BAck Again

It has been a really long time since I wrote anything here. There's so much to do all the time that you forget to write here. In 15 of April I had my Easter break which lasted for a months. The first week I just relaxed and went to the beach with friends and went to London and did some shopping of course. Then I went to Sweden with Lauren. She only stayed for one week and then left for Italy to meet her cousin. I stayed in Sweden for 16 days and it was really nice to meet everybody again. You don't realise how much you miss them till you meet them again. It was really weird the week after Lauren left. I didn't have much to do and I started to feel a bit bored. But it was nice at the same time because I knew that when I come back to the UK I'll have a lot of studies waiting. The first week I came back I had one test in Biocomputing 2 which went well. After the exam I felt doing something funny. My uncle was going to get married the 1 of May so I decided to fly to Germany and see his wedding. I left the 28 of April and stayed or 5 days. My Mother, my sisters, my 2 aunts and there children and my oldest uncle came from Sweden. It was a great surprise because they planned to come the same day they bought the tickets. It was great to see them again. I also met my aunt in Germany who is as old as me. We had a great time together at the Wedding and before that when we tried to find a dress for me, which I finally found one day before the wedding. We danced for about 6 hours and my feet were dead!! I was tired for 2 days after the wedding haha.. Now I have 4 exams this months and in June I'll be totally free! I've planned to go back earlier to Sweden to see my cousins wedding 16 of June so I'll have 16 days to do really fun stuff!!! :D

Ireland Dublin!

I have been in Irelaaaaaaaaaand!!!
Now you’ll read the story of my Ireland adventure. The 23rd of February two girls of the name Hoda and Lauren went on their trip of their life time. Not because it is so far away but because they are the best travelling couples ever! Our trip started by waking up at the crack of dawn abut 4 am and took the bus from Brighton with other international students (90 % Spanish talking people) and 1 American (Lauren) and one Swedish/Lebanese (Hoda). The trip took us about 12 hours. First we travelled through Wales to Holyhead and that took about 7 hours. From there we took the ferry to Dublin and that took 3 hours. The ferry was really nice, it had a cinema, a gift shop, restaurants. Very nice! We had fish and chips which was really good. Then we arrived finally in Dubliiiiiin! We went straight to the hostel. It was a nice one; about 15 min walk from the city centre. The hostel used to be an old church run by the Magdalene sisters where pregnant girls were sent to work until they had their babies. When their babies where born they were put up for adoption.

The hostel

We shared the room with 6 people from Taiwan and Japan. After resting a while we went out with the whole group to Temple Bar in Dublin. It’s not only one bar but an area with shops, bars and restaurants. We walked there for a while before we met Simon (The tour manager). He is sooooo funny! He took us to a bar and bought Guinness for us and told us about his life as a gay guy in Brighton. Lauren and I tried to not act surprised. After a couple of hours he told us that he is not actually gay and he only wanted to see how we would react!! CRAZY! We believed him! I mean he told us about not visiting his family for a long time, about how many gay people there are in Brighton (30%) and all about his boyfriends! And that was only a BIG lie!! Hahaha.. After that we went back to the hostel.
The next day we went on a real tour with a real Irish guide through Dublin. First we had a tour in the city and then took off to the Wicklow Mountains. The city is really nice; there is an old university, cathedrals, many monuments, and a lot of stores. The journey to the mountains was really nice. The view was amazing! There were a lot of sheep and big fields. In the mountains, first we went to Glendalough, an old monastic site. It was gorgeous! It is one of the oldest and most important places in Irish history and in Europe. In its heyday, it was a very important and successful monastery. It is still considered consecrated ground in the Christian religion. Then we went to Avoca, a small village in the mountains, and had homemade soup and bread. Avoca is known for its handweaving, and they sold many beautiful throws and scarves.

