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

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

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

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

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

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

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