Hello, welcome back to the podcast. I am really trying to make up for my loss of not posting, so here comes another episode. Today I want to talk about my ideal summer, as it is now currently summer, and if you don't know, I'm in my penultimate year of my studies, which means that this will be my last summer ever.

Yeah, it's honestly crazy to think about that, I don't think I've come to terms with it yet. I've always been having summers, it's like a really big thing that I look forward to, a prolonged period of holiday, but as I grow older, I do think that summer is becoming less and less purely just for chill or relaxing, because I always have work during summer. I am a very active person, like I like to do internships and stuff.

If you really make me do nothing during summers, I would feel very like worried. Yeah, so without further ado, let's talk about what my ideal summer is. So my ideal summer always starts with post-exam celebrations.

I genuinely think that this is probably the best part of summer. In Easter, I usually revise very hard, you know, close to burnout, and my exams usually end around like mid to end of May, and then probably I'll have like two weeks or like a week of like completely doing nothing and completely just to go out with my friends and celebrate. If you don't know, the weather in around May in UK is the best.

We've got really clear skies, you know, sunny days, it's not too hot, it's around like 25 degrees with a gentle breeze. It's really nice to just like chill outside, go to a park, you know, you can read a book there, just go with some friends. Yeah, I like to drink as well, so yeah, what's better than just having a couple of drinks in the pub with your friends.

I like to do house party as well. I don't really host, because I live in a student accommodation and I don't really have the means to host, but someone in my friend group would always like be willing to host. For example, last year, one of my friends just moved into a new place and he hosted a house warming party.

We even did a little themed party, we dressed up as London news stations. That was very funny, and we played a lot of card games last year as well. And also this year, one of my friends, he did like a barbecue in his place, which was really fun.

You know, it was my chamber choir friend group, so obviously we had to sing a lot in the house party as well. Yeah, the last thing during this post exam celebrations is usually to go on a day trip in the UK randomly. I just think, even though I think that I know the country quite well, I don't, because well, to be fair, I only have lived in London and now Oxford.

I've not really lived for long periods of time in other cities. I've been to many cities, but I'm really keen on exploring the little villages, because I think, yeah, there might be surprises from there. But so far, you know what? A lot of the UK cities slash towns, they're very similar, so nothing's come across as like a big surprise yet.

And as I mentioned, the May weather is just superb, like I enjoy travelling around the country. And then speaking of travelling, the next big thing during this, after the post exam celebrations is that I usually go on an Europe trip. Living in the UK is very convenient for us to travel to the Europe continent, but I'm not a very crazy traveller, I would say, like some of my friends have already been to like, I don't know, Latvia, like the Eastern Europe countries, I have no idea.

I usually just go for like the very famous places like Spain, France, Italy, I've been to Malta. I haven't been to Germany yet, because I really want to travel to Germany, but every time I check the flight ticket, it's like 300 pounds for return. I'm like, no, thank you.

My budget is usually 50 pounds return for flights. And I'm a very loyal person as well. If I like a country, I would just like keep going back nonstop.

For example, at this point, I've been to Spain four times, every time to different cities. So I've been to Barcelona, Seville, Malaga, and most recently, in April, I went to Valencia. And they're all great.

I really want to go back. But I also haven't been to Madrid. So I guess maybe Madrid is on the list.

France as well. I've been to France multiple times, usually just Paris, been to south of France as well. Also been to Lille.

Actually, I've been to like France at five times at this point, because I've been to Lille twice, Paris twice, and then Nice once. So actually surpassing Spain. Italy.

Italy is great. Love Italy. I've been to Italy twice as well.

Last year, as a post exam Europe trip, me and my friends, we went to Tuscany for a few days. We went to Siena, which is the city and also the origin of of my name. Went to Pisa and Florence.

Love Florence. I feel very connected to the Renaissance art. And also I feel very connected personally to Christianity, Christian traditions.

And I'm not religious, but I'm just really interested in their architecture, their history, their music, singing choir so much. Like, I kind of want to know what the stuff that I'm singing means. So for example, recently in the lyrics, Seraphim and Cherubim, I never know what they are.