The hat, the coat and the person inside...

Current blog has been moved

2015-07-08T16:15:00.000+03:00

Thank you guy for still coming to this blog and reading it.

I'm letting you know that I made myself a new personal page at http://www.sandergansen.com, that is also hosting my blog and I've imported all posts from here to there as well.

Have a great time and meet you there!

Days #12 to #15: A magical place called Verona and the last minutes of Italyt

2014-08-27T07:28:00.000+03:00

Good morning to all of you! / Tere hommikust kõigile!

The last couple (four) days have been full of things to do, so I have not even had a chance to write my blog, but now I am here to write one that covers all of those days, when we were in Verona, camping and watching a play, shopping and waiting for the plane back home. / Viimastel päevadel pole ma jõudnud blogi kirjutamiseni, ent nüüd teen selle tasa seeläbi, et antud postitus hõlmab endas kõiki neid viimaseid nelja päeva, mil me olime Veronas ja ka seda viimast, kui ootasime lennukit.

Have a good read! / Head lugemist!

In the morning of the 24th of August, we ate, packed our things and waited for our driver, who would take us from Giulianova to Verona, which is a five or six hour drive. Finally, after my grandmother had asked me at least ten times, where is the driver, he arrived, just 2 minutes later than he had supposed to. It turned out to be a DJ and his fellow DJ with a cooperative name "The Smoothies", who were going to have their gig near Verona and he had a Mini. Now sitting in the Mini, writing the last blog post, I reckoned that I like Mini's almost as much as I like BMW's, and in some ways, I like the first one even more - you got to know the feeling to drive inside one to know what I mean.

On our way to Verona, we made one stop at a Autogrill, where we were bought a coffee, as we had kindly given them a small bottle of vodka as a present. Later on, we made yet another stop at a Autogrill to eat - as we still had some pizza left (nine pieces to be exact) we decided to eat it and not waste money.

When we finally arrived to Verona, the guys dropped us off near the city center, which was amazing - we said our byes and they made me promise to show them some Estonian girls, when they would ever come to Estonia, or Baltics for that matter. We paid 60€ and went our ways.

In Verona, we started to look for Wi-Fi in order to know if we had found ourselves a host to sleep at - we had not and as it was getting late, we went to a camping place named Camp Castello San Pietro - I really do recommend it. There we decided to get a tent, after we had waited for an hour or two again to be sure if we did not have a host. Before we went to sleep, I bought two beers, a soda and a pack of chips for 10.20 € in total.

In the next morning, after paying for the night (36€ for a lot, two people and a tent rent) we decided to leave the bags to the camp and go to the town, firstly looking for a outlet that did not open before 15.30 and eat. We found a nice bakery, where we bought two sandwiches, two sweet pastries, two coffees and a big orange juice for 9.80€.

Later on we decided we would go to a mall nearby, as there was supposedly a bus that takes people there for free - as we still had time, we decided to go to a cafe to have an ice cream - so we took a banana split and Lele paid for it 7.90€. After eating it, we went to look for the bus, but as it turned out on the next day, we had been looking for it on the wrong side.

Then we looked around and decided we would still go to a hotel for the night as still no couchsurfer had answered - we looked at booking.com, went to the tourist information and finally, after the woman in the tourist information had done some silly things, we had a room to run for, as she booked it for us so that we would have to get there in 30 minutes. We got there, looked the room over, it was fine, we took it and it was time to retrieve our bags from the camping site.

On our way there, we stopped at the outlet mentioned before and it turned out to have even higher prices than many normal stores, so we left. At some point Lele wanted to sit down and wait for me to get the bags and so I did - 20 minutes later I was back again, this time with bags and had also spent 1.60€ on a drink up there in the camp.

Then it was time to get back to the hotel, where we groomed ourselves in order to go to see a opera, that turned out to be more like a operetta about Romeo and Giuliette. Before arriving there, we made a stop to grab a bite and some waters to the play. It all costed 12.50€ and we were full. Then it was time for the play - we paid 48€ for the tickets and soon it started. It was really good, so I recommend it. After the operetta, they also gave us some free wine and then we went home, stopping at gelato place to get a pistachio one for 4€.

In the next morning, after breakfast, it was finally the day we had been waiting for - we went shopping. We left our bags to the hotel, checked out, paid 70€ and started looking for the bus to take us to the mall. The bus came and we got to the mall. There we went through all the gates and ended up buying eight things in total (six for me, two for Lele). My things costed 202.92€ and Lele's costed 24.94€. Then we went to eat some burgers at the Burger King, where Lele paid 15.60€.

After that shopping tour,we went back to the bus to get back to Verona, only to see that is was raining really badly. As we got back to town, we went to shop some more as Lele still had not found a cardigan for herself that she so badly wanted (we did not find it). Then we took our things from the hotel, walked to the central station to get a couch (for 12€) to Verona airport, where a nice blablacar driver Fabio picked us up to take us to Bergamo airport (for 14€).

Arriving to the airport, we put away my bag for 4€ and went to do some more shopping at a mall on the other side of the road. There Lele finally found some more things and paid 29.98 for them. Then we bought some food and drinks from the supermarket for 3.78€ and went to eat some panini for 4.50€ each (9€ in total).

By that time it was time to return to the airport, where we tried to sleep but they were always making people move from one side of the airport to the other in order to clean it up. Finally though, we bought our last bottle of water for 2.10€ and are now boarding to the plane.

See you in Estonia!

All in all we spent:

* 60€ to get to Verona.

* 10.20€ for food and drinks.

* 36€ for camp.

* 9.80€ for breakfast.

* 7.90€ for Banana split (Lele paid)

* 1.60€ on drink.

* 12.50€ for food before operetta.

* 48€ for operetta.

* 4€ for gelato.

* 70€ for hotel.

* 202.92€ in shop (for me)

* 24.94€ in shop (for Lele)

* 15.60€ for food at Burger King.

* 26€ to get to Bergamo airport.

* 4€ to store the bag.

* 29.98€ in shop (for Lele again).

* 12.78€ on food.

* 2.10€ of the water.

I will count the total later on.

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Thank you for reading this post and have a nice morning! / Aitäh, et lugesite seda postitust ja ilusat päeva teile!

Sander Gansen

Day #11: Big pizza means big pizza here in Giulianova

2014-08-24T10:24:00.001+03:00

Good morning once again! / Tere hommikust taas!

Yesterday was our last full day here in Giulianova and we managed to go shopping, eat pizza and just have some good time / Eilne päev oli meie viimane täispikk päev Giulianovas ning me käisime šoppamas, sõime pitsat ja puhkasime niisama.

Have a good time reading the rest of the post! / Nautige edasist postitust!

In the morning, as usual, my grandmother wanted to go to beach after eating, but this time we decided we would not go and instead start thinking how we would get back to Milan Airport and where else would we want to stop before that - therefore after grandmother left, we took out map and looked at different places near Milan, where we could go and at the same time looked, whether someone is driving towards with blablacar. After some looking, we decided our next stop was going to be Verona and I started to write couchsurfing requests to get someone to show us the town and host us as well.

After some time, we decided to go to the town square, as we had heard that on Saturday's they have a market there on the streets - and apparently they really do have it on every Saturday, as we found out when we reached there. Unfortunately I must say, there was nothing for men, unless you are either fat or just have a really lousy taste in clothes, in those cases, it was the right place for you to be. For women, in the other hand, they had plenty of things. So much in fact that Lele could spend 52€ in less then 20 minutes - thank god the market was not that big :D. All in all, Lele bought herself a green dress, a nice jacket, a leather bag and a hat of some sort (you can see and will see some of those things from here).

Then we went back to home, where we decided to play some more Xbox and at some point Lele made some really good fried chicken with lemon and had a salad of tomatoes and onion next to it, although the onion was not that good. By that time,grandmother had come back from the beach and we continued playing Xbox. At some point we decided to stop doing that and we just had some leisure time and some time to look at whom we could stay at in Verona.

When the evening came, my grandmother decided we could go and have pizza as dinner, so we did go out, just as it was finally raining (they had been saying it will rain for days but it hadn't yet).

As we reached to different restaurants and pizzerias, they all said, we would have to wait for another two hours before we could get pizza, as in Italy, they just do not offer dinner before seven o'clock in the evening. Therefore we went back home and the girls were yapping something about not wanting to go back that late, but I had decided I will eat pizza, therefore I made Lele to rearrange her thoughts and make herself ready two hours from that point - she agreed if we would take it home and eat it there.

Two hours later, after just some leisure time, we were ready to try again and went to the pizza place that was supposedly the best in town, where they in fact did not have service to eat food there but you had to order it and go elsewhere, e.g. home. So we did. We decided to order three big pizzas, as the boxes we saw were the same sized as they are in Estonia. And oh, what a mistake it was. Ten minutes later and 22.52€ poorer, we were amazed how big the pizzas were, took a picture with one of the pizza makers and walked back home with them (you can see those pictures from here).

At home we started eating them and after eating one of them, we had to give up and say that the pizza was bigger than us :D. It was really good, but really big as well. So we decided to go back to the Xbox and maybe eat some pizza later on (later, I could only fit one piece of it). Before we went to sleep, we packed the rest of pizza to take some of it with us the next morning and leave the rest here so the grandmother could eat it. Then we were ready to go to sleep once again.

All in all, our expenses were the following:

* 52€ for Lele's clothes.

* 22.52€ for food.

74.52€ in total.

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Thank you for your time and until next time! / Aitäh ja järgmise korrani!

Sander Gansen

Day #10: Quick overview on another day here in Giulianova

2014-08-23T09:52:00.002+03:00

Hello all! / Tere kõigile!

This post will be really short as yesterday was simply a day of leisure! / See postitus tuleb väga lühike, sest eilne ili lihtsalt puhkepäev.

Have a good read! / Head lugemist!

After waking up and quickly eating something, we went to beach, as grandmother wanted to swim and I needed a good place to read at. Although, we must point it out, that going to beach is getting somewhat old and tiresome. To get to the beach we took a bus once again and paid 2€ as usual.

At the beach we read, swam and at some point went to buy some slices of pizza from a place nearby, paying 3.80€ in total (as we took a pack of chips as well). After eating them and reading some more we decided it was time to leave the beach and go to the shop. At shop we paid 17.52€ and then went home, where I continued reading and doing things on the computer. At some point we ate and then played some Xbox before we went to bed.

All in all we spent:

* 2€ on the bus.

* 3.80€ at the beach.

* 17.52€ in the shop.

23.32€ in total.

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Thank you for your time! / Aitäh teie aja eest!

Sander Gansen

Day #9: There's a acquapark near Giulianova

2014-08-22T09:57:00.001+03:00

Good morning! / Tere hommikust!

Next short post coming up: in summary we went to waterpark. / Veel üks postitus: seekord käisime veepargis.

Have a good read! / Head lugemist!

After getting up and having something to eat, we decided to finally use the opportunity to go to the waterpark on the skirts of Giulianova, as it was said it was going to rain and we could not go to the beach (as it later turned out, we only had few drops of rain). Therefore we took our things and started to move towards bus, with me first stopping as I walked into the balcony, managing to hurt my head and nose. After that little incident we continued walking and managed to get onto our bus. We paid 2€ as usual and drove to the last stop from where we asked for directions and then walked firstly under the bridge, turned right, walked a couple of hundred meters until there was another bridge, turned left, saw the sign of acquapark and followed it for the next 500 meters.

Having arrived, we paid 10€ each to get a ticket for a day (usually it is 20€, but as we had some promotional thing, we got two tickets for the price of one). There Lele said she wanted to go to the highest pipe, named double kamikaze, but I suggested we firstly went to some of the lower ones and therefore we ended up not going to the highest at all as later on Lele was scared of it.

After some time going down the pipes and waiting in the line to get there in the first place, we decided it was a good time to eat (also as it was starting to rain a bit) - we took two hamburgers, one plate of french fries and a Pepsi, all for 13€. After eating all of it, Lele decided to go and have a little nap, while I was waiting in the longest line to go my hands on a two person rubber wheel or something like that so we could go on another pipe later on. At some point I got it and by that time Lele had also woken up and came to me. Then we went to the pipe, waited a bit and went down, managing to hit my head against Lele's hand when we fell into he water. Then we went down from some more pipes and as it was already 14.00 o'clock and temperature showed it was over 30 degrees, then we decided to go back to home, getting on the bus just in time and paying 2€ once again.

At home my grandmother had made Cesar salad, that we only tried as we were full and we decided to eat it later on. At some point we decided to go to shop nearby and ended up buying ice cream and soda for 4.20€. Then we came back to home, played some Xbox, ate the salad and went to bed.

All in all our expenses were the following:

* 2€ for the bus.

* 20€ for the waterpark.

* 13€ for lunch.

* 2€ for the bus again.

* 4.20€ at the shop.

= 41.20€ in total.

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Thank you for reading and see you next time! / Aitäh lugemise eest ja järgmise korrani!

