3rd year in a nutshell

So a year ago I was freaking out big time about leaving for a year, and despite the fact I had possibly the worst start to it all, I still managed to make this year the best of my life. My year abroad is done, thank you Malaga and Shanghai, both of you were incredible.

People keep asking which I preferred, first or second semester, but it's so difficult to pick as the life I had in each was completely different...

Malaga had our beautiful friendship group, we travelled and bonded so much. Friends became best friends instantly and stuck by me. Our apartment and that incredible freedom and lifestyle. Giovanni, his Russian girlfriend and Lukas the dog. Uni was useless but the beach was great, the weather was always great and we ran through fountains fully clothed. Robert boyds and Ektor played a huge part, likewise did Sala Pizza, Malapizza and Tapas. Sala wenge, Sala white and Sala gold. Brian and the pub crawl! Soggy microwaved pizzas from Mercadona Merca-do-naaaaa. I fell in love with Mojitos in Plaza de la Merced, eating seafood and drinking Cava and Fanta Limon. The chino over the road and fresh baguettes for 50c, making salami and cheese sandwiches. El palo and the beach, how we all became a family. The girls made Malaga Malaga, and the lazy Spanish lifestyle fitted me perfectly.

Shanghai was so big and scary. But a great place to live. We lived so differently, we worked hard in the week and partied hard at the weekends (and the evenings). We drank free champagne in the tallest bar in the world, and walked along the bund like it was home. We shopped at the fake market as locals and bought too many things for a dirt cheap price. If only luggage wasn't a restriction I would have brought so much more back! Dorms were boring and the beds were ridiculous, but the food and cost of everything was perfect. Chinese food is ridiculously cheap, from 65p for a meal in the canteen to only £10 for a really nice meal out. Had a huge international friend group and class, and a lovely boyfriend who took me on lovely dates. Didn't even miss home as much as I'd predicted, it definitely felt like I should have stayed soo much longer!

So, I can't choose between the two!

America, Canada, Ireland, Wales, Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Sweden, Holland, Belgium, Poland, China, Australia , Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Russia, Morocco, India. New Zealand. South Africa. A collection of nationalities I met along the way, I feel so lucky to have friends in all corners of the world that I may travel to one day. Will always be a big fan of international love!

       Adios!    再见!    Bye!

The end

I feel once again very neglectful towards my blog, not updating it since Beijing was rather silly on my part as now I'm home in the UK and realised just how much I didn't write about over the last month and a half in Shanghai. How to summarise that? I guess as you would assume, a lot of nights out, cheap food and hangovers in classes. But otherwise it went something like this...

Had a kidney infection, that sucked, couldn't move and had to pay £250 for the pleasure of 7 tablets and a lovely chat with a doctor who was probably the most dedicated doctor. Emails aand phone calls and offers to open the surgery out of hours if I was in pain. Probably worth the £250 but I did miss the NHS at this point. I've now claimed this back though, thank god for insurance! 3rd claim of the year... They must hate me.

A day trip to Suzhou, a great group of people and a lot of scenery. Went with Hutong school people, mostly Lucas friends and then Charlee and I. We bought hats on a boat because we got ripped off. However twathat club didn't last long. We wandered round gardens and then got temporarily stranded when there wasn't enough tickets on the last train home. 

Mum visited! I made her try Chinese food and she actually enjoyed it! Biggest success. We did every sight there was to see in Shanghai except the pearl tower which I'm sad I never did. So much walking and so many pictures. Buut I had to do it once so made sense with mum! She had a great week, so did I. Highlight was seeing shanghai from 100 storeys high, lowlight possibly seeing mum start dancing to moves like jagger, by herself in the champagne bar of the 94th floor, the highest bar in the world I must add. I wanted the floor to just swallow me up. Overall a great week with Mumma in China.

Charlees birthday. Pretty crazy! Massages in the day and then our final Pubcrawl at night. Rather rather messy, everyone was such a happy drunk and it was so nice to see how many people came.

Lucas last week! The best brunch ever, ate so much I was sick but never been soo amazed by such a large choice of such incredible food. Last crazy night with the lianhua boys at Muse, so sad but always such fun. 

Revision revision revision. C ban exams were 10x worse than B ban and had the weekend after Luca left to cram for them. Absolutely crazy, downloaded a flash card system which made me learn a lot, but still much harder than the first set of exams. Sad face.

FREEDOM. Final champagne ladies night straight after exams, followed by too much drinking and eating with friends, and tooooo much shopping at the fake market again. Whoops at how much money I spent.

Packing up, incredibly sad seeing my room go from so homely to so bare. Luckily we could pay to stay a few more days. I was pretty much the last there, so I spent my final evening packing up, watching the Wimbledon final and enjoying my last Pork buns. 

And that's it. Highlights of the last 7 weeks crammed short and sweet for one final summary blog post.

Over and out! For potentially one last time...