Don’t be jealous of the poor fools going on a year abroad

We’ll miss you, Birmingham

abroad birmingham oak selly students uni year

Costa del Sol or Costa del Selly?

Whether your experiences of going abroad don’t exceed a lads holiday at 16 to Shagaluf, or you’re so bloody cultured you practically piss Chablis, you’re bound to be buzzing off your tits to get away from the grey and gloomy abyss that is Selly Oak next year.

That being said, Selly has served us well as a hub for cheap booze, cheap food, cheap accomodation, cheap everything.  We won’t be able to part from her easily.

One student that isn’t ready to part from her beloved Brookeys takeaways and the bright lights of Fab is former gap yah wanker and English and French fresher, Katya Browne, who will be spending her year abroad in the French city of Lyon.

€2 bottles of wine, yes please

Katya told The Tab: “I’ll definitely miss the Birmingham nights out when I go to Lyon, since the French don’t really share our classic British love of getting hammered and the drunk food afterwards.

“Living in France will be a massive culture shock and doing Freshers and meeting new friends yet again is a bit daunting.”

Probably one of the most depressing prospects about going abroad for a year is the stark realisation that after a year of pissing around in Paris, splashing your generous grant, and taking a seemingly endless stream of Insta snaps, you have to return to the place you were so desperate to escape, friendless, broke and faced with the horror of dissertations while your old housemates have moved out and found swanky graduate jobs.

R.I.P to the lash

Going away will especially be an ordeal for those infamous couples you meet at uni, the ones that met on the first night of Freshers’ and within months were booking holidays and planning their house together for second year, third year, and every year for the rest of their lives.

These couples will now have to get through a grueling year of tacky Skype sex, weepy phone calls and the odd weekend trip away together to stand the test of the year abroad.  Good luck with that one.

We’ll miss the take aways

All in all, despite how much we go on about hating Stupid Tuesdays, the queues for overpriced burritos at Go Mex or complaining about the dreary Birmingham weather, we really will miss this place.

So when you’re sat in a lecture next year, spare a thought for the students hundreds or even thousands of miles away from home, struggling with the language barrier and missing a good old fashioned British kebab.

@bennyhilts