Sander Gansen

Day #8: Giulianova - all about food and sun

2014-08-21T10:47:00.001+03:00

Pronto!

Yesterday was all about food and tanning, therefor the post will be short and simple! / Eilne koosnes vaid söömisest ja päevitamisest, nii et postitus saab olema lühike ja konkreetne.

Have a good read! / Edu lugemises!

In the morning, after getting ourselves ready, we went to beach once again, first taking the bus for 1€ per person (2€ in total), that took us to the beach. There I started a routine of reading one chapter while having my back towards the sun, then one chapter with my front towards the sun and then 30 minutes of swimming that was followed with reading once again. We also took one short break from this routine to get ice cream (3 in total costed 5.26).

At two o'clock, we decided that it was time to go and eat, therefor we went to look for pizza, but as they do not serve pizza before the evening, we had to order something else. They had different fish dishes, so I decided to take pasta with clams, that was really good. All in all, we paid 10€ each (so it was 20€ for us in total), as we decided not to pay for chips and salad they did not bring us, nor pay the compulsory price for service.

Then we went back to the beach to play some cards and take one more dive into water. Later on, we decided to go and walk in the town, ending up buying ice ream for 3€ and leaving 50 cents as TIP. The ice cream did not turn out to be that good. From there we continued walking until we came across the only mall in town, where we bought some wine for the evening and some candies + a drink for now (all for 7.77€).

From there on we walked another 2-3 km to reach home, going by the same route the bus usually takes, hoping that we can get on a bus, that never came around. Therefor we saved 2€ for the bus and lost all the unnecessary calories :D.

At home we made pasta bolognese, surfed something on web and went to play some Xbox that we ended quickly as the remote was not functioning correctly and therefor pissed us off. After that it was time to sleep.

All in all our expenses were the following:

* 2€ for the bus.

* 5.26€ for ice cream.

* 20€ for food.

* 3.50€ for ice cream.

* 7.77€ for in the shop.

= 38.53€ in total.

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Thank you for reading the post! / Aitäh lugemise eest!

Until next time! / Järgmise korrani.

Sander Gansen

Day #7: Day at the beach in Giulianova

2014-08-20T09:36:00.001+03:00

Bonjourno!

We spent most of the yesterday at the beach as promised. / Me veetsime ewnamiku oma päevast rannas nagu lubatud.

Have a good time reading the rest of the post! / Head edasi lugemist!

In the morning, we woke up, ate some cereal, washed white clothes and already went on a bus (for 1€) to go to the beach, where we wanted to spend the whole day at. After four hours, it started to get a bit colder, so we decided to walk around an bought an ice cream for 2.50€. Then we went back to our chairs and decided to go to eat something.

After going through two places where they either did not understand us or offered weird food, we decided to eat one fast food place, where I took a slice of lasagna and Lele took some chicken with peas. After we had ate, we went to look for a supermarket, that was almost next to the beach. There we bought something for the evening, and together with lunch that we had had earlier, we spent 15.56€.

Then we started to walk back to home, as we decided it was not a good idea to return to the beach with all those groceries. After some tiresome walking, we finally reached to the stairs going up to the upper town, where the house was residing. There we had to do 367 steps to get up, which was followed for another 500m going north until we were at home.

There we fell asleep and only woke up three hours later, just to make dinner - pasta arrabiata - and then ate it. Later on we went downstairs to play some games on Xbox and then it was time to go back to sleep.

All in all, our expenses were the following:

* 1€ for the bus.

* 2.50€ for the ice cream.

* 15.56€ for the food.

= 19.06€ in total.

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That's all for today - see you next time! / See on tänaseks kõik - järgmise korrani!

Sander Gansen

Day #6: Summer in Giulianova

2014-08-19T09:18:00.003+03:00

Good morning! / Tere hommikust!

Our vacation finally started yesterday, as we arrived to Giulianova, town that has a beach bigger than itself. / Meie puhkus algas eile, kui me jõudsime Giulianovasse, linna, mille rand on suurem kui ta ise.

Have a great time reading the rest! / Head edasi lugemist!

In the morning, after we had woken up and cleaned ourselves, we packed our things and went to the shop to spare a 50 note bill. We bought some candy and a bottle of ice tea for the road for 2.22€ and went outside to wait for the car that was supposed to pick us up in front of the shop.

Shortly after that our driver, Emanuela, came to us to ask if we were Sander and Lele and then showed us the way towards her car, where we also met her friend Daniela, who had bought us a bottle of water for the 3.5h ride.

We started to drive and took a small road next to the highway as there was a traffic jam on the latter, as all the Italians were driving to vacation, probably near Rimini. After the jam had faded, we went on to the highway by ourselves as well and continued the ride,only making one stop after two hours of driving so the drivers could exchange and we could do through the toilet if needed.

As we were reaching Giulianova we started to look for the place, where my grandmother was already house-sitting, so that we could also be there with her. After some wrong turns and some right advises from strangers on the road, we arrived to the house, where we thanked our lovely drivers, from whom one worked as a personal assistant for one boss of a big electricity and fuel company and the other was a guitarist, doing rock music. For the whole ride, we paid 38€ (19€ per person), which was at least two times cheaper than it would have been with any other means of transportation.

As we arrived to my grandmother, she was already making food - pasta, meat and some sauce. We ate it and also drank some wine. After that we changed clothes and went to the beach. The water was amazing and the sand was really soft. It was Lele's first time in the sea that was not muddy and therefore she never wanted to leave the water, but at some point we did. We went on the beach chairs that the family, whose house my grandmother is looking after, had bought out for thirty years. There we decided to stay here for a longer period and that we would spend the next day only on the beach.

Later we went home, where we drank the rest of wine and went to play some Xbox racing game. After one hour or so, we went to bed to be ready for the next day on the beach.

All in all our expenses were the following:

* 2.22€ in the shop.

* 38€ for the ride.

= 40.22€ in total.

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Thank you for reading and have a nice day! / Aitäh lugemise eest ja ilusat päeva!

Sander Gansen

Day #5: Bologna and frisbee in the park

2014-08-18T19:40:00.001+03:00

Bonjourno!

We spent most of our third day in Bologna playing frisbee in a park and just enjoying the weather and our leisure time. / Meie kolmas päev möödus pargis lendavat taldrikut loopides ning lihtsalt ilma ja puhkust nautides.

I also had a chance to meet some really interesting people and had some nice conversations with them. / Mul õnnestus ka kohtuda mõne väga huvitava inimesega ning pidada nendega maha mõned vestlused.

But enjoy the rest of the writing! / Head lugemist!

In the morning, the girls were really taking their time getting themselves ready, so I managed to watch three James Bond movies – nice way to spend your morning :D. At some point around four o’clock, they had finally finished getting themselves ready and also the food they had prepared, was ready to be eaten. Therefore we packed our things (including a vegetable cuscus), took the bikes and started to move towards the park.

When we arrived to the park, we firstly met two friends of Flavia, named Alesandro and Davide (not sure if I got the names written down right) and a bit later also met Rocco and two others, named Elisa and Jonathan. We unpacked our things and Flavia also put up her slackline. Then we ate and after I was full, I went to have conversation with Jonathan, who originates from the USA and is some kind of a spiritual guy here in Italy.

As he had his bible with him, we started to talk about it and as he learned that I study law, he recommended me to read a part from bible, called the letter to the Romans. Then we also talked about the idea of a best world and who is really eligible to rule. All in all, it was a nice conversation, where I got some really good ideas. I especially liked the point he brought out from the bible about law, where it is supposedly said that law was made to show the Romans they could not keep it. It is an interesting idea, worth some more reading about, as it basically says that we are fools if we think that we should follow all the laws and also that in this world, the ones who break the most laws, get the most riches. Give it a thought.

Later on Jonathan left and I saw that while I had had this conversation, the girls had drawn some really nice pictures. Shortly after that, Elisa also left and we started to play with Frisbee, then tried to learn how to walk on the slackline and finally, as it was getting nine o’clock, decided to go to home and eat. Rocco had to get his couchsurfers from the railway station and was not sure whether they would come to Flavia’s place later on or not, so he said bye.

On our way back, we stopped in a local Pakistani shop, which was one of the last that was still open, bought something to drink (for 8.50€) and moved on, towards home. As we arrived there, Rocco had also arrived there with three German girls named Ruth, Clea and Ann-Kathrin, all studying Psychology. They all came in and we ordered some pizza (we ordered two and paid 12€ for them) through a page called pizzabo.it, something that Estonian food ordering sites should copy. One hour later they arrived, we ate and shortly after that I fell asleep once again, only to be waken twice – firstly to have a bite of tiramisu Flavia had made and secondly to say bye to Rocco and the girls.

All in all our expenses were the following:

* 8.50€ in the Pakistani shop.

* 12€ for two Pizzas.

= 20.50€ in total.

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Thank you for reading and until next time! / Aitäh lugemise eest ja järgmise korrani!

Sander Gansen

Day #4: Another dinner in Bologna

2014-08-17T13:54:00.000+03:00

Pronto!

Yesterday was just a day where we took things slowly and enjoyed the sunny weather here in Bologna. / Eile oli lihtsalt päev, kus me võtsime asju rahulikult ja nautisime Bologna päikeselist ilma.

Have a great time reading the rest of the post! / Ilusat edasi lugemist!

In the morning we woke up quite late, just to get ourselves ready and go to town. When we finally reached there, we met Flavia, who was having her lunch time from work (as it was a national holiday the day before, she now had to work on Saturday) and she showed us where to go in order to eat, just before she had to go back to work.

We went to this nice little Italian place named Pane Vino e San Daniele. There we took a pasta of the day and because they had two options they were willing to put us half and half. First half was a normal lasagna, the other was something like a vegetarian lasagna. We also took a plate full of some Italian ham, some smoked cold cheese and salad - we did not really enjoy the cheese, as it tasted weirdly. And of course, we had two classes of red wine. It all costed 21.70€ and we also gave 2.70€ tip to our waiter Nicola, a guy who had studied the history of wine making in university.

Later on we went to see the town and visited all of those places Flavia had recommended us to see. E.g. we went to this really nice building that had all of its walls and ceilings covered with various coats of arms. Then we also saw a really nice shopping area, where Flavia also worked. As we were thirsty, we quickly went and bought two drinks from a local store for 1.99€.

Finally we climbed to the top of the highest tower in Bologna (in the old times, every rich family built themselves a tower to show their wealth, but unfortunately most of them were destroyed during the world war) where we could see all of Bologna - this costed 3€ per person. There we met a nice couple from Australia, Mike and Maggie, who gladly took a picture of us.

After that we just returned to home, quickly stopping in another supermarket to buy some wine and ice cream for the evening for 14.27€. When we arrived to home, we watched a film until Flavia got home as well. Then she said that Rocco and two other friends would come to eat dinner with us and that she was going to prepare some mushroom risotto and a chocolate cake and asked us to help.

When the others arrived, we opened a wine with Pierrot, one of the guys who had arrived, and started to talk until the meal was prepared. Then we all ate and kept on talking, had some cake as well and then moved back to living room, where we listened music until I fell asleep. When I finally woke up, others had left, so it was time to get to bed.

All in all we spent:
* 24.40€ on the lunch.
* 1.99€ on two drinks.
* 6€ to climb the tower.
* 14.27€ in the supermarket.

= 46.26€ in total.

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Thank you for reading and see you tomorrow! / Aitäh ja homseni!

Sander Gansen

Day #3: Bologna is a magical place

2014-08-16T14:23:00.001+03:00

Hello again! / Tervist taas!

Yesterday we managed to get to Bologna by Blablcar driver and get hosted by a really nice CouchSurfer. / Saabusime eile Bolognasse, kasutades selleks Blablacar teenust (nagu meie endine keskuhu) ja meid majutas üks tore noor itaallanna.

We were given a great tour around the town and fed like it was our last time to eat. / Meile näidati kõiki selle linna nurgataguseid ja söödeti nagu see oleks meie viimne söögikord.

In the morning, I woke up, checked whether we had a driver towards Bologna with the Blablacar service and as I learned that we had one for 9 o'clock, I woke up Lele and we quickly said bye to Anna and ran towards the metro station to reach the other end of Milan with the next 20 to 30 minutes. Before we managed to get out of her premises, we also had to climb the fence, as the gate could only be opened with a key we did not have.

We arrived to the metro station, bought two tickets again for 3€ and went on the red line, only to change the metro five stops later to get onto the green line. As we arrived to our destination, Mattia (the driver) and Marco (the fellow traveler) were already waiting for us. We sat into the car and our journey towards Bologna started.

We made a little stop at one Autogrill (a place on the highway, made for tanking both the car and yourself), where we bought a cold coffee (almost like frappe, but it had espresso on the bottom and then coffee ice cream or flurry on top of it, unmixed. It was quite good, it woke us up and only costed 2.90€.

