Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone!
So, where to start?
Me and my family went to a birthday- party. The little boy my host mum is nanny for celebrated his 4th birthday. It was nice and we even had a bouncy-castle which was really cool!

After the party we went back home and I went out with my host sisters to go for "trick or treat".
It´s the first time I ever did that and it was actually pretty cool!I loved how people decorated their houses and some even wore costumes! We had a lot of fun and plenty of sweets!!
My favorite part next to all the amazing houses was a little boy at one of the last houses we went to. They had to look for sweets for a bit and when he came back with the bucket and we took something out he started shaking the bucket and he roared like a lion. It made me jump each time but it was so adorable!
All in one I had a pretty good Halloween and I know what I´ll do with my little brother next year when I´m back home in Germany, "Süßes sonst gibt´s saures!"

 

Peterborough with my favourite Danish 💗

It finally happened again! I got to spend the day with my favourite exchange student! Andrea! She lives a bit further away, which is a shame and we don't get to meet that much but she is always there for me and she is just the best! 💗. After 6 weeks we finally met again! And we had such an amazing time!! We went to Peterborough and of course we've done some shopping! We also found that amazing Cafe we absolutely fell in love with and ate some brunch. She went for the Avocado Brunch and I had some delicious pancakes! It just looked amazing and we knew this would be our new favourite! 

The cool thing about this place is, you take seat and look through the menu. You take your table number and order whatever you want at the bar and pay. After a little while your food gets served. I just think it's something different and it's so cool! 

After a while shopping we went to "Bill's" to eat some pudding and OH MY GOD this pudding was amazing! I went for a hot chocolate brownie and it came with some ice cream and I just fell in love! 

You have the right to be hungry now because it just looks amazing! I can't wait to do that again! 

Also I want to try and start a healthy way of eating. I don't want to loose weight or anything, I just realised that I'm so much fitter when I eat healthy and I'll be less tired and more happy. I've had sleepless nights since I'm here and I'm trying to figure the reason for it. It may be it, maybe not. I'll try it. 

I'll try to catch up soon again I'm now going to relax for a week as it is half term now. Finally! 

Bye for now xx

homesickness and other thoughts

It's been a while, I know! I'll start straight away, two weeks ago I've been homesick for the first time since I'm here. My friend came over with her boyfriend -her hostfamily doesn't really allow her to hang out with him, it's a long story - because we all wanted to go to Cambridge the next day. So they both stayed at my house. Well it was not really fun for me. My friend started treating me like I'm not even there and her Boyfriend has been rude! He took food without asking, which you should do when you're at someone else's house for the first time, and they just left me out. I became angry with her and went to bed early and everything. I was so annoyed! The next day when I went down stairs for breakfast they both sat at the table and my friend took a shower earlier. Then her boyfriend stood up and said "I'll go for a shower now". My host mum sat at the table with them and he didn't bother to ask if it's okay. It annoyed me so bad, so I told them I won't go with them, cause I've had enough being ignored and treated like sh*t! I didn't tell them the real reason tho. So I spend the day at home watching some good old friends on the TV. Well so as you can read that wasn't the best weekend for me and I felt horrible. So I became homesick. I wanted to be home with my family and friends. It was such a weird feeling I can't explain! 

I thought about what I'm doing, and I realised I'm so far from home and I miss my family and friends but this exchange is something incredible, it offers me so many chances and I learn so much from it! I can be myself which I felt I couldn't sometimes in my hometown. I always thought too much about what everyone else will think if I do this if I wear that. I just wasn't myself. But I learned here to just not care. If it makes me happy I'll do it. If I like it, I'll wear it. People should like me for who I actually am! And I can't wait to live how I want to back home. I can't wait to show everyone ME! 

1 Month anniversary England 🎂🎉🇬🇧

Time is running, it's ridiculous! Exactly one month ago I said goodbye to my family at the airport in Germany and flew to England. I'm so thankful to be able to do that exchange year and it's amazing how much happened in only one month! 

