Things I'm Wondering About Uni

University season has officially begun. A lot of my friends have started at university this year, and even more have returned to university for their second year. Now my Uni freshers week is a week after most, meaning I don't move to Liverpool until this Saturday. 

Seeing my friends start and settle already has lead me to think about what my personal experience will be like. Here's a list of questions I have running and chasing through my head about beginning this new chapter:

1. What will my flatmates be like?
2. What will my lecturers be like?
3. Will my course be just as I expected it to be?
4. What aspect of media will actually interest me the most?
5. Will I realise what I want to do after university?
6. How will I mangage to budget?
7. How will I balance uni work, classes, work, social life and youtube?
8. Will I get homesick since I've never been homesick before?
9. Will things be different when I come back home, or will nothing have changed?
10. How often will I get lost on campus on my frist week?
11. What will my diet be like? (Consisting of mainly pasta and jagerbombs I should imagine!)
12. How on earth will my flatmates put up with my music taste. They're gonna have no choice but to deal with it!
13. Will I still stay close with everyone back home?
14. How many lectures will I turn up hungover to?
15. Will I do well? I'm such a nerd at heart so I hope I will
16. How will my appearance change as I start to "find myself"
17. In which semester will I officially be declared bankrupt?
18. How will people react to me making youtube videos?
19. Will I settle?
20. Will I actually enjoy my entire experience as much as I'm hoping to?

So there we are, that's my #relatablepost about becoming a student. The song of the day is Thunder by Imagine Dragons. Are you starting a new chapter in your life? If so let me know in the comments the questions you have about this new start,

Izzy K xxx

Mystery Blogger Award

Something I absolutely doing on my blog and youtube channel is tag posts and awards. So you can imagine how glad and honored I was when Aleeha and Lucy from www.halesaaw.co.uk nominated me to take part in the Mystery Blogger Award. 

“Mystery Blogger Award”  is an award for amazing bloggers with ingenious posts. Their blog not only captivates; it inspires and motivates. They are one of the best out there, and they deserve every recognition they get. This award is also for bloggers who find fun and inspiration in blogging; and they do it with so much love and passion.

– Okoto Enigma

The Rules:

• Put the award logo in your post
• List all the rules
• Thank the person who nominated you and link their blog
• Mention the creator of the award
• Tell your readers 3 things about yourserlf
• Nominate 10-20 people
• Notify each of your nominees by commenting on their blog
• Ask your nominees 5 questions
• Share the link to your best/favourite post

5 Questions For Me To Answer:

1. Why did you start blogging?

I started blogging because I was obsessed with the idea of running a youtube channel. I had posted a couple of videos, but I didn't have the balls to carry on because I was so awkward on camera. So I thought I'd express my thoughts and have a creative outlet on a platform that didn't require me to talk.

2. What is your biggest fear?

Honestly my biggest fear is ironically letting my own fears and anxieties stop me from doing things I love. Now that I'm slowly bursting out of my comfort zone, I'm realizing I've missed out on so much in life (wow getting deep there) because I was too worried about failing or about what people thought of me. So basically my biggest fear is living a safe life, where I'm too scared to actually try new things.

3. What is your favourite colour to wear?

Is it boring if I just say black? Can't go wrong with black skinny jeans... right?! But my favourite colour to wear besides black is a very dark dark navy (so colourful!)

4. What is your favourite memory from your childhood?

One Christmas, I got a little hint that I may be receiving the Nintendo DS Lite. I remember being so genuinely excited for that Christmas, and I just remember being more excited for that then anything. I'm not gonna lie, I loved that thing to pieces, and sometimes even wack it out for a Nintendogs sesh nowadays! 

5. What is your favourite song at the moment?

Despacito who? It's all about Little Mix's version of Reggaeton Lento now! #songoftheday

My Favourite blog post is: Internet Communites!

My Nominees (Sorry it's not 10-20)

• Georgie Watts
• Rainbow-Rose Blossom
• Lou

I've had so much fun writing this post, so thank you so much Aleeha and Lucy for nominating me for this tag. I hope you've enjoyed reading!

Izzy K xxx

Gap Year Guide Part 4: Small Things & Actually Being Away

Welcome to the very last edition of my "Gap Year Guide". This chapter will be all about my final top tips and the small little things to cover while you're actually away. I hope you find it helpful if you'll be travelling too :)

My first tip is to pick the person that you'll go travelling with very wisely! These sorts of experiences can really make or break a friendship. I went travelling in May with my best friend, Georgie, and I'm pretty sure she's the only person that can put up with me for a month solid!