We continued the ride and I found out that Mattia, who was studying architecture, was also a sailing instructor and Marco was in the field of doing movies. We also discussed the idea of university, only to find out the system was quite same (and ineffective) in Italy as it is in Estonia. Fun thing is that even though the speed limit on the highways seemed to be 90 to 110 km/h, then most drivers seemed to drive with 140km/h, as did ours.

Finally we arrived to Bologna, paid 10€ per face for the ride (in total 20€ for 250km, not bad) and the guys told us where to walk. As we were walking on the main shopping street, we were looking for a place with Wi-Fi to talk to our host, Flavia, about where will we meet. We first went to a cafe, where we bought two little cookies for 1.40€, as we thought it would be polite if we were to use their restroom and Wi-Fi. Unfortunately the Wi-Fi stopped working before we got to use it - probably the owner turned it off for some reason.

We then kept on going, reached to a square where they had Wi-Fi for us to use. We contacted Flavia and she gave us the directions towards her house. 15 minutes later we arrived to a corner where Flavia picked us up and showed us the way to her home (later to be known as her friends home which she was "babysitting").

She then made us one of the best pasta with a really good tomato sauce and we ate it, drinking red wine and sharing our travel stories. Then we just sat on the couch and kept on talking until it was time for us to go to the city. We took two bikes and the three of us were ready to move.

She showed us the universities, some of the most famous places for students to gather and started to show some of the secrets of Bologna (seven to be exact). Firstly we saw that the are writings on the ceilings of the street (oh yes, this medieval city has all of its streets covered with roofs so it looks really amazing and you can never get wet when walking around to town - but you have to see it by yourself to understand what I mean). One of those said in Latin: "Canabis protecto." - which in fact means that plants or medicine protects our health, but the nowadays youth takes it a bit more literally, that cannabis protects our health.

Then she showed a place where you can whisper to the wall only that the person in the other corner would listen in. And then we met up a friend of her, Rocco, that I had also asked to get a couch at, only to receive the answer a bit later than Flavia's. He was with two Russian travelers - Olga and Sergio, and for the rest of our tour, they joined us.

We saw a statue of god Neptune, that used to have a really long penis, but as the people living in the town did not like it, it was sewed off, and the hand of the statute was moved so that from one side you can still see the long penis. After that we were shown a church that had six other churches built into it. Then a arrow in the ceiling with another cool story.

Finally the Russian friends from Kaliningrad wanted to get a bite, so we were taken to a nice tavern, where we ordered a big bruchetta with mozzarella and tomatoes. Later we were ordered a local sandwich that had ham and cheese and was really good. As a desert, we had a mascarpone dish that was delicious as well. All in all we paid 4€ (as Flavia had some coupons to cut the price by half).

Then we were shown a place where people usually sit in front of a church in the night time (funny thing, most of the squares where youth, where spends their time in the night time, are always situated next to a church) and where Pakistani guys sell illegal alcohol (normal beer that just should not be sold anymore as it is night time) for 2€ each (we took two and shared the costs with all of us, so we paid 1€).

As the Russian friends wanted to reach to the airport, Rocco was keen to take them there and we went to Flavia's home, where we watched Jackass 3 in Italian and drank a bit of Amaretto, before we went to sleep.

All in all our costs were the following:

* 2.90€ for the coffee.

* 20€ for the ride.

* 1.40€ for the little cakes.

* 4€ for dinner.

* 1€ for beer.

= 29.30€ in total.

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Have a great day and talk to you soon! / Ilusat päeva ja räägime varsti.

Sander Gansen

Day #2 - Don't go to Milan in August

2014-08-15T13:27:00.001+03:00

Buongiorno!

Our second day in Milan was much sunnier and full of many nice people. / Meie teine päev Milanos oli palju päikselisem ja kohtasime paljusid toredaid inimesi.

We only reached to one conclusion – travelling with backpacks is great until you do not have to carry them around the town all day along. / Me jõudsime järelduseni, et seljakottidega reisimine on tore kuniks neid ei pea kaasas vedama.

But enjoy the rest of the writing! / Head lugemist!

In the morning, after we had done all the things that needed doing – e.g. found ourselves a host for the night, we packed our things and started to move towards the city center once more. Before we left the hostel, we met one of the guys who we shared the flat, got to know that he is a train electrician and exchanged contacts.

Quickly after leaving the hostel, we found this nice bakery, where this really nice Italian guy sold us a panini with meat and tomato + two strawberry basket-cakes for 9€. They tasted very good, so we decided to take a picture with him before moving on.

Later we walked about four to five kilometers until we arrived to Duomo, where we started to look a place that would offer three things: food, free Wi-Fi and free toilet – apparently not a common mixture here in Italy. On the way, we bought a piece of coconut for 1€ and ate it. Finally we decided to go back to the pizza place we visited the day before, as we knew they already had it all – ordered a salami pizza and a beer for 14.50€.

Then we went to search a shop called Kilo Fascione, where they supposedly sold clothes per kilo, but we could not find it. As it was hot, we decided to get some cold drinks from a kiosk-car nearby and ordered a lemon and a peppermint slurpy for 2€ each. The lemon one was good as always,but the other one was just awful – never try it!

It was still hot and we were tired, so we tried to go to cinema, but all the films were in Italian, so we decided to pass it and walked to Castello Sforzesco, where we heard that there is a park, where we could have some leisure time. Arriving there, we took out a blanket and laid on it, relaxing for an hour or so. Then we walked through the Castello and decided to move back to the city central and towards the place where we were supposed to meet our host for the night.

Firstly we took a tram to Duomo and then walked towards Central Station, looking for an open shop or bar, where to get one drink and visit the toilet, but there were non – all of the places were either closed already or on holidays until the end of August. Apparently everybody is on vacation in August – so never go to Italy, or at least Milan in August :D.

Finally we got to Central Station, where we got to visit the free toilet of McDonald’s (if you want to go to toilet or find Wi-Fi, McDonald’s is your place everywhere in the world). As Lele had a taste for Coke, we also bought one for 2.50€ and then went on the metro for 1.50€ each, towards Precotto station, where we were supposed to meet our host Anna, the Opera singer from Siberia.

When we arrived there the only supermarket we saw until this point was closing, but they let us in to get all of our things in 3 minutes – it still took us 5 to find it all, after we had ran through all two floors of the shop and we ended up with two coffee yogurts, some bakeries, a Frizzante and a lemon ice tea, all for 6.14€.

Now we had half an hour to wait, until Anna was going to pick us up so we just sat at the bus stop playing 2048 on my iPhone. Finally Anna arrived and we walked to her home. There she told us that her boyfriend hosts 600 people a year and never hosts anyone for less than a couple of days, but as he was out of town, Anna decided to help us for this night. We also shared the Frizzante and the girls talked about singing, while I was looking for a host in our next stop – Bologna. Anna also showed me the site blablacar, where I managed to find myself a driver, who was going to take us to Bologna in the next morning.

Finally it was time to go to bed.

All in all our expenses were the following:

* 9€ for the bakeries.

* 1€ for the coconut.

* 14.50€ for pizza, beer and service.

* 4€ for two slurpies.

* 2.50€ for Coke

* 3€ for metro tickets.

* 6.14€ for food at the supermarket.

= 40.14€ in total.

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Have a nice day! / Ilusat päeva!

Sander Gansen

Day #1: Hitchhike around Italy - 1st day in Milan and a lost camera.

2014-08-14T10:56:00.000+03:00

Good morning to all of you! / Tere hommikust kõigile!

We have now arrived to Milan, Italy and have just spent our first night here. / Me jõudsime ilusasti Milanosse ning leidsime ka esimese öömaja.

Yesterday's weather was a bit rainy and foggy, but we still managed to walk around town and make new friends. / Eilne ilm oli küll veidi vihmane, kuid see ei seganud esmast linnaga tutvumist ja uute tutvuste tegemist.

Have a great time reading the following post! / Head lugemist!

The day started at 5.30 with a nice shower and grooming, after what I woke up Lele and my father who were supposed to take us to Riga's airport. We ate a bit, went through the things, we were going to take with us, once more and started moving. As I was already up and my dad still wanted to sleep, then I was the one who was going to drive to the airport and later on, he would take the car back to Pärnu.

While I was driving, with two people sleeping in the back, I got bored and decided to do the one thing I though I would not do, but Rene (Kukk) had asked me to do it. I made myself an instagram account and took my first selfie (milline ilus endel see tuli - ps, enekas oleks kindlasti õigem sõna selle kohta).

After we arrived to the airport we paid the security fee (Riga's airport has put some stupid extra fee on Ryanair flights - 7€ extra for every passenger) and gave away our bags, while making a deadlock, as we wanted them to mark our bags so they would not get thrown (no extra fee fortunately). Then we went through the security gates, where I managed to get my big drinking bottle in. As we were getting hungry, we went and had a panini and a crossant, from a girl, that Lele said, was flirting with me - and maybe she was, which is a pity I did not get at the right moment :D. Later on, we bought a water and Fisherman's friends (mints) that Lele paid for so I do not know the exact cost for them (I will be writing about all the expenses I make to keep an eye on the budget).

By that time it was time for us to get to the line of boarding, where we had to wait for 20 minutes, until the passengers who came with the same plane, got off it. Finally we got though this place and were already sitting in the plane, where we had to change seats as one lady claimed she had bought the place next to the window. The flight took off quite good and Lele got her first experience of flight. As the wind was supposedly 200-250 km/h the flight got a bit late, but by 13.08 (Italian time) we were here, with only one scary jump when landing (this time people literally screamed for once :D).

We had to wait for 15 minutes, until we got our bags, that were soaked as it was pouring in Italy. After checking whether everything was still there and well we went to get a couch to Milan. We got on the couch we had already bought the tickets for and after some waiting time, we started our journey towards Milan. The outskirts were quite ugly - yes, the nature is nice, but all those factories and old broken houses reminded me the road to St. Petersburg.

After arriving to the couch station, we decided to find an internet cafe, and what better place than McDonald's would there be, as we all know, they always have free Wi-Fi if you order something. So we bought two chickenburgers and a sprite (2x 0.90 + 2.30 = 4.10) and tried to access the internet, but we could not as they need you to sign in with your Italian number, but ours does not seem to work all that good, so we moved on.

We tried to make our way to the city central and started to follow this young couple, who seemed to do the same, holding a map in their hands. Later on we got to know that they were from Germany, near Dusseldorf and were in the town for a day. We exchanged contacts and went our way. Finally arriving to Duomo (the cathedral) we saw another place where they said they had free Wi-Fi, but no luck this time as well. Then another McDonald's and still no luck. Then went to Vodafone where they offered to make us a 30€ simcard with internet that we gladly said no to.

Finally we arrived to a pizza place where they had free internet that truly worked, where we tried to find a new host for the night as one had canceled. I sent out a lot of requests and we ate a ham pizza, while drinking a small beer (as they had no exact money to give back to us, they only took 11.10 for all of it). Then the internet broke and we moved on, until we arrived to this nice place called Todos@Cuba, where we did not go in at the first place, but tried to get into internet with no luck.

We went and had a cocktail from a nearby kiosk (3.50€) and enjoyed it while seating in front of a church like other 20 young people. There a strange guy approached and talked some nonsense and left, I held tightly to my stuff, just in case. Then we went along the street as we were told there was a hostel on the way and as we did not find it, we went back to Todos@Cuba, this time to order something and finally got to internet as well. We paid 12€ for two cocktails and a buffet table, where we could eat what we wanted.

I was using the internet to find a host, still with no luck and finally Lele found out she had lost my little Pentax camera. We went through all of our stuff, walked through the road we had went through before and could not find it - there goes my 14th birthday present. I thought it might have been stolen by the nonsense guy,but Lele remembers to take a picture afterwards, but does not remember where she had put the camera after that. Fortunately it is not that big of a loss, as although the camera was good, it was not that expensive, I had not used it for at least two years and I still have my phone to take picture with. But still, Lele probably learned that she has to have a tighter grip on our stuff.

Then we went back to Todos@Cuba and I found one hostel - they sent us the directions to their place and we started to move. We took a metro (yellow line), where Lele asked me, if it was truly a metro and after getting a yes, got a big smile on her face, as it was also her first time to ride one of those. Then we took a bus as well and finally we were at the hostel named Yellow Line Apartments, where we paid 29€ for a night for two of us. After we arrived there and paid for the night in cash, we fell a sleep.

All in all, our expenses in Italy were following:

* 4.10€ for 2 burgers and a sprite.

* 11.10€ for pizza and a beer.

* 3.50€ for a cocktail.

* 12€ for 2 cocktails and a buffet.

* 3€ for 2 metro/bus tickets.

* 29€ for hostel.

= 62.70, meaning we have 43.50 for today, to stay in the budget of 50€ per day.

Btw, visit http://instagram.com/sandergansen for pictures

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This is all for today! / Tänaseks kõik!

Best regards! / Parimate soovidega!

