Sunday, 17 December 2017

IT'S CHRISTMAS BREAK ~~~~

Finally after painful times of assessments, essays and lab reports our time to rest has finally come!

We commenced our holidays with Star Wars: The Last Jedi on Friday night. Geo wasn't satisfied, but I didn' think it was that bad. It had it' moments (Good and bad).

On Saturday we set off to the airport, and a stressful check in and border control later we were on our flight to Abu Dhabi. Thankfully we were able to check in early and had seats next to each other. Geo mostly watched a Korean show on Netflix while I watched a movie called "What happened to Monday?" It's a new idea I haven't seen developed before which made the movie quite interesting, especially as a in flight entertainment it was perfect. Our Stewardess was painfully slow especially with our hunger increasing. When we finally received the food it was amazing, especially the blueberry almond cheesecake dessert ("better than Sainsbury's" according to Geo).

So 7 hours later - includiny 3 hours of broken and uncomfortable sleep - we arrived in Abu Dhabi. Determined to try our best but with not much hope we dashed for the exit and at a speedy pace walked to border control. We booked a free Etihad shuttle to Dubai however only had 1 hour and 20 minutes to get to it. To our surprise everything went so smoothly that we made it to the station nearly 40 minutes before our bus!!

It was time to take a breath of the surprisingly cool Abu Dhabi air and enjoy the sunrise:

Another 2 hours later we arrived in Dubai, checked in to our hotel and set off to Madina Souq a beatiful market with a great view of the Burj Al Arab. Once again we (mostly I) suffered from hunger as we didn't have breakfast and all the restaurants that would serve lunch were still closed. 


On the way to our next destination the Jumeirah Mosque it started pouring down like a waterfall (just out luck to see rain in the desert) so we changed our plans and headed to the Dubai Mall. Our long wait for food was rewarded with some amazing Lebanese food, especially the aubergines were delicious.


Now we are off to our desert tour!

Friday, 3 November 2017

Our Day Trip to York - Continued

As Geo left it to me to tell the story of the rest of the day, let me first start of with some before and after York Minster pictures:

This is us before we climbed 275 step to the top of the tower (please note how happy Geo looks, it is because he didn't realise, yet, that we are not taking the elevator XD)

This is us on top, it was certainly worth the climb! But wow was it windy.. my hair was a mess the rest of the day...

So after the Minster we started our hunt for food. You ask why hunt? Well... by the time we climbed back down from the tower it was close to 2pm and seemingly everyone in town was having lunch as we had to try 3 different restaurants until we finally found one with "only" a 20 minute wait. Well, that turned out to be even longer as after 20 minutes we had gotten a table, to then hear that it would be another 30 minutes until we could be served food... - well, satisfied with being seated in the warmth and access to WiFi, we stayed. And it was worth it! Best Mushroom soup I had had in a while.

All warmed up and filled with energy, we decided to take a walk along the river. From there we carried on along the York city wall, stopping at the old tower ruins. There were loads of grazing geese (I was really excited).



We finished the trip by eating an amazing Crepe while waiting for our bus back.



It was a good day, and while it was very windy (and totally destroyed my hair) we got really lucky with the weather. With many deadlines coming up and my dodgeball competitions starting, I doubt you will hear from us until Christmas. But we have a Dubai trip to look forward to!
-KK

Wednesday, 1 November 2017

Our Day Trip to York

We're Back~~~

Sorta. We've been busy in our own ways, Ksen working on her driving skills, me just working on breathing. All is good and we hope to continue to write on this blog more often. Sorta.

Quick update, I have moved into my new place and have started my 2nd year in uni and Ksen has done the same. Nothing too special has happened, just life got the best of us and we couldn't find good topics for this blog but with Ksen's reading week here we decided to go on an adventure~

York Here We Come/Went(?)

On the miserable UK morning, we hustled our sleepy selves to the Leeds Bus Station. 
As we decided to take the ZAP bus (6 pounds there and back) we had to make it to the station in just under 40 mins, so with haste we grabbed our gear (myself the beautiful OM-10 and Ksen the 700D) and dashed through the foggy depths of Leeds.

Apparently Ksen isn't a morning person anymore
Lo and behold we made it on time. 
This got us on a bus ride to York with a bunch of grannies. 
They were pretty chill and soon became our apparatus of identifying where we had to get off. 

Arrival and Our 1st Mission of the Day

As Ksen was feeling slightly under the weather, our first mission, although slightly too British for my taste, was to find a warm cup of tea.

