First stop: Chaing Mai

3 flights and a LOT of plane food later, we were showered, dressed and prepped to face the Thai wall of heat that greeted us in Chiang Mai.

The first thing we did was explore the city.

We made a beeline to admire the street food....

...stood around being entertained by these cheeky little chatterboxes...

....and it didn't take long till we stumbled across a few Thai temples.

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Chiang Mai is practically the golden city

In addition to all these beautiful elephants...

Four nights and three days later, it was time to say goodbye to the beautiful little beginning of a wonderful holiday.

Next stop: Koh Phi Phi!

12 days in Thailand

We decided in September that it would be amazing to mark the end of our university life and beginning of our full time Attollo life with an incredible holiday. As students, we struggled to commit financially for many months, so the moment our summer student finance came in....boom....we booked our flights.

We only had a month until we flew, and with 2 weeks remaining of revision still, there was limited time to actually plan anything for the holiday, including hotels, which got booked 24 hours before we flew, during a 7am skype from bed!

A very stressful 24 hours later however.....we were full to the brim with excitement...

             

32 hours and 3 flights later we landed at our first stop: Chiang Mai. 

3 nights and 4 days later we headed down to Koh Phi Phi via a verrrrry dodgy night stop in Phuket. 

From Phuket we took the ferry, which was definitely 'Thai safe', not 'English safe' and got ourselves a very long lasting sun burn.

We had 6 amazing days on Koh Phi Phi, staring at this view all day long, then back home via Phuket, Bangkok and Doha. 

38 hours of travelling later we were London-bound with a bag full of Thai goodies, lots of funny stories and 1000's of photos to share. 

                                   

We hope the Thailand posts which follow show how Thailand can be done in a student finance budget of £900. On average, our accommodation cost £9 a night each, and food cost £5 a day. Thailand is definitely the place for an incredible holiday, even on a limited budget. Pack your bags and go! 

Students turn into Graduates: Part II

Yesterday, at 3pm at London's Barbican Centre, to the sound of trumpet fanfare, we graduated from university, becoming Fleurette, BSc (Hons) and Alice, BA (Hons). It was a very proud day to say the least!

Annoyingly our university doesn't wear graduation caps, however they make up by providing us with Vivienne Westwood designed gowns, our first ever designer outfit!

Finally, it was time to say a final farewell to our favourite lecturer, and biggest Attollo supporter, our Geography mascot, the GeogAss, and our university experience.
It's been brilliant, thank you, to everyone who we has been with us on our university journey.
We've met some amazing people, made friends for life and will cherish the memories we made during our three years. We have huge amounts to be grateful for; not only was university the place where we met, it was the place where Attollo was founded. We couldn't be more proud to have become alumni of our great univeristy - thank you, and see you soon!

Students turn into Graduates: Part I

Like most university experiences, it is hard to see life at the other end of the tunnel, and in many occasions it is hard to believe that the day will come where we finish our degree and we become graduates.

It finally came - yesterday, we officially became graduates. 

To kick off our undergraduate-graduate conversion, last month we had our graduation ball.

Unsure whether it is a London university thing, or that our university just didn't prioritise social events, the Graduation Ball was our first and only ever formal evening event in our 3 year experience. It became a BIG DEAL.

The SU secured the beautiful, Middle Temple, off the Strand as our venue, and it was spectacular.

We had the most amazing surroundings, wonderful food and a vast array of entertainment from an oom pah pah band to Vegas style, stilt wearing carnival girls.

  

It was the most fabulous way to end our 3 years of university, spend with the most wonderful, wonderful people.

Santander Awards: A very unexpected competition journey

In March, our university informed us that Santander were running a national university entrepreneurship competition. We had to submit our business plan and various other documents/details of the business. After many late nights in the library our business plan was ready for submission.

During the height of revision, we found out that our business plan had been selected by our Vice Principal to represent our university in the undergraduate category. 

A month later, while in. Thailand, we got some news that turned our faces into those of excitable puppies...

We were picked by the judges to come and pitch at Santander Head Office!!!! To say we were shocked is an understatement.  We spent the next 48 hours pinching ourselves! The realisation of the enormity of the task soon set in and we were immediately back to work making plans for our pitch.

Competition day

At Santander HQ, we were welcomed and shown to a waiting room where we had the chance to talk to our fellow competitors, while we waited our turn to pitch.

The day went by super fast and before we knew it, it was time to shine.  Armed with our props and clicker, we headed towards the judging room. Weeks of hard work all boiled down to this point.

We entered the room to 6 poker-faced judges and began our pitch.  When they laughed at the definition of Attollo (Latin, 'I lift up, I raise, I excite'), it definitely softened the mood, and the pitch couldn't have gone any better.  The Q&A session also went well.  Nothing caught us off guard and as the judges probably gathered, we can talk forever about Attollo!  We left the judging room very happy, knowing that no matter the outcome, we were very proud of ourselves.

Award day

Breakfast celebrations were in order! No matter where we were to come in the final, we still made it into the Top 5 of 67 National applicants.  We headed to The Wolseley for something small and delicious.

When we arrived at Triton Square on Tuesday we just wanted to know the outcome! The tea and coffee was flowing, we networked and it was great to speak to some of the judges in a more friendly environment.  We were so happy when DG and MH-K from our University arrived. It was lovely to have friendly faces there to support us... resulting in some serious Cheshire Cat grins!

We were ushered into the award room to sit with the other finalists. The room filled with applause when Ana Botin arrived and apprehension fell on us. This was it!

When Attollo was called second, we were ecstatic. The next few minutes were a blur of photographs and congratulations.

We'd like to thank everyone for all of the support so far- you guys keep us going!

Alice and Fleurette