Exploring Michigan - Pentwater

Well hello again! 

I have nearly survived my year abroad, can you believe it? What a crazy ride that it has been, and what wonderful people I've met along the way. Despite all my travels, I've actually hardly had the chance to explore around Michigan outside of Ann Arbor. 

So this past weekend my friend Katie and I set out on a little road trip to the west side of Michigan, to a small town on the shores of Lake Michigan. We got SO LUCKY with the weather that I honestly can't even describe how beautiful it looked. I don't think many people believed me that these photos were taken within the state of Michigan and that I'd actually just snuck off to the Caribbean for a day instead.

Although the town itself wasn't something to write home about as it was out of season, the beach was glorious and although the water was cold we even managed to dip our feet in (although my jeans didn't go up as much as I'd hoped). It genuinely felt like being at the ocean, which just baffles me as Illinois/Wisconsin is actually just over the horizon.

Anyway, enjoy these photos (creds to Katie whenever the photo has me in it) and appreciate how beautiful it all looks.

(Jumper from Topshop (old) and jeans from River Island (old) sorry for no new clothes)

Seattle

As it's been nearly a month and I cannot hide from my procrastination much longer, I thought I'd share some photos from my trip to Seattle. It rained the entire time that I was there, so I sadly didn't get very many photos on my good camera as I was a bit worried that it would get waterlogged. However, this didn't dampen our spirits (ha) and we still walked for bloody ages every day in an attempt to see as much of possible in the short time that I was there.

Seattle seemed like a fantastically cool city, there was stuff going on everywhere and it all looked so nice. I've had a bit of a mediocre affair with American cities so far, but I definitely loved Seattle a lot. 

In typical geology student fashion, we visited the natural history museum on the UW campus, and then preceded to trek to as many sites as possible. Super fun. If you're planning a trip make sure you visit the gasworks park if only for the fact that it's where they filmed the paintball scene from 10 Things I Hate About You.

Looking Back on New York

I honestly don't know why I didn't write about this at the time, but I imagine it had something to do with finals. Regardless, I went to New York at the beginning of December, and it was all a bit of a whirlwind looking back on it. It's a very strange place, the buildings are so tall, even compared to London, and we were only there for two full days so we spent a large portion of this time walking around.  Honestly? I think that was the best place to do it. I wish I'd taken more photos so I could more in depth talk about what we were doing/where we went, however, I was mostly so sleep deprived I don't think I was even remotely thinking about that kind of thing.

Central Park was as great as you'd expect, and this is coming from a complete Londonphile. I miss London so much, and New York was a nice little surrogate for the that. It felt nice to be in a city that had a decent amount of public transport, you never quite realise how much you miss the ease of movement until you're stuck with a terrible bus service that stops through the night.

New York is also so beautiful, the architecture is wonderful, and there's also something enchanting about the crazy amount of skyscrapers that break up the skyline when looking from Queens.  Times Square is as manic as I expected it to be, the Natural History Museum was also fantastic (as all museums are!), and the MoMa was packed due to free entry but it was completely worth it for the chance to see as many famous art pieces.

Travelling is so important, and I genuinely believe that it's the best thing that has come out of my year abroad - the ability to see areas that I would definitely never have been able to reach. Anyway, I hope you enjoy some of these photos!

This above photo was taken by a lovely photographer at Times Square! If you check out my instagram there's a link to his profile!

Thanks for reading!

Back for Round 2

Gosh....

No matter how many times I tell myself I'm going to get better at commiting to this blog it never seems to happen. What a weird four months it's been since I last posted anything up on here. I finished my first term at Michigan, so I'm now on the home stretch. I feel like I've really settled in here and made some wonderful friends, and even though having to get the plane and say goodbye to my family and friends was still pretty awful, I'm really happy to be back.

I'm super excited for my classes this semester - I don't care if this makes me a loser. I'm hoping that they'll be so much more better than last semester, where I ended up hating two of the classes I'd chosen. It's almost that I chose them myself as then I only had myself to blame eh?

For my new years resolution, and one of the main reasons that I'm writing this post, is that I'm definitely trying to make this year more about me. I let a lot of things get me down last semester when realistically I think a lot more positive thinking and taking a step back would really help my mindset. I'm really going to try and throw myself into my last semester here in America, and try not to let the small things get to me. I'm trying to focus on some more hobbies and activities that I can do by myself instead of sitting around moping about being homesick.

Basically, I just want to be more creative and make this semester far more fulfilling. I've picked up knitting, I want to try and draw some more, I'm writing for the newspaper here and god forbid maybe this time I'll actually end up writing more on my blog.

Here's to 2017. 

Megan