Guildford

The University of Surrey is situated in a small town called Guildford.

The stag

Well, after being here for 4 months, I think this is really the first time I am writing about the town that I am living in. But really, there is nothing too interesting about this town. It has the high street which every town in UK has. It has a Tesco to serve all the students and residences here.

Tesco-not the same as the ones we had in Malaysia

This is where we usually get our groceries. It has a castle! And inside the castle, it has a garden with a statue of Alice through the looking glass. Yeap, the Alice from Alice in Wonderland. The garden was actually to commemorate the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He spent most of his vacations in Guildford!

Guildford Castle-not very well maintained but still strong and sturdy after over 100 years?

Gate leading to Alice's garden

Alice through the looking glass

So, this small town of Guildford is where I spent my semester as an exchange student. We were all quite lucky as Guildford is near (south-west) London (fastest train takes about 40 minutes). So we could just hop on a train on a weekend and just go to London for a day.

During the semester, I met quite a few people, mostly my housemates, from the dance club and also fellow Singaporeans, both full-time students and exchange ones. Get to learn about Brit's culture and understand more about the carefree living style of the "ang-mohs". Although sometime I do get frustrated and unhappy with the actions of my housemates, I am still happy that I stayed on campus and not off. Who knows what kinda room I will get if I were to get an off-campus accommodation. Maybe I will just fall into a trap and didn't get a room at all.

Everybody is friendly here. They'll just casually throw you a "how are you doing" even if they had just met you yesterday. And "Cheers" seems to be the "in" word to say here. Hahaha it replaces everything from thank yous to welcome and from hellos to goodbyes. Yeap, cheers mate!

Now, now. One more week to exam and two more weeks to end of my exchange semester. Nope, revision hasn't been done, which is quite abnormal for me and yes, I am really thinking of going home soon. But I am very much looking forward to the big Europe trip with boyfriend. This might be my only chance to come over here, so gotta do this before leaving the beautiful UK/Europe.

I'm glad that I actually applied for exchange and thankful that I was offered a place. I don't know how much I have changed during the exchange program, but I am happy that my boring life as a student has changed to an exciting one during this swapping process. Next time, when people talk about their overseas trip, at least I have something to say and not just sit at a corner quietly, enviously listening to other people talking about their life in a foreign land.