Avoca

On the way back to the hostel, we stopped at Phoenix Park, which is the biggest public park in the world. Only two people live there, the American ambassador and the President of Ireland, who is a woman. The President’s house resembles the White House in America because the same British architect designed them. We had to hurry back to the hostel so that we could change clothes and go watch the England vs. Ireland rugby match with Simon and his three friends, Johan, Terence, and Carlos. There were people everywhere! 80,000 people were going to the stadium to watch the game. A ticket to the game would normally be 50 euros, but if you bought them that day, they would have been more than 1,000 euros.

Outside the stadium

We wanted to go, but exactly afford it, so we decided to watch it in a pub instead. We walked to the stadium to see all of the people and buy scarves to show our support for Ireland, and then we found the least crowded pub we could, which was still really crowded, and we had to stand at the door to watch the match. Some Irish men noticed that Lauren is American, and they started to explain the rules of rugby to her because of course, Americans don’t know anything about anything that’s not American. Somehow, one of the men challenged Lauren to a drinking competition to see who could drink a pint of Guinness the fastest, and Lauren almost won!! After that, Hoda was staaaaarving, so we found a place to grab burgers before heading back out. Then we went to Club 21. In the bathroom, they had makeup and lollipops, and we thought they were free so we started to use everything. When we went to leave, a lady shouted that we had to pay for everything we used!!! We were soooo surprised… but we paid anyway. The club was nice, and they played a little bit of good music. They had a big screen showing music videos and the people in the club, which was cool. That was the end of our second day.

Shopping day
The third day was our shopping day!!!! We started shopping at 10 and didn’t stop until 7! I became addicted to buying nice things and acted like I was rich. Every store had something really nice. It’s the greatest shopping place for girls, maybe even better than London. They had a big street filled with shops, and at the end was a big mall. The mall was soooo nice! It had 3 levels full of really good shops. Before going back to the hostel to pack up, we went to a really exclusive restaurant to have an authentic Irish coffee, which was a great way to end our shopping trip. We got back to the hostel just in time to get on the bus and leave. On the way back, we couldn’t sleep, so we were awake the whole night and had to go to lessons the next day.

Random stuff

It was a long time since I wrote something in this blog. I don't know but after a while u don't have the mood to do it anymore. You want to do other stuff instead. Time if flying away here and you want to use all of your time u have left to do something fun and different. Not that I have been doing so much fun lately but studying and working out, but today I'm going out with my flatmates. We are celebrating their new jobs. Hafsa them got a job at McDonald's and Millie on campus, she will work with developing some web pages, and she will get her own business card. That's the part we are celebrating most hehe.. I know that you think McDonald's??? But she has been looking for a job a very long time and she finally got one, that's why we are so happy for her =). And tonight we are going to take so many pictures! I love pictures!! =D that's why I am so exited about it heheh..

Anyway beside from that what have I been doing? I am trying to write an essay of 3000 words for my sensory system and receptor course. (The course that I was going to drop but changed my mind because I am too lazy to search for a new one hehe..) So now I am fighting with this one instead. I am trying to understand how the neural system works, and the ears, eyes, brain and so on.. It's not easy at all! But it's fun because I get learn so much new things and read so many scientific articles which is good practice for me. So on Friday I must hand it in so that the teacher can look at it and tell me what I have to improve before the deadline on Thursday next week. All the essay here must be handed in before 4pm on the deadline day.

Last week I was in London again it was so much fun. I met my friend from Sweden who lives in London now. She is also stying here 6 months. We went shopping :D I loveeee shopping!! I bought a dress hehe.. But it wasn't expensive. Claudia's friend from Italy came and visited her so she followed with us to London. My friend also gave me the DVD of your engagement suziii you looked beautiful!! I put it on in my flat and everybody saw it eehehhe.. I am so longing for your wedding :D:D:D!! LEBANOOON HERE WE COME :D:D:D

Chaning subject again...Today we shopped so much food! haha.. All of us in the flat ordered so much food from Tesco's online sercive. They deliver the food home to you so you dont have to carry everything home. That's so good for the students who don't have any car. I took a pictures of all the bags :D hehe.. ---->

What more can I write... About the differences between Sweden and England maybe? They drive on the wrong side of the street. They have one tap for warm water and one for cold water. I hate it! You can not wash the dishes without burning your hand or freezing them. They are rude but you know that already.. Hmm.. I notice new things everyt day that is different from Sweden but I don't remember everything now.

