A Festive Food Market

One of my favourite things about living in Sheffield is that there always seems to be something going on. 

Today I popped into town to run some errands and stumbled across a huge food market which ran the full stretch of the high street. 

There were stalls selling foods from countries all over Europe.

I spoke to a few of the people running some of the stalls to find out what was going on. 

This event is know as Marketplace. Traders from all over Europe can pay to have their stall as part of the market that tours all over the country. 

We couldn't believe the vast range of food these stalls offered and the amazing quality of all of the food that was available. 

This event has been in Sheffield for the last few days and tomorrow is their last day. 

Their next stop is Glasgow, before moving on to Norwich, Newcastle and Exeter before continuing their journey. 

Of course we got a crepe! It would've been rude not to, and they were delicious!! 

This stall was by Bedazzled Cupcakes, I spoke to the man running this stall who told me what it was all about!
(Thank you nice man) 

Today is a freezing cold day up north and seeing this in town created such a festive atmosphere. 

I will link the Marketplace website so you can check out whether they're coming to a place near you this festive season! 

Marketplace Europe

I hope you enjoyed this post, I'm so pleased I stumbled across this today and I strongly recommend you check it out if you get the chance! 

'til next time,

Hannah xo

First Month, Fresher's Flu and Homesickness

After a month at uni I've come to the conclusion that I think I'm going to enjoy it here. 

However, that doesn't mean that being here is at all easy. 

Aside from the cooking, money management, cleaning, laundry and doing a degree, just being in a new place has been hard enough recently. 

I've not experienced homesickness when away from home ever before. If I'm honest I didn't expect myself to struggle at all.

For the first few weeks it was pretty easy, but the last week or so I've hit a wall. 

I had a cold when I arrived at uni and it hasn't yet released me from it's grasp. I don't know if the relentless illness has played a role in my homesick feelings in the last week but I have a feeling it's been a contributing factor. 

Having Emetophobia is one of the things that made me most scared about living on my own. For anyone else who has it you'll know how scary it is to be away from your parents in this situation. So far I've managed to cope pretty well. 

Luckily, I've been surrounded by my lovely flatmates and friends from my course to help me through it and help me stay positive. 

I told myself before I moved to Sheffield that I would try and stay up here for the first term to get properly settled. I've managed to stick to that and I'm so proud of myself. 

There have been (very few) some days when I've wanted nothing more than to go back to my house, my room, my family and my 'normal'. 

But as each day goes by, this is becoming my normal. 

I've found keeping busy to be the best way to get over how I've been feeling and I am definitely feeling a lot more positive this week. 

I know it isn't meant to be easy and weeks 4-6 are renowned for being the hardest weeks for Freshers. 

We've also decided that we're just going to have to accept this new lower level of health as we're just not sure whether this ever lingering Fresher's flu is ever going to get better. 

Now I'm feeling more positive I feel as though it is definitely time to start getting more involved in more of the things uni life offers and I'm so excited!

But also in saying that, I'm also super excited to go home for Christmas.

There's no place like home. 

'til next time

Hannah xo

For those of you who don't know- My Emetophobia Post

I Started University!

At some point over the summer I had a change of heart about the prospect of starting university. Beforehand I would feel sick and scared and emotional just at the thought of it. But after my exams and a bit of travelling I started to become excited, and ready.

Despite the excitement surrounding starting uni, results day was a day that everyone secretly wished would never arrive. After a sleepless night and an emotional week I woke up to a 'Congratulations!' email from UCAS. Phew. 

So here I am, sitting in my flat in Sheffield, where I am studying Journalism. Wow. 

I've been here almost two weeks and I can't believe how quickly I've settled. So I thought I'd talk you through some of the things that have happened in the last couple of weeks. 

It was a sunny Sunday morning and I woke up to see the piles..and piles...and piles of boxes, bags and baskets full of all of the things I thought I'd need at university. I reluctantly forced down a dry scotch pancake before loading up the car.

The 2 1/2 hour journey felt like a lifetime. I was anxiously Facebook messaging my flatmates, praying that they felt as nervous as I did. 

On that note, something I'd definitely recommend after finding out your accommodation is making a group chat with the people that you are going to be living with. This meant that the last thing I was worried about on moving in day was meeting my flatmates. We'd been speaking for around a month and seemed to get on pretty well, so I wasn't concerned about that at all. It definitely takes away some of the mystery! 

We stopped at the service station to kill some time, I had a peppermint tea in an attempt to cure my crippling stomach pains- it didn't work. 

To this day I'm still not sure what made me so nervous on that day. As soon as we arrived at the accommodation my stomach settled and I felt nothing but excitement. My sister and I jumped out the car to pick up my keys and then began the mission of unloading my piles of belongings up 6 flights of stairs. Lol. 

I opened the door of my flat for the first time to meet 4/10 of the people I'd met through Facebook messenger. I can't explain how surreal it was to actually be moving in. It was something we'd talked about for so long and at that moment it was actually real.

My family and Michael helped me set up my room and my cupboard in the kitchen. We then went for a walk into Sheffield and I showed Michael and my sister around some of the places I'd seen on the open days.

It would've been rude not to have a Nandos, so obviously thats what we did. After lunch we walked back to the flat and thats where they left me. By myself. All alone.

Except I couldn't have been more wrong about that image of loneliness that I had created for myself when thinking about moving out. I'd managed to forget about the fact that I now lived with 10 other people. Who turned out to be 10 amazing people. That evening we sat in the common area, chatting, drinking and getting to know each other. 

I can't believe how settled we all were even after just 2 days. Now it feels like we've lived here for months. 

Freshers Week or 'Intro Week' as the uni like to call it, was an interesting experience. There was lots of drinks, dancing and most importantly, daily introductory meetings for our courses. Aside from those things I spent a lot of the week walking around the city and the local town, exploring and getting my bearings.

One of the things I've struggled with so far at university is organising my cooking. I now appreciate the effort that my Mum goes to, planning meals for a week and buying the food to fit the plan and the best before dates. HOW?! 

I guess it's something I'll figure out soon. Doing washing is easy- but expensive, a clothes horse is a good investment! 

I haven't yet needed to iron something so I'll let you know how that goes. 

One of the biggest things I've noticed in the last couple of weeks is that, the things I was most excited about, independence, eating what I want, going where I want to when I want to, being totally responsible for myself and only myself, are the things that have been the hardest to adjust to. Making these decisions for yourself isn't always easy!

I'm so settled and so lucky to have landed myself a great group of flatmates and a lovely group of course mates that have made these few weeks so much easier. My next challenge is to overcome Freshers Flu, urghhghhhghghghhghg!!

I hope to be blogging more now that I have the time to do so, I will hopefully learn how to do a better job of it too! 

I've had a bit of a change of aesthetics on my blog so let me know what you think. 

If you have any questions about starting uni or the application process feel free to ask me! 

I vlogged my first week if you want to check it out :Starting Uni

I also made a video about applying to uni: Applying to Uni

I hope you enjoyed this little update,

'til next time,

Hannah xo