The camera isn't too nice to me either
This one cup of tea got Ksen back to a travel ready human body so off we set off to our first destination....the York Minster.
But before that, we went through this really nice alley (York is basically a blob of nice alleys) on the way, which got us thinking..... why are there so many Harry Potter things here? oh and a doggo.
Woah..these people are dedictate
Come live me with doggo ditch your owner
After about 1 to 15 minutes of walking we finally arrive at the York Minster!




And that was it for the morning. Part 2 will be coming with Ksen's inputs yay

- GK



Sunday, 2 July 2017

Summer is here

We are done with exams! Well we have been done for a while and now results day is close and looming over us.

A lot has happened, and we were just too busy to update the blog. Our student accommodation contract has run out and there has been a lot of packing and moving. First I moved out, then Geo, then we moved in to my new place...

So much stress and so many things to sort out. Example: I am currently writing this from the university library because the internet at home doesn't work yet. Sad, I know. Even sadder, that tomorrow I have to go back to work and Geo is leaving for the rest of the summer this Saturday.

On the bright side: The weather is nice and we now have a garden, so we can BBQ! Also I am really enjoying the work in the lab, so that is nice.

I would add some pictures from the past month, but I have forgotten my phone cable at home, so those will be posted some other time.
-KK

Monday, 24 April 2017

Post Germany - End of Easter Break

Okay, so you have probably noticed that we did not finish writing up our Germany trip. One of the reasons might be that the last day didn't contain anything particularly interesting but also Geo was *coughlazycough*.

Our second to last day we went to Wurzburg, the city I spent most of my time in Germany in. It was cool to be back and see what things changed and which ones stayed the same. We walked around city centre and then so enjoy the weather walked to my house which was further than I remembered it to be! We walked for over an hour and according to our phones walked more than 6 km! We also decided to finish the trip fancy and had some sushi, which was awesome too!




I've always thought that this building looks like the one from the movie "Back to the Future"



On the departure day we finished our trip with another round of buffet Chinese, and then headed to the airport. The flight was a bit delayed but it was all good, and we got to Manchester with even enough energy to grab some groceries on the way home. The weather in Germany was so good that we were in the mood for a BBQ. We bought some meat and we had brought a package of German sausages from Germany. Unfortunately, the weather was not as nice as in Germany, so with mere 10 degrees outside and a slight drizzle we made a public attraction out of ourselves, grilling in that weather. But it still went well and the meat was super tasty!

After that hilarious day in Manchester, we travelled back to Leeds and spent the last week of the break there. Partially studying, but mostly just resting and eating it was a wonderful conclusion to our holiday!

Now, it's back to uni again, and with loads of deadlines and exams quickly approaching we are quite busy.. But, we had an amazing break and it is sad that it is over. Still, as stressful and tiring uni is, it is still interesting and a good experience, so on to that.
-KK

Sunday, 9 April 2017

2017 Germany Trip #8 - April 9th

Sunday is a special day in Germany. This might be foreign to many - and believe me, it's as inconvenient as it sounds - EVERYTHING IS CLOSED.
For that reason we have decided to take another day trip. My grandma suggested a bus trip to a tiny town which has the biggest collection of Christian Cribs. In addition with Easter coming up it had an exhibition of painted Easter Eggs. The day tour turned out to be very popular with the elderly, and Geo and I must have been the only ones under 50 XD
Both were really interesting, especially the displays in the Crib museum as all of the scenery, such as houses and walls, were made out of Styrofoam. I will add pictures below to show how artful and realistic these were. We both were more impressed by the scenery than the Cribs themselves, but seeing the massive collection of installations from many countries and centuries was pretty cool too.
The bus journey took us along a scenic road, it was beautiful.

It was crazy to believe all the 18 000 eggs used in all the displays were hand painted.

Some were even carved.

Others stitched.

Here one of the scenes from the crib museum. Look at the buildings.

Just look at them! It's styrofoam! not real brick! 
 The weather was wonderful today. Blue skies 22 degrees. So after we arrived back to Stuttgart in the evening, Geo and I decided to go on another stroll around the city center and just enjoy the weather in the park. I will let you judge how long we stayed from the following pictures.




And another wonderful day done.
-KK

Saturday, 8 April 2017

2017 Germany Trip #6&7- April 7th & 8th

Ksenia's Ruined Nostalgia



Bright and early (my standards) we headed to the German Museum (ironically a science museum). 
One of us forgot our student card so couldn't get the full discount, but it shall be our secret.

