Erasmus Applications Advice

I know that its around about the time of Erasmus applications and trust me, I know what it's like. It is a complete nightmare. It will become the bane of your life for what feels like months on end.

However, it is totally worth all of the effort.

I thought I'd share some of my experiences and tips and tricks and what I did for those who feel a little stuck on what to do. Believe me, I wish I had had something/someone to guide me.

(This is going to be catered for the conservatoire students, as that's what I have experience in)

I think the Most Important Thing about undertaking a rigorous application process like this, is to remember why you're doing it. 
- If it's to improve your understanding and learning of your instrument, great!
- If you feel like you're not getting enough opportunities in college, perfect!
- If you just need to escape for a few months, fabulous!
- Knowing why you're going through with this will be what's driving you forward throughout everything.
Whatever your reasons are, they are your reasons, and no one can take that away from you. They may not be what other people considered the "right reasons". but they are yours.

Research
Oh my word, my ex-flatmates would be able to tell you the hours and hours I spent trawling the internet researching the endless amount of schools that were suddenly available to me. You're only given 3 choices. Use them wisely.
- Research the schools, the opportunities, the teachers, the style of teaching, past students, current students, anything and everything.
- Speak to people you know who applied/went to the schools you're looking at.
- Find the Erasmus groups for the city on Facebook. Believe me, they're there, and it's super useful to see what's going on in the city!
- Oh, and research the cost of living within the country. There was one point where I had a short-list of the Czech Republic, Norway, Denmark and Switzerland. I told my father and he said "I think you've managed to choose 4 of the most expensive places in Europe." After looking some more, I revised my list.
- Contact the school international department (usually the information is on the website) to say you're interested in applying and ask what the requirements are for your instrument.
- Also, be realistic with your choices. Don't go applying to the Paris Conservatoire or Vienna Conservatoire if your teacher doesn't think that you can do it. Try to aim for places that you feel are attainable and within your reach.

Learning Agreements and ECTS
Oh trust me, even after you've completed your application, these do not go away. I submitted my application 9 months ago, and been studying here for 6 weeks, and I'm still not convinced it's correct.
After you've made your decision on where to go, you print off a scary looking form, with scary looking words on it.Once you have your head around it, it's pretty simple.
- ECTS will become a thing that you hear far too often. ECTS stands for the European Credit Transfer System. Each school has a certain number of credits that every student has to gain in order to progress to the next year. The complicated thing is trying to match up the subjects available and the amount of credits that you need.
- Contact the school international department (again) and ask if you can have a breakdown of their modules and courses available, if its not available online.
- After you have found out how much each course is worth in credits, make sure you have your calculator handy, and write down enough subjects until you have 60 ECTS.

Recording
Man oh man, was this stressful. I booked a studio in college, got an accompanist, gathered my friends (one of whom is luckily a techie wizz with cameras and such), and videoed my audition. I played Handel's Concerto in C Minor, Britten's Pan and.....something else which I've forgotten. Sorry. But best stick to the standard 'two contrasting pieces'! My friend very generously edited it for me and then I burned it onto 3 DVDs and popped them into fancy plastic wallets with my learning agreements for RNCM to send to the other schools. OH! Don't forget to have your teacher validate the recording to make sure that it's actually you. 

After it's all submitted, it gets given the once-over from college, they let you know if there are any problems (there most likely will be.....!) and then send them off. Then the waiting game begins.

When I got my first offer, I was in such a state of shock I managed to make a plate explode by cooking it on the hob.

In my opinion, although the application was hard, confusing, and exhausting (I was running round like a headless chicken for most of the time), a few months of hard work will definitely pay off when you get there, and you're about to embark on the best/scariest/most exciting year of your life.

If you have any questions about applying, or want to find out more about why I applied to the places I did, then please don't hesitate to ask in the comments below or tweet me @angharadowen :)

Erasmus isn't a year of your life, it's your life in a year.