Sander Gansen

Day #0 - Pre-travel: Hitchhike around Italy

2014-08-12T23:58:00.000+03:00

Hi you all, that have once again got lost and ended up reading my blog! / Tere kõigile, kes on taaskord ära eksinud minu blogisse!

There has been a very long pause, since I wrote to you last, but as I am once again going to hitchhike, I guessed I should keep some notes. / Pärast pikka pausi olen ma taas siin, et kirjutada, kuna olen taaskord reisile minemas.

The ideas is for Lele (my girlfriend) and I to travel around Italy, while only taking as much stuff as our backpacks fit and only use couchsurfing as the way of finding a place to sleep. / Lele ja minu idee on vaid CouchSurfi keskkonda kasutades reisida ümber Itaalia.

This will be my first time to do it with someone else but me, so I hope it will turn out as good as the last travels. / Sellest saab mu esimene kord reisida taolisel moel koos kellegi teisega, niisiis loodan, et ka seekord tuleb ilus reis.

Have a great time reading the following post! / Head lugemist!

Hitchhike around Italy

Tomorrow, at 11.00 by Estonian time, we will be flying to Milan, Italy, so we could start our travel around Italy, mostly by busses and trains, but in one case I am also thinking about renting a car. As we are going to this trip, then for the last couple of days, we have mostly been cutting loose ends (getting together with friends and family and ending unfinished business) and packing, therefore I will not be telling you guys, what were we exactly doing in the last few days.

As some of you already know, then my trip will take me through places like: Milano, Parma, Bologna, Firenze, Pisa, Genova, Monaco and Torino - or at least this is the first draft of our plan, although no one really knows where we will end up in.

Anyhow, I will be going to post new posts every time I leave one town or get to another one and I also try to add as much pictures as possible. In order to do so, I have packed Lele's small computer to come with us, so I could keep you up to date easier than last time, when I just had my tablet.

The ones, who want to know, what I will bring with me, will now get the list (I have no clue how to call all those things Lele packed, therefore I will only talk about my stuff): * One backpack and one little bag.

* Two pairs of boots (flip-flops and green suede-ones)

* One pair of jeans (grey), one pair of swimming trunks and two pairs of shorts (white and blueish).

* Eight pairs of underwear, including socks.

* One jacket (black lether).

* Two short-sleeved shirts and six t-shirts.

* One cardigan (white).

* A sleepingbag and a travel-pillow.

* iPhone and a camera.

* Washing things.

* One book + some things to write in.

* Money.

Anyhow, as we will be starting our travel early in the morning, I will end now and will talk to you later, when I am boarding to plane or already in Milan.

Eesti keelne kokkuvõte

*Vabandan eestlaste ees, kes inglise keelt ei mõista, sest ma ei hakka hetkel Eesti keeles ümber trükkima seda, mida juba kirjutasin, kuid üldiselt kirjutasin lahti vaid oma eeldatava reisiplaani ja nimekirja asjadest, mille ma antud reisile kaasa võtsin.

Kui ma ei eksi, siis mu blogil on üleval vasakus nurgas võimalus seda tõlkida (ka eesti keelde) niisiis kasutage seda või laske kellelgi teisel endale hetkel asju ära tõlkinda ning ma jutustan teile oma tegevused hiljem suurema mahuliselt isiklikult lahti - nagunii ei suuda ma kogu emotsiooni siia ära paigutada.

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This is all for today! / Tänaseks kõik!

Best regards! / Parimate soovidega!

Sander Gansen

Project: University #6 - Waiting for answers to come

2013-02-05T11:34:00.002+02:00

Good morning my fellow citizens!

It has been close to two months without me posting anything new about the process of applying to universities. Finally there have been some responses from some of the universities, although there are a few yet to give me their decision. Other than that I have also started to have doubts about what, where and when. You can read all about them if you just keep reading!

Hereby I return to keep You updated with the topic of me applying to university. I truly hope that reading my blog posts will inspire You to apply to different universities all-over the world. Maybe they will even help You get Your applications going and if You have any questions You cannot find answers from elsewhere, then feel free to ask me.

Until that, have fun reading the rest of the post!

Applying to the UK (via UCAS)

Having been to the interviews at Cambridge really made me get my hopes up and I was already thinking how nice it would be to get to the university and spend those three years with all the others I met at the interviews.

But after returning from England, I had almost no news from any of the universities, except for Warwick, who was asking me to provide my predicted grades to them, just once again - this time I finally managed to pursue my head teacher into making those and I sent these to them.

After that I had to wait some more, while some of my friends already started to get their responses (most of them were unfortunately unsuccessful). Then one day, I finally got my letter as well, saying that I had been pooled by Magdalene, which in a way was a good thing to happen, as it was indicating that I was not a complete failure. A few weeks later, I still managed to get a response, saying that my application had also been unsuccessful.

This made me think, whether I wanted to go to the UK at all, at least this year and to this course. I started to look at my other options, only to find out that the only ones I still had were universities in Estonia (I simply have no language qualification for the ones in Germany or Austria for example). After giving it some thought, I was sure that I had made up my mind to say no to all of the universities in the UK for this year, take a "gap" year, where I would study in Estonia and then try again to get accepted to Cambridge this time, after all, I had already been pooled, meaning there was only a small step to go for getting accepted.

I was completely sure about this decision until today, when I got a response from the University of Durham, who had given me a reasonable conditional offer, meaning that now I have to decide once again, whether I want to go to Durham or take a gap year and then try once again to get into Cambridge.

Well, fortunately I still have some time to make the decision!

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Best regards!
Sander Gansen

Project: University #5 - Interview (HSPS at Cambridge)

2012-12-15T17:30:00.001+02:00

Good evening my dear readers!

Having returned from the interviews at Cambridge for Human, Social and Political Sciences course, it is now time to give an overview about how it was, who were the other applicants and what exactly happened during the interviews. First, I can reassure that it was not as bad as somebody might think and the whole process really was lots of fun. Second, I feel much more confident coming back from there and whatever happens, the experience has been great.

Hereby I return to keep You updated with the topic of me applying to university. I truly hope that reading my blog posts will inspire You to apply to different universities all-over the world. Maybe they will even help You get Your applications going and if You have any questions You cannot find answers from elsewhere, then feel free to ask me.

Until that, have fun reading the rest of the post!

Applying to the UK (via UCAS)

Six or seven weeks ago, I wrote that the University of Cambridge had asked me to go there for the interviews, which means that I was already in the top three quarters of all applicants, although this is not enough yet in order to get accepted, but it is a start. Therefore on 9th of December, after having won the first place with our class at our school's dancing competition, it was time for me to catch a bus towards Riga, Latvia, since my plane was going to departure from the airport in Riga. Although the plane was not going anywhere before the morning of 10th of December, I still had to go to Riga a day earlier, as the international bus schedule is just crappy and there would have been no buses going to Latvia in the next morning... Having arrived to Riga, a nice couchsurfer, my host for the night, was already waiting for me - we went to his place, where he made great dinner and where we could chat for hours with him and the girl, that is his housemate.

In the morning, Andrejs would take me to airport, where I would discover that for the first time in my life, I had forgotten to do the online check-in, meaning I had to pay fifty euros so the lady in the desk would do it - thankfully we still managed to do it by the last minute and now I just had to run to the gate and get a seat on the plane, which in the long run arrived later than expected, making me miss the train to Cambridge and having me wait for half an hour for the next train. Finally the train arrived and another half an hour later I was already at Cambridge, where I took the bus towards centre, where Augur was already waiting for me. First we went to have a lunch together and then he took me to the college, where I went to the Porter's Lodge in order to get my room key for the night (when You get an interview at Cambridge, they let you stay in their accommodation for up to two days for free).

The Porters were really nice and I believe that if I were to be accepted to Magdalene, then we would have some fun times with them as well. In the Porter's lodge, there were some student helpers aka undergraduate students that had been willing to spend their holidays at the college, helping staff and the interviewees. One of them took me to my room (first the key did not work, so we returned to the lodge to see, what had been the problem), showed where all the things were and said that after I was finished, I could go to JCR, where all the interviewees where sitting, watching TV and eating free cookies. After he left, Augur and I quickly went through my Personal Statement and he quickly made up some questions in order to give me a short mock interview - having gone through four or five questions, we decided it was enough and I should not worry too much and should just go with the flow (after all, I had not read through my PS earlier either and I was not feeling stressful at all). We made some plans for the next day and he went on his way, while I went to JCR to meet others.

On the first sight, I just saw lots of engineering applicants sitting in a circle, discussing what had happened earlier and bunch of student helpers sitting on the couches, watching The Big Bang Theory - I had arrived to home. Soon I discovered, there were not only engineers, but also another HSPS applicant and we talked to her a bit - she was from Lithuania. Then we joined the circle of engineers and I made some inappropriate jokes about them, so one of them left, but we quickly got friends with the others. Later on I saw another applicant for HSPS, a girl that I had also seen in July, but she had to go somewhere already. Before she left, she said that she had been asked to describe some candlesticks and this just sounded awkward to me, but I was ready to do the same. Soon we had a dinner and then came back to continue watching TBBT and Friends, while discussing about different things. By the late evening, some other applicants for HSPS had arrived to JCR, including an American guy, who had also been asked to examine the candlesticks. At some point we decided to go to town, where seven of us (mostly engineering applicants) walked for few hours and then returned to the college by nine o'clock, as the others wanted to go to their rooms to stress about the forthcoming interviews - at first I thought I would go to a pub, but later on I found myself at the JCR, where six student helpers (who had nothing to stress about) and I watched Toy Story 3 and Pulp Fiction. By the time we finished, I already felt a bit tired and went for a sleep.

In the morning, after having breakfast, I started to encounter some other HSPS students, including a nice girl from Bulgaria, whom I made a tour around the college (as I had received a tour last time I had been at Magdalene, I still remembered my way around the premise, and we also went to places, we probably would have not been allowed to go on a normal day... After Karina and I had had our tour, we returned to JCR, where there were more interviewees now and soon it was time for my first interview. Before going for my interview, I also read through my Personal Statement to be a bit more ready for the questions that might have been asked.

My first interview was at 10.45, where Dr S Cohn and Dr F Fulminate were conducting a general interview. I went in really confident and when I returned to JCR, I was even more confident and smiley. First when I entered to the interview I really had no clue, what to expect, but Dr Cohn quickly came to shake my hand and introduce himself, after whom Dr Fulminate did the same, which created a really friendly atmosphere. They both reassured that they really wanted me to be relaxed in order to get the best out of me.

The first question, as expected, was about why I had chosen HSPS and I just gave a strange answer how I really enjoy Politics, International Relations and Sociology and how I thought that studying them in one course might really be beneficial for the future. I also added something about Anthropology and Dr Cohn quickly responded, saying that even though they both were teaching Anthropology, I do not have to bring that topic in if I had not thought about that earlier, therefore it was the first and the last time I ever mentioned anything besides Politics, International Relations and Sociology. Dr Cohn then also asked whether I though Sociology was part of Political Science or vice versa and when I first said that Politics was part of Sociology, then by end we reached to a conclusion that even if it might just be one part of Sociology, then there would be no Sociology without Politics, therefore it is an essential part. Next Dr Fulminate asked something about my essay that I had sent in (my thesis on the topic of Social Network Analysis) - first asking why I had included the last page of my paper, the Annex 3, which is a really screwed up graph. It was because I wanted to show how complex the topic had been and then she asked some other questions based on my thesis. After that Dr Cohn asked about my visits to the Ministry of Education and what we had tried to accomplish there with Estonian Student Council Union - I explained the situation and we started to talk more about the education system and what I think it should be like. Then he also asked me about my exchange to South Africa and what did I experience there, as well as whether all the politicians should have such an experience, where I reassured that all the international one clearly should, but in the case of local politicians, it is not as essential to have such experience. Soon we discovered that the time was up and they let me ask a final question from them, so I tried to show them that I am a debater and they said that this can be beneficial to me, as in HSPS it always needed that the students would be able to critically look at different ideas, as well as see things from different viewpoints. Generally it can be said that this interview was all about my Personal Statement and then questions that came from there.

After a little time to talk to other applicants, I had to go for another interview at 12.30, where Dr B Burchell and Dr D Stuckler were conducting a bit more specific interview on the topic of Sociology and Politics. After both of them had introduced themselves, Dr Burchell also recognized me from the summer, where at the Open Days, we had met and even shared some thoughts for an hour or so.

