly got our room keys. All of student campus is in one huuuuge building, so you never have to walk outside to get to your fellow students, we have internal phones so we can call each other for free between the rooms, they have vending machines - and more importantly coffee machines - a cafeteria...I never have to leave this building, technically.
But the real crown jewel is the room. You might remember how it looked back in wolves, and I was expecting something alike, only slightly bigger so that two people could fit. Boy, was I mistaken! It is so big, airy, and clean and lovely. The furniture look more of less new: we have two beds, two desks, two large shelves, two large wardrobes, two nightstands and a refrigerator. And we have our own bathroom. And not a tiny little bathroom, a proper one. I adore this room. Picture will come once I get a hold of a camera. So an inventory list will have to satisfy.
So, so far I love this exchange semester. The only enemy we have is the bell tower across the road - which belongs to a church which have way too many services and/or way too many reasons to ring the bell. Especially early.
Warwick Castle
I will start by saying that after this day I have over 350 pictures from me and my friends, and it will be a nightmare chosing between them since the area, the weather, the people and the pictures were/are all fabulous!
It was time for another trip with the school, this time to Warwick Castle about 1,5 hours away from Wolverhampton. I was hoping for some nice views of a castle, which itself seemed great since I love visiting castles and experiencing episodes from back in the day, and the castle really met up to my great expectations and more!
- Some views on and from the Castle and towers-
One of the lovely things was the Peacock Garden, where dussins of peacocks walked around freely and looked stunning. They all kept making their odd sound, but who focus on their poor singing abilities when they look so gorgeous?
-Peacocks and the garden-
I actually got slightly tanned after the day, due to the amount of time spent outdoors and the sun. We saw a eagle/owl/big birds show, we visited heaps of rooms designed as they looked when the castle was in royal use, played 'Throw the rat', visited gaols and haunted halls, picknicked and just plainly enjoyed ourselves. The company of my friends did of course boost the day to the fullest, and there was nothing I didn't love about this trip.
-Me and my ridiculously amazing friends-
However the unexpected top of the cherry on top of the cream on top of the gooey chocolate fudge cake was introduced to me when we arrived. This particular Castle had been used to record part of one of my absolute favourite shows, Merlin. I got so hyped up my friend actually prefered to record me and my reaction to things instead of the actual thing itself. So I was browing around in actual Merlin Props, the Merlin tower and, to my great joy, fellow Merlin fans who like the show as I do (have I told you darlings how much I love you?) and just approves of my spasm and fan-ness.
-Merlin-
London
What would a semester in England be without at least one trip to the capital? Well, since I have visited London before back in 2010 I wasn't enitrely sure that I wanted to, but finally I managed to go there to greet some Swedish friends who was here for a while.
It was a very inexpensive trip, since I didn't need to see the touristy things or buy London Souveniers, so I ended up with two posters (Hunger Games, of course) and a t-shirt with the print of Toni Toni Choppa from One piece on. But it was nice being back in the city, and even nicer to meet my friend again!
-Picnic in a park - Toy Store - Piccadilly Circus-
Visiting Sister
As I sit on Birmingham International Airport in the fine sunshine, flipping through the latest issue of Northern Ireland Parenting with a small latte in a regular cup in absence of other reading material I can't help but feeling very content with myself. I have just travelled here with my dearest sister to wave her goodbye after ruffly a week of giggly and silly times, but now the fun was over for this time. I already miss her!
Now when she's on her way back to Sweden it is time to roll up the sleeves and dig into the pile of work that I have been postponing and procrastinating for some time, so I'll be able to enjoy the rest of my stay in England properly. It have slowly dawned upon me that Wolverhampton isn't as bad as it used to be. I will honestly miss it quite a lot when I leave in the end of May. 
Super Heroes Bar Crawl
Time to be fabulous again! Which of course means time for another Bar Crawl! This time the theme was "Super Heroes", a theme geeks like me can't resist even if you try to fight me off with a pitchfork! For over three weeks mine and Ashley's costumes have been laying in the dark closets, like lions waiting on their prey, ready to strike. And did they strike or what! 
Dressed up as the famous Mario Brothers we attacked Wolverhampton with soap bubbles, mustasches and excitement! With us we had Beatrix from Kill Bill, several X-mens, the Power Puff Girls and Herminone Granger - a better team is hard to find! Apparently Mario & Luigi are as famous here as in Sweden, and I can't remember when we got so much attention as we did that night - which is of course enjoyable but also a tad nervewracking...
- lovely, right? -
Ashley and I had this game during the evening, where we posed together with complete strangers and help up our fingers where we had drawn our Mustasches. According to the pictures I've calculated it to at least 32 different persons, out of which 2 were business men and one security guard. You can mildly say it was a utterly awesome night!
-Some of the mustasches-
(Och så vill jag passa på att hälsa till Farmor där hemma och hoppas att ni har det bra! Tänker på att er resa till Nederländerna var väldigt läglig med tanke på hur många holländare jag har lärt känna här i England!)
Cadbury World
Adventure time! This time we decided to take a trip over to Cadbury World in Bournville, which is more or less a Willy Wonka Chocolate factory in real life. There is the expected chocolate tasting & free samples, a huge shop of all sorts of things made out of chocolate, like teapots and shoes....
