Military Service Problems

Last night a friend of mine from Turkey came to London. He studies at University of Derby. He will go back to Turkey for Easter holiday however he has to postpone his military service. Every male Turkish citizen has to join army for a certain period of time, however if they have a special condition such as illnesses or studies, they can postpone it for a while.

In the morning we went to education consultant of Turkish Consulate. Their office is at Edgware Road. We were given a form there and we filled it. They checked our information and my friend’s was ok. However there was something wrong with my application, because according to records I was on the run. I called the university at where I used to study in Turkey. They said they made a mistake about my papers in the past. They sent a petition to military service office and we solved the problem in 3 hours.

I feel relieved now since it might be a big problem when I would want to go back to Turkey since officers can monitor this kind of information at airports in Turkey.

After this stressful 3 hours, we hung around Edgware Road to relax. We had some food in a kebab restaurant. We decided to take a walk to Hyde Park since the weather was really good. On the way my friend Caglar walked into a shop to buy some souvenirs for his family and friends. There were really funny t-shirts about London.

Around 18:00 pm we came back to home because he had a flight at 11 o’clock from Heathrow airport. He had too many luggage for just 2 weeks. Probably he will have to pay quite a lot money for extra weight.

On the way to Heathrow I found myself thinking about my family and my friends in Turkey. I think I was envious of Caglar, he was going back and I had to stay since I have to study for final exams. Also I will travel around the UK.

End of The Term 2

Tomorrow we will have our last exams for the term. I am pretty stressed. I handed in 2 assignments, but did not have that much time to prepare for exams. I was attending all classes. I do not think that I will problems with maths. We studied algebra, trigonometry and statistics. I am quite confident about algebra and trigonometry however I did not study statistics before. Therefore I am studying statistics and probability. I cannot do   much about English exam since it is language skills.

Today was the exam day. I woke up at 7 am, had a warm shower and breakfast. English exam starts at 9 am. I walked to DLR station however there was a bad surprise waiting for me. Because of the signalling failure on the rail way, trains were delayed around 20 – 30 minutes. I started to think that I would miss the exam. Therefore I decided to take a different route. I went to Greenwich by DLR and took the train to London Bridge. From there, I took Northern Line and went to Bank station and then took Central Line to Liverpool Street Station. When I arrived at INTO London Centre it was 9:15. I was slightly late, but I was allowed to take the exam. Exam lasted two and a half hours. There was reading and writing parts. I answered all the question but probably have a few mistakes.

After English exam we had 5 hour break. I had my lunch and decided to do revision for maths. Right before the exams making a revision in the last minutes is really important for me, because it gives me confidence. By the time I walked into the resource centre, I noticed the crowd around computer tables. People were finalising their assignments. I logged into Moodle account and started to read revision paper.

Finally it was 16:30, exam time. I was not that stressed till I had a look at the exam paper. I checked questions but I did not have any idea. My mind was blocked so to speak. For the first 10 minutes, I could not write a single word. However later on I started to do the questions. When I finished all questions, I had 10 more minutes so I checked my answers.

Later on I did the online assignment for maths at resource centre. My holiday officially started when I pressed submit button for the assignment. We went to pub with my friend Alex to play pool after that. I couldn’t win a single game but it was fun to hold cue after 5-6 years.

Presentation Assignment

4 weeks ago we were asked to do a presentation to do as an assignment which has significant effect on our final marks for Foundation English subject. When I heard this I was really disappointed, because I am not a good presenter at all. When I deliver the presentation, I always make funny mistakes and embarrass myself.  However it was something inevitable, so I had no way out of this situation without doing presentation. We are asked to form groups for the presentation, since it was a group work. I was eased a little bit. 

Following week, two of my friends proposed me to do presentation together. I couldn’t turn them down, so I asked our lecturer to form a crowded group and he was ok with that. In the end we ended up being a four men group. Another friend of mine couldn’t find a partner and he joined us.

We decided to give a presentation about job stress and how to cope with it. However we started preparing presentation a little later than I had expected, since everybody had other tasks to do. Last week we managed to finish the slide show. Mostly we used the material at INTO Resource Centre and City University’s Online Library. We didn’t have time to go and check the hard copies at City University, so online library was really handy.

Before the presentation day, we practised it 6 or 7 times. I was the worst presenter in the group. I tried really hard, but I couldn’t feel confident about the idea of speaking in front of other people. If it was something that I had to do spontaneously, I would have been ok. But when I plan a speech, I always make mistakes.