Yesterday I was at a birthday party. Carlos, Virginia's friends, had a party in the TV room in his building. Almost all of the people were from Spain there and Spanish people loves to party. I left the party early but my roommate came back home at almost 5-6 o'clock eheh.. I was asleep of course.

Oh yes! And you know my friend Lauren, she lives next to my room but in another apartment. There is a fire door between us so we cannot go to each other but have to go out and go all the way around the house to go to each other. We think that is so ridiculous! If the door was open our life would be so much easier hahaha.. It's so funny because Lauren was telling me that people maybe think we are crazy because we are hanging out together all the time, and then we went to the reception and asked them if they could open the fire door between us. I told her after this people will definitely think we are crazy! Anyway when we went back home Millie my flatmate who looks so calm and sweet is actually CRAZY. She wanted to open the door. So she broke the shelter on the lock and opened the door for us!! We had a little party in the corridor after that haha.. No I'm kidding :P. So now the door is open and nothing can come between us! Crazy People!

Cambridge

I was in the fourth oldest city in the world, Cambridge. Me and a couple of friends followed some people from the university when they arranged a trip to Cambridge with a guide. His name is Lee and was really nice. He took all of ours phone number and gave us his number in case we get lost or something. We took a train from Brighton to London and changes there to Cambridge. Because of the delays , we had to change a bus in London to another place where we could take the train to Cambridge.
When we arrived, our guide (which isn't actually a real guide because it was his first time in Cambridge) showed us some places we could go and eat before we went puddling. It was so much fun puddling. We were about 16 people on that trip and we split up in 3 groups and hired 3 boats. My group was the funniest one because nobody could paddle and our boat was circulating all the time. The hour we hired the boat was spoiled on trying to make the boat go straight. But we had a really good time. We were laughing all the time and once we were about to fall off the boat because we smashed with a wall at the side of the river. After that we went to Saint John's College, which we had to pay to visit. I think it's pretty strange because it's a museum and a college. The students who lives there must be really annoyed by all the tourists that come and visit. Every teacher there wears strange black coat with a big red knitted cap. It reminds me of the movie Harry Potter, which was made in Cambridge. Then we took a lot of pictures and went on to Castle Mound, which is not a castle but a big hill. There used to be a castle there a couple of hundred years ago but it was destroyed. After that we went to town and bought some cards and souvenirs, to finally return to a pub we were supposed to meet for some tea before we went back home.
Cambridge is a nice city to visit but not a city for me. It was full of old building which is good if you like old architecture and history, but I wouldn't want to live in a place like that for a longer time.

English Breakfast

We have decided that every Sunday morning we'll go to Stanmer and eat English breakfast. Stanmer is a small village near Sussex, and the nature there is beautiful. I've never had English breakfast before and it was not the best breakfast I've had but it was good anyway. We went very early at the morning me, Virginia, Lauren and Claudia and we had to go up on the big hills here and because of the rain here the way we took was so muddy. We climbed over the fences and walked between the cows and finally we got there. I took a lot of pictures up there. The cafe we went to was so cute and small, of course the people there were rude but I'm getting used to it now. The funny thing in that cafe wasn't only for people but also for dogs. Almost everybody brought their dogs with them. The dogs were sitting on the chairs beside their owners and eating. It's really strange because in Sweden dogs are not allowed to go in to cafes. I took some pictures of the food I ate. It was veggie food: Egg, beans, mushrooms, toast, tomatoes and some small vegetarian pancake. And later when we came back home I took some pictures on my house. Not my room which I'll do soon but from the outside.