Returning To The UK

Although I'm not going to write here about the actual details on this weekend, I am going to share the experience of going back to the Motherland after spending 6 weeks living here in Prague.

So I got off the plane and it was warm. Whaaaat? I then entered Manchester airport and was welcomed very warmly and Britishly with a 25 minute queue. Welcome to Britain.

My friend picked me up at the gate, and when we went outside, I'm not going to lie, but I had no idea which way the traffic was supposed to go. In the UK we drive on the left, on the continent (and most of the world), you drive on the right. It had taken me about three weeks to get used to looking the other way in Prague, and even so I'd look both ways just to make sure I was looking the right way. So imagine my confusion when I had to start looking the other way. Again, I just looked both ways to make sure.

When you live in a foreign country, you also get used to not understanding a single thing that is going on around you, so you end up living happily in your own little world. So obviously, when you hear someone speaking English your ears are immediately picks up on it. This happened to me, in England, I'd be walking down the street and my ears would be hearing English being spoken and I'd then think "Oh! English speakers!" and then my logical thinking would follow with "of course its English, you're in England." That took around 24 hours to get used to.

Normality. I walked into College where I have studied for the past two years, and it was all so normal. And nothing had changed. But at the same time everything had changed. This is difficult to put into words, but I happily went back into my own habits and sat on a sofa in the refectory and chatted happily to those who walked past. I mean, who wouldn't? I looked around and it was as if I had never been away. It was all so familiar. And normal. I mean, this was my normal, right?

It's also difficult returning to somewhere after being away, where life has gone on without you. I went to the college Halloween party. Despite everyone being dressed up and me not having a single clue who anyone was, I felt like a total outsider. It was as if I shouldn't really have been there. Did I belong there? Technically I should. I studied there for two years. I am a registered student there. I have my friends there. But yet, I didn't really belong there.

I think for me, the strangest and hardest part of going back to the UK was the constant questioning of what is normal? College and being around my friends felt so easy, it was as if I had never been away. But yet, landing back in Prague, and hearing Czech being spoken, and getting off my local metro station and walking back to my flat, It felt so normal and familiar. Prague is my norm now. This is where I call home.

But what if I never again feel at home in the UK?

A Month in Prague

So I have officially been lucky enough to call this beautiful city home for a just over month now! 

Happy monthaversary to me.....

The time has flown! I have already visited so many places, and the list of places I'm planning on travelling to just keeps on growing. 

Winter has arrived here. It arrived overnight, literally. Three days ago I was walking in a strappy top and sunnies, and now I'm huddled in woolly clothes, a coat and wishing I can take my blanket with me everywhere,

Autumn is stunning in this city. As there are quite a lot of trees on various islands in the river and parks around, they have been changing everyday. I can highly recommend visiting at this time of year, and I just hope that the rest of the year will be equally as beautiful.

It still feels like I'm not really here. I don't quite know how to word it... I'm living my fairytale. Yet, it doesn't feel real. Although I am living here, and have a bank account here, and have a Czech phone number, and I walk to school everyday, I still feel I'm on this working holiday. I don't know if any other Erasmus students feel the same? 

The way of life over here is much different too. People aren't afraid to go out to a restaurant alone, people take their dogs for a walk at all times of the day or night. This city never sleeps. I have been awake at various hours of the day, and it is never quiet. 

There are days when living alone in a great big scary city where all you can say is "Good day" is very hard, I think in the month I have been here, I have had two of those days. The amazing days completely outnumber and make the crappy days worth it. There is so much to do here, and so much of the city to explore that I never ever have a reason to say that I am bored. 

My friends here are great, and I'm having the best time of my life. I need to pinch myself almost every day to prove that I have done this completely amazing thing, which I will treasure for the rest of my life. A year ago, this was only my dream. 

P.s. I don't know what I'm going to do when I have to go back to the UK and pay more than £1 for only a pint of beer, not have Becherovka in every corner shop, and no proper Milka. Seriously, the food/drinks here are amazing!

