Best places to study in London

Are you tired of your uni library? Are you tired of libraries in general? Luckily, London is full of great café shop for students. Here is my top six places to study or work. 

CZ: Bydlení v Londýně

Za pár dní se stěhujeme. Už potřetí za naše dva roky v Londýně. Nikdy to není jednoduché, nikdy to nejde jako po másle, vždy je někde nějaký háček, ještě nikdy to nebylo ideální bydlení. K oslavě třetího stěhování - tentokrát snad už do skvělého domu se skvělými lidmi - přinášíme článek o bydlení v Londýně pro ty z vás, kteří o tom uvažují.

Prague guide

Many friends asked me what to do and see in Prague, where to say and eat, where is the best coffee or what tickets to buy for few days visit. As I want to make my life easier I am just going to write it all down and then just keep sending the link. Sweet. Here it is.

Dartmoor National Park

CZ: Na univerzitu do Anglie

Článek na přání. Po studiu bakaláře jsem věděla, že buď budu ve studiu pokračovat v zahraničí nebo pokračovat nebudu. Nechápejte to špatně, "Masárnu" (Masarykova univerzita v Brně) mám moc ráda a ty tři roky tam stály za to, jak po studijní stránce, tak po stránce studentského života. Ale vždy mě to táhlo za hranice. Během ročního working holiday na Novém Zélandu, tedy běhém svého gap yearu, jsem si pro případ dalšího studia, které prostě bude v zahraničí!, udělaja mezinárodní jazykový test a že se zkusím na pár univeryit přihlásit. Měla jsem štěstí. A to velké - dostala jsem se na svou univerzitu snů a nemohu si ji vynachválit. Jak tedy ten proces přihlášky na britské univerzity vypadá?

CZ: Můj rok na univerzitě v Tchaj-peji

Neměla jsem v plánu o ročním studiu na Taiwanu psát. Byl to ten nejúžasnější rok mého života, nebo jeden z těch nejúžasnějších, o tom žádná. Ale samotné stipendium a celý roční pobyt mi připadají jako zcela běžná věc. No, ukázalo se, že to, jak jsem se ke stipendiu dostala, jak jsem se dostala k samotnému studiu čínštiny a jak celá ta cesta a asijský život vypadají, zajímá lidi asi nejvíc. Takže tady to je, hezky celé od začátku. 

Singapore

Singapore: Jurong Bird park

Indonesia: Pet Market in Yogyakarta, Java

Yogya is simply amazing. Incomparable with Jakarta. Not that I don't like it, we hade a great time in Jakarta. But Yogya is way more magical. Our amazing couchsurfing host Danang helped us rent a scooter and took us to so many places. One of them was this pet market.

New Zealand: Helpx experience

Working holiday in New Zealand means picking jobs or volunteering, for most of travelers. We were not really lucky with picking jobs, we planned to do kiwi picking during last weeks of our stay but the weather was against us and we spent almost three weeks in our car. At the beginning of our New Zealand adventure, however, we did volunteering.

If you haven't heard of HELP X you better check their website, it is simply amazing. It is a very good database of people around the globe offering accommodation for few hours of work. You simply choose the region, country, see the offers and find what suits you the best. A farm, an organic farm, a host or a school, home stay or another project. You can find some really special offers, for example mushroom farm in Taiwan,  windmill construction or kangaroo farm. You can easily see what is the job, how many people they are looking for, if male or female, how is gonna be you accommodation, how many hours per day you need to work and you can also read the reviews from previous helpers.
As we were at the beginning of looking for job process this was our chance. First family we found lived few minutes ride north from Auckland, on a farm. Bronwyn and her British husband Tim and their two daughters were the sweetest people. It was not rally hard working we had to do but it was life on a sheep farm. See the full sheep experience HERE. 

Cambridge

Berlin: Ai Weiwei

Yes, i do like Ai Weiwei. You can tell whatever you want, he maybe famous only because of the political affairs around his name and he may not be as popular in China as he is out of it. But come on. Some of his woks really make a point. Simple they may be but that is the beauty, isn't it? So when there was an exhibition in Berlin and I was just few miles away, who would resist? 

Cambodia: Sihanoukville

My friend went Cambodia few years ago and I just loved her pictures of this cute little beach houses in south Cambodia. So it was immediately on our gap year list. After all the traveling around hot Asia this was a place where to relax and enjoy the sea. And we planed it very well, it was not the high season, we were almost alone there and the prices of the accommodation were really low. And in the end I was really happy we decided to go to Cambodia and not to south Thailand. It still a paradise but without the touristic madness.

