Midterm Break

Hello everyone! Here is my update of what I did during my break.

First the boring part. I have been working a lot on assignments for school, since those have to been done as well and I now had the time to work on them. It was frustrating at times, because I couldn't find things, but I managed to do quite some work. 

Besides working and studying, I also relaxed. I played games, took walks in the nature close by and read books.

And now on to the fun things I managed to do:

Oxford
As I told you in my previous blog, I went to Oxford to visit my friend and classmate Kiran. I took the bus, because it was less expensive (52 pounds versus 6 pounds). The only downside of it was that the trip from Cambridge to Oxford was 3 hours and 45 minutes, and as most of you will now, I have motion sickness. I am happy to say that everything went fine, though there was some nausea. I arrived in Oxford at 22:00 and I got a room in a backpackers hostel. I can't really say I had the best night of sleep, but it was good enough. The next morning I got a beautiful picture from Kiran and we met up at 11.30. Kiran showed me all the beautiful and interesting things in Oxford. We saw the oldest ham in the world, the colleges, the place were the writer of Narnia got his inspiration and a lot of beautiful buildings (see my pictures). We drank some tea in the morning and ate lunch at the Oxford centre for Hindu studies. Unfortunately Kiran had to leave after lunch because he had an appointment, so I spend the last couple of hours on my own. I saw a little shop full of items from Alice in Wonderland (the writer also lived in Oxford), saw Christ College (where parts of Harry Potter were filmed) and went to the Ashmolean Museum.

Frankenstein
Last night (31st of October, Halloween) I got a phone call from Beate, asking me if I had any plans. Since I didn't, she invited me to come to a play at the ABC theatre, which is a theatre for students. All the plays that are shown there are directed and played by students of the University. We went to see Frankenstein and I have to say it was really good. I have a lot of respect for the actor who played the creature. His role was so physical and hard on his voice and he played it so good. I sometimes forgot to breath because the play was so intense. I'm really happy Beate invited me!

Shepreth Wildlife Park
Today (first of November) I took the train to go to the Wildlife park in Shepreth. The weather was really good and the animals were fantastic. I saw so many different kinds of animals I hadn't seen before, and listened to talks about the Red Panda, the Tigers and the Ruffed Lemur. I also saw a demonstration about the birds of prey (they showed us two Barn Owls). They also had a Nocturnal House were bats were flying and I felt one flying just over my head, touching my hair with it's little paw. It was so exciting and amazing! 

Tomorrow my voluntary work will start again, and I have to say I'm really looking forward to seeing the children again. I'm not looking forward to getting out of bed so early. Only three weeks left of working and then in the fourth week I will be flying back to the Netherlands. It feels so surreal, knowing it's almost over. Anyway, see you next time!

Love, Nina