Travels | A Weekend in Bratislava

So, I had heard so so so many different things about Bratislava.

I had heard it was beautiful. 
I had heard it was soul-less.
I had heard it was cultural.
I had heard it was concrete.

I was supposed to have gone throughout my inter-railing trip with my Cariad, however due to unforeseen circumstances, we had to head to Budapest a day later, and we fell in love with Budapest so much that we decided not to visit Bratislava.

Anyway, seeing as Prague is so close* and its very easy to travel around Europe from here, a friend and I decided (with the additional help of a plentiful amount of beer, of course) to book the bus and go to Bratislava!

*By close I mean, 4 hours on a bus.

Before we knew it, the little trip for the two of us became a trip for six of us. It was super fun travelling with new friends and sharing this experience of heading to a brand new country and city!

So we travelled by coach with a company called Student Agency. I know what you're thinking.... "ew, who wants to travel by coach?!" Well, I'll give you lots of reasons why:

• Free tea, coffee and hot chocolate
• TV screens with films/series in Czech and English
• .....It's super cheap! (And 10% extra off if you have an ISIC card!)

Seriously, I'm definitely going to be taking advantage of this company. They're so great. 

So we arrived. And sure enough, the bus station was basically a concrete block plonked right in the middle of nowhere. As we were walking, it was full of concrete. There were no sign posts anywhere, so we wandered aimlessly, waiting for some sort of sign to show us the way to the centre.

After about 20 minutes, we found the historical centre. It was very very strange as it was as if somone had just placed an old historical Eastern European city centre in the middle of concrete blocks! 

We spent the first day mainly wandering and exploring. We found our way up to the castle, however we didn't go in because not everyone was interested. 

We wandered aimlessly around before stepping through a portal to World War II. Not really. But we did step through an arch to find a show of things from WWII, and people dressed up in costumes marching up and down. Very odd.

We headed out for dinner, and afterwards we decided to hit the pubs and clubs. One small issue, Bratislava isn't the best city for a night out. We had a good night, however it was expensive and there didn't seem to be much choice in where to go. 

The next day, we were all feeling a little worse for wear. We decided on having a relaxing morning looking through the marketplace and visiting the museum. If you find yourself in Bratislava, I can highly recommend going to visit the City Museum in the Old Town hall. I got an insight into the complicated history of the city and country. We climbed to the top of the clock tower and there were some pretty fantastic views up there. 

After a pancake lunch, it was almost time to catch our bus back to our home in Prague. So back we went to the concrete slab of a bus station, and basked in the sun before the 5 hour trip back home.

P.s. Sorry about the quality of some of the photos. Ironically, the ones with good quality were taken on my phone. I'm still figuring out how to use my FancyPants Camera. 

Travels | 24 Hours at Oktoberfest

About a month ago, the Erasmus Events people here in Prague organised a trip to Oktoberfest in Munich. It cost us 1200Kc, which is the equivalent to around £35 - BARGAIN.

However, there was a catch. We left Prague at 6 am, and left Munich at 3am. It would be 24 hours or drinking beer, partying and making new friends.

When we arrived in Munich, Oktoberfest was pretty hard to miss. You could see the streams of people dressed in traditional Bavarian costume and leiderhosen walking towards the park. The Oktoberfest area itself was massive. Probably around the same size as the centre of the city.

There were thousands and thousands of people. And they were all dressed up. We were the minority - as we were dressed in "normal" clothes. I'd never felt like that before.

You'd walk down the centre of the of the area and there'd be a massive beer tent (I say tent, I mean giant wooden building) every other door - ON BOTH SIDES! I can't put into words how many there were!!

We eventually picked one, We tried to find one without a massive queue (IMPOSSIBLE), We also somehow managed to get a a bench. It was amazing. Inside I'd never seen anything like it. There were so many people, and there was what I can only describe as an Oom-Pah band in the centre. (As a musician, I feel slightly disappointed for not having a proper word...!!) 