London

Finally the London trip I was longing for! The Uni arranged a hole-day-trip for all the international students. They would take us by bus to London which takes about 2 hours and then they would give us a guided sightseeing tour by coach for 2 hours and then we would end the tour at The Tower of London. After that we would be free for 3 hours and at 5.30pm we would return home. That's how the plan for the day was. But our day didn't look like that. haha.. I, Lauren, Claudia and Sahel (Laurens roommate from NY) had our own little adventure. When we arrived to London with everybody else, the bus stopped so that everybody could go to the bathroom and buy some coffee. We went and bought some coffee and cake and when we returned, the bus was gone! We were looking after it like crazy but we couldn't find it. They left us! We decided to take the underground train and meet them at The Tower of London where they should be at 12:3o pm. We arrived there and still couldn't find them. We asked the staff and they told us that they went in about 15 min ago. We were chocked because we was there at 12:25 and they went in at 12:10 when they should have been there at 12:30 and not before, according to the schedule. We asked the staff if they could go in and get somebody because they had our tickets but they couldn't and they couldn't call anyone because nobody of the guides have any cellphones, they just told us to go and speak with the ticket sellers. When we went to talk to them, they were so rude! They just told us: It's not our fault don't blame it on us. Hellooooo.. we are not blaming anything on you, we need some help here! See that's one of the things I don't like about England. People here are not as nice as I am used to. They just walk over you and just care about themselves. You just have to make it by your own or feel sorry for yourself because that's how it is here. I am really not used to people like that. It's the first time I meet so many rude people at the same place. In Sweden almost everybody is nice and helpful if u ask them, and in Lebanon everybody is nice and they help you even if u don't ask for it. But here not even if you ask for help they give it to you. That's so strange! I know one thing for sure and that's that I don't want to live in London in the future.
Anyway because nobody could help us, we decided to make the best of the day anyway. We went to Oxford street for shopping =D. That was the only thing that could make us forget our bad luck and the rude people we met. Me, Lauren and Saher bought shoes =D. I love my shoes they are so pretty! I will take a picture of them later hehe.. After that I felt much better! Then we went in to a couple of other stores, then the clock became almost 4 pm! The time was running so fast! We went back to the bus and were really happy to see it, because if we didn't find it we would have go back to Brighton by ourselves. When we arrived to Sussex, we spoke with our guides and one of them was nice and told us to go to her on Monday and she would help us. And so we did and she returned some of our money back. One nice person :P Yippiiiiii....!!!

I've finally bought a training session card. You can work out how much you want for only 33£ . Yesterday I went to Aerobatone. We were so many, about 50-60 people in the same room, and only girls. I don't think the boys like that kind of training. There are 2 sport centres, one is for soccer and that kind of sports and the other is for Yoga, aerobics and stuff like that. I have decided that from now on I'll work out at least 3 days a week. I must replace all the training I've lost hehe..
Later that evening I was pretty bored, I didn't want to study because I didn't know what to study on and I haven't got any homework so I called Lauren and we went to the East Slope Bar with my room mate and met some of her friends there. I live in East Slope on Campus and East Slope bar is our area. Everybody goes there to listen to music and just chill. Almost all of her friends are from Spain. They are really nice people. When the pub closed we went to her friends house because he just arrived from Gran Canaries. I couldn't stay too long there because I had an early lesson the day after. It's really weird that almost all of my lessons are only one hour here. They don't go so much to school as we do in Sweden. I always go go home and eat because it's so close to home and I only have 3 hour school a day maximum.