The first to ask a question, was Dr Stuckler, who asked me that if European Union is rich, then why do we still struggle with unemployment, to which I answered that we have both under and over qualified people, ones who just cannot do some things and the ones, that are not needed, but who are not willing to re-qualify either. Other than this, we also have more and more machines replacing many humans in some fields of work. They seemed to have liked my reasoning and then Dr Stuckler asked something about what I think how we could make the unemployment go away, to which I said that we should use that money, that he said the EU has in order to make people re-qualify and to just make some jobs out of the air, just like Adolf Hitler did in the time between two world wars (YES, I DID BRING HITLER IN :D) and I also said that I do not believe that it would be a good idea in the long run, therefore re-qualifying it is. Then he also asked about the social benefits and whether there should be any requirements in order to get them, for example you would have to do some little job or re-qualify to get them and I agreed, although saying that the idea might be good, but in the real-world it would probably not work as the people would not want to do such works or re-qualify, making them live on the streets or maybe even turn towards crime, which would be much worse than just giving them money as we are doing it at the moment. Dr Stuckler seemed to like those ideas as well and then it was time for Dr Burchell to start asking questions, mainly about my thesis and once again, we started from the Annex 3, where he asked, why is it there, what can we interpret from there, what will we miss, how could it be made better and so on, and I managed to answer to all of the questions, while making some connections, that I had not even made while writing the paper, making me feel bad about how the paper was not that good, although making me happy as well, as I was able to make those connections on spot, showing I do understand the topic. Dr Burchell even commented how he had missed some of the connections, when he had been reading the paper earlier on and this made me more confident. Then he also asked about our grading system in Estonia and made me do some predictions about my exams, where I did say that I would get 85-95 in most of them, except Estonian, where my grammar is horrible - he said, he will ask from his colleagues at Tartu University, whether this was acceptable and then Dr Stuckler asked a question, that made me loose my path. He asked about the last journal that I had read and I just forgot, my brained died for a second and then I said how I only remember the last book I was currently reading and then we started to talk about it, until the time was up once again. We said bye and the last thing before leaving that I said was a comment how I am waiting forward to work with them in the future.

After the last interview, I was not that happy due to that journal question, but everything was fine, I met others in the JCR and we went for the lunch. There we talked with Karina and Oisin, before I said bye to others and went to Augur's place for the night. Augur made a great dinner and we watched two episodes of Downton Abbey, before I was too tired to stay awake and I went to sleep.

In the morning, we had a quick porridge as breakfast, talked about Cambridge and said bye. I went back to Magdalene, where we talked to some interviewees and watched a bit of Friends, before Kristina (the Lithuanian girl) and I went to town for a coffee, then caught the bus to Stansted and soon we went on the planes to fly back home. Overall I saw applicants of HSPS from Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech, US and the UK - mostly girls, but also some boys. It was really great and now I am waiting for the results, that should come out already by the end of this year. But until that, Merry Christmas!

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Best regards!
Sander Gansen

Debating: Two Tournaments, Two Formats, Two Countries

2012-12-08T18:12:00.000+02:00

Good evening my dear readers!

It has been another three weeks since my previous post and I have decided to start writing about yet another topic on my blog. I will of course continue writing about my travelling experiences and the process of applying to the universities, but starting from now, I will also take up the topic of debating, which has been my hobby for three years. I will start writing about different tournaments that I have been a participant in and maybe I will also add just a little bit about different cases.

In the last couple of weeks, I have been a participant in two different tournaments, one in the format of Karl Popper, the other in the format of British Parliament and now I will turn towards writing more about those experiences. If You have not debated before, then maybe now You will feel more like trying it out and if You have, then I think You will still find some interesting thoughts that may be interesting for You.

Have fun reading the rest of the post!

The first phase of Estonian National Championships 2012/13 - in the Karl Popper format

First I will give a quick overview about the format for those who have never heard anything about debating.

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In this format, You have two teams of three people, one on the proposition side and the other on the opposition side. The idea is that You are given a motion and a side that You have to defend. The motions vary from Legalization of Marijuana to Intervention of Syria. Usually You are given a day or a week to prepare Your case, but in the case of a tournament, You usually have about three weeks to prepare and in some cases, You might just have 15 to 60 minutes to prepare.

When going a bit deeper and talking about the rolls of the debaters in the teams then it goes as follows: The first of proposition has to bring the case on the table - the problem, the plan, sometimes a definition and two to three arguments (Statement, Explanation, Example and Impact). The first of the opposition then has to do rebuttal and sometimes build their own contra-arguments. The second speakers of both side then just have to rebuild their case and do rebuttal. The third speakers of both side have to conclude the debate, showing why they were better than the other team, how their arguments and logic was better. The first speakers have always six minutes and the rest have just five minutes to do their speech. In between of all the speeches, each teams has eight minutes of thinking-time, that they have to spread between themselves and after first and second speakers, there is always a time for questions, where a member of the the other team can ask every kind of questions for three minutes.

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Now that a brief introduction has been made, I am going to talk more about this tournament itself.

Our team, named Übermensch, for the second year in a row, consists of Risto Laanemets, Ethel Pruss and me - all of us are going to the Pärnu Sütevaka Gymnasium of Humanities and we are all doing our senior year. When we are proposition, then Risto is always doing the first speech, but when we are opposition, then Ethel takes over and Risto does the second speech. I, in the other hand, am always the third speaker.

The motion of this tournament was: Countries that wish to continue being a part of eurozone have to be able to come out from their state budget crisis on their own.

The idea of the case that we were using with Risto and Ethel was to show that we have problematic countries, like Greece and Portugal, who keep receiving help from eurozone, but do not really seem to recover in any way, which means that they suck out all the funds from eurozone that were meant for mending all the countries that are in problems, which means that if we were to have some countries that are functioning today, but not tomorrow, then we would have no money to rescue them, before it is too late. The plan was stop giving aid to countries that are in chronic budget crisis (which means that we would still help countries, that for example will have a one-time banking problem that would be devastating to their economy). We also had two arguments: sustainability of the system and change of attitude. The first was talking about finance, political capital and capability of European Stability Mechanism (aka ESM) - how we have no money nor political capital for future problems if we continue helping out the ones that do not want to help themselves. The second was all about shock and how countries that at this time are relying on the help of ESM, would now have to start changing or they would just fall. In the opposition, we also had lots of arguments, such as domino effect and countries turning violent, but I am not going through all of them.

When it comes to the tournament, then we had to debate four rounds on this topic and one round on the motion: Government would ban all commercial advertisement. Generally, the tournament was really great and individually I got a seventh place in individual speakers with scores of 24, 23, 24, 25 and 26 (speaker scale goes from 18 to 28), although as a team we managed to make a mess by only winning the first round, when we were proposition of the main topic and also winning the "advertisement"-round, where we were proposition as well, therefore as a team, we got lousy 17th place.

The result of this tournament has been obsessing me since, making me think whether our team just does not work and either I should try to get into some other (read: better) team or we should find a new third member in our team, in order to cut loose our weakest speaker or our team just needs more and more practice. In any case, some change has to be carried out.

The final event of Debate@Europe project - in the British Parliament format

First I will also give a quick overview about this format for those who have never heard anything about debating.

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In this format, You have four teams of two people, two on the government side and two on the opposition side. In this format, You are also given a motion and a side that You have to defend, but this time You are either the first or the second team of your side. The motions vary as well, but usually, as this is mainly a university debating format, then they are a bit harder. Another thing is that You are always given just 15 minutes to prepare Your case and unlike Karl Popper, where usually only the first speaker brings new arguments, then in British Parliament, everybody but the fourth speaker have to bring new arguments on the table.

When going a bit deeper and talking about the rolls of the debaters in the teams then it goes as follows: The first of the first government, also known as prime minister has to bring the case on the table - the problem, the plan, sometimes a definition and usually two arguments (Statement, Explanation, Example and Impact). The first of the first opposition then has to do rebuttal and sometimes build their own contra-arguments. The second speakers of both side then just have to rebuild their case and do rebuttal. The third speakers or the first speakers of the second government and opposition have to do the same as the second speakers, but they just have to prove that their arguments are also better than the ones brought by the first half of the table. The last speakers of both side have to conclude the debate, showing why they were better than the other team, how their arguments and logic was better. Depending on the tournament, all the speakers have five to eight minutes for their speeches. There is no thinking time between the speeches and no questioning time as well, although apart from the first and the last minute of every speech, opponents can raise and ask questions, if the speaker allows them.

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Now that a brief introduction has again been made, I am going to talk more about this tournament itself.

The tournament was a part of a project known as Debate@Europe, that for the last seven months I have been one of the coordinators of. It took place in Amsterdam from 28th of November to 2nd of December. From the previous competitions, every country (participating countries were: Estonia, Macedonia, Romania Slovakia, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom) chose twenty young people from their country to be participants in this tournament. First I was supposed to be a judge, but due to lack of participants or them falling ill, I had to be a debater as well and I was put into one team with a guy from Romania, named Lucian Valsan. We had to debate for four rounds and the motions were as follows:

1. THBT the European Union should ban all forms of art, including film or literature, that directly insults any religion.

We were the closing opposition and our arguments by the end were that art is perceived differently by different people, which means that in essence, all art can be offensive towards any religion, which now if I think of it was not the best argument, since the motion clearly states that they only mean the art that directly insults religion. Other than that, we were also talking about freedom of speech, how fundamental it is and how banning this kind of art would downgrade it and why it would be bad. Last, but not least, we were also talking how we all have a chance to not to look at the art if it really insults us, but still we should be free to create all kinds of art. We also had some other even worse points, but those are not worth mentioning at all. Therefore it is not surprising that we got a fourth place in that round. The points that we probably should have made are that we should not censor anything that does not really put anyone in clear danger, how art will not turn to violence as there is no correlation between watching violence and committing crimes, of course continue with the freedom of expression argument and last, but not least talk about how we can not really ban any types of art and if we do, we just give it more power and push it underground, but it will not make the problem go away.

2. THBT the EU should force member states to include positive references to LGBT individuals and issues in their high school textbook.

This time we were closing government and managed to do a bit better job and receive a second place after the opening government. This time we were mostly focusing on whether people nowadays know enough about LGBT, do they have prejudice and if so, then why. We also looked at whether we can do it and how it will lead to awareness which would mean that there would not be that much discrimination and the LGBT themselves would feel better as they would see that they are as normal as heterosexual people. In order to receive a better place, we should have just go deeper in our analysis, but everything else was already good.

3. THBT the EU should guarantee the membership of regions such as Catalonia and Scotland that wish to secede.

This time we were the opening government that got the first place and we used the following arguments to do so. We said that the countries are already a part of the EU and they have already fulfilled the requirements, while being a part of the old country, more importantly, they are the better parts of those countries and therefore we have no need to doubt that they would start doing worse after seceding. Although if we would not guarantee them a membership then their economy would turn unstable and they might start having problems.

4. THBT Europe should weaken austerity measures in order to guarantee its citizens greater social support.

In this round, we managed to do quite a good job as opening opposition and our arguments were as fallows: Today the stability is lost and it is because of too big social support, therefore it is not the time to weaken the austerity measures, but maybe make them stronger instead. We have put in so much money to those countries, but if we would now stop being strong-handed, the problematic countries would stop making any changes towards a better future. First we have to fix the problem, maybe even let people suffer for a bit, but later on, we can again live better.

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Other than debating, we also managed to see some Amsterdam as we had a scavenger hunt across the town. We also had some great workshops and went to some really nice pubs. On the last day I also managed to get together with one really nice friend from the Netherlands and we spent a day together, before I had to go to the airport in order to return home.

On other notes

* Second term of the last school-year has almost ended and it was quite good, considering I put quite few effort into it, due to all this debating and university application process.

* On Sunday we will have a dancing competition at school.

* On Monday I will finally go to Cambridge for the interviews - I really do hope that it will be a success.

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Now I am really tired from all this writing and I do hope that the quality of the post did not go worse by every second sentence...

Best regards!
Sander Gansen

Project: University #4 - Getting the first response

2012-11-13T09:04:00.002+02:00

Good morning my dear readers!

It has been three weeks since my last post and there has been some response to my attempts to get into an university in Great Britain. As I already might have mentioned, then Cambridge requested that I would send them some certain documents and an essay in English. In addition, some other universities have made some requests and one of them has moved further. Other than the university application process, I also travelled to Germany few weeks ago to visit the school there that has some close relations with Sütevaka.

After I returned from my travels to Germany, I quickly had to finish the process of sending some documents to the University of Cambridge. While I was away from the country, the university had answered to one of my e-mails, saying that they would accept my research paper on the topic of Analysing Social Networks in the case of Sütevaka. In order to do so, I had to translate the paper from Estonian to English. Originally it was 37 pages long, but after the translation process it was a bit shorter. Next step was printing it out, but not just one copy of it, but five, which took some time and money. After that, I also had to send it to the University of Cambridge with post by 15th of November - all 178 pages. Although that is all done by now.

Other than Cambridge, University of Warwick also sent me an e-mail, about how they would need my school to send them the predictions of my grades - this is now the next thing I have to discuss with the university, whether They truly need me to send the predictions or the transcription of my grades up to this point. But this is a question to be answered later on.

UPDATE: Warwick never answered me back about the question, but e-mailed the same question to my form teacher, who also turned them down - I do hope that this is not the reason why they might not give me an offer.