Last Friday was the big day. My group was the first group to present. There was no reason for me to feel nervous, since we were all well prepared. We prepared a good presentation with necessary amount of research and a good slideshow. We practised it rather a lot. However I was still uneasy. Ali started the presentation with introduction and definitions. After that Alex took over and started to explain 2 symptoms of job stress. Alex left his place to Inam and he carried on explaining the rest of the symptoms. ‘Here we are!’ I thought, it was my turn to talk about the measures which must be taken to avoid stress and the conclusion.

I was so tense. I took a deep breath and started. The nervousness was flowing from my body. I even missed a bullet point that I needed to explain, but in the end it turned out to be ok. Everybody was satisfied. We answered a couple of questions from audience and we took our places to listen other presentation. After the class when I talked to other people, they stated that our presentation was really good probably the best. Our team work gave its fruits so to speak.

Unmotivated Days

Recently I am feeling really unmotivated. I don’t want to leave the bed, I don’t want to go school, and I don’t want to study. I don’t even want to move my fingers so to speak. I can’t find a reason for that. Normally I would call this laziness, but also I feel somehow depressed. Everything is going well about my life. My grades are high. I have a lot of friends. I speak to my family rather often and they are all fine.

First I thought I was homesick. But this can’t be the reason, since I have a chance to go back to home on Easter holiday. But I don’t really want to go. I can’t deny that I am missing my family and my friends back in Istanbul and Ankara, but I was there just a couple of months ago and I don’t really feel like to go there for another 2 weeks. Because I believe that it will have a worse effect on my motivation. I will lose my discipline that I developed in last 4 months.

I am thinking of any further reasons for my unmotivated state of mind. I talked to my father about it; he is a medical doctor so I wanted to hear a scientific explanation. He said that it might have occurred because of spending too much time alone. I don’t think it could be the reason since there are always people around me that I interact with. I have really good friend from INTO that I meet occasionally out of INTO and we are all together at the centre every weekday. Also the people who share the accommodation with are quite helpful.

The reason behind it might be just the changing season. Recently I read an article about how changing seasons affect our hormones. I think I need a period of time for adaptation. On Easter, I am planning to visit Bournemouth in order to see some of my teachers and friends there. Also I will go to Oxford to see a friend who helped me to come to the UK. It appears like I need to spend some time out of London.

This term is about to end. We have around 2 weeks and it was stressful since I had 4 assignments to hand in. I completed 2 of them on time and still working on the other 2. It appears like stress might have affected my mood as well. But now I have all my plans about the holiday so I have started to feel better. Just 2 weeks and I will be off.

Off to Bournemouth

Last Friday we didn’t have any classes because there was a personnel meeting at INTO. I couldn’t miss this chance so I decided to travel. By the time I noticed one of my friends’ message on Facebook. He was asking about my life and studies at London and he was inviting me to Bournemouth. That was quite a coincidence and I liked the idea. I sent him a message and told him that I wanted to visit. He was pleased.
I bought my ticket online for Saturday 08:30 am coach. On Saturday around 08:00 am I went to Victoria Coach Station. The coach left the station around 08:35. The journey took around 1 hour 55 minutes, but for me it was like a couple of minutes, since I was sleeping.
I arrived in Bournemouth around 10:30. The town was still asleep so to speak. I had a nice long Turkish breakfast in a Turkish restaurant. It was refreshing though. Around 12:30 I met my friend Ege. He is studying masters degree at Bournemouth. First we went to B&B and arranged room for me to spend the night.
After we arranged the room, we went to my old school and saw some of my teachers there. It was kind of nostalgic; I studied there for 6 months there. Around 16:00 we went to a neighbourhood called Charminster. The place is known as Middle East district of town. There are Middle East restaurants, shisha cafes and authentic food markets. We had shisha and tea in a cafe and we planned the night out. After a nice conversation, I went to the hotel to make preparations for the night.

Around 11 pm we met at the centre of Bournemouth. The club we decided to go is called V club. It is an old church converted into a night club. However there was a bad surprise waiting us there. When we approached to the entrance, we saw really long queue. I was totally disappointed because probably we had to wait there at least for an hour to get in. As soon as I soon as I snapped out of it, I noticed that my friend was calling for me from entrance. In the end we paid extra to go to VIP floor so we didn’t have to wait. In the end I was glad that there was a queue, because the place was extremely crowded, and if we hadn’t gone to VIP area, we wouldn’t have enjoyed it.
The next day I spent most of time in bad, sleeping. We had a dinner with my friend at a Turkish restaurant. Around 9 pm I took the coach from Bournemouth to London and got back home around 12 pm. It was a worthy trip, I had been feeling a little bit down before it.  