I haven't updated you in quite a while and I'm really sorry but things got a bit complicated and stressful. Basically I went to a school here and I wasn't really happy there, what I did was applying to a college and lucky me I got accepted! I'm now a college girl and so much happier! Even tho I miss the friends I made at school. But I can still meet them so it's fine! In college I'm doing a course which is called "Childcare education" and I really like it! I found friends really quick again and yesterday was one of the best days in college I had so far! 😄🙈 I don't think there is a lot more to tell about my life here right now as not that much exciting stuff happened. But I'll let you know as soon as something new happens, I promise! ☺️

lovely rainbow from the other day when I went home. 🌈

See you soon xxx

meet up's and first days in school

Here I am again, another update of my new life here in England. 

At the 4th of September (Friday) I met my lovely friend Meike again. We met in St. Ives and went a bit shopping and of course we were eating, as always. :D 

We went to Costa and we both had a sandwich and a muffin and let me tell you something, these muffins were amazing!! 

Something I haven't told you yet, me and Meike are always making a bit fun about the English language. The posh "slang". We think it's funny how they're talking and we always pretend to be like posh and stuff. So when we've been eating in Costa we found that popcorn and it said "Poshcorn" on the package which we found absolutely hillarious! 

Well it's probably just funny for us but I don't care. :D 

After that my host mum picked us up and we went to "my" house. Meike ate dinner with me and my host family which was really nice! We laughed a lot and Meike, or should I say Lisa (?!) you fit in really well! :D <3 

After dinner (which the dog ruined first time by eating the veggie sauce for Meike) we went to Pidley. We had a meet up with all the EF exchange students from this region and it was so so nice to see everyone again!! 

The day after that I met up with my lovely Danish friend Andrea in Peterborough and we went shopping. We had a lovely day and we kind of spend a flipping lot of money... 😁 but it was worth it! 

I'm going to skip to Monday. First day in school..

I was so scared, nervous and terrified. I didn't knew what to do and where to go. When the bells rang everyone went outside so I just followed them then everyone got into a Tutor group and I didn't know anything about it so a boy asked me if he should show me where I can find out and we took a look at the lists in the sixth form center. Well my name wasn't on any of these lists. Then there was a speech in the assembly hall and after that everyone got their timetable. I met two girls and they showed me where I have to go and everything. (By the way my subjects are geography, English language and social & health care). I met more people through the days and it was quite funny when they asked me where I'm from, because they didn't expected me to say Germany! :D Anyway it's going quite well and everyone seems to be nice. I'll get used to that dress code and the fingerprint thing soon I think, so I'll have a good year here. Well, I hope so 😄💪🏻

   my school bus 

see you later, 

Vivien xx

first days in the new family

Saturday, 29th of August 2015

I woke up at six a clock and got ready to leave Winchester. The bus journey to Huntingdon was 3 and a half hour long I think and I kinda slept nearly the whole way. When we arrived in Huntingdon it was warm and the sun was shining, which was really nice! We got our luggage and said goodbye to each other. I'm so lucky that the most of my closest friends from the welcome days live nearby! A few minutes after we arrived my host mum Catherine welcomed me with a hug and we went to one of the Grandma's where I met my host sisters Robyn (13y) and Cayla (11y). After a while we went home and I got to meet the dog Potts who liked me from minute one as we all noticed. :b 

Nothing really exciting happened the first days I think because I can't remember anymore :D sorry about that! 

But what I do remember is Tuesday! 

Tuesday I met up with my lovely friend Meike! We met in town and went a bit shopping, ate chocolate ice cream with frozen spoons and cheesy pops! :D

We had a really lovely day together and I can't wait to do that again!! 

Thursday was the first kinda day at school for me. I went to the bus with my host sisters and Robyn showed me the way to sixth form. I talked to a lovely lady there and chose my three subjects. And that's it! :D After that I went to town with my host mum and both grandma's from the family. I got some new shoes for school (the dress code in England is horrible tho) and some paper to write on in school. A bit boring maybe this week but I'm sure it'll be more exciting when school has started! 

see you later Alligator 

xoxo Vivien

Welcome to England!