All by myself now

Yesterday I woke up at 7 am because my dad was going back to Sweden, don't be surprised if I tell you that I wake up early everyday, and that I am always first in the class haha.. It's really not me but now I have changed :D. Anyway it was really hard to say goodbye to dad. He helped me so much with food and everything. I don't think the cooking will be a problem for me anymore because my dad has taught me how to cook rise and how to do some Indian food. I think I can live on that for a couple of weeks. Later that night 2 of the girls in my dorm had their birthdays so Virginia made some Spanish food for for us. It was delicious. Then I met Claudia and Lauren and we went to a pyjamas party. The girls I met in my corridor (Caroline, Maygain and Sophie) when I lived in the emergency-room invited me so we went. We had so much fun! It was only girls and we all had our pyjamas on. We did our nails and listed to music and just talked all night long. I actually felt asleep because I got really tired but they woke me up again at 4:30 am when Caroline was pumping the music really hard to disturb the boy upstairs. As a matter of fact, she hates him aaahahaha... He called the security on her and she was really happy when they came and visited her because then she knew for fact that he was disturbed. The night ended when we slept at 5:30 am.

Today I woke up 10 and went with Lauren, Claudia, Greg, Kerry and Bret to Brighton for some shopping. Later we went to Ovingdean for some Cream Tea. It was such a small cute old town. The houses were so small and cute. Then we went to ASDA it's a big store were you can buy everything really cheap. So, now it's 9pm and I'm going to watch a movie with them, bye!

My third room

My day started with one of my favourite courses, PFF. He talked a lot about things I already know like Ramachandra plot and trans/cis structures and so on. Then my father and I went to Brighton Pier. It was so nice and we took a lot of pictures! I will show you them later. I’ve missed the sea so much and now I can see it whenever I want! So cool =)! And like you all know I LOVE Lebanon and because it reminds me o much of it, it feels like I could stay here forever, but I would miss my family too much so it’s impossible.
After that we went shopping and moved to my new room. I will share it with Virginia, she is from Spain. I’m really happy because she is so nice. The house consist of 4 four rooms where it lives 2 people each room,except in one of the room where it lives a boy and he has the whole room for himself. The others are from UK, Bangladesh and Kenya.
Later in the evening my room mate took me to a party where almost everybody was from Spain. I couldn’t stay long because I had a early lesson next day.
Now I will sleep in my new room today for the first time without my father.

Wednesday, 10 January 2007

Today I had one of my other courses: Sensory Systems and Receptors. It was such a difficult course. I had no idea that it would be so difficult. It’s a master level course and the people there had lots of previous courses about the sensory system works. I don’t think I’ll drop the course now because I want to give it a chance and see how it works out for me. A funny thing happened during the course because we were about 7 students there and the computer in the room didn’t work with the projector so the teacher had to borrow one from a student. During the lesson the teacher pressed the wrong bottom and a small text square popped up on the screen with Swedish text. I was very surprised because I didn’t know that the person owning the computer was Swedish. He was talking really good English with a British accent. I just had to ask him after the course and he told me that he is from Sweden and was born in Uppsala! He moved after gymnasium, 4 years ago, to England and has stayed here since then. It is such a small world.
Later I had a course in Biocomputing but I missed it =( because the teacher didn’t send me any mail about him changing the room. Also the third course I was supposed to have in Genes and Development had been cancelled without any mail sent to me. I was really upset about that. Everything here is not as organised as in Sweden. The teacher comes late to their lessons and some of them don’t have any lessons at all first week because they are still on vacation. But there are some good things here and that is that we don’t have to buy any books, everything is in the library. But everything else, you must buy or pay for it, for example printing out papers and to use the wash machines.
After the tuff day I met Lauren and Claudia as usual. Lauren is from USA (North Carolina) and Claudia is from Italy. I really like those girls. We have so much fun together. Today we decided to follow the other international students on a Pub crawl. We visited four different pubs and one of them was a karaoke bar. I didn’t sing anything because the people who were singing were really good, and if you want to sing you will have to sing for everybody in the club. It’s too embarrassing for me, especially because I cannot sing. Maybe next time =)

PS: I will put out some pictures soon!

