Kia Soul

I realised today that I have to give back the Soul I won for a term next week.  It’s been so useful to have and I’m really going to miss it.  I’ve loved being able to drive to visit my boyfriend or family rather than having to get the train but I suppose I’ll have to get used to the student way of travelling again!

Kia Soul

I’ve been so busy recently that it feels like I haven’t driven anywhere!  The Kia Soul ends up sitting on the street for days at a time because the traffic in Bristol is really bad at rush hour which is generally when I need to drive to get to lectures.  I have made two trips to Guildford and back (I suppose that is driving!) which were a lot quicker than I thought they would be!  The first time I drove there before Christmas it took me forever because I got lost but this time I made it in under two hours which is faster than the train.  Last weekend it took me two hours to get to Nick’s street but about half an hour to park as his street is ridiculously busy and I’m not great at parking at the best of times!  But never mind, we still had a good weekend with a nice Valentine’s Day meal and chocolates and I even got a rose!

http://www.kia.co.uk/New-Cars/Range/Compact/Soul.aspx

Top features of the Kia Soul

These are my top 5 features of the Kia Soul:

1.            Loads of space

2.            Unique and fun design

3.            Good sound system

4.            Economical

5.            Very quiet and easy to drive

Having the car also makes food shopping much less hassle as there is no need to lug all the bags up the hill and I can buy as much as I want in one trip!  I know that’s not really a feature of the car but it is one of the reasons why I love it!

http://www.kia.co.uk/New-Cars/Range/Compact/Soul.aspx

Driving in Bristol

Much as I love having the Kia Soul, I hate trying to drive around Bristol especially during rush hour.  If you’re not stuck in a queue you’re ending up going in the wrong way in one of the many one way systems.  There is also nowhere at all to park.

This afternoon I tried to go to the pool to start swimming before the Swimathon.  I drove around for ages but couldn’t find anywhere to park so ended up parking closer to my house than the pool.  Then, when I finally arrived at the swimming pool I was told it was closed for swimming lessons for another hour even though the timetable on the internet said it was open for general swimming.

So I went back home to get directions to another swimming pool, this time making sure there was a car park.  The timetable said it was open for general swimming so I battled my way through the 5 o clock traffic to the pool.  Once again I got to the reception desk only to be sent away again as this pool was also closed for swimming lessons.  It is just so annoying – hopefully the internet timetables will be updated soon!

Center Parcs and the Swimathon

On Saturday I spend the day at Center Parcs, Longleat with my family for a birthday celebration.  We had a brilliant day – the Subtropical Paradise is such good fun especially the Rapids (even though I did get a few bruises) and the jacuzzi!  We all had a go at  archery which I have never done before but I surprised myself at how good I was.  The instructors were very helpful and friendly.  While we were there I persuaded my Dad and his partner to join out team for the Swimathon.  This means that we will be aiming to swim at least 20k between us all.  I am going to need a lot of practise if I am going to be able to swim that far so I really am glad that I have the Kia Soul as it means I don’t have to walk home from the swimming pool with wet hair!

http://www.centerparcs.co.uk/

I love the Kia Soul

I realised just how roomy the car was last weekend when I moved all of my stuff back to uni.  I managed to fit  all of my clothes, my laptop, textbooks and folders, make-up,  jewellry box and lots of other little things in, and that was just the boot – I still had room for food shopping on the back seat!  When I told my friends I was writing a blog on the car they all came up with things to say about it like the inside is ‘original and funky’  (I think this was referring to the pattern on the chairs!) and ‘it feels bigger than my car even though it’s not really any bigger’ .  This was from my friend who drives a Clio.  I know it’s a bit geeky but I thought I’d find out how much bigger the Soul is and found that they are more or less the same width and length but the Kia is about 20cm taller which seems to make all the difference as do feel quite short when I drive it even after adjusting the seat!  Anyway, now back to work – I have a project on the dynamics of nodding radar which seems impossible at the moment.  You would have thought we could have a few days to settle back into work  but then I suppose I have just had a four week holiday!

http://www.kia.co.uk/New-Cars/Range/Compact/Soul.aspx

Proper Snow

Yesterday Cardiff was covered in proper snow when we woke up.  It was above our ankles which is higher than it’s been in years!  My Nan who lives in the valleys has been snowed in for weeks but we have hardly had any snow so everyone (especially my sister who got the day off school!) was very excited!  Unfortunately the car was stuck in the snow so we didn’t drive anywhere but here is photo anyway:

Kia Soul in the Snow

Kia and the iPod

I was given an iPod Nano for Christmas by my parents and so far have been using a USB lead to connect it to the car.  This means that the songs all come up in code so you can’t choose what to listen to very easily and it only plays about 100 of the songs on the iPod.  Today I realised that I was given a lead to connect the iPod to the car which means that you can do everything that you would be able to do on the iPod on the dashboard – search through artists, songs, genres etc,  play randomly and it recognises all of the songs on the iPod.  The songs come up with the artist and title.  It’s brilliant but would have been handy if I’d realised before getting stuck in a 3 hour queue on the motorway coming home from Falmouth!  We wasted quite a lot of time trying to figure out the code!

http://www.kia.co.uk/New-Cars/Range/Compact/Soul.aspx

Les Miserables

I went with a few friends to see Les Miserables in the Wales Millennium Centre.  Even though we were sat in the second from back row we still had an almost perfect view.  None of us had seen Les Mis before but we all thought it was good though quite depressing!  Gareth Gates, who we haven’t heard much from in a few years, had a main part and he was better than we thought he would be – none of us were his biggest fans during his time on Pop Idol.  He is much better at musical singing than pop singing.  Going to the theatre was something different for us to do and we enjoyed it so much we have booked tickets to see Hairspray in a few months which should hopefully be a bit more of a happy show!

Snow!

Yesterday we woke up to snow!

Soul in the snow!

Underneath the snow was a layer of ice so we decided to leave the car at home and go for a wintery walk!