Coffee talk: YABOO cafe, Taipei, Taiwan

Baileys milk tea and ice tea

Shida (National Taiwan Normal university) area is famous for cute little cafes where students spend hours and hours - doing their homework, of course. It really has this nice Taiwan atmosphere, you wonder in the small streets and on every corner you find a small cafe or a bakery or simply place where to buy a little snack. Shida night market may be getting smaller and it is not as good as it used to be around 2010/2011, but these nice cafes around survive. You may be a coffee geek as we are but it wont stop you from going to these cafes even it they are not the third wave coffee shops. Because Taiwanese tea is also a delicious thing... 

London: Sir John Soane´s Museum

Dovoluji si tvrdit, že jsem objevila to nejlepší muzeum v Londýně. A co je na tom nejlepší? Je zdarma a není to číslo jedna v turistických příručkách, takže nění naravé k prasknutí. Sir John Soane Museum jednoznačně doporučuji.

Taiwan: Wulai 烏來

Na Tchaj-wanu (abych se držela klasického českého přepisu) máte park téměř na každém rohu, ať je Tchaj-pej jakkoliv betonová, o přírodu tu rozdhoně nění nouze. Jedna z věcí, které na té zemi miluju. Přesto to občas chce velkoměsto opustit a vyrazit na venkov.

Wulai je jasná volba. Z jihu Tchaj-peje se tam jede ani ne hodinku a i ta jízda samotná je pastva pro oko. Do údolí vede cesta podél řeky, dosela slušné serpentýny s výhlídkami na nekonečnou zeleň.

English countryside

As much as we love London, sometimes it is simply too much and you feel like escape for a while. So we did. As usual, we went to visit Alex, down south, in Brighton. And because we have been to Brighton many times and we did not want to spend weekend in the town, we simply relaxes at Alex' s place, with his new puppy, watched some funny YouTube videos and a crazy Irish movie, had the best chocolate Guinness cake and some amazing slow cooked pork made by Alex's dad and went for walks. 

It was exactly what we needed after a busy working week in London. Just going out without planing where, sit in grass and relax, talk about the meaning of life (no, just kidding, we talked about the possibility of surviving a base jump - wait a minute! That is talking life, or not?), enjoying the beautiful scenery of English countryside. Moments like this really makes me feel happy, it really shows me how much i love this country and how lucky we are to live here. 

Later we stooped for a cup of filter at Taylor St Barista - well, we simply have to as M works for their London shops.  And they had some delicious Barn that day! 

More weekends like this one please...

Bali 2014

Many say Bali is too touristic in these days. Yes, true. But still, I love it more than any other place. Beautiful nature, beaches, mountains. Beautiful architecture, basically every house looks like a temple. Delicious food. But most importantly, friendly people. They never stop smiling. And believe me that simply will make you smile back.

Gap Year

Ok, our gap year is over, we are sitting at place for too long now (even if the place is London). But it has been just few days since I was able to get all our videos from our travels as my external hard drive, the only place where I store it all, was broken. We are just so happy to have almost all of the pictures back and mainly all the videos. Now it's the time to learn how to edit them properly. Here is a little recap of our travels and one video: 

London Walks: Walthamstow Marshes

First things first, I am really sorry for the quality of the pictures, I have no idea why we did not take our camera with us. Anyway, the spring arrived to London, the real spring. It means that the dirty and depressive Walthamstow (where we live) actually looks good now. A big plus of it, next to the convenient connection to the city centre, is the high number of parks and nature in general. I am not afraid to say London is a green city, parks are everywhere, even if just small ones. However, Walthamstow has this big Marshes, the Lea river and many reservoirs. It is right next to Hackney Marsh and from there it is very close to the Victoria park so it can be a nice walk to the hipster Shoreditch. 

I made M to walk to the Lee Valley riding centre. I needed to visit those horses I see from train every morning. Finally! And it was really nice, not too many people around, only few cyclists and walkers with dogs. Ok, next time we will also brings some snack for the horses. 

After the time spent with horses we made it to the Lee river, and we actually, by an accident, met our colleague barista Nell who lives on a houseboat. She offered tea and we had a nice afternoon by her houseboat, along with her cute cat. My new dream is to live on a houseboat!

On a nice sunny spring afternoon like this you not only forget all the stress from school and work but you also forget that you are actually in middle of a huge city...