A Healthy Start

A couple of days ago, I had an illness, which I believe caused by something I ate. I had fever week for 2 days and couldn’t really leave the bed. That caused me to miss 6 classes in a row. That is why I decided to take some measures for any further problems. Nowadays I am working on a healthier lifestyle. As a student I don’t have much leisure time but I will cope with it somehow.

I started to cook for myself more often and eating at least 1 portion of vegetables and salad every day. The results are not really bright, but I am really keen on cooking and I am sure, I will improve it. I changed my cooking habits as well. I shifted from sunflower oil and butter to olive oil and walnut oil; also I started to eat less fast food, making sandwiches for my lunch at school which is healthier and saves money.

Recently I learnt how to cook menemen (a kind of Turkish omelette with cheese, tomato and green pepper) and pasta with tomato. It is not a big accomplishment but still edible and surprisingly they taste good.

In addition to change my diet, next week I will start gym because I don’t do enough exercise. Therefore last week I visited City University London’s gym centre, Saddlers Sport Centre.  Place is quite satisfactory. All kind of gym equipments are available. You have to bring a sweat towel with you for your and the other members’ convenience. There is an indoor basketball court available, however you have to reserve the place and pay a small fee.  For City University London students membership fees are rather cheap, but also the centre accepts members from outside. You can apply for different classes as well. There are calm classes such as Ashtanga Yoga, Hatha Yoga, Iyengar Yoga and Pilates, and martial arts classes such as Aikido, Kung Fu, Nudda, Capoeira, Ju-jitsu, Goju Karate and Shorinji Kempo. A sauna is available as well and free for members. After I finish my Accounting assignment, I will start to go this centre with 2 of my friends from INTO.

As a last measure, I planned my sleeping hours. I put them in an order. I started to go bed around 23:30 every day and wake up at 07:30. I believe 8 hours of sleep is necessary to keep up with my daily schedule.

With that programme, I plan to lose some weight, since I am a little bit overweight at the moment. However losing weight is not the sole reason. Having a regular time table will affect my performance at school as well.

Night Out on Saturday

As you all know, London is capital of England with Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and many other world famous land marks. It is also considered as one of the financial capital of the world. However I can say it has another characteristic. It is where night life never stops. Pubs and night clubs are always there, ready for people who want to forget about daily problems and relax with a nice conversation or dance with the different types of electronic music.

Last week a friend of mine came up with a proposal that I couldn’t have refused. He invited me a party at a night club. Actually it was a house music concert and Bob Sinclar was going to play. After assignments and exams, I thought that it would have been a good chance to forget about studies and get rid of the stress. We bought the tickets online. Venue was Ministry of Sound, one of the well known night clubs in London. I was really excited, because I had never been there before and I heard about its fame.

Finally on Saturday around 21:00, we met at a friend’s flat. We had a couple of drinks there since clubs in London are quite expensive and before dance floor it helps you to get in mood. The opening hour was 11:00, so we left the flat at 12:00. We walked to Liverpool Street Station and went to Elephant & Castle. After 3 minute walk, we saw a really long queue and started ask whose idea to leave home that late. Whilst we arrived there a member of staff asked us if we had tickets online and he said we didn’t need to wait that queue. We were relieved and walked other side but there was another queue there. However it was moving relatively faster.

In 20 minutes we were inside. It was really crowded. Bob Sinclar wasn’t on stage, there was another DJ playing. Everybody was dancing and atmosphere was good. Approximately half an hour later Bob Sinclar appeared on the DJ box. People lost sanity so to speak. Everybody was shouting, whistling, and clapping hands. With the first song club, I noticed that there was no room to move then I noticed that people spent some time outside until Bob Sinclar’s performance. To be honest I could go to bar only once to get a drink. We danced almost 4 hours. Unfortunately I left before the end of programme, because I was really tired.

I think it was my best night out in London ever. I had great fun with my friends. I am looking forward to next time.

Valentine's Day in London

Last Monday I woke up around 08:00 am. When I checked the time from my phone, I panicked because it ran out of battery so alarm clock wouldn’t work. I jumped out of the bad and noticed that I was running late. I went to bathroom to take a shower. I switched on hot water, disappointment. It was ice cold. I went down stairs and saw a note on the boiler saying out of service. ‘What a good start for a day’ I thought. I boiled some water in the cattle and put that in a bucket and then added some cold water. At least I washed my hair. I dressed up and went down for breakfast. I was out of cereals.

