Weekend away in a small town: Rediscovering Flatford Mill

Storytime: This summer I had an amazing oppurtunity to escape the crazy hustle and bustle of London for a weekend, to spend some time with my wonderful second year housemate and her family. It was a great time surrounded by Spanish to help practice before I left for Barcelona also good food, conversation and music!

On the Saturday we went to a differnt town to go boat rowing, have a picnic and go on a walk. If you know me you know how much I love long walks especially in rich nature settings. It isn't real if there isn't a bunch of animal droppings everywhere, mountains or rivers! I was asked if I had ever rowed a boat before and I said the only time I did was on a geography trip years back.

2016

2013

We saw many animals. Geese, swans, cows. The swans reminded me of the same geography trip when a small phobia of swans arose because one was chasing me and my friend, trying to attack us. On the walk I pointed at a swan and said "that might have been the swan that attacked me!"

We approached a bridge and I stopped walking and was really confused. I knew I had been here before as it was the strongest sense of déjà vu I had ever felt. So I let my friend and her parents know I really felt as if I had been there before on the geography trip that I kept mentioning. I couldn't remember the exact location we went for the trip but I knew that I had stayed at Flatford Mill and it was either in or really near to Ipswich. So I asked how near we were to Ipswitch but they said it was still a few miles away. I tried to open Google Maps to see how near Flatford Mill was but the internet fails me in vital moments of life like this! So we walked a bit further, me still shaken by the real familiar views. I came across this sign that gave me my hallalujah.

"Flatford Mill 200 miles"

Flatford Mill was real close so we went to go visit it. We weren't able to go inside the building but we walked around the outside and took pictures. I was so delighted as it was one of my favourite geography trips and such a beautiful place. It was also such a lovely 'coincidence' as I was thinking about the trip a lot that day because of the swan and the boats. The only other time I rowed a boat was there; the swan that I saw and the swan that attacked me literally could have been the same swan!! Life is funny.

 (A mixture of pictures I took at Flatford Mill in 2013 & 2o16)

It was so good to be surrounded by some english countryside and I FINALLY got a better phone with a better camera so you are able to see the evident difference in quality between the pictures.

The swan that attacked me

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So let me reintroduce myself

Hello reader.

My name is Kaycey and I am a university student in the UK. I study tourism and my course is 4 years long. The third year (this year) I have to work in the tourism industry for 40 weeks thus I by God's grace ended up in the city of Barcelona and have a home and work placement here until next year summer.

I chose to study tourism because I wanted to do a subject with hints of geography and languages. I feel I wasn't intelligent enough or good enough at science to do Geography (one of the most underrated subjects in this world) and wasn't good enough at Spanish to study Spanish. Though those points seem negative, it is the truth and it lead me to study this amazing subject at a wonderful university - in fact the best in the country for tourism. I have always loved travelling and going on holiday (like every single normal human ever) and wanted to know more about this wide 24 365 industry. I liked that I could study subjects like environmental studies, which looks at eco tourism and the pressure tourism puts on nature fauna and flora; I could also study tourism operations management and tourism development and planning. French was also available as a module which allowed me to pick up from where I left up with French in year 9 and many management subjects, like finance, marketing, economics and managing people - which can all be implemented in many fields of work.

I will concentrate on Spain in a later post and Korea and Malta which I have visited in the past year.

I sincerly thank you for reading and hope my blog is something of interest to you. #reboot

Bad blogger

Hello readers,

I return to being a writer because I have missed blogging that much. It has been more than a year now that I have been postponing writing, even though I have been gathering writing material and have many ideas. I can admit I haven't been able to keep up with many areas of my life but this is going to become my new homework - to revive this blog and fill it with the content that I had originally intended.

I even considered starting afresh a new blog but that would cause everything I've ever posted here to become invaluable. I'd compare this blog to a plant I bought but kept forgetting to water it...but that plant is a cactus so it will live long and survive arid conditions.

I put my writer cap back on, try to communicate using proper english and return to tell you about the world outside your front door. And now, some spam!

International heart?

I started to write this post when I had one week to go until my big adventure but now my big adventure has almost ended so I have a lot to tell you :)

First I wanted to share a little summary of my first year of university and some things to come. I have a great year at my university home or 'beachland' as I like to call it. I really feel at home there and it is an amazing place. Perhaps my course isn't all I expected it to be but I still enjoyed it so much and passed year 1 with a merit which I am proud of so I can't complain! (Even though I could have done better). Bring on second year tourism management! This year of course I have to be ever more cautious of my grades as they contribute to my final year mark and the grade I graduate with. This year I must also start to look for a placement which I will really be praying over; there are certain lands and fields of tourism on my heart.

I'd like to think I have an international heart. I think I mentioned last year how I get confused as an international student as most of my friends are international students. (A bit annoying that that is the assumption as if international students should only hang out with each other) but I love to learn from them. Sharing different cultures and customs, learning bits of other languages and of course the awesome food; I find it all so fun! I sometimes go this international café and of course everyone asks where I am from but get confused that I am a British student (especially since my english fails a lot) and that I  want to learn from them about their home cultures. I still have not figured out how exactly I identify with foreign students. Is it a personality thing? A selfish thing that I am just friends with people from certain places as I want to learn their language. I am not sure but I am a proud back up for the international team at Christian Union, global buddy for next year and geography & languages enthusiast

I am currently at a crossroad, not knowing whether to take on French again next year or not. I enjoy learning it, but could I possibly be assessed on it at a higher level?

So I write this post from a hairdressers in Seoul, South Korea as I wait for my friend to get her hair done. I finally made it here guys, and though my adventure is almost over, a real big one starts tomorrow ;)

...updates coming soon

Comeback!

I am very excited to announce that I will be returning to my blog after almost a year of hiatus. Many exciting things this past year have happened and many exciting thing are coming up...keyword = EXCITEMENT.

I have a lot of content, that I have been planning to write for a long time now, that I will be able to share real soon. Life threw me under the bus with a lot of university work however, "it's been along time coming, but I'm here now".

Kaycey, welcome back.