Photos: Theo Cottle

After living in a new city for a year, you’d have probably settled in (or left already), and you should be able to reflect on your experiences so far during your stay in the now more familiar habitat. I’ll be honest: I’ve found it a tad more difficult for two reasons, the first being that there is so much to discover in such an eventful, bustling place like Bristol. The second (and perhaps most significant) reason is that I’ve spent the majority of the last year indoors, whether it be squirming on a mattress suffering from week-long alcohol poisoning, or visiting the girls’ flat for entire days on end, undergoing multiple caffeine overdoses, skimming the vapid content of TV mags, and complaining that my life has become somewhat boring.

What I have seen has been great, however. Yes, there still exists the typical cons that any city in England has: swarms of semen-lined nightclubs filled with incalcitrant youths, ‘two-stepping’ to Tinie Tempah’s latest dubstep defecation, armies of unwashed old men whose vocabulary seems to solely extend to the words ‘big’ and ‘issue’, and so on. There are so many positives, though! Views of the entire city can be seen from locations such as Cabot Tower and the Clifton Suspension Bridge, both of which attract tourists from all over the world. Furthermore, aside from the aforementioned shit nightlife experiences, there are actually some really cool clubs. You just have to trek past streets strewn with kebab shops (run by Turkish men who will “take care of you”), homeless people harassing you with amphetamines whilst shouting “twenny a gram”, and the odd transgender prostitute fleeting to the hatchback of an eager customer. Side note: although they may provoke you to, by hurling insults at all your friends before shoving their arses in your face, don’t fight them (#beenthere #yolo).

The music scene is another highlight. Dot to Dot Festival is soon and everyone should go! I’ll be interviewing a few bands there for Mint Magazine. I would have some video footage to show you of a venue called The Fleece—probably one of Bristol’s best for gigs—which has hosted acts such as Amy Winehouse and The Libertines in the past, but it was lost. Besides, most of it was me asking a 60-something local why he hasn’t had sex in nine years and offering him to stay in my bed with me for the night. Moving on, there’s also loads of criminals and fire:

All in all, I think I’m quite suited to Bristol. I’ve considered leaving many times, probably because I’m not actually here for my degree, but instead I’m constantly distracted by all the pluses described in this post. But that’s fun, right? Maybe YOU should come here too.