I picked up my bag and rushed out of house. I was at Docklands Light Rail station at Elverson Road and saw that trains wouldn’t go to Bank station because of signal failure. I went to Canary Wharf and took Jubilee Line to Stratford then from Stratford I get on train to Liverpool Street. When I finally arrived at Liverpool Street Station, I had already missed the first class. As I walked to INTO Centre, I saw flower sections and people with bouquets in their hands. I thought today must be a special day. I went to INTO’s cafeteria first floor and noticed what was special about it, 14^th of February Valentine’s Day. There was a minor decoration consisted of heart shaped shiny cards.

To be honest, I don’t have a girl friend now since I don’t really have time for that. You know it takes time to have a relationship and effort. Nowadays I have to focus on my studies.

Some people were really happy talking about Valentine’s Day, boy and girl friends, flowers, chocolates and Valentine’s Day cards. Some people said it’s just commercial nonsense. Why do we need one day or a special day to express our feelings to our lover?

In my case, even it’s a commercial nonsense or a really important day to celebrate with the beloved ones, for one day I forgot about the beginning of the day and got rid of my stress, found myself thinking about love. I don’t really know why, but I think I had a sparkle of envy for those who would celebrate their Valentine’s Day with their ‘sweetheart’.

At the end, when I finished school, I went home and called my mother and sister to celebrate their Valentine’s Day and sent a couple of e-mails to couple of important people in my life.

Also Valentine’s Day is a good excuse to buy and eat 3 big packs of chocolate. Nobody noticed that they were my gift to myself.

Chinese New Year Celebration

After a long time, finally I have some free time to update my blog. My studies are rather intense these days. I recently finished Business assignment and I was given another one a few days ago, Accounting. But today I want to talk about something new for me, Chinese New Year. 

Before I came to the UK, I didn’t know that much about Chinese New Year. I had just seen celebrations on TV a couple of times, but two weeks ago we celebrated Chinese New Year at INTO. We had a lot of drinks and dumplings. It was fun and I had chance to taste dumplings for the first time. They were extremely delicious.

After that I decided to make a research about this celebration. I found out that it is the most important traditional Chinese holiday. It is also widely known as Lunar New Year or Spring Festival. It is the first day of Chinese lunisolar calendar. In the Gregorian calendar, which is internationally accepted civil calendar, Chinese New Year falls on different dates, a date between January 21 and February 20. In this calendar there are 12 animal zodiacs. This is the year of rabbit. Also there are various traditions about Chinese New Year. On the days before New Year celebration, people clean their houses from top to bottom. It is believed that cleaning sweeps away the bad luck of preceding year and makes their homes ready for good luck. Another important tradition is red envelops. These envelops generally contain money and are given from elderly people or married couples to young people or children.

When I found myself doing a research about Chinese New Year, I noticed that studying at INTO didn’t only make contribution to my knowledge about my subjects; also studying at this kind of environment where there are students all around the world, helps me to learn about different cultures and life styles. This awareness also helped me to develop a further complaisance.

Normally I don’t like travelling to long distances, however now I am really curious about different cultures and I want to visit different countries to have a better understanding about their cultures. In that case I am really lucky, because most of my friends from INTO invited me to their home countries for summer holiday. I think it is still too early to make a summer holiday plan since we have assignments and exams before us but I prepared a list of countries that I want to visit, a good first step.

Busy Time

Lately I have been really busy because of assignments and exams. I handed in my Business assignment couple of days ago. However I still have doubts about it. My assignment was preparing a business plan for a company. This company had to be unique to some extent. First we prepared a brief business plan as a group project and we made a presentation. This part of the assignment is 5% of our final mark. The individual work was preparing a full business plan according to our presentations and the brief plan.

We decided to open a pancake take away for group work. It wasn’t that bad, because the information about the sector was accessible. We mostly used internet sources. City University’s online resources were great help. We had full access to all business journals and that saved a lot of time.

I think as a group we spent most of our free time at INTO London’s resource centre since the environment was suitable and we found really beneficial books there.

However my individual work had to be more detailed since it is 15% of my final mark. After conducting a detailed research about restaurant business, I decided to focus on marketing side of the plan since I found many useful materials that I could use.  Especially National Statistics Office’s website was great source, since I found reports about population, spending habits, food consumption and recession to support my work.

