Happy Easter!!

It's been a busy and exciting time in Dutchland and surroundings for me the past few weeks!! Of course there was London two weekends ago now, which was absolutely awesome :) It was end of term this week, which meant heaps of stuff to do for uni like exams to learn and assignments to do... And last but certainly not least, I had my driving test Thursday and I passed!! So very exciting :) So lots of smiling moments in the past two weeks :)

Let's start off with London, as that's the longest ago, and then work my way up to the present. It all started on 31 March, when I made my way to Schiphol airport in the afternoon to meet up with my three very good friends who I was going to London with. We were heaps early, so we still had plenty of time to grab some dinner at the airport and play card games... But at 7 pm, we finally took off and we were on our way!! All of us were of course very excited, as none of us had been to London before. In the plane I ended up sitting next to this really nice Polish guy (who looked like your stereotype Brit, haha :)) and we got talking. It was really fun, he told me all these things about London and gave me all these tips on where to go and what to see and stuff. And what I was supposed to see from the plane if it hadn't been cloudy :) He was kind of cute and it was just fun talking to him :) Of course my friends thought it was a reason to bag me about "my Polish guy" as he was referred to thereafter for the entire weekend... But oh well, I'm used to them bagging me, and I do just the same with them :D Anyway, one hour later, at 7 pm (don't you just love time-difference :)) we landed at Heathrow airport and got on the underground to our hotel. Our hotel was just in a perfect location, it was basically in the city centre and so close to everything!! For those of you who are a bit familiar around London, it was about a one-minute walk from Russell Square to give you a bit of an idea...

So we checked into our hotel, and by the time we had everything sorted out we didn't really feel like going into the city anymore as it was already getting a bit late and we didn't really know where to go anyway... So instead we bought some stuff at the local supermarket and stayed at the hotel for the rest of the night. We just had a good time that night :) And we even went to sleep relatively early, as we had a packed day planned for the Saturday. Full of touristy stuff of course :)

So day came early that Saturday. We got up, left our hotel in the morning, only to come back in the evening. And inbetween we wandered through the streets of London like Oxford Street and Regent street, the two main shopping streets in London. Getting our map out every so often to figure out where we actually were and where we were going. And getting confused by the underground :) ( We got better at that after a bit of practice though, haha) This fundraiser guy came up to us at one point with "Are you guys Dutch? Coz only Dutch people are so tall and I only know Dutch guys who have that much in their hair" I thought that was a pretty original opening sentence, even though he had probably heard us talking before :) I think we stood there talking to him for about 15 minutes, about the Dutch and the Dutch soccer team and stuff, it was really funny.

But of course we also did some more touristy stuff than just wandering through the streets. We stumbled upon Trafalgar Square, St. Paul's Cathedral, Piccadilly Circus. We went to Hyde Park and through Hyde Park towards Buckingham Palace. Stood there like all the other tourists taking touristy photos :) Went to Harrod's of course and were amazed by the splendour of it all. Everywhere you walked there seemed to be some kind of sight to be seen :) In the evening we went back to our hotel for a bit to get freshened up and stuff. And to finally rest our poor feet who had been carrying us all day already :)

But it didn't last too long, because we were getting hungry, so it was about time we went out for dinner. My Polish guy had said it would be good to go to Camden Town for going out for dinner, so that's where we went :) And we found this really good Indian restaurant where they had beautiful food, so we had a great dinner there. And we had lots of fun :)

Later that night we went out to this pub, which was cool too. Most pubs close pretty early in London though, so by the time it was 1 am, we were already back at our hotel again. Didn't mean the night was over though :) We just continued the good times in our hotel rooms, haha.

But eventually we went to sleep though, and Sunday morning came a bit later than Saturday morning :) Another day of being proper tourists, doing the sights of London :) My friends were getting used to traffic on the left more and more (I was used to it almost straight away again, really weird...) and we got lost less and less :) So we went to see the Big Ben, Parliament House and Westminster Abbey. Contemplated going in the London Eye (the big ferriswheel) but decided against it as it was looking like rain (and it actually started raining soon after) and we decided we didn't really have the time to wait in line for 45 minutes, because we still had places to go, things to see... So after having great fish & chips for lunch, we walked to the huge and impressive Waterloo Station, caught the underground to London Bridge and from there walked along the Thames to Tower Bridge, and across Tower Bridge to the Tower of London.

By the time we had seen all that, we had about an hour left before we had to make our way to Heathrow Airport again for our return flight, so we wandered around Leicester Square which had a beautiful atmosphere with all its theatre and movie stuff :) Also walked through China Town, which was really weird to go from real British London to a bit of China it seemed :)

Unfortunately, the time came when we had to pick up our stuff from our hotel and make our way to Heathrow Airport to go back to Holland. We were all just staring blankly ahead when we were on the underground, all so very tired from the whole weekend :) We had two hours delay unfortunately, which meant I had to wait for over 40 minutes for my train to Utrecht once we were finally at Schiphol airport... It was well beyond midnight, so the trains only go once an hour around that time... But I was finally home by 2.10 am and in bed 5 minutes later, vast asleep :) Dreaming of the awesome time in London. It was simply magical :) And not even because of the sights and stuff, but just being there and being there with my friends :) Strangely familiar and so beautiful. I just loved it :D

Monday morning brought back the harsh reality of the looming end of term though. I had to get back to studying, and this time there were no excuses (though I tried to avoid studying many times anyway, haha) I turned into a total uni-geek again that week, with 8 hours of driving lessons inbetween too to get me absolutely ready for my driving test.

And so this week came with 4 exams and 2 assignment deadlines spread out over Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I was so glad when I had finished tmy final exam Wednesday afternoon :) All that was left to do now was my driving test on Thursday. I was a bit nervous in the last lesson an hour before the actual test, but once I got driving in the actual test, I was fine. It went so fast!! In less than half an hour I was done and had my licence!! :D I was so excited :) Walked around with a smile on my face all day :)

I also went out for lunch with my friend Maarten that afternoon, which was cool. Hadn't talked to him in a while, so it was really good to catch up with him again :) We decided that, as it's officially spring, we would sit outside, but it was soooo cold!! The weatherman hasn't realised it's spring yet I think, haha. It was cool though :)

And now I'm at my parents' place, taking over their car :) Seems like I have to learn how to drive all over again with their car, as it's a pretty old car and it's really heavy steering and it has really sensitive pedals. I stalled the car so many times in the past two days :) Making people wait in front of traffic lights because I'm so slow to get away, haha. But I'm slowly getting the hang of it now I think... Still manoeuvre myself in weird positions on busy parking lots, but I'll figure it out at some point :) I've got a whole week's holidays right now before next term starts, so I'm just going to try and get as much practice with my parents' car as possible. I'll be dependent on it for a while still if I want to go out with car anyway :)

Well, I think I've told you guys everything from the past two weeks by now... Hope you're all well, and as it's Easter coming up, I also hope you all have an awesome Easter :) -x- Love Carine