The day basically consisted of us just looking through 7 floors of science, each floor with few different topics of which could be viewed. A sample image of what was going on:

Here you see Ksenia in her natural habitat *quiet voice*
But going into this, Ksen was like, "it's sooo interactive. It's the best science museum. So much to do. I loved it as a kid." Those of you who read my title, you can assume that this wasn't the case.
I liked it, she liked it, but she was also disappointed.

The day ended with a "traditional German" doner kebab. 

Another museum?!?!?

Apparently we're museum addicts....kinda.
A similar start to the day but a little bit more delayed so that was nice.
We headed to a toy museum cause we read about it online the day before. 
Long (not really) story short, it wasn't worth it. It was a 'personal' collection so there wasn't any discounts, not many toys to begin with, but also very very creepy. Not my favorite part of this trip. 
You would think for 4 euros there'd be more than 3 tiny rooms as big as my bathroom (prbly not but you get my point). This does not deserve images.

This followed with something I enjoyed. I hope Ksen did too XD
We went the pride(according to me) of Munich, the BMW museum.
Pretty self explanatory to what it was about and was in there but and interesting event happened.
Ksen banged her head on the corner  of a locker that she opened while standing up. 
Sooo technically she hurt herself...poor child. Pat pat. The aftermath:

She has a dumpling on her head

Back to BMW: Here are some of my favorites


The lights aren't actually on! Just a reflection from the flash

Random Ksen Moment #1



Twas a nice day.
- GK



Thursday, 6 April 2017

2017 Germany Trip #5 - April 6th

Today we have set out on our way to Munich. Easier said that done.While the morning packing and leaving the house went very smoothly, our plans were interrupted by a major mistake on the way to the Main Train Station. We took the tram and had to stamp our tickets on the way in. Forgetting to do that before sitting down, we had no chance to act before suddenly ticket control people went in right behind us. And BAM no excuses or explanations were listened to and we were written a 60 Euro fine EACH! Well that throws our budget out the window…Oh well, after that behind us, we bought ourselves some breakfast and boarded our ICE (German Speed Train) to Munich. Two and a half hours later we arrived at the Munich Main Station. While we were super lucky with the weather all the days even to the point of walking around in just T-Shirts outside, it was freezing today. Wearing 3 layers my hands were still getting numb – so our city centre touring consisted of regular shop visits to warm up.
Munich is visibly a very different city from Stuttgart, for some reason Geo and I had a feeling that it felt greyer. However, there are loads of pretty amazing sights that we have captured in our photographs. We also enjoyed a traditional German meal of half a pork knuckle and a hunter’s schnitzel.The day was nice and relaxing, just taking in the city with its sights and shops and getting the feel for the surroundings.







-KK

Wednesday, 5 April 2017

2017 Germany Trip #4- April 5th

Porsche Porsche Porsche!!! (among other inferior things)

But first...

After the pain of waking up early on the third day today started with a nice late(ish) morning.
In other words, how human should live.
This lead to a couple of hours of watching youtube just waiting for lunch time. 

Ksen has been excited for this particular lunch for ages now.
Strangely this menu was....*drum roll*.... German Chinese, also known as take out central. 
In buffet format 'The New Shanghai Restaurant' had pretty much all take out chinese food in actual tasty format. Not bad indeed. 



After filling our stomachs more than they were humanly designed to, we headed to the hospital to visit Ksen's grandma. She was released today, I'm not doctor but I think it's a good thing. Yay!

This followed with the most anticipated event of the day, (at least for me) we headed to the PORSCHE MUSEUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HUMAN....but why you stand there..
We looked around EVERYWHERE. More like I looked around for cars and Ksen looked for chairs.
Really nice building, 2 floors, and took us 2 hours. Everything was beautiful. 
But there was a singular, sinful Audi. Disgrace.

I took photos like a crazy person, and I'm guessing Ksen wasn't as enthusiastic XD
There was everything from hyper-cars to tractors. Take a look humans:



After a couple hours of fan-boying over the Porsches we went down to the museum shop. 
I bought a gift for my dad....but guess who didn't?  (the answer can be identified by looking at the writer of yesterday's blog post)

We decided to end the day with a chill activity (as it seems to have been the unofficial theme of the day). We headed to the mineral water park/spa. Naturally there aren't any pictures here cause you know, other people would probably freak. But bottom line, it was chill.

So that's it for today. Tomorrow we're heading to Munich so hoping there's wifi there. 