Yesterday I also got an answer from the college of Magdalene in the university of Cambridge, saying that I am expected to show up at the interviews on the 11th of December. This is great news, as now I am one step closer to getting a place in Cambridge, which I would really love to have. Let's hope that I will show myself as a worthy student on the interviews and then get a positive response in the end... At this point I have booked my flight from Riga to London on the 10th of December and I will come back on the 12th.

On other notes

From the 24th of October to 2nd of November a delegation from our school went to Germany to visit our friend-school, where we went to some lessons at school, but also walked through the manor of Krupp family, saw the mines in Ruhr and even got to go to the Moviepark, which is a themepark in the area. The school and the families that we were staying at, lived in Wattenscheid, which is one part of Bochum, where we spent most of our evenings, shopping and having fun in other ways. The people there were great, really friendly and there were surely some that we would love to stay friends in the future as well - that is why we hope that some of them come to Estonia already for this New Year's eve.

Last weekend we also had an event at our school, where three schools gathered to compete in order to find out, who is better at what, but also in order to get some new friends. We had lots of fun, especially in the evening, while singing karaoke. Other than this event, I also took part in model international criminal court in Tallinn, where I had to be the defence attorney of a war criminal from Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the evening I also went to see the new Bond movie and I have to say that Skyfall truly was great. In addition, I also met with some really good friends and spent a nice evening with them.

In the debating world, we now have to debate on the topic, "Countries that want to continue as a part of eurozone, have to find a way to exit their budget deficit crisis". This is an interesting, although really hard economical topic, but we already have some ideas with our team Übermensch.

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Best regards!

Sander Gansen

Project: University #3 - Sending SAQ away

2012-10-22T09:34:00.002+03:00

Good morning my dear readers!

Not much has changed since my last post, where I said, I sent my UCAS application away. As I already mentioned, Cambridge sent me a request to fill their SAQ form, where they want to get some extra information about me, my school work and my reasons why I want to go to university (more accurately, my reasons why to go to Cambridge). That has been done by now and also all of the universities have replied to my application.

Hereby I return to keep You updated with the topic of me applying to university. I truly hope that reading my blog posts will inspire You to apply to different universities all-over the world. Maybe they will even help You get Your applications going and if You have any questions You cannot find answers from elsewhere, then feel free to ask me.

Until that, have fun reading the rest of the post!

Applying to the UK (via UCAS)

Starting from last Sunday, all of the universities where I applied to have sent me their confirmations of receiving my applications. First two to reply within the first three hours were Cambridge (sending me the SAQ form and some other instructions) and Edinburgh (telling me they will probably not make decisions before they have received each and every application). Two days later, I also got a letter from LSE, telling me they are making their decisions on a rolling bases, starting from November (while aiming to have decisions about all the on-time applications by 31st of March). Last but not least, Warwick and Durham also replied, telling me that they will not start the process of the application examining until they have all the applications, as they want to be fair. In other words, the only university where I can hope to get an answer earlier than March is Cambridge. - At the same time, one of my friends already got an offer from Glasgow.

The SAQ form, that I had to fill for Cambridge was not as easy job as I would have hoped, as other than wanting me to rewrite my address and add my picture. They also wanted to know about all the subjects that I have studied in Gymnasium (including class sizes and topics that we have covered up to now), the marks I have received until now and it was optional to write why you wanted to go to Cambridge, what are your plans for the future and how have you kept up your interest in the chosen course subjects. After going through some forums in order to know what to write and what not to write, I was able to send it away by the deadline. Now I just have to fax them some documents, including two examples of my writings - since I do not have anything in English, I will be going to call to the admissions office later today.

On other notes

I successfully managed to close my last period with getting a B in Physics, which meant that my Physics annual grade will also be 5. Other than that, the vacation started and day after tomorrow, we will fly to Germany, where we will stay until 2nd of November (I hope to receive the UCAS letter by then as well).

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Best regards!

Sander Gansen

Project: University #2 - Sending UCAS away

2012-10-14T23:57:00.000+03:00

Good evening my dear readers!

In my last post, I mentioned that if you want to apply for medicine or to Oxbridge, the deadline is 15th of October and therefore lately I have had some busy times in order to perfect my UCAS application, while also handling school-work and just trying to have fun. As of yesterday afternoon, I sent my UCAS application out, so a stone has dropped in my heart.

Hereby I return to keep You updated with the topic of me applying to university. I truly hope that reading my blog posts will inspire You to apply to different universities all-over the world. Maybe they will even help You get Your applications going and if You have any questions You cannot find answers from elsewhere, then feel free to ask me.

Until that, have fun reading the rest of the post!

Applying to the UK (via UCAS)

Since the last time I wrote something on my blog a lot has changed. First of all, I decided it was for the greater good if I changed some courses that I am applying to. I realised that if my first choice is Cambridge, I should be stating not only, why I want to study politics but also, why I want to study sociology but to do so, I needed to choose sociology as the field for me to study in other universities as well. Therefore I went through all the courses that my chosen universities were offering and I ended up with the following choices: University of Cambridge (L000 - Human, Social, and Political Sciences), London School of Economics and Political Studies (L301 - Sociology), University of Edinburgh (LL32 - Sociology and Politics), University of Durham (LMV0 - Combined Honours in Social Sciences) and University of Warwick (LL23 - Politics and Sociology). It can be seen that not all the courses are the same but after some research that Augur and I made, this was the best outcome that we were able to get to and I believe it is quite a good one indeed.

Changing my choices allowed me to rewrite most of my Personal Statement but I really do think it was the best thing for me to do and even Augur with many others have already stated that the new version really is much better than the earlier one - or at least a bit less cocky if you might say so. I do trust them and even I felt that the new outcome was more personal and therefore easier to connect to. Having finished my Personal Statement, I was able to relax and now I just needed my referee to submit her reference letter to my application, although as she is a quite busy lady, it took a bit longer time than expected but in the long run it got done as well. Before I could send my application out, I still needed to do one more thing.

In the UCAS application part, You have to fill in information about your education up to this point and when You have or will receive a qualification from any of Your schools, You have to state it correctly. As a student coming from Estonia, where I have not taken A-level's or studied in the IB program, I needed to state that my qualification is called: "Estonian Gümnaasiumi Lõputunnistus" and under that I had to write about the modules it consists of but as I had the chance to either put down my forthcoming state exams or all of my taken subjects, I had to ask around to find out which of the options had others chosen, when they were applying to the UK. In the end, I still needed to turn to professionals, people who earn money from it - a company named Dream foundation. A nice lady called Katriin Visamaa not only told me to add state exams (and if my case, also the school exams) but she also checked through all of my application and gave her approval to it, therefore I was able to send it out (after paying £23 fee to UCAS via credit card).

Now it was done and since then I have already received two e-mails from different universities (EDIT: As of now, all of the universities that I was applying have responded that they received my application). University of Edinburgh, which sent me my username for their tracking system and University of Cambridge, which sent me a request to fill SAQ form, where they ask for some additional information (such as your picture, why you have chosen Cambridge and so on). Thankfully I do have time to fill the form until 22nd of October, as I now have to think and write some more (some of the questions let you write up to 1200 characters which is almost one third of Personal Statement's capacity).

Applying to other countries

When I already went to Dream foundation I also asked about the other countries that I have been thinking to apply to just as a plan H, I and forward. Katriin kindly showed me how to apply to the Netherlands, while also explaining that their system is much more chaotic than for example UCAS system. She also promised to ask around from her friends, what universities should I be considering, when applying to there, as there you can choose up to four different universities.

When talking about Italy, she was not that helpful as it is quite an extraordinary thought to go to study there, as they might not have that good lecturers - not that they would be bad but their English might not be the best and therefore she is still most likely suggesting the UK or the Netherlands.

Today I also remembered that if all else would fail, I could also go for universities in South Africa, which would not be that bad of an idea as well, as I really do love the country and they do speak English and still have a good climate (just as Italy)...

Well, in any case, these things are still just thoughts as the UK is still my main priority with University of Cambridge being my first choice but we have to see, how that option is going to be.

On other notes

This week we also ended our first period of the last year in Sütevaka and I managed not to ruin my certificate with a D in Biology as I still got a C in it. Now I just have to take one more test in physics to close the period and continue with another one. Also the school trip to Germany is just ten days away and our German teacher is really stressing about it.

Other than that, we also had a wonderful three-day seminar in Tallinn with some very inspiring speakers from all over the Europe, who made me think in many ways and now I probably just have to continue with going higher and higher! Per aspera, ad astra...

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Best regards!

Sander Gansen

Project: University #1 - Filling UCAS Application

2012-09-30T15:04:00.003+03:00

Good day to all of you, who might be reading this post!

As you might have noticed, then the plan of writing a post every Sunday, did not really work out. There are several reasons for that, including my quite fast-paced life and my last project of applying to university, which in the matter of fact, takes more time than I would have ever thought.

In any case, after spending lots of time online, trying to find information about applying, while also writing my Personal Statement, I started to think that maybe some other people would be interested to read about the process. Therefore, I am launching a new project on my blog, which as you might have noticed, is called "Project: University".

Have fun reading the rest of the post!

The story behind "Project: University"

One of the things that has drawn me, since I first went to the UK, has been the possibility of one day going there for further studies. It all started, when I was in eight grade, thinking on going to the UK to finish my studies there, as I was not on the best terms with the school I was currently attending. On that time, my mother advised me to finish my basic school here in Estonia and then later go and look for the opportunities to study in the UK. So I did. The problem was that in ninth grade I went to Sütevaka for a day as an exchange student and I kind of fell in love with the school, therefore when it was time to go to high school, my decision was already made, although I still knew that for further studies in university, I wanted to go to the UK.

As the time passed, I had to decide what to do after high school and then I read that Cambridge had its Open Days on the 5th and 6th of July. I made up my mind to be there and started to research how to apply to any of the universities in the EU, more exactly in the UK. This is how I came across to UCAS. Meanwhile, I also went to travel in Europe, in order to see some universities and of course, attend the Cambridge Open Days. (if you already have not read about the trip, you can do so here: Trip from Cambridge to Amsterdam)

After returning from my travelling, it was time for me to start preparing everything in order to apply to the universities I had chosen. So far, I have decided to apply to the UK but also to the Netherlands and to Italy. Because the deadline to submit you application to universities in the UK is the first to come, I have so far only been focusing on that.

Applying to the UK via UCAS

When applying to universities in the UK you have three options how to do so. You either do it via your school, via some organization or by yourself. Due to several reasons, I chose the latter option of doing everything by myself and if needed, I am asking advice from people whom I trust the most in this matter - Augur (a wonderful guy, who hosted me while I was in Cambridge and who has attended the University of Cambridge himself), Ben (a Scottish friend from the Slovakian Youth Exchange, who has worked in the youth field for years), Kadi Liis (a girl from Estonia, who is at the moment studying at the University of Cambridge), Lauren (a girl from University of Cambridge, who is already studying the same field I want to) and then there are some other people as well.

The first thing you have to do in the UCAS application is to choose up to five universities you would like to attend and the courses you would like to study there. If before, I was still doubting whether to study something of scientific nature or from social sciences, then after having been to Cambridge Open Days, I was already certain that I wanted to study Political and International Studies, therefore now I just had to think of the universities where to do so. With the help from Augur and Ben, I decided that I want to apply to the following universities: University of Cambridge (HSPS), London School of Economics and Political Science (PP), University of Edinburgh (PP), University of Durham (PPE) and University of Warwick (PPE).

EDIT: Just before sending away my application, I decided to change some of the courses, that I would be applying to. The new list is: University of Cambridge (HSPS), London School of Economics and Political Science (Sociology), University of Edinburgh (Sociology and Politics), University of Durham (Combined Honours in Social Sciences), University of Warwick (Politics and Sociology).

After deciding what and where to do, it is time to start fulfilling your application, which consists of your general information, the information about your studies up to this point, the information about your work experience and the two most important things, your Personal Statement and the Reference Letter from your school, most likely from your form tutor. Application deadline for all professional medicine, dentistry and veterinary courses, and for all courses at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge is 15th of October. All the other people have time until 15th of January with the exception of art and design students, who have time until 24th of March (lucky bastards).

As my deadline is 15th of October, then for the last month or so, I have been using almost every free moment I have to work on my Personal Statement, which is about to be finished - I hope... The Personal Statement is, in my opinion, the most important thing about your application that can be easily influenced. You can have the best grades ever, and still run the risk of being rejected if your universities if you submit them a piece summarising your life that makes you seem like the most boring stick in the mud to ever walk the earth. Thankfully I still have two weeks to work on it, so I am not in that big hurry yet and I believe it will be finished on time. The good thing is that all the other parts of the application are already ready, including the reference letter from my form tutor, Mrs Tiina Kruusmaa.

At this point, I will now stop writing this post and get back to my Personal Statement, but as soon as there will be any update on the "Project: University", I am again here to write about it.