Bring a bit of home comfort. Now I can hands down say that I've never actually experienced home sickness. I just kinda live in the moment regardless of where I am. Something that did actually help me was a bar of galaxy chocolate that my friend's mum actually brought us to have a little bit of comfort whilst travelling. (Thank you Gillian and Laura for getting that!) So it was sweet to tuck into a bit of chocie after a long day of travelling. 

Social media is key. Again, this is something that I find really helps with home sickness. Being able to stay in touch with everyone back home really makes you feel like you're not missing out on anything. It also lets people know that you're safe. And if you're family is anything like mine, you'd end up getting a million and one phone calls if you don't constantly post your whereabouts haha!

Know your local embassy. Ok this admittedly is something that I only thought of once I returned home. But it is so important because you never know what might go wrong and you don't want to end up stranded. 

Know the local emergency numbers. You don't want to find yourself in a tricky situation, and then have to quickly google the number for people that can help. FYI: The European emergency number is 112 ;)

Don't keep all your money in one place. This is very important because you never know if you'll forget your purse, or have something nicked. What I did whilst travelling was keep my credit cards in one purse, with a bit of money for the day. And then the rest of my travel money in my bag. That way if one goes missing, you still have some emergency money.

Take photos of all your documents. This includes passports, insurance policies, hotel room conformations. That way you always have a backup, and if you need something replacing whilst away you still have the details of the documents. Also, send these to a family member or friend so they have a copy too. 

Accept that not everything is going to go to plan. This is all you can do really. You might miss a train here and there, or not make it to your hotel on time to check in. Or forget your favourite pair of sunglasses in your last accommodation. But things often have a way of working out. When lost, google maps finds all. And people are generally more helpful than not, so never be afraid to ask if you find yourself out of your depth.

Google the safety of places where you're staying. Generally places, especially touristy places, are safe. However, it doesn't hurt to take precautions and see if there are parts of certain towns that are best to avoid, or find out if places are known for pick-pocketing. It's always fantastic to go out of your comfort zone, but it's also better to be safe than sorry.

Thank you very much for reading my final Gap Year Guide post. The song of the day is Happier by Ed Sheeran. I hope I've covered everything in this series, but if you have any questions please let me know in the comments,

Izzy K xxx

Weekly Summary Post: 3rd Week Of July

Hey guys it's that time of the week again where I share what you may have missed on my youtube channel this week.

5 Comedy Sketches You Need To Watch

Who loves a good ol' bit of stand-up comedy? I certainly do and I wanted to share my all time favourite sketches because I think it would be a shame if people didn't know about them!

Summer Glow Makeup Look

The second video I posted this week is a Glowy Summer look because you guys probably know I have a highlighter addiction. If it were up to me, I'd wear highlighter and shimmery products all over my face.

Thank you very much for watching/reading. The song of the day is New Rules by Dua Lipa. I hope you all have a lovely week :)

Izzy K xxx

Gap Year Guide Part 3: Route, Transport & Accommodation

Hello and welcome to my 3rd post in my "Gap Year Guide" which will be focusing on where I actually went, and how I actually got around Europe for a month. 

Feel free to check out my Insta for more travel photos ;)

Route:

Me and Georgie wanted to cover as many cities and countries as possible in a month, so we decided to go pretty much straight across Europe and hit as many countries as we could. Our route was as follows:

• Sofia, Bulgaria: 2nd-5th May
• Plovdiv, Bulgaria: 5th-6th May
• Bucharest, Romania: 6th- 9th May
• Brasov, Romania: 9th- 11th May
• Budapest, Hungary: 12th- 14th May
• Zagreb, Croatia: 15th-17th May
• Split, Croatia: 17th- 19th May
• Ljubljana, Slovenia: 19th-22nd May
• Bled, Slovenia: 22nd-24th May
• Vienna, Austria: 24th- 26th May
• Berlin, Germany: 26th-28th May
• Brussels, Belgium: 28th- 30th May
• Paris, France: 30th-31st May
• Dover, England: 31st May

Transport:

We only wanted to fly once on our travels, so we decided to fly out from Birmingham Airport to Sofia Airport. The company we flew with was EasyJet.

We then wanted to find the easiest way to travel between countries, and concluded that Interrail tickets were the cheapest way to do that. The ticket I brought was a youth ticket where you could travel for 15 days within the period of a month. We found that most countries where we used our ticket understood what it was. The only trouble we had was in Bulgaria, where we found that the language barrier was the strongest. However, the ticket was accepted in every country we went to. On their website you can fill in your route, but I would recommend checking if you have to reserve a train seat because on most trains you do. There is a hidden cost of reserving train tickets though, so watch out for that!

Then for the journey home we decided to get the ferry from Calais to Dover and we booked this using Directferries.com for £30 each. Then using National Express, we booked our coaches from Dover Ferry Port to Birmingham Airport. 