Hi and welcome to my blog! This blog will be about me- I'm Vivien, 16 years old and I am a German exchange student in the UK- and my next ten months in England. I'm doing an exchange year with "EF" (Education First, just look them up on the Internet). I'm gonna tell you on this blog what happened the last days, how I feel and what it's like to be an exchange student. So if you would like to know that keep reading....:)

Wednesday, 26th of August 2015

I woke up early this day and drove to the airport in Berlin to start my English adventure. I'm gonna skip all the hugs and goodbyes, because I hate goodbyes!

The flight was pretty good I think. I sat next so some friends I met on information meetings before (shoutout to Bianca and Jule) and we arrived in London with very britsh weather, rain. yay. 
After getting all of our luggage and getting some food we drove to Wincgester. It took us 1 and a half hour to get there and when we arrived the sun was shining!!! We took our luggage and went to the University of Winchester.  Emma- a german Ambassador from EF- said hello to us and told us to leave our suitcases here and get our lunch packet. After we got that some students who've been in Winchester for last two weeks in the camp showed us the way to the campus where the cafeteria, the auditorium and the so called "Lounge" was. We went to the Lounge where already a lot of students were. We ate our lunch and waited until something would happen. Which meant waiting, waiting and waiting. After all that waiting we got splitted into groups. I got in group yellow- which was the smallest with like 30 students in it- and had ambassador Marco as my team leader. He just finished his exchange year in Oxford and after these welcome days he would go back home to Italy. After everyone got a group we all went to the auditorium where we got some information about the next days in Winchester. I'm sure we've done some more stuff but I already forgot. Sorryyyy! 

What I still remember from that day, we ate dinner. But it wasn't that good so I'll skip that too. (I also met Andrea from Denmark and Louise from Germany). 

After dinner we all went back to the lounge to hang out. We listened to music via YouTube and I was happy when I got back to my room at half past nine. It was a really hard day and I was really tired. 

So I decided to take a shower next morning and went to bed. 

Next morning I took a shower and it was kinda horrible, there was no hot water. I kinda took the broken shower...(well done Vivien!!) Breakfast was totally fine and after that we met outside at the campus. We had a lot of information stations and I can't remember everything (again I'm sorry!) but I do remember that when we had the meeting about host family's I got to meet Meike from Holland. They put couples together, basically host sisters and brothers and they've made up some couples who would not have a host sister or brother, for example me and Meike (shout out to you Meike!)

I remember the last station was a funny dance from EF. I kinda liked it, don't ask me why I love stupid things like that! :D

I can't really remember what happened then but after dinner me and some friends went to the lounge and I got to met a lot more people there, which was pretty cool! After a lot of laughs we had to leave at half past nine again because there would be bed checks at ten. So we all went back to the University. Pretty excited for the next day I went to bed. 

Friday we finally went to London! 

We went there by bus which took us like maybe 2 hours I think. When we got there we made a ferry tour at the themse. 

After we've done that me and some friends decided to have some free time and catch some food. Which took us ages but we got some! (Hope you enjoyed your Crepes Meike :b). 

After eating, a lot of selfies (hang on) and a lot of laughs and conversations we went back to Winchester. We all kinda felt asleep at the bus. After two hours most of us woke up again and we had to notice that we're not even out of Lonfin yet which was annoying. After four hours we finally got back to Winchester and had dinner. After that we had to went straight to our information meet up about the buses next morning. After that we went back to the uni and hang out outside our rooms until ten. After saying goodbye which I still hate we went to our rooms and packed our stuff. Again I had a cold shower and went to bed. 

I woke up at six the next morning and got ready. I met my friends outside and got my breakfast packet. After saying goodbye to a few friends (I was lucky most of my friends have been at my bus) I said goodbye to Marco which made me sad, because I would not see him again next year at the farewell days. I slept nearly the hole bus journey to Huntingdon where I would live for the next ten months. More about that another day. 

Here are some selfies from me and my lovely friends (shout out to you guys, love ya x) and I'll catch up with you later. lots of hugs and kisses from your German exchange student abroad in England. xoxox Vivien.