From France to Spain / Best blogging tips

For those that have been following my travels and adventures from the start, you'll know that my time in the beautiful city of Strasbourg is only limited. I've been here since mid September, and in two weeks time I am off to the much warmer, just as beautiful city of Valencia.

And I can't wait! I'm going be studying at the university, and when I'm not, I can walk a few hundred metres or so down to the beautiful beach:

Photo of Valencia beach

I've managed to sort out a flat with an English girl who goes to my university back home, and she's been incredibly helpful with trying to find me a place. I'm off in about 2 weeks time, so in the mean time, I'm going to relax, and enjoy the rest of the stay in Strasbourg.

On a side note, those that follow BlogWave, we recorded again yesterday. Yes that's right! Episode 4 of BlogWave is on the way. This one is huge! We had our first guest come on the show and he answered the question (would like to make it plural but it was just the one, Cheers Rorschach!) that was sent in.

We've got some HUGE news on that show that as a blogger, you honestly can't afford to miss. So yeah, head on over to BlogWave! Our comedy podcast full of blogging tips and SEO optimisation:  http://blogwave.net

Rats Out!

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You can't be serious...

Well guys it's official. I have a guy who officially wants to kidnap me and take me back to his.

Full story here in another video post. Apologies in advance if audio and visual don't match, that's Youtube's fault.



So here it is, 25/10/10, he tries to rape me again. For full story watch part one, which I have linked beneath this video. Here is video post number two, and rape attempt number two. Also a quick video of my residence and talks about a blogcast, aka a podcast for blogger!

Part 2:





Watch part one aka first kidnapping attempt here:

http://studentaroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2010/10/first-video-blog-kidnapping-acoustic.html



Stay tuned for our blogcast!


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Mad Caddies adventure last night / Unannounced Mad Caddies UK Tour 2011? / My first month here

So guys if you're reading this now (It's 14:31 Europe time on the 14/10/10), as of this hour I have officially been here a month! Just thought I'd share haha. But yeah life is getting easier here. No longer the lonely, difficult, confused boy I was once, but now...a man. Ok so I'm still kinda confused about this entire country but life is progressing, and so is my level of French, which is always good because it's the entire reason I'm out here.

Anyway, enough of that, if you've been following my Facebook/Twitter/This blog you'll be aware that last night I went to watch the Mad Caddies play!

(Original post here: http://studentaroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2010/10/mad-caddies.html)


So yeah, last monday I was talking to some German lads who informed me that the mighty Mad Caddies would be playing in Strasbourg! Now for me this was huuuuuge. It's been about a month since I'd been to a gig and I'd started to get withdrawal symptoms, so the fact that one of my favourite groups were playing here on such short notice was awesome.

Anyways, I had no idea how I was going to get to the gig (It's about a hour and a half walk) I just knew it was one bus, then a 40 minute walk. Instead, after staring at a map for about 10 minutes a helpful French woman approached me and told me that to get to where I wanted I had to take a tram. So one bus and one tram later, I arrived at tiny back alley gig which was actually a really good venue.

What surprised me about this gig was that there were only one support band. Either way these guys were amazing! A French ska/punk band called Zéro Talent. They were AMAZING. I would strongly suggest you check these guys out. I haven't found a link to their myspace yet but they can be found on Facebook here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Zero-Talent/119980766185


Anyway, after a very enjoyable 40 minutes, they left the stage and Mad Caddies took over.