Bournville itself was a really cute place, however the great weather might have contributed. Sometimes I feel like England is stunning in all cities and placed, apart from Wolverhampton. Sigh,
- We couldn't help but thinking about you Ashley. click to enlarge ;)-
There's also a very flat rollercoaster, singing cacao beans and of course the classical history behind the business bit. After this Leonie and I probably won't feel like chocolate anytime soon, but if I change my mind I have a 400g bar next to me ready to be consumed...
Italia - Uníversitá Carlo Cattaneo
Hello everyone! As life is on top here in England, with a lot of exiting weekends ahead of me and a lot of free time it is anyway time to start thinking about the fall term. This fall I'll spend, for those who doesn't already know it, in Castellanza, Italy. My home university in Sweden is bombarding me with emails about different meetings they know I can't attend because I'm already here in the UK. But it's enough to catch your attention.
It feels nice to know that I'm not going alone this time, but I'll be going with, it seems, 2 other persons from Jönköping, which is always nice. This small town is located right outside Milan, and is claimed to be small but beautiful with good transportation and some heave industry. Doesn't really make sense to me, but I guess I'll notice when I get there. It feel good to already have done everything once, so I know what to expect in workload. I can just say I'm glad it is a EU country once more so I don't have to fight with vaccinations & visas this time either!
My biggest worry is actually the language. I don't know a word italian. I'll spend parts of the summer studying it on my own, but already now I'm having glossary tests with myself to at least know some basic words. The courses, which has to be in the area of economy, is also a bit more scary than the Human Resources I'm currently doing but I should manage!
So it's back to select courses, make sure I'm in the LIUC lists, find a new accommodation and then just enjoy 5 hopefully wonderful months in the South. I can already feel how much I'll miss my Wolverhampton gang, and keep on missing my JIBS people for another semester, but I usually adapt fast. Just wanted to give you a update on what's going on in my head right now, and I'll be back with stories of my exchange life in Wolverhampton soon!
- Uníversità Carlo Cattaneo School ground -
St. Patricks Day
This is the troup that was heading off to Birmingham for the celebration of St Patricks day! During the entire I was, due to a bet, holding a beer in my hand, which resultet in about 14 hours of beer holding. We started the celebration around 11 AM and ended at 3 PM, heaps of hours longer than I thought it could be fun - but it was so awesome that I don't really know how to describe it!
I have been dancing in 4 different Irish pubs, drinking irish beer with irish persons, danced with old ladies and sung along to No Nay Never Nomore and Tell me Ma to start with. Instead of writing I'll simply add a few pictures here and give you the link to the video on youtube that I made :)
Challange video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WUrEUktSF8&list=UUR34dpHrop-sS5mwmg-IFVQ&index=1&feature=plcp
Birmingham & Sushi
Hello everyone, it's been a while! The reason for that is simply because really special has happened. We've had out 'midterm' assignments due to the past week and I've been messing around with them, hopefully it all went well... Have no idea where to find my results at the moment but it shouldn't be too hard to find :)
The other day Ashley, Femke and I went to Birmingham for purely materilistic reasons - shopping. Until we drop.
The day kicked off with the little train ride (which we managed to catch thanks to our awesome trainer Garry who have taught us how to run fast in stairs) followe by a Fika. You have NO IDEA how much I miss my regular swedish fika's. After that we headed off to a bookstore called "Waterstone's". It's somewhat like 'Bokia' back home. But this was the most beautiful place I've seen in ages - books everywhere, a mess of stairs and lavishly decorated halls... I was in a book-worms heaven! Later, after hours of stores on we managed to have a second fika - outdoors! Love the weather here! 
But there is something else I must mention that we did in Birmingham. And it involves rice, raw fish, seaweed, chopsticks and awesomeness. I'm speaking Sushi. And not lame bento sushi. I'm talking movie sushi: all you can eat buffé, a rolling band with plates, wasabi, ginger and soya in masses. Delicious as crazy! I'll probably bring everyone of my upcoming visitors (Hanna & Ida that is) there, because something this epic can't anyone be forced to miss!
So to conclude I'm feeling fly and fantastic, have great days and always a smile on my face (DVS Mormor, jag mår finemang och känner mig som en liten prinsessa, du behöver inte vara orolig alls!)
City on Fire
Today a most disturbing (and very scary) fire spread at a warehouse in Wolverhampton, very close to my friends accommodation halls but fortunately not "close enough" so to speak. They did however evacuate, which is really frightning. The smoke was visable from everywhere and really thick, and the city still stinks of smoke now during the evening.
-Outside my dorm-
So, to escape the smoke (and for other reasons such as need of furniture) me, Ashley and Rachel had decided to take a little trip to my dear motherlands invention IKEA. Just the thought of reading some swedish words again made both me and Ashley all giggly and goofy, poor Rachel had to stand us mumbling in Swedish all afternoon.. After a trip by the student bus over to Wasall, and then a taxi to IKEA we did our thing (like bosses), complained somewhat over the smallness of the store and the lack of products (like a normal can opener...grr) we had somewhat of an adventure getting back home to Wolverhampton, including Polish taxi drivers, 3 misleading directions, a shut-down bus-stop and a logn wait for the bus home. The day ended with online ordering of chinese food and some taboo. Great day!
- Rachel and Ashley - IKEA - Wasall tower -
- Finally got a Semla and proper coffee, like a Swede! Why can I never smile normally on pics?-
Word of the day: Wellies [Gummistövlar]
