Helloooooo,
It's summer!
And as if that wasn't pleasant enough, I started mine end May and I'm only starting college mid-September. So that makes my summer break twice as long.
People keep asking me; "so what did you do in summer". Well, I know I went to India to study, but that doesn't make my summer break more 'exotic' or 'exceptional' than other people's. For me it was mainly sun, beach and friends. Although sun is a subjective concept in Belgium... First month I spend most of my time working so I could earn some money before holidays and college. Considering that my friends were still passing their exams, I couldn't meet up with them yet.
My parents also organized a surprise-birthday-party for me. It was nice to see that everyone made some time from studying for their exams to come. I had an amazing time and it felt good to be back home. As soon as my brother and sister were done with their exams, we left to spend out holidays at the beach. There it was just a "chill" holiday where friends and family came occasionally to visit us.
Here are some pictures of a weekend with friends at the beach. You can see we had fun ;)
With as main activity... cooking (and eating ofcourse)
 |
| Dancing... |
 | ||
| And going to the beach no matter the wind of Belgian beaches |
So except for that nothing special or worth telling.
And finally... as promised... Thailand!!
Yes, I know, there was a gap, but I never promised when ;)
So in MUWCI last year during travel week, me and a group of friends decided to go explore Thailand. We convinced our teachers and principle and started making plans. As we only had a week, we realized it was impossible to see everything. Therefore, we made priorities (which in a group of 5 people was harder than it seems). Although we wanted to relax and lay on the beach occasionally, we wanted to visit culturally and take up some Thai traditions.
So we decided to go to Bankok, Pattaya and Phuket. Even if Pattaya and Phuket seem like two 'party-and-beach-only' places, there were a lot of temples to visit. Honestly, in general I can say that Thailand is an amazing country. The people are warm and welcoming and always ready to help. One time when we had to get to a bus station to order tickets for the next day, a servant in the restaurant helped us by bringing one of us to the bus station and ordering the tickets and then fixing a taxi for us to get to the bus station the next day. Although there was a language barrier I can thus say that the people were lovely and extremely helpful. Except for that the country is amazing. Everywhere where you walk there are beautiful buildings, cute little shops, streetshops, little markets,... In other words: cuteness level 100.
Visiting was exhausting as we wanted to see as much as possible in one week, but it was wonderful and a great experience. We saw some of the most beautiful temples we'd ever seen in Bankok (where we sadly enough weren't allowed to take pictures), we saw some of the most white beaches and blue sees around Phuket (where we did a boat-trip to see the islands) and we had to face the cruel reality of sex-tourism in Thailand that is obviously seen in all corners of Thailand. I cannot explain how wonderful it was, I would just advise you to go to Thailand when you have the opportuinity and see it for yourself. Here are some pictures of us in Thailand...
 |
| A beautiful wooden temple in Pattaya (which we couldn't photograph from closerby) with Bianca (Mumbai) and David (Costa Rica) |
 |
| A pictures on one of the islands around Phuket |
 |
| A little Budha in Bankok |
 |
| A big budha in Bankok |
 |
| Another of the islands around Phuket |
 | |
| A tuktuk (litte like India) in Pattaya with Bianca (Mumbai), David (Costa Rica) and Alvaro (Guatemala) |
So that's it, I don't have a lot of pictures of this trip sadly, but I repeat that I would totally recommend it to anyone who's planning a trip in Asia.
So now I am getting ready to start my college life at Glasgow University. It's exciting as this is said to be the best time of your life (although they say the same about a UWC-experience so I wonder which one will win), but at the same time it's scary. Even though it might seem like compared to India this is nothing, I will still need to adapt, start over, make new friends, get used to a different life and life-style. It is at the same time weird to see MUWCI profiles filling up with pictures without us, second-years, and with new, unknown people. I don't feel the 'after-muwci'depression' people have yet, but I can say it's a little weird. I'm skyping with my friends, keeping in touch, but at the same time I'm realizing that I will lose touch with most of them and that each of us will start having a new life in places all over the world. I hope about certain people that I will keep in touch and that in some miraculous way we end up back in the same place at some point in our lives, but we will see what the future brings. For now everything just feels like a long break and not like a goodbye ;)
So, as you can see, I will try and keep the blogging up and keep you all posted about Glasgow.
No more MUWCI-adventure for me on this blog soon, but other adventures to come...
Lots of love,
Pauline
