United Kingdom

Booking the Friday off work I travelled down to the coast with Sian from Bedford and Saman from Letchworth, eventually arriving in Woolacombe by mid-afternoon - the only place en route where the sun was not shining.

The weekend proceeded along mostly in the same way, with lot of drunken banter and catch ups. With Friday being a busier day I took an earlier night, whereas Saturday was definitely the party night with us staying up until the early hours.

Meanwhile the days consisted of walks down the long hill to the beach to enjoy the sunshine and seaside resort. Lots of sunburn on Saturday and a long but fun game of mini golf on Sunday before the end of the weekend and return home on Monday.

This was a different kind of holiday to normal, but nevertheless it was thoroughly enjoyable sitting around more relaxed and enjoying the company of friends who we don't all get to see that often!

On the Monday, we made the trip to North Wales, where we stopped at the small town of Conwy, visiting the remains of the Castle, the city walls, and the port side (where the smallest house in Great Britain is located), giving us some traditional Welsh heritage. Afterwards we carried on further into the country, crossing the Menai Straits onto Anglesey, where there were some stunning views of not only the strait and the bridges crossing it, but also of Snowdonia.

We then arrived at the town of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (the place with the second longest name in the world), where we had some photos taken outside the signs, and visited the gift shop, before driving to the other end of the island to Holyhead, where the ferries leave to Dublin. Shockingly enough, it was even necessary to use sunglasses!

The following day we visited the historic town of Chester, walking around the city walls and looking at the beautiful buildings. We then made the trip up the Wirral to Birkenhead, where we got a view over Liverpool - staying just a few minutes before quickly exiting Merseyside

The following day was our last full day in the area, and was also the nicest, reaching 24˚C, spending it at Alton Towers. Despite arriving at park opening time, the queues for the largest rides were still over an hour long, however we did manage to ride most of the biggest rides at the park that day, topping off what had been a thoroughly enjoyable few days in the area.

Next stop, Malta!

Started off with a reunion on Friday night, before going to Milton Keynes on Saturday. On Sunday had a little reunion with friends at Thorpe Park, before getting up very early to see the Olympic Flame come through Dunstable and fly back to Germany and go straight to Denmark.

And to top it all off, I will be back full time in just two weeks time! How Erasmus has flown by!

This trip was much more relaxed than my usual trips (yes, I actually had some hours to relax each day!). We stayed right in the centre of Edinburgh, just a minute's walk from the high street - Princes Street. On the day we arrived, we just walked around the shopping centre that was only a 5 minute walk. Whilst on the second day we went to Britannia, the Queen's former royal yacht, that is now open as a museum. This took about half an hour on the bus to reach the Port, but was well worth seeing.

The next day we went to Edinburgh Zoo, mainly to see the Pandas, but also the Koalas and other interesting animals. Luckily the Pandas were on show (we had been warned that as the day we had chosen to visit was within the female Panda's yearly 36 hours of fertility, we may not get to see them at all). This was rather interesting as these Pandas were rather active, and seeing a youthful Panda walk round its cage was a rare experience.

On the final full day in the city, we waked around the city - hoping that the weather would be kind to us (we had already experienced high and low temperatures, sun, wind, rain, hail and snow in the short time we had been there), and luckily it was - thin jacket weather with sun! Starting off from the hotel we walked to Holyrood, and saw the Queen's Scottish residence, and we got to go inside the Scottish Parliament.

After this, we walked up the Royal Mile, seeing many of the historical buildings of the city, before reaching Edinburgh Castle - however at £14.50 per person, we decided that it was not worth paying to get in, as we had already got inside the begging of the Castle already, and so we left and walked down to Princes Street. We then decided to visit Calton Hill - just 2 minutes from the hotel, where we got great views looking over the city and port, and from where we could see the Forth Rail Bridge.

On our final day in the city, before going to the airport, we decided to visit the National Museum of Scotland, where we saw the stuffed body of Dolly the Sheep, Bernie Ecclestone's F1 car, the Tomb of Mary, Queen of Scots and half of the Lewis Chessmen. As this was Good Friday the museum was pretty busy, and my tolerance for children has still not recovered!

Johan came to visit me and we then travelled up to visit Sandy in Leeds, visiting Malham and Skipton again as well as spending lots of time together.