The beer was gorgeous. It just slipped right down. Very expensive, mind you. After getting used to the 30Kc (£1ish) for half a litre in Prague, spending €10 for a litre stein was painful. Worth it though. There's no point complaining about the price of beer when you're at the world's biggest beer festival. Am I right?

We each had 2 of these, joined in with the drinking Oom-Pah songs and made some new German friends.

"Would you like some beer with that foam?"

We left, and after spending AN HOUR queuing for the toilet, we headed out of the park to explore the city and find some food. I'm going to be completely honest with you now, after drinking 2 litres if beer, your head begins to get a little fuzzy.

We had some food, and then found a cool looking bar. I even met a chap who was on holiday from Pembrokeshire and we chatted in Welsh for a bit. See, us Welshies can always find each other!

The Erasmus organisers had also managed to book a club for us to party the night away, which we happily did. Although compared to Prague, and the UK, the drinks were so expensive. €6.40 for a rum and coke!! Absolute joke.

Anyway, we danced the night away and we had a great time. We left Munich at around 3am, and I arrived back in Prague at 9:30am on Sunday. It was a brilliant and well spend 24 hours!

Remember Me? I live in Prague now.

Yes, Hello. You guys remember me? Some people have still been reading some pages...so hello to you!

#dailycommute

I haven't posted in over two weeks *SHOCK HORROR* but in all fairness, I have been trying to get my brand new shiny life working over here in a strange new city and country.

I live in Prague now, and every morning I wake up and can't quite believe that I live here. I have the most beautiful view ever on my daily commute to university and I am so very lucky.

I have my own little flat. There have been Ikea trips and almost daily trips to the homewares department in my local Tesco. (YES WE HAVE TESCO AND I AM SO EXCITED.)

I have picked up my ISIC card, so I am officially an international student. It's crazy to think that this is going to be my home for a whole year!

I am planning on doing so much travelling, but I'm still figuring out the logistics of it all..!

Ok so this was a brief catch-up, I promise there'll be more blogs!!

Write in the comments if you've been here or if you have anywhere travel-wise that you recommend :)

Daily Diaries | Flats, Physio, Hair and Camera

So I thought that I'd join in the Daily Diaries link up over on The Lotus Creative (one of my fave blogs to read) just as a way to summarise my day-to-day life that one may overlook when thinking of things to blog. So every friday I'm going to just give you guys a compact summary of my week :)

So this week there has been a lot of changes in my life. I have a flat! I have somewhere to live when I move to Prague! It's a massive flat, right in the centre of the city, only a 20 minute walk from college and I can't wait to make the place my own.

I have queer feet. That's right, there's been a reason why I get shooting pains up my legs while I run. My feet are out of alignment, so my leg muscles have to work extra hard in order to get the momentum to run. I have some exercises and stretches to help, as well as a few brands of trainers to look at investing in.

My hair's a different colour! It's a dark brown-y, red-y sort of colour. Finally the horrible gingery blonde caused by faded colour is no more.

If ya follow me on Instagram I'm sure you'll have seen this. (@nghazzie)

This morning I went into town and invested in a lovely new camera for my travels next year. I can't wait to go outside and try it out.


 

Returning from the Undead

I know this title is a little exaggerated....but that's what it feels like!

I mentioned over a MONTH ago that I wanted to blog more..... that totally happened didn't it.

Life happened. Life got in the way. I've been away on orchestra. I've been working. I've been exhausted. I've been sorting my life out before I pack it all up and move to Prague.

It's been difficult. And scary.

I've been coping in the usual ways; you know, eating lots of ice cream, going to the gym and burying my head in the sand and pretending nothing is happening. All very healthy ways of coping with stress (not). But seriously though, things are beginning to come together. I have a flat to live, I'm speaking to people who are also going, and I'm slowly but surely learning the language.

