Name: Becky
Occupation: Student/Occassional Auxiliary Nurse/ABA Therapist/Serial traveller/owner of itchy feet
Home Towm: Bangor, North Wales
Current Location: Bangor
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| Sunday, January 18, 2009 |
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I am officially rubbish at blogging
and apologise to any faithful readers (Hello Elliot!) who are disappointed in my lack of writing. Not much exciting has happened recently, this blog is only occuring because I'm meant to be revising and since doing all my washing up, laundry, tidying my room, painting my nails and rearranging my shoes I have no other useful procrastination activities left! So for an update on the last few months: After being severly ill for the first 24 hours of being home (very frustrating after being completely healthy during 6 months of African travels!) started catching up with everyone in Norwich and preparing myself for Bangor, ie digging out my wellies and waterproof trousers! Moved to Bangor two weeks later, and fell in love. Bangor is tiny, we have tonnes of chariety shops(great for the many fancy dress nigths we have), but very little else. Howvere, my halls overlook the Menai Straights on one side and Snowdonia National Park on the other, quite possibly the most beautiful place to live in the UK. Have got involved in several societies to take advantage of this, BUMS (Bangor uni mountineering soc) and the diving club, so get to make fairly regular trips to the mountains, sea and quaries. Have also managed to get employment,auxiliary nursing at the hospital and behavioural therapy with an autistic child, though haven't started either yet. The course is going well, lots of less interesting stuff like writing reports being covered at the moment, but in the second half of the semester we covered health and clinical psych which was good. (Just not fun to revise!) I'm living with a great bunch of people, including a couple of my age which is nice. Am living with 5 of them next year- just need to find a house which is this weeks task! Despite this, I was desperate for a change of scene and some sunshine (the good weather in Freshers Week didn't last, though it's not as bad as it's reputation suggests) by November, and decided a return to Africa was needed! So... Last week I returned from 10 days in Morocco with a friend! It was very different to any other part of Africa I had seen (which is quite a lot really), far more like I imagine the Middle East is like. I enjoyed it, but would prefer the east/southern Africa. Was also unable to find a dive shop which was disappointing. Did see plenty though. We started in Marrakesh, which was crazy. Couldn't go very far without a seller calling us in 'just for looking' at their wares. From there went north to Fes where it took all of my self-restraint not to spend the latest chunk of student loan on various leather products- shoes, poofs, handbags, and anything else you can imagine! Did purchase a beautiful cactus-silk rug for about a third of the original price- I love bartering! Next stop was Meknes, which had great souqs (markets) followed by Rabat. I hadn't expected much from Rabat, but it was beautiful (partly because it was really sunny for the first time in a while). Walked around the old look-out area on the estury, through a much more relaxed souq than in other towns and then to the ruins of a Roman settlement with lots of stalks and ibis! We had planned to go to Essaouira, but discovered we could only get the bus from Casablanca at 3pm, so left Rabat early and spent a few hours in Casa. It has a reputaion as just being very industrial, but it was an interesting contrast from the other older cities we'd seen. And the mosque there is amazing. It was a Friday so couldn't go inside, but from outside it's beautiful, especially against the clear blue sky we had. Arrived in Essaouria really late and found our planned hotel was full, but were taken to another place where we found a really nice room in an apartment with a terrace over looking the city walls and the sea! The town is only little, but had very pretty whitewashed houses, a busy fishing port and a lovely beach. Will be remembered for having the most amazing orange juice I've ever tasted! From here went back to Marrakesh, where I spent an afternoon doing last minute shoping and wandering alone, and got practice my many various reasons for why I couldn't stay for mint tea! Conclusion- Morocco is nice, but don't go expecting Africa, and don't go out without a male companion. Before that spent two weeks in Norwich, where I seemed to get very little done except for work at the hospital. But did get to see most of the usual suspects which was great. Now back home, trying to revise, have done one exam and have another at the end of the week. The content isn't too difficult there is just a lot of it, and the exam is multiple choice, so to do well you have to really know what you're talking about as the options will probably only differ very slightly and there is no hope of easy marking when it's a machine doing it! Hopefully it won't be five months until I return next. I realise I've still not said much about Africa, that will probably come next time I'm bored of revision! I also have new travel plans, but they will also have to wait. 2:20 PM Comment (1) ... PermaLink |