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Best regards!

Sander Gansen

NB! As you might have noticed, I gave up on writing in Estonian, for now...

Hitchhike from Ca to Am - Gent, Brussels, Tilburg & Amsterdam

2012-07-25T13:35:00.001+03:00

Good afternoon to all of you, that are still here, reading this blog and the adventures of past week in my life! / Tere parastlounat kõigile, kes te olete ikka veel siin, lugemas minu blogi viimase nadala seiklustest!

I was supposed to write the blog after every town I stayed at but it just happened that I did not find a perfect time for that until now, when I write about all the last four towns and cities I have been to. / Ma pidin kirjutama blogi kull parast igat linnast lahkumist, kuid kuna ma selleks perfektset aega ei leidnud, kuni tanaseni, siis kirjutan nuud koigist linnastest, kus ma kainud olen, korraga.

Have fun reading this post! / Head lugemist!

Different festivals in Europe!

I had not planned it, but it just happened that in the last four towns, where I stayed at, they all had some kind of festivals, while I was there. In Gent, they had their annual culture festival, where they had many live concerts, some plays, parties all over the town and just loads of people - so on both of the evenings that I was staying with David in Gent, we went to explore that festival (all-in-all it lasts for ten days in a row) and we met some really great people with whom we just talked through the night, sharing different ideas, and we just had a lot of fun.

When I arrived to Brussels, I also did not have a clue about what is happening there but I just had a host for a night, who was at the same time hosting a Mexican boy, who was also travelling around Europe, after a year of studying here and before getting back to his home country. With Patrick, our host, we went to eat dinner and he just showed some of his favourite places in the town and afterwards sent us to one of the squares where they had a concert, as the next day was Belgium Independence day. In the next day, I had to find myself a new host but until that I was just seeing what was happening around the town. In the evening, there was a CouchSurfing meeting, where we went to see the fireworks and then 30 or 40 of us went to one Norwegian guy's apartment where we just socialised - there was also another girl from Estonia, that I talked to for a quite long time and in the end I found myself a host as well.

After arriving to Tilburg in the evening, I saw that they had a fare or something there but on that night I just went to see the new Batman movie, which was in some parts really depressive but at the same time, it was excellent and again gave me some ideas. Later on, still without a host, I went to one pub, which was closed but the workers were having their after work beers and one of the guys from there was helping me to get to a hostel, until he realised that I could just stay at his place and so I did. In the next day, they had a Pink Day in Tilburg and other than that, I also met Ben and some of his students again with whom we spent most of the day (and I got a free lunch as well, because they had lost one of their participants - they had some kind of a youth exchange there).

On other notes

In the last week, I did visit some other universities, that really did not appeal to me, therefore it is quite sure that Cambridge is still my favourite, although we will see what Leiden brings to us.

On one night, my host, Rut in a nearby "village" with 40'000 people, took me to Amsterdam to show me the city and the red light district, which was different but I would not say that it was anything really impressive. Maybe it was because we were there on a Monday, when nothing really happened.

Finally in the Netherlands, we managed to get sun, so on Tuesday I finally got to wear shorts and go to beach, where I almost burnt myself again, because once again I fell a sleep in beach. But other that that, the beach was really nice and with hot soft sand - and afterwards the lunch in one beach club was amazing.

All in all, this week has been quite easygoing and just resting but now, as I arrived to Leiden, we are going to work hard until the evening of Saturday.

Eesti keelne kokkuvõte

* Viimase nadala jooksul olen ma joudnud nii Genti, Brusselisse, Tilburgi kui ka Amsterdami: esimeses linnas oli samal aja suur Genti kultuurifestival mitmete artistidega, naidentitega ja ka maja seintel tantsijatega; teises linnas toimus lihtsalt Belgia iseseisvuspaeva tahistamine, millega seoses joudsime me nii uhele suurele kontserdile, ilutulestikule kui ka CouchSurfi kogunemisele; kolmandas linnas oli Tilburgi festival ja ka Roosa paev ehk ule Hollandi kogunesid sinna koik homoseksuaalid ja ka heterod, riietatud uleni roosasse - mina ei sulandunud sinna, kuna roosasi asju polnud ja hea ongi; Amsterdamis nagin lihtsalt linna, k.a punaste laternate tanavat, mis polnud minu silmis midagi liiga erilist ja sain esmakordselt randa, sest oli paike ja kolmkummend kraadi.

* Tilburgis kohtasin taaskord Beni, kes tagastas mulle mu magamiskoti, mille ma Andoveris tema juurde olin jatnud ning lisaks sellele kaisime niisama tema ja teistega tema grupist linna peal ringi - parasjagu toimus neil just seal linnas noortevahetus, mille raames sain ma ka tasuta nendega koos suua.

* Ulikooli motted on siiani Cambridge peal, kui uldse, siis on see mote suvenenud, kuid eks nais, mida Leiden veel endaga kaasa toob.

* Sel nadalal olen pigem lihtsalt puhanud ja erinevatel uritustel kainud, kuid alates tanasest, kuni laupaeva hilisohtuni tuleb nuud Leidenis tood teha ja siis saab tagasi Eestisse puhapaeva parastlounal.

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Now I am already in Leiden, a town in the Netherlands! / Nuud olen ma juba Leidenis, uhes Hollandi vanimas ulikooli linnas!

Best regards! / Parimate soovidega!

Hitchhike from Ca to Am - Stop #4: Paris

2012-07-18T22:13:00.001+03:00

Good evening to all of you, that have gathered over here today to read about my adventures in another town! / Tere õhtust kõigile, kes te olete täna kogunenud siia, et lugeda minu seiklustest jargmises linnas!

As some of you already know, this time I was staying in Paris and as you might have noticed, I took a bit longer stop over there to have a bit more fun with the people that I met and to see more things. / Nagu mõned teist juba teavad, siis seekord peatusin ma Pariisis ja nagu te voite naha, siis ma tegin seal natukene pikema peatuse, et kohtuda rohkemate inimestega ja naha rohkem asju.

But now, just buckle up and enjoy this post! / Head lugemist!

Bastille Day in Paris!

When I first arrived to Paris, it was still really early in the morning and I had no host to go to but I did know that they are celebrating Bastille Day, so to called independance day in Paris on the 14th of July, therefore I thought there are still fun things to do. First, after getting off from the bus, I went to find my way to the centre of the town and when I finally got there, I thought I might give a look upon Louvre - when I got there, it was still half past seven and it was not openned yet, although people were already gathering there and I managed to get quite into the start of the line. After waiting for a hour and a half in the cold, they started to let people in. I put my bag away and went to discover the art within the building. At one point I decided to go and look for a place to eat, recharge my battaries and find myself a host, so I went to the only place open and with Wi-Fi on that day - McDonald's. On my way there, I also saw the military parade.

Finally with the help of Internet, I started to look for a host, whom I did not find but I did find out that the CouchSurfers were having a picnic in front of the Eiffle Tower, where there was supposed to be big fireworks and all other kinds of things, therefore I thought this is the place, where I would have the best chance in finding myself a host and this was the place I headed next. After a one hour walk, I arrived to the meeting place, I found the surfers and made friends with two American guys, Kerri and Rick with whom we also made friends with a Slovenian guy Kristjan, Australian guy Andy, Norwegian girl Ida, French guy Marion and some other people. So we spent a evening talking and playing games with them in front of the tower. When the fireworks began, then they lasted for more than thirty minutes and the music of 70's and 80's was constantly playing as a background, so it was great.

After all of the things there, some of us headed towards "Fireman Party", which was packed and therefore we just landed in a Cafe next to it, talked a bit and around two A.M. we all went to home and by that time I had managed to get myself a host as well - the Norwegian girl, Ida, who was my host for the next four nights. For the next days in Paris, we were constantly doing stuff with the people we met in the first day. Mainly our group consisted of Andy, Rick, Ida and Marion but in some occasions there were also some others that we had met before.

On other notes

On of the things I managed to do in Paris was just going with Ida and one Columbian guy and walking through most of the city, while visiting the supposedly best restaurant and many other nice things - we did not go to many tourist places if any but they showed me quite a big part of the city.

On one night, we went to watch a game of Footy with others, as Andy from Australia wanted to show us their most known sport. After the game we just went to Ida's place and cooked a dinner for all of us and stayed talking and playing games until the very morning, when we just went to have a coffee outside (or others had a coffee) and then it was time for bed again.

We also managed to go and see one French play with Andy and Ida and even though it was all in french and with only one actor, I still managed to understand a bit and so did Andy, who does not speak any French as well but is just an actor, owning his own theather company in Australia. Supposedly it was a story about a guy telling a story of a girl that he liked from the time he was sixteen but he also told a storyline about his father and so on - it was not a typical play and certainly not a one I should have gone watching as it was all in French but it was a fun experience.

We also visited a Quizz night - CouchSurfers in Paris are having this quiz night every Monday and this time there were at least eighty people there and it was lots of fun. We also played some pool, after we had not won in the quiz.

On the notes of university, I still think that going to Cambridge would be my first choice. We will see what happens by the end of the trip.

Eesti keelne kokkuvõte

* Pariisi joudes polnud mul kull oobimiskohta, kuid Pariisis oli tol paeval nende iseseisvuspaev, mille raames ma kaisin Louvre's, nagin sojavae paraadi ning lopuks laksin CouchSurfi kogunemisele Eiffeli torni ees, kus tutvusin mitmete randuritega, kellest uks, Ida, tudruk Norrast, kes opib Pariisis keskkoolis vottis mu enda juurde. Lisaks kohtusin seal Austraalia naitleja Andyga, Ameerika ari-alase uliopilse Rickiga, Pariisis tegutseva arvutimangude testija Marioniga ja veel mitmete teistega. Lisaks nagin ka poole tunnist ilutulestikku koos muusikaga, mis oli iseseisvuspaeva tahistamiseks.

* Lisaks kaisime koos Ida ja Kolumbist parit uliopilasega labi kogu Pariisi kesklinna, kuigi me ei kulastanud turistikohti, vaid lihtsalt nende lemmikuid kohti.

* Uhel ohtul kaisime vaatamas ka Austraalia mangu nimega Footy vms, parast mida tegime me seitsmekesti Ida juures koigile ohtusoogi ja veetsime lihtsalt terve oo raakidest ja erinevaid mange mangides.

* Juhtusin ka vaatama uht naidendit, mis oli kull koik pranstuse keeles, kuid parast vaikest seletamist, sain ma juba aru koigest, mis oli seal toimunud.

* Samuti kaisime malumangul, kuhu kogunevad esmaspaeviti koik Pariisis olevad CouchSurferid, kus me kull ei voitnud, kuid kus sai veel moned tutvused ning kus mangisime lopus ka natuekene piljardit.

* Parast Pariisi on siiski Cambridge minu esmane valik, kuhu ulikooli minna, eks nais, mis reisi lopuks saab.

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Now I am already in Gent, a town in Belgia! / Nuud olen ma juba Gentis, uhes Belgia ulikooli linnas!

Best regards! / Parimate soovidega!

Hitchhike from Ca to Am - Stop #3: English countryside

2012-07-13T16:17:00.001+03:00

Hi everyone, who is not enjoying this trip with me! / Tere koigile, kes pole siina minuga koos seda reisi nautimas!

This time I have been staying in the counrtyside of England, although I have still stayed in towns but the people here consider them as villages comparing it to London and elsewhere. Even if it is true, the people here are still very nice and friendly... / Seekord peatusin ma Inglismaa maakohtades, mis on tegelikult kull linnad, kuid kohalike arvates Londoni korval vaid kulad. Isegi, kui see vastab toele, siis inimesed siinkandis on siiski vaga toredad ja sobralikud...

Have fun reading it and do not forget to comment! / Head lugemist ja arge unustage kommenteerimast!

Life in Basingstoke, Overton & Andover

After I got to the coach station, I quickly bought a ticket for the bus towards Basingstoke and started moving towards the bus. Arriving there, I saw that the bus was going to delay a bit, so I just say there, bought myself a bottle of water and waited for the bus. When it finally arrived it was time to move towards the first town in the countryside - I quickly called to Joey, who had before voluntered to be my host in that town, said I was coming a day earlier and then slept the way there. After arriving, Joey was waiting for me and we walked to his home, where I was introduced to his mother, Sam and sister, Charlie, who were both really great people. I was offered some food that Charlie had made beforehand and then we just talked about different things with Joey and Sam, until it was time for bed.

In the morning, Sam fixed us some breakfast in the form of some toast with different jellys and some muslei. Later Joey took me to town, showed me, where everything was and then he went to work with her mom for some hours, while I looked around the town, met Pam, the brazilian from Slovakia exchange, and her friend Karina, then saw the Olympic fire move through the town and also met with Peter Benjamin "Ben" Kinkross, who was still working, therefore we made plans for the next day. Two hours later, I met Joey again and we went to have a lunch in "White Rose", where I took a chilli-burger. After we ate, we went back to home, where we played some boardgame and "Marvel: Ultimate Alliance" on PS2. At some point we made some dinner (pasta with garlic, onions, mushrooms, tomatos and beans). In the evening, Joey and I went back to the White Rose, where once again we met Pam and some of her friends, who took us to a local club for free, where we stayed for half an hour and then went back to home to get some more sleep.