Basically my plan consisted of executive summary in which I defined the business and product, pestle analyses, SWOT analyses in which I explained strengths and weaknesses of the business, competition, advertising and future plans.

At the beginning, preparing a project with a group was extremely difficult for me since in my country we weren’t encouraged to do work as a group. I was the group leader and struggled to organise time and people. However I talked to my lecturers about it and I noticed necessity of working as a team. In business life individual performance is really important, yet team work comes first because success is not achievable alone. Team members propose different ideas and workload is shared between them. In addition to that, it is a good preparation for university, because as far as I know we will be given many projects as a group work.

The social aspect is really important as well. Normally I am not really good at making new friends but when I started doing this work, I had chance to meet new people and made many new friends.

An Unfortunate Turn Of Events

It started as an ordinary day. Weather was a little bit gloomy but it wasn’t cold or rainy. I woke up at 07:30 and started to get ready for school. I took a shower, brushed my teeth and had my breakfast. After I finished my breakfast, I went out and walked to Elverson DLR station, got on the first train and went to Bank Station. I decided walk from Bank to Liverpool Street, because it was still early for school. 10 minutes walking and I was at INTO London Centre. I attended Accounting and English classes. After the classes, I felt that I was starving so went out to have a late lunch. I checked my phone to see how much time I had for the next class and noticed a text message from my best friend in the UK. He told me that he needed to talk to me. I immediately called him. Conversation started with everyday matters, but as soon as I heard him, I noticed there was something wrong and he got to the point directly. His visa application due to the course change was rejected because of not having sufficient funds in his account for 28 days but 20 days.

I was thinking about how we had celebrated his acceptance to masters programme. He had studied linguistic in Ukraine so when he first applied for masters in marketing, he had been suggested to study diploma in marketing first and then the institution had guaranteed a place in marketing masters course. However after his first term exam results, his high performance in class and his good assignments, he had been offered a place for masters in marketing.

I felt really lonely at that very moment because another good friend of mine had gone to China due to family matters. It had been a second blow to me. After my Economics class, I went to his house to help him. First we went out and bought plastic boxes to store his belongings such as kitchen ware, towels and beddings. We booked storage from a company and they promised us for free delivery from his flat to actual storage since he had furniture to be delivered. We went back home and started packing everything. It took a while, since there were a lot of things to be packed in 10 tiny boxes. Somehow we managed to fit everything in boxes. The day after that 2 employee of the storage company came with a big lorry. They carried everything to lorry and gave some papers to my friend which so he could take his furniture and other belongings whenever he wanted.

It was his last day in the UK, so we decided to have a dinner after my school. That day I couldn’t really concentrate. I was full of thoughts and a little bit depressed. However at the dinner I concealed my feelings and we had a really nice chat. He told me about his plans for coming back on April and starting the masters. I was relieved because this was only temporary and realised that the visa application process was extremely important and even the smallest detail can’t be overlooked. Everything must have done in advance of application and precisely.

Now he is back in Ukraine and we are in touch. In 3 months time, he will be back and he will continue his studies but I am sure when he is back, he will be more cautious about these kind of matters.

New term starts!

New term at INTO has started. When I went to INTO Centre London, I noticed that we had a lot of new students from all around the world who were starting on January.  INTO City Progression Administrator, Voke was really busy at resource centre by registering new students.

I was really happy to be back. When I saw my friends, we had really nice chat about the holiday. Everybody had good time. Some of them stayed in London and some of them went back to their home countries.

There was something that I had been looking forward to, exam results. Lecturers announced our results one by one over the week. I had 80% from Business, 84% from Economics, 94% from Accounting and 81% from English. Results were really good but reminded me something that I need to keep studying since there are lots of other units waiting us from all subjects as well as written assignments, presentations and final exams.  All of these tasks are important components of our final mark so I can’t afford to overlook any of them.

Last two days of the week I was really busy because I changed my accommodation. I was staying with a host family before I went to holiday. They were really kind and helpful but I decided to change it because I needed more personal space. I moved to a house in Greenwich. Greenwich is a really cosy and nice neighbourhood by the Thames. There is a really big park called Greenwich Park quite close to my house. There is a supermarket and train station nearby so that makes shopping and travelling really easy. It takes 30 minutes from my house to INTO Study Centre and there are some alternative routes.