I'm scared, but it's ok to be scared. Good things happen when one pushes themselves out of their comfort zone. And that's what I'm doing. Good things will happen and I will learn a lot.

I've missed writing on here, and I actually wrote when I was feeling at my most down and most stressed out, but I decided against it. I strive for positivity on here, in my writing and in my life. I was feeling anything but, HOWEVER, I feel like I've come out the other side feeling stronger and more determined for a challenge than ever.

Lots of love to you all and thanks for being so patient with me. xxx

I'M MOVING TO PRAGUE!

As most of you guys know, I am going on an Erasmus exchange next year. I'm going to be studying at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague!!

The application process was vigorous, with so much paperwork to fill in and audition tapes to video...if any of you guys saw me in February, I was not a very calm bunny.

I was lucky enough to be offered two places (I haven't head back from the third, but I'd like to get the full set ;) ). One offer came through right at the beginning of the Easter holidays, and I sort of kept it on the DL, apart from my closest friends, as I didn't want to start telling people until everything was finalised and sorted. By the time I had been offered a room in a student halls in Bergen, Norway, it started to look very official that it was there I was to be headed. 

HOWEVER. There was one awful day in college, after a number of pretty bad days, and I decided to go home for an undetermined amount of time. The morning I was set to head home, my ipad dinged the email ding at the unsociable hour of 07:43. I grumbled, got up to see what it was expecting it to be some sort of Amazon newsletter or something, and saw it was an acceptance from Prague! I just thought "huh, look at that" and went back to bed.

So my nice relaxing break at home ended up with me basically sat at the kitchen table deliberating between the two different paths my life could venture. I was weighing up the pros and cons, and consulting my friends, parents and the cats for advice. Eventually, the night before I was due to come back up to college in Manchester, I made the snap desicion. Prague it was.

It was one of the hardest desicions ever. Do I go for a country where everything was already organised and ready to go, a university place with the opportunity of meeting people who study other things, and where I had already planned my life and traveling for the next year, but basically didn't allow me to have a summer holiday and give me constant money fear? Or do I go for the city that I had loved for years, very accessible to the rest of Europe, 88p beer, but yet have no idea on where to live, and no clue how to speak a word of Czech (apart from "ahoj!")? These thoughts just kept going round and round and round and round my head. I know there are much, much, much worse situations to be in, I mean the Oh-No-I've-Been-Offered-More-Than-One-Erasmus-Place isn't exactly a life or death desicion, but it's still going to have a massive impact on the Rest Of My Life. 

Anyways, a whole new life with new experiences, new friends and new opportunities is just around the corner, and I am SO EXCITED. Of course, I'm worried that I'll leave College now and everyone will forget that I exist, and I worry that maybe some of my friendships won't be as strong as I thought to keep going while I'm living on the continent. I hope not. Obviously, I'm going to be blogging my way through my journey in Prague, so you can keep up to date with what is occurring while I'm out there.

Have a photo of Prague. It doesn't really capture any of the city's magnificent beauty, but it is the view from the castle, which is just a little walk up from where I'll be studying! 

Also:

On the subject of blogs, I would like to change the name of this one, if anyone has any ideas, please let me know! 

One of my Best Friends, Mia, and I have started a blog together. It's still in its early stages, but it's more of a lifestyle, chatty type blog where we basically write to each other. If you're interested, you can see find us here: http://twolittlebricks.wordpress.com

AND FINALLY another one of my Best Friends is doing an amazing thing for charity. She's shaving off her hair. And if you know Beth, you'll know she has an Afro!! If you don't, scroll down and you'll find some photos of her, but I'm so so proud and excited to be a part of this journey that she is about to embark! If you would like to donate, you can click on this link right here: https://www.justgiving.com/Beth-Davis2

I appreciate that this post is a little news-y, and quite different to my other posts, but there are a lot of exciting things happening at the moment and I just wanted to share them all!