In the next morning, after a long breakfast, Sam and Joey took me to Overton, a nearby town, where I went to look for the trainstation - after a long walk and some problems with the ticket machine, I was already on the train and soon in Andover, where I walked to the town centre, waited for a bit and met Ben, who showed me around in the town, we ate some lunch and also went to see the Iron Age museum, where Ben's wife, Anya works. After seeing this place, we headed back to Ben's home, where we had lots of tea, played boardgames like "Zug um Zug" and "Blockers!". Then we also had a long talk about universities, where Ben suggested me some universities in the UK, as he also has worked in this field. From Oxbridge, he'd choose Oxford but other than that, he was suggesting me to look towards Edinburgh, Cardiff, Darum & Warwick. Later on we ate something that Anya made and played another game of Zug um Zug, before heading to bed.

In the last morning in the countryside of England, we ate some breakfast, then talked to Ben and watched the film "Breakfast at Tiffany's", which reminded me how very much I like the style that cannot be seen on our streets anymore - 30s, 60s and others like those. After the film, I only watched Tim Minchin "Ready for this" and ate some cake with Ben, before it was finally time for me to go on the bus and continue my journey.

What happened after, will be written in the next post.

Eesti keelne kokkuvõte

* Teisipaeva ohtul, parast meeleolukat bussisoitu, joudsin Basingstoke, kus bussijaamas oli vastas Joey, kellega laksime tema koju, kus ta tutvustas mulle oma ema, Sami ja ode, Charliet, kellega pidasime maha kuni magamaminekuni pika vestluse, samal ajal kui Sam pakkus mulle ka Charlie poolt tehtud ohtusooki.

* Kolmapaeva hommikul, parast hommikusooki viis Joey mu linna, naitas katte kohad, kus, mis on ja laks ise koos emaga toole, samal ajal kui mina sain kokku Pamiga ning hiljem kohtasin ka Beni - vahepeal nagin ka olumpia tuld, mis labi tanava jalutas. Varsti saime taaskord kokku Joeyga ja laksime uhte kohalikku kortsi sooma - mina votsin chilli burgeri. Hiljem tagasi kodus olles mangisime uht lauamangu, alustasime playstation 2'l "Marvel: Ultimate Alliance" mangimist ning mingi hetk tegime juba ohtusooki, parast mida kaisime veel korra valjas, kus kohtasin veelkord Pami.

* Neljapaeval, parast pikka hommikusooki, viisid Sam ja Joey ming Overtoni, kus matkasin kuni rongijaamani ning parast vaikest vingerpussi, sain rongile, mis viis mu Andoveri, kus linna joudes sain kokku Beniga, kes naitas linnas ringi ja seejarel laksime tema koju, kus mangisime kaht erinevat lauamangu ning raakisime veel UK ulikoolidest, kuhu ta arvab, et mina voiksin sobida, kuna ta teab enamvahem mida ma tahan ja mis mulle uldse ei sobiks. Hiljem soime veel Anya, tema poola paritolu naise tehtud ohtusooki ning mangisime veel uhe mangu.

* Reedel soime hommikust, siis raakisime veidi juttu ning vaatasin filmi "Breakfast at Tiffany's", mis oli vaga super. Hiljem aga alustasin oma teekonda tagasi mandrile.

Kui ma ei eksi, siis mu blogil on üleval vasakus nurgas võimalus seda tõlkida (ka eesti keelde) niisiis kasutage seda või laske kellelgi teisel endale hetkel asju ära tõlkida, kui tahate natukene tapsemat pilti saada, sest ma ei hakka hetkel eesti keeles sama pikalt valja kirjutama koike, kui ma seda teen inglise keeles. Hiljem voin alati suurema mahuliselt isiklikult koik lahti jutustada - nagu nii ei suuda ma kogu emotsiooni siia ära paigutada.

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This is all for this week! / Selleks nädalaks kõik!

Best regards! / Parimate soovidega!

Sander Gansen

Hitchhike from Ca to Am - Stop #2: London

2012-07-10T12:07:00.001+03:00

Hello my friends, people I know and just the people, whom I still have not met yet but who seem to read this blog quite often!/ Tere koigile sopradele, inimestele, keda tean ja ka neile, kesa ma veel kohanud pole, kuid kes pidevalt mu blogi lugema satuvad!

In these last couple of days I have stayed in London and now I will write about the things I have done and people I have met, while staying here. / Viimastel paevadel olen ma peatunud Londonis ning nuud ma kirjutan sellest, mida ma olen siin olles teinud ja kellega olen kohtunud.

Have fun reading it and do not forget to comment! / Head lugemist ja arge unustage kommenteerimast!

Life in London

After the bye-bye with Augur, I took a bus to town and another one from there to trainstation. In the second bus I met this nice guy called James, who was also going to London, so we went on the same train and spent an hour long ride talking about the things we have and will be doing later in life. When we finally got to London, King's Cross Station, then he helped me to find a tourist information kiosk and then he went on his own way, while I went to ask for a map and some basic directions to universities I was planning to visit in the next couple of days.

After getting directions, I went to find my way to University College London or as some of you might know it UCL. When I got there, I realized that it was Saturday and that all the universities were in fact closed on weekends, therefore I desided I would just make my way up to the centre and think of some things to do. By that time I had also discovered that in fact I had no place to sleep in for that night and therefore I just had to carry my big bag with me until I found such place. So after UCL, I went to Euston underground station, where I saw that they have free Wi-Fi, which meant that as it was raining outside and I did not particularly have any other place to be, I just put my bags down, sat on the floor myself as well and spent an hour chatting with friends on the internet.

Later I made up my mind that I would like to go to cinema to watch "The Amazing Spider-Man" and so I did - I went to Leicester Squeer, saw a cinema which was showing that movie at the time and bought a ticket for the next show in an hour. Until I got to see my movie, I was just trying to find some things to do, but while it was raining, I did not have a chance to do many things. Finally, when it was five o'clock, I went to cinema and watched the film - it was great and definatelly worth every penny.

While I was watching my film, a couchsurfer named Anthony had called to me and after the film we met - as he was trying to make his way to some seminar, I went with him, only leaving my bag to one casino, where they appearently store bags for free. When we got to the seminar, I realized it was held in UCL, where I had already been before and it was about marxism - that last part was not particularly the best, as they were all just talking about socialistic ideas, which I do not always support myself. After some time there we managed to start moving at twelve o'clock to get my bag from the casino, but before we collected it, Anthony was showing me around that and two other casinos. In the first one, there was a free club, where we spent some minutes in, in the second one, they served free non-alcholic drinks and in the third one they served free food, so at 3am I got my first food (spring rolls, chicken wings and fries) after the breakfast in the morning - in the mean time I had just had some water and some cider that Anthony had given me.

Finally at three o'clock we started to move towards his home and got to there just a bit before four - until that moment everything had been fine but only until that moment, as when we arrived there, the place he was living in, was so drity, the couch I had to sleep was really uncomfortable and small, and to make the matters worse, then I think he started to hit on me but I managed to get him away and got some sleep. In the morning I just knew that I wanted to get away from him as soon as possible, so after breakfast (a crossant), I took my things and while we went back to the seminar, I was looking a way for leaving him behind and as I saw one open chance, I fleed.

After getting away from there and him, I just ignored his calls and went to Oxford Circus, because I though I would like to do something there but as it was once again raining hard, I soon just went to a pub, where I wrote some blog, had a plate of garlic breads and was trying to find a new host. For three hours I hads no luck but then a man called Edward wrote to me, asking whether I was still looking for a host - I quickly said yes and only an hour later I arrived to his nice home. His home is situated just on the bank of Thames, having a great view on the other side and he gave me one of the rooms, which even had a tub in it, so for a second I thought I had finally arrived to heaven :P and then he also made me some food and I realized I truly was there... Later we just talked for some hours and then went to sleep.

In the next morning, we had a nice breakfast together and then I made my way to central London once again - first I went to King's College London to ask some questions about their university, later I got to London School of Economics and Political Science, which was also really nice and then I thought I would make my way to IDEA London office (International Debating Education Association). After an hour long walk I managed to get there, where a nice man called Alex, who is behind the http://database.idebate.org, that all the debaters love to use, was telling me about their office, the work they do there and also showed me some books that IDEA press is publishing and to make the matters even better, he allowed me to take some of them for myself for free and so I did take four of the best I could find. Later I met with Kristiina Allikas just by the London Dungeon, where we had a nice drink and talked about our lives, what had happened in the last year or so.

Later, when I finally arrived back to Edwards place, we once again had a very nice dinner (potatoes, beans and some cottage cheese) together and then continued with some talking for another three hours before we once again went to sleep. In the morning I just packed my bag, then we had a nice breakfast again and talked for a bit more, before I started to make my way back to the centre, where I was supposed to meet Jonn Sooniste. So now it was time for another bye-bye and off I went.

When we met with Jonn, then he took me to this wonderful part of London, Camden Town, where they sold all kinds of retro things, clothes in styles like 30s, 70s, gothic, emo, punk etc - everything in cheap proces as well. They had different shops in 90s style and it all looked like the development had stopped in the late 90s, therefore it was really great and I made a promise that if I ever start dating any girl, who would like any of these kinds of styles, I would take her shopping there. Later we also went to SOHO and visited some retro shops there until.it was time for bye and I went to catch a bus towards Basingstoke.

What happened after, will be written in the next post but Augur, you can be sure that at the moment, Cambridge is much better than any of the other universities that I have visited in the UK. The list would go: Cambridge > LSE > King's and I would not want to end up in UCL after all + as I did not visit Imperial this time, I am not sure about this one either (but now I do have to choose some other university in the UK that I would like to send my application instead of the UCL, as I do need to send out five, for some awkward reason).

Eesti keelne kokkuvõte

* Laupaeva hommikul joudsin ma ilusasti Londonisse, kus avastasin, et ulikoolid on nadalavahetusel kinni ja seega oli mul nuud palju vaba aega, millest osa kasutasin ma ara uut Amblikmehe filmi vaadates. Parast filmi sain ma lopuks kokku selle inimesega, kelle juures ma pidin sel ohtul oobima ning temaga koos kaisime me korra uhel marksismi seminaril, kus ta tahtis ara kaia (mis ei olnud otseselt minu masti uritus) ning hiljem kulastasime me kolme kasiinot, kus uhes sain ma oma koti tasuta hoiule anda ning kaia tasuta klubis, teises jagati tasuta alkoholivabasid jooke ning kolmandas sai tasuta suua kevadrulle, kanatiibu ja friikartuleid + juua limonaadi :P. Hiljem joudsin ma tema koju, kus on rapane ning kust ma tahtsin saada minema niipea, kui voimalik.

* Puhapaeva hommikul lahkusin ma Anthony seltskonnast nii kiirelt kui sain ning edasise paeva veetsin vihma tottu Oxford Circusel ning uhes sealasuvas pubis, kus kirjutasin blogi, vaatasin veidi Wimbeldoni ning lopuks leidsin endale ka uue oomaja, otse Thamesi kaldal ja eraldi vanniga vannitoaga, kus tolle korteri peremees Edward tegi mulle ohtul ka suua ning siis me raakisime pikalt juttu, kuni magama minekuni.

*Esmaspaeval sain ma lopuks minna ulikoole vaatama. Esmalt kulastasin King's College Londonit, seejarel Londoni Majanduse ja Poliitika ulikooli (LSE) ning siis joudsin omadega ka IDEA Londoni kontorisse, kus Alex, uks seal olevatest tootajatest naitas mulle veidi ringi ning lubas hiljem mul endale votta tasuta neli parimat vaitlusalast raamatut, mis neil hetkel sees oli. Hiljem sain ma veel kokku ka Kristiina Allikaga kellega raakisime maast ja ilmast ning siis tulin juba tagasi Edwardi juurde, kus soime ohtuks kartuleid ubade ja kodujuustuga. Hiljem vestlesime veel veidi ja siis laksime taaskord magama.

* Teisipaeval soime hommikusooki ning siis utlesime head aega juba, sest liikusin linna, kus kohtusime Jonniga, kellega kaisime mega lahedas linnaosas nimega Camden Town, kus muudi erinevaid retro, punk, gooti, 90, hipi stiilis riideid ja muid asju - tundus nagu el seisaks seal alates 90. lopust. Hiljem kaisime ka SOHOs vaatamas monda retro poodi ja seejarel oligi aeg juba liikuda jargmisesse linna.

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This is all for this week! / Selleks nädalaks kõik!

Best regards! / Parimate soovidega!

Sander Gansen