My room is not really big but I have enough space for everything. I have to share bathroom and kitchen with 3 other people. My first impression about my house mates is really good. They were really helpful when I was moving in. I don’t see them that much since we all have different time tables and they have part time jobs. I need one as well. I am doing my best to find a part time job but no luck so far.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day. I will clean my room and unpack my luggage. The tenant before me didn’t clean the room when he was leaving. So I couldn’t unpack most of my clothes and books. I need to do shopping as well since I need a duvet, a pillow, and covers for them. Hopefully tomorrow after dinner I will be drinking my tear in my cosy and clean room.

3 Weeks In Istanbul

After 4 hour flight, I arrived at Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen Airport. There was a really warm welcome waiting me there. The weather was -8 Celsius in London and it was +18 there. I passed passport check and collected my luggage. I was so happy to be back in home but there was still a long way to go because Sabiha Gokcen Airport is in Asia side of Istanbul and my house is in Europe side. I took the coach to my home.

After another 2 hour journey, I was at home. I knocked the door and my mother opened with a big smile. I could easily read the happiness from her eyes. I had my late dinner and we had a really long conversation meanwhile. They were curious about everything.

The day after my arrival, I jumped INTO my car and drove my way to my friend’s cyber cafe. While I was driving car, I noticed that I missed driving so much. I met most of my friends there. We went to a cafe and spent at least 4 hours there. There were a lot of questions waiting for me to answer and there were a lot of questions to be asked.

On the weekend, I went to a museum called Sakip Sabanci Museum. He has a really good collection of hand written Korans and the tools which are used to write these Korans such as inkpots, ink pads and brushes. Also the museum itself was really impressive because that place was Sabanci family’s accommodation. The place is a seafront mansion with a really big garden. Mansion is furnished with antique furniture and it takes its name from the horse statue in the garden.

I spent my last week in Istanbul by shopping and being lazy. I was sleeping till noon everyday because I needed that somehow. I can say that I was looking forward to go back to London because I was missing my life there, my friends and teachers from INTO Centre. I was surprised with that because I had thought that I would never want to leave Istanbul. I think London became an important part of my life since I am studying here and I will be studying here for 3 more years. I established a life style in here as well. I started to live alone and I submit myself to discipline.

In the end it was a really good holiday and I needed that after 3 months of studying. I am in London now. I relaxed and I am ready for the next term. I am really curious about my exam results. Hopefully I will have good results and I will take another step in the path from INTO Foundation to City University London.

Christmas Shopping and Journey Back To Home

We had our end-term exams last week. It was quite a challenge, but when I had the exam paper I noticed that even without studying hours and days I could have answered most of the questions because I had attended all the classes and I had learnt the subjects in the class. The exams are done in one week so we had one or two exams each day. But I have to say that the best thing about exams is the feeling after exams. I was so relieved and a little bit care free. After all that stress I believe I deserved it.

After the exam week, the holiday which everybody was looking for has started. I was on the top of the world. I had nothing to do and just waiting for my fly back to Istanbul. However I could not stop worrying, since the weather was snowy and some flights were cancelled. It was something out of my control so to keep myself busy I went Christmas shopping with my friend. I wanted to buy a couple of presents for my family and friends in Istanbul. We went to Hammersmith, because there is a great discount store there and you can find all the famous brands for clothing. It was really crowded. Everybody was shopping for the Christmas since there was only one week.

After the shopping we were going back to home and we saw a man selling Christmas trees. We decided to buy one to feel the real Christmas spirit. It was not a good idea because we had to carry it to home and we had to take the tube from Hammersmith to the centre. I was so embarrassed in the tube, because everybody was looking at us, who carries a Christmas tree by tube anyway. But it turned out to be ok apart from my hands covered with mud and resin.

After all that shopping I was really tired and had a flight tomorrow in the morning, so I decided to go bed early.  The day after that I went to Stratford via Central Line and I caught coach from there to Stansted Airport. It was 30 minute journey. I was lucky to fly from Stansted because Heathrow and Gatwick Airports were closed due to heavy snow.

When I went there I checked in immediately and I went to most interesting part of airport, duty free shops. I had a breakfast there and spent two hours shopping. I bought presents for my family and friends, and bought a perfume for myself.

The journey was really good for me because it was in the morning so I was sleepy and I slept for four hours in the aircraft. The seats which are next to me were empty so I can say it was a proper sleep. When I opened my eyes, we were flying above Istanbul. I was so excited because I was going to see my friends and my family after three months.