And they were just as brilliant as they always are. It was the third time I've seen them and with no barrier at the gig, I was at the very front and all I can say is took part in some serioussss stage diving. There's nothing like running on stage while the group is playing then running and diving into the arms of hundreds of sweaty German's and French. I said I'd take some photos for you guys so here we are:

Mad Caddies singer

Mad Caddies guitarist

Mad Caddies guitarist live

Mad Caddies bass and guitarist

Mad Caddies lead singer

Mad Caddies sweaty singer

Mad Caddies bassist

Mad Caddies trumpet

Mad Caddies trombone

Here's the setlist for you Caddie fans:

Mad Caddies setlist 2010

Anyways, after the gig I asked the guitarist for a plectrum, and the drummer for one his sticks. Although neither were signed, the plectrum is sweet as it has their name printed on it. More merch to add to my collection of band merch I guess! I also bought a pretty sweet Mad Caddies Tee shirt ;D

Front of Mad Caddies plectrum

Back of the plectrum

Mad Caddies tee shirt

Oh, I also met the trombonist after the gig who was surprised to find out that I was English and all the way over in Strasbourg haha. He also informed me the Caddies would be touring the UK in February 2011! So watch this space guys!


After the gig finished at 11 and I discovered that the last tram had left or wasn't running because there was a strike (so typical of the French), I spent the next 50 minutes running and cycling with a lovely chap I found lives at my residence, and as he bought a bike to the gig we kept swapping. It was a brilliant way to improve my language as I spent the next 40 minutes conversing in French!

But yeah that's all. Hope you enjoyed!

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Strasbourg at night

Hey guys. Had a lot of people asking for more photos of Strasbourg and upon my walk home yesterday I discovered that the European Parliament looked amazing at night. So, here are a few photos of the European Parliament and other buildings at night.

Now, these are by no means amazing pieces of photography, (I'm only using a £40 Canon Powershot a470) but the river looks quite cool at night, and some of the colours the buildings use to light themselves are pretty sweet.

Ideally, I would've liked to have taken these at sunrise, but I don't fancy it tonight as I'm tired. Another night/morning I will.

Anyways, here are the photos of random buildings:

and here are some of the European Parliament:

>

And there we have it. I know it's only a few but I'm so tired so I stopped taking many I thought it'd keep it as a bit of a teaser.I was also getting a lot of dodgy looks. I mean, hood up, hidden away, taken pictures of the European Parliament in the pitch black.Hope you enjoyed
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Strasbourg Cathedral

Hey guys. I know a lot of you like photography, (this is hardly photography, just photos I've taken with a standard digital camera) so I thought I'd upload some pictures of the beautiful Cathedral in Strasbourg city centre. It's an absolutely incredible piece of architecture and I just thought I'd take some photo's so again, I could make my adventure seem even more realistic to you readers. I am sharing my experiences DIRECTLY with you guys :)

Any fool can just Google pictures, but these are taken from my point of view. Nothing fancy here. Just a standard 7 Megapixel camera.

Check them out! 

EDIT: Was just informed by The Lazy Geographer that this was 'Tallest building in the world until 1874, a record it held for over 200 years, and it's still the 6th tallest church in the world.'

It's an incredible spectacle in person. It's honestly over whelming.

Hope you enjoyed! 

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Off to Oktoberfest / Beautiful photo of the Cathedral

Just a short two part post guys. Part one is that tomorrow at 7:30am I am getting the train to Germany to take part in the world renowned Oktoberfest!

In short, 12 hours of drinking non stop in Germany. This picture kinda sums it up:

Don't worry, you'll receive a post upon my return filled with pictures of me no doubt completely off my head!


Part two


A photo of the Cathedral I took. I planned to upload way more but the plugin crashed so I will post another update when I return!

Cya soon!

Remember, if you like the fact I'm off to Oktoberfest or enjoy this picture I took, you can 'Like' it on Facebook by pressing the button up there^

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Things I've learned about France and the French

Ok guys so I've been here for two weeks to the day and basically just thought I'd give you a little update on how it's all going and what I've learnt about France and the people here in general.


Quick note; this isn't meant to offend anyone! Just pointing out my observations! And it'd be interesting to hear back from you guys whether the rest of France is like this, or whether it just applies to Strasbourg or the Alsace region!

Another quick note; As an Englishman, these seemed strange to me and the culture I grew up with. These may be relatively common for the rest of the world!

