Fredrik S

amazingly enough, this year the tour de france started in london. the prologue was in the streets of london, while the first stage went from london to canterbury. about halfway on the second stage, the tour passed through the town of maidstone.

i’ve lived and studied at university in maidstone for the past three years!!

basically, i didn’t have to go to france to see the tour, it came to my doorsteps, just a few meters from my front door.

we saw it in the town centre, however. never have i seen so many people in maidstone before. the build-up was entertaining, and the experience of seeing the riders pass by was incredible. naturally it all happened very quickly, but i enjoyed every second of it. i saw both my favourite rides (thor hushovd (c.a.) and kurt asle arvesen (csc).. i’m norwegian) and shouted their names, although i wonder if they could hear it through all the noise. all in all, definitely worth it :)

will be repeated (properly, in france the next time, preferably with a roadside picknick w/ good friends)

I’ve applied for my first job within the UN! I came across a vacancy that I had no second thoughts about applying to: Associate Graphic Presentation Officer for the UNEP in Nairobi, Kenya. I would love to get the job, but having just graduated (BA Honours) I wonder if that will be good enough for the UN. Fingers crossed. If I don’t hear back from the UNEP, I now know what to do: work for a few more years, then get a Masters degree.

Here’s how i found the vacancy: jobs.un.org
Another good one (unofficial) is unjoblist.org, which can send you email updates when new vacancies are posted..

good luck to the rest of you!

I can’t understand why not more people do this. I was even given a scholarship (Erasmus gives a scholarship to all european exchange students), so it didn’t cost me anything (in fact Spain was a cheaper country, so I lived better and saved money). I even got better grades than I did back home. Nevermind all of that, though, what mattered the most at the end of the exchange was all the experiences I had and the friends that I made. I can now proudly say that I know the city of Valencia in Spain pretty well, and wouldn’t hesitate to go back there someday to live and work there.