- GK


2017 Germany trip #3 - April 4th

So you are probably wondering why there wasn't a blog post last night. Well - we were tired XD Yesterday we went to the theme park "Europa Park". It is a huge park with loads of regions based on European countries. Of course there was no way to go on all the attractions in one day, but to be fair most we have grown out of (even though some looked VERY tempting).

But let's rewind to the beginning of the day.
My grandma was so nice to actually write us a schedule of trams and trains we needed to get, so that we would arrived to the long distance bus we needed to take with some time to spare. This would mean that we would have to leave the house at 6.20 in the morning (super early already), but if you know me, you'll guess that I would not go with this plan. I get super panicky about being on time, and as we only had this one chance to take this bus to the theme park, I wanted to leave earlier. However that meant waking up at 6.... even I, who usually wakes up quite early, was not happy when the alarm clock rang. My sleepy head boyfriend (who by the way is asleep as I'm writing this) was not amused indeed. But even in his sleepy and grumpy state he was still excited for all the roller coasters so away we went in the cold and dark eagerly awaiting sunrise.

With the travel plan written out we had no trouble finding the trains we needed to take. And instead of arriving 20 minutes before the needed bus like my grandma planned we arrived 40 mins too early. Well, this gave us time to buy some German pastries for breakfast and eat them before the bus arrived.

Then the most exciting part of the bus ride: the Autobahn. This is a German highway which is famous for not having any speed limits. You should have seen the excitement and sparkle in Geo' s eyes as the cars raced by the window. After the initial excitement we faced the disappointment of dense traffic and also sleepiness. For the rest of the 2 and a half hour bus ride we slept.

And then there it was: the entrance of the park. The day before in preparation for all the rides, I had bought some medical chewing gum containing medicine to prevent motion sickness. Eagerly chewing on my gum, I joined Geo in the line to the park. But then I say line, there was no line! While there were still many people considering that it was a non holiday Tuesday the park visitor numbers we very manageable!!!

Geo and I like roller coasters the most so we right away headed in the direction of the biggest one. On the way there we popped into a ghost house, which started off with a terrifying walking section and a non scary ride section. A little underwhelmed by the second part of the horror house we continued to the Silver Star, this Mercedes-Benz themes roller coaster is the tallest of them all. With a height of 73 metres and a maximum speed of 130 km/h it was truly terrifying. They also had the cool option to line up for the first row of the roller coaster only, and while the wait is longer we still decided to join that line, as sitting at the very front gives you the full experience. Even in the longer line our wait was not quite half an hour, which is nothing for a good ride. Geo had the best seat (and I wouldn't have wanted it, I was scared enough) which was the left edge of th3 front row. This seat seemed to be free floating as the rails ended at my seat. Of course that helped the adrenaline and made the ride even better. It's hard to describe how scary and at the same time amazing the feeling is, but just know that at the first huge drop I held my breath because it was so steep and fast! It was one of the most exciting rides, so Geo and I revisited it at the end of the day for round 2 before we left the park. On the second go we sat in the middle to feel the difference. Of course we were a lot more chill as we already knew what was coming and sitting in the middle and seeing seats in front of you rather than the drop made it less scary too. However, it also added an element of surprise as we couldn't see the drops coming and we're suddenly falling with no preparation.

We went on all the other existent roller coasters in the park which if I am not wrong are an additional 7 of them. The highlights were the Russian Space ship themed one, as it consisted of turning wagons, which meant going half the way backwards and the in the Island section Gazprom one, as it accelerates from 0 to 100 in 2.5 second and has loads of twists and turns (with a loop too).

We also went to a few twisty rides like teacups and Viking to test how good my anti sickness chewing gum was and I must say - it worked surprisingly well!

Another memorable experience was the VR roller coaster. This is basically a rollercoaster ride while wearing the gear over your eyes. While at first being sceptical about the cartoon drawing style of the surroundings the ride turned out to be super fun! As the glasses show you a completely different reality you have a totally different perception of the ride. For example at the beginning it looked like we were going perfectly straight, but when a witch arrived and broke the rails we suddenly started falling, which coincided with the fall of the roller coaster. It was really fun. 

We spend most money on food (of course we did XD)  eating loads of different foods from all over Europe - Gyros in Greece, Raclette in Switzerland and so on. We also spent some money on an arcade which was super fun and scarily addicting XD

All in all it was a great day. We arrived home at 10 pm and were just too tired for the blog. I hope that now you see why.





-KK