Ok so here we go:

- Everyone here smokes

- Relating to the point above, it's not uncommon to see people using a pipe to smoke

- Everyone cycles

- People who ride motorbikes/mopeds/Vespas are insane. Cutting up cars, speeding down pavements, and   EVERYTIME two people on a motorbike meet, they see who can wheelie the longest. I see this a LOT

- Here the French, similar to the Spanish, have a sort of Siesta, and most shops open around 8:00, but will close at midday and re-open at 14:00

- The people here seem to partially fit the stereotypical image of a French person. Seen a lot of berets and nearly everyone (whether it's just the students because is cheap,) eats baguettes

- It's expensive as hell. Some pubs ask for 7Euros for a whiskey, where as a single Whiskey in my home town is around £2.50, or 3.60Euros

- People drink half pints a lot more than pints

- Public transport is ALWAYS on time

- People are very helpful; approaching me and asking if I need help (An obvious student with a map out)

- Juice is extremely common, and it isn't as easy as I thought it would be buy regular, justaddwater style squash

- It's clean. Although graffiti still exists, it exists more as an art form than scribbled names. Litter isn't a problem here

- They LOVE their cheese here. So many varieties.

- A lot of people pay using cheques. Not sure if this is just England being different, but it is rare to find a place that still accepts cheques as a form of payment

- The French don't mind a beer, at 10am

- One of the most bizarre for me, when the 'green man' is displayed when crossing a road, it is not unusual for cars to still drive over the crossing, but simply wait for pedestrians to cross. The fact they can still drive with the green man there is what's a little foreign to me. This point is kinda hard to explain, but in England,   if the red man is showing. Pedestrians can't walk, and cars can drive. Here, if the green man is showing, cars can still drive, as long as they are no pedestrians.

- One for just as UK people, still not use to other side of the road driving. Although I don't drive, crossing a road is still daunting as I'm not used to looking to my right hand side first!



That's all I got at the moment! Just a bit of an update on the culture shock really. Love it here though so don't take this as a a 'Things I hate about France' post!

Like I said earlier, be interesting to see if anyone else agrees and whether this is the same throughout France, or just Strasbourg.
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A well equipped laptop is key

Another update for you travellers out there on how to prepare not just yourself, but also your laptop before travelling. This can also apply for all you University go-ers that are heading off this week. Now, if you plan to take a form of entertainment with you, I.e A gaming console or your DVD collection then you may not find this guide as life saving, but merely as another source of entertainment.

See when most people go travelling or go off to university they automatically accept that when they arrive at their residence they will have instant internet access. However, depending on your halls/residence/hotel, it can take several days or even weeks to set up a decent internet connection.

Depending on how sociable you are or how much of internet addict you are, this may not be a problem. But if you do crave the internet and are not guaranteed a connection upon arrival, I suggest the following tips.

Project64

This was probably the biggest life saver for me. For those of you that aren't aware, Project64 is a N64 emulator. In short, it's a program available for free download that allows you to play your favourite N64 games on your laptop. The games, referred to as ROMS, can also be downloaded from a separate website.
I must have spent countless hours rejoicing my childhood moments on these games. Although the gameplay can be a little difficult to get used to at first (the fact that you laptop lacks a analog stick and you have to make  do with the direction keys), it is definately worth downloading this program.

Most games will run on just about any generic laptop, I.E you don't need to have amazing computer specs to run this program efficiently. But I do recommend you close down any programs which take up a large amount of the CPU for smoother gameplay. EG Virus scanners etc.

Project 64 can be downloaded here:

http://www.pj64-emu.com/downloads/startdown/34/

Although there are a variety of websites that boost Project64 ROMs, I prefer this site:

http://www.freeroms.com/n64.htm

The program itself is dead easy and straightforward to use. Simply download the ROM ( I suggest keeping them together on a file located on your desktop) Then open up Project64,

File > Open Rom > Find Rom

It's as simple as that. You can also change the default control (Options > Controller Plug In) to suit your gaming needs.


On another note, if you do find gameplay to tedious using your keyboard, you can buy N64 controllers with USB adapters for quite cheap online these days.

That's all I have on Project64, any questions feel free to post below.