First day at school

Today it was my first day at school. I had my first lecture in Protein Form and Functions (PFF). It reminds me a lot of a course I took in Uppsala University called molecular biology. The teacher seems really good and structured. He told us why chocolate gets white sometimes, and it’s because the sugar in it gets crystallized after a while. The chocolate industry spends huge money on research trying to stop it, because people won’t buy it if they see it like that. It was interesting for me because I Love chocolate!
After that course I had my next course: Genes and Development, or where supposed to have it. When I arrived to the room where we were supposed to be, I didn’t find anyone, so I thought that maybe they had moved it to the room next door. I went in and sat down and got some papers. But it was the wrong course! I apologised and went out and asked somebody else where I should be. They told me to go to another room and I went there. It was so big room and full of people. But…Of course it was the wrong course too! I was really embarrassed because the teacher stopped talking when I went out. I went to the reception and called the teacher who told be that the course is cancelled.
After that I went to the house office to speak with them about my room. They told me that they cannot do anything it’s the only room they have and there are some other students who hasn’t got any room yet and that I’ll just have to stand in line. I was so sad and scared. I don’t want to live in that dirty room off campus alone. After maybe a half hour she told us that there are a room available which I must share with another student, and that I can go and look for it. I was so happy! We went and had a look and it was nice. The girl I’ll be sharing room with is from Spain. I’ll move there this week when my dad returns to Sweden.

Day 2

Today I met some other international students on the coffee and information morning meeting. Almost all of them are from USA but there are some other people from other countries. After the meeting we went to Brighton & Hove for some food shopping. There are lots of sheep stores here where you can buy almost everything you need for only 1 pound. The city here is so big. There are so many stores for everything. Today I found a shop selling only different kind of lighters. If I didn’t promise myself not shopping any clothes except a few days before leaving, I would have bought a lot of clothes =) now. We also went to Brighton Pier; it reminds me a lot of Kornij in Beirut. Where people can walk or run beside the sea.
After many hours of shopping we went home and rested before the dinner meeting. I went with my dad to KFC because we don’t have it in Sweden and because my dad loves it. He used to eat there a lot in Lebanon. Then we went around in town and took some pictures. It was a nice and less stressful day.

First day

I don’t have internet yet so I am writing in Word now till I get my internet so I can put it in my blog. Yesterday I arrived to Sussex with my dad. As usual I read like the whole Quran while lifting haha.. I was really scared because I hate to fly. However, after a couple of minutes I felt better and I also managed to sleep for a while. When we arrived to Heathrow airport we took a bus to Brighton and from there another bus to my university. Because I was one day too late I had missed the introduction and the meetings with my course coordinator so I was stressed. I had to do everything really quick so that I could go and get my keys for my room off campus. I didn’t know that I could get my keys directly instead of first paying the rent and then getting the keys, so the university ordered a taxi for us so that we didn’t have to carry all of the baggage. The taxi driver was so nice. He was talking all the time telling us about the different streets and building here in Brighton & Hove. He showed us for example where John Lennon’s father died and where really rich people live. We had like a little guiding tour before arriving to my “lovely” apartment. When I first saw it from outside it was really nice and I thought that I’ll enjoy living there, but when I opened the door and I was welcomed by the most disgusting smell, I changed my mind. It was such a small room with a really thick carpet (where I think the smell came from) and it was so cold. The kitchen and the toilet were downstairs next to each other and it was so dirty!!! My dad told me to go back to the university and ask them for another room. I know that the standard of the houses here is not as good as in Sweden but I never thought that t would be so disgusting. Neither of us could sleep there, not even for one night. I’m sure we would get sick if we stayed. I didn’t open any of my bags and went to the university and spoke to one guy who worked there. He was really helpful and arranged an emergency-room for us on campus. It was such a nice room with a toilet in it. Very fresh! He told us that we could only stay there till Monday when the house council open again and then they’ll try to find another room for me.