First Impressions

The town

So, I've been to Soton (that's what "we" Sotonians call Southampton) now for about a week.

Besides the fact that most travel guides don't even mention Southampton, my guide (this one) tells the excited traveller everything about Soton on three pages ("...und so präsentiert sich Southampton heute weitgehend im Einheitsgrau der Betonarchitektur..."). You guess it, it is not everything.

Though Southampton is not known for its beauty, it is actually pretty nice. Yes, there are a few concrete buildings, but there are also a lot of these little English houses, quite a decent park right next to the uni and some cool pubs and tearooms.

You also find some old structures in some places. On High Street, for example, there are ruins of a church which was destroyed in WWII.

As Soton has quite a big harbour, you can see huge cruise ships every other day. Usually, you can see them come in at Mayflower Park, which is currently closed for public due to the Southampton Boat Show.
If anyone wants to come visit me by cruiseship, you can book a "Schnuppertour" on the Queen Mary 2 from Hamburg to Southampton (see here for more infos). :)

Plus, you have everything in walking distance. Now that I moved into halls, I need a maximum of 10 minutes to get everywhere (uni, IKEA, cinema, shopping mall, supermarket, bars...)

The people

I have met plenty of people in this week. There are a lot of international students, so it is really a cultural mix here. We have Germans (besides me Joanna and Susanna), Canadian (Matthew), Finnish (Mika), Danish (Signe, Nikolai), Greek (my flatmate Georgia), French (Quentin), Slovakian (Samuela) and of course some Brits (Nick, Scotty, my other flatmate Sam...) ... with much more to come!

As most of the students, especially the internationals, don't know anyone here, everyone is quite open to new people. We have taken trips to the New Forest, the Isle of Wight and the local pubs (which is not that of a trip considered I am living five minutes away).

The New Forest

The New Forest is a large national park west of Southampton (about 350 km²) with wild horses, donkeys, boars and cattle. We took a Scooter trip there and thought we had to look for them, but especially the horses were everywhere! Though they are pretty shy when you approach them, they just stand and walk on the streets and don't care about the cars (which have to go round them).

Besides all the animals, the New Forest has some picturesque little villages, too. We went to Beaulieu for a cup of tea. Beaulieu is what you have in mind when you hear "English village".



Sorry for the long post, but I have seen and done so much in the last seven days, it is not easy to keep up. All in all, I am having a pretty good time. I promise to write more!