DVDs


Now, to most of you this may seem like an obvious one, but depending on your suitcase space and dvd collection itself, you may be limited to bringing dvds upon your travels. For this, I recommend you try to find a way of ripping the DVD to your laptop. Failing that, download it. Although I do not recommend either of these methods as they are illegal, it can be down and there are plenty of guides on how to do so out there.

When I got bored of exploring Hyrule on Project64, I simply loaded up my favourite film, Memento, and an hour and a half soon flew by.


Last but not least, an obvious but often taken for granted:

Solitaire

A very simple, yet EFFECTIVE way of killing time. Not much to say about this one. Pretty much everyone know's how to play it, and it can be found by clicking Start > Games > Solitaire.




That's pretty much it from me guys. If you can think of anything I've missed then let me know! But make sure you do a bit of research before you leave guys as life without internet and be killer!
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Picture of the beast D:

Small children and pregnant woman may want to leave the room....


















Ok guys so the camera really doesn't do it justice here. But the silver plate is about the size of 2 DVD CASES . THAT'S HOW BIG THIS BEAST WAS. Body was bigger than my thumb D:

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New photos/Ad sense disabled ;_;

Some new photos here guys including a panoramic type photo I made using a program called photostitch. Individual photos below. Oh and my adsense was banned. Dam you Google :[ Either way, still using this as the legit blog it was in the first place so yeah check these out and lemme know what you think :D


Panoramic

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Photos of Strasbourg

These photos are all taken by me guys :D I said I'd provide pictures once I could, so here we are:

I'm so lucky to be here! Was going to take more pictures today but it's raining so doesn't look as awesome. This weekend I'm going to venture around the city like a proper little tourist and take way more photos! Hope you enjoy these in the mean time!
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Purchased a digital camera

Pretty self explanatory here guys! Purchased a 7mb Digital Camera so I can let you guys experience my travels just as well as I can! I will also be leaving short video blogs for my friends back home so they can still see and hear me haha.

I'm not out of your lives yet guys ;D


Any suggestions on what's going to be the best way to upload these videos? Don't really won't to upload them to Youtube.

Open to suggestions.

I leave in the morning!
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And so it begins...

And so I depart. It's currently Saturday 11th September - 22:28 (GMT)
At 04:30 Monday 13th September, I will awake and I will leave my house for the very last time for the next 10 months.

My train leaves Gloucester train station at 05:19, where I must travel to London (Only changing once). At Paddington station. I will then have to get the tube and will arrive at Kings Cross at 07:46.

At 08:27 I will board the Eurostar train, and I will OFFICIALLY begin my travels.

It's only just sinking in how real this is becoming. Today I have said my goodbyes to family and friends and all I can say now is; I have never felt like this before in my entire life. As well as bricking it at the thought of being alone, I feel an overwhelming sense of excitement as this is going to be a year of my life I will never forget.

So followers, friends or anyone who's stumbled upon this, at 15:17 on Monday the 13th September, I will have arrived in Strasbourg; Tired, nervous and carrying my life in a suitcase.

And so will begin the most incredible 10 months of my life.
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Possible date for flying out to Strasbourg!

Woah. Just woah. It all feels so real now guys. Received an email today from one of the lecturers at Strasbourg university (after I chased them up a bit)

Here's the email itself :

Bonjour,

Nous avons accepté votre candidature à l'université de Strasbourg au 
département LEA. Vous êtes invité à la 1er réunion LEA le mercredi 14 
septembre. Merci de vous présenter au secrétariat LEA au bureau n°____
et vous adresser à mon assistant M. Roumain Poutet. Tél. __ __ __ __.

In short,

"We've accepted your place at Strasbourg university to the LEA department. You've been invited to the first LEA meeting, Wednesday the 14th of September. If could present yourself to the LEA secretary at office ____ and contact my assistant Mr _______  etc."

Removed names and numbers for anonymity.

So excited! I assume in the next 4-5 days I will begin my travels and will be flying out to Strasbourg, so WATCH THIS SPACE!

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