And for transport around the actual cities we used either tram, or underground lines. Or, if it was available in that country, we used Uber. 

Accommodation:

For our first night, we wanted to stop somewhere close to the airport since we arrived in the middle of the night. So we booked a room in the Ibis hotel which was opposite the airport.

The only other time we booked a hotel was in Budapest where we booked the Hotel Griff. We needed somewhere that was close to the train station, since we had a very early morning train. To be honest, the reviews of this 3 star hotel kinda put us off stopping there, but it wasn't a terrible place to stop and it did the job.

The rest of our accommodation we booked on AirBnB. In case you didn't know, this is a way to book different types of accommodation, rented out by different people from all over the world. A lot of people are scared at the thought of this, but from my experience I can definitely say it's a reliable way to book apartments. All the hosts we had were lovely and helpful, and we were very comfortable in every place we stayed. 

We booked the first week of accommodation before we left England so we certainly had places to stop when we got there. Then we'd always make sure we'd have the week ahead's accommodation booked in advance. But the reason we didn't book it all at once was because we didn't want to have a last minute change, and have to cancel or change all our accommodation. So once we knew for sure where we were going, we'd book the most reasonably priced AirBnB we could find.

So there you are, that's how me and Georgie traveled around Europe for a month. The song of the day is Beat Again by JLS. As always, I tried to go into as much detail as I could for this post, but if you have any further questions please don't hesitate to ask in the comments. Thank you for reading,

Izzy K xxx

Weekly Summary Post: 2nd Week Of July

Hey guys it's that time of the week again where I share what you might have missed on my channel over the last 7 days...

Simple Summer Makeup Look

Since it's Summer and it's difficult to be able to wear a lot of makeup without it sliding off your face, I decided to create a simple and sweat-proof makeup routine to share. 

Which Decade Do I Belong In?

And as you all probably know, I'm seriously obsessed with the 00's decade so I decided to take a test to see what decade I truly belong in.

So here we go, that's what's been on my channel this week. The song of the day is Love On The Brain by Rihanna. I hope you've all had a lovely week,

Izzy K xxx

Gap Year Guide Part 2: Finance

Hi everyone and welcome to my second edition of my “Gap Year Guide” which will be focused all about how I actually financed my trip.

Feel free to check out my Instagram @izzyk1998 for more travel pics ;)

If you guys missed my first post (which you can catch up with here) you will know that I traveled around mainly Eastern Europe for a month with my best friend. Now, obviously, for that time period you do have to budget and make the money last for the whole trip. This is how I achieved that. …

The first thing I’ll talk about is my actual saving goal for the holiday. Ideally I wanted to save £3000 to spend on anything related to travelling this year. I knew that I wanted to travel in May, so in September I got a job in a retailer. Since I got paid weekly, I got roughly between £156-180 a week depending on the hours I worked. It’s unrealistic to assume that I wouldn’t need money during the week, so I always made sure I had a bit of money in my current account, just to cover things like buying birthday presents, going out and a cheeky bit of shopping. But I never wanted to have more than £150 in my current account so I wouldn’t go on a crazy shopping spree and blow all my money at once. So every week that I got paid I transferred any money that I had over £150 into my savings account with the intention to spend it on travelling. Needless to say my savings soon built up.

Now I didn’t spend all my savings for travelling at once. We found a good deal on Interrail tickets if we brought them by the end of January (I believe it was January) and got 15% off for booking it at that time. And another way I was able to make the money last was by looking for cheaper alternatives to everything. I’ll be doing a specific post about accommodation, but an example of a cheaper alternative was booking AirBnB’s instead of hotels because then half our savings would be gone on accommodation alone.

Another thing me and my friend did before we went travelling was budgeting our money between different accounts. I kept some of my money in my current account with my ordinary debit card since it was linked to my PayPal which is what I used to book AirBnB’s. And then the majority of my savings was transferred to my FX card. I’m so lucky that my friend advised me to get one of these cards, because they have less of a charge when you use them internationally compared to ordinary credit/debit cards. So that’s another way to save money whilst travelling between different countries.

And since it was probably a good idea to have some cash on us when we arrived to each country, we got some exchanged at our local M&S shop. We did this because there’s no minimum money that you have to exchange there. So we went halves on the currency and for the two of us took out:

•         £100 Bulgarian Lev
•         £150 Romainan Lei
•          £100 Hungarian Forint
•          £100 Croatian Kuna
•          £150 Euros

So there we are, that’s how I budgeted my travelling for my gap year. The song of the day is It Aint Me by Selena Gomez. I tried to go into as much detail as possible for my gap year guide, but if you have any further questions please don’t hesitate to ask me. Thank you very much for reading,

Izzy K xxx