50 things to do this winter while all your friends are in Europe

Thank me later.

Is it just me, or has every man and his dog packed up and gone to Europe this winter? I’m not kidding. Primetime on my Instagram has changed from 7pm at night, to 6am in the morning when the northern hemisphere is just getting started. 

While I continue to wallow in self-pity, I also find myself very bored. I like to think there are others out there who too sacrifice money for Marques Almeida, plane tickets for Puma x Fenty and Paris for IRO Paris. To all of you, my kindred spirits, I’d like to help you out. 

With ample experience in time wasting, I’ve developed a list of activities to keep yourself entertained while your friends are posting Boomerangs of them dancing on tables in Greece. Thank me later. 

50 things to do this winter while all your friends are in Europe

1. Practice your autograph for when you’re famous
2. Watch 11 hours of YouTube videos about the Illuminati. Then attempt to convince your friends and family about the conspiracy
3. Complete an array of BuzzFeed quizzes that range from “Which Friends character are you?” (Chandler obv) to “How obsessed with food are you?” (Very)
4. Make a list of who/how many people would attend your funeral
5. Wait for your long lost grandma to show up and tell you that you’re secretly the Princess of Genovia 
6. Attempt to login to your old MySpace so you can laugh at your old top friends 
7. Make a GIF of yourself twerking
8. Pretend to die in front of your pet just to see how they react
9. Innocently start to watch YouTube videos called ‘how to contour’ then two hours later, wonder how you got onto a video called ‘how Band-Aids are made’  
10. Brainstorm title ideas for your autobiography 
11. Face swap with members of the opposite sex
12. Find everyone on Facebook with the same name as you then make a group inbox to introduce one another
13. Learn the lyrics to really complicated rap songs and then whip them out on impromptu car rides
14. Make a list of your future children’s names 
15. Check your Uber rating, then wonder how it could possibly be so low when you are clearly a 5 star passenger 
16. Watch a movie from your childhood, wonder what the main character is up to now, proceed to stalk their life via all forms of social media
17. Write an award acceptance speech for when you inevitably win a Grammy/Nobel prize/Oscar/Tony etc. 
18. Try to beat your old high score on Icy Tower
19. Try to understand Reddit
20. Give up because Reddit is impossible to understand
21. Go on ratemyteacher.com and make reviews about your old high school teachers
22. Take selfies while pulling the ugliest possible face, then send to friends asking “would you still love me if I looked like this?”
23. Plan what you would do if you won the lottery
24. Trawl online stores up to page 72, filling up a make-believe cart. Open cart. Laugh. Exit. Repeat. 
25. Imagine what your dog would say if it could talk
26. Practise writing your name with the other hand
27. Trawl real estate websites for Upper East Side Manhattan apartments that you’ll never be able to afford
28. Go through and download every song you have ever Shazam-ed
29. Practice a new walk
30. Remember your old email address username and wonder how you have any friends at all
31. Wonder why you can’t get $10 out of an ATM
32. Count your blessings that the world is over 4.5 billion years old and you are alive at the same time as Beyoncé
33. Wonder why you have not yet been snapped up as the star of a reality show 
34. Obsess over something really embarrassing you did when you were 13 and wonder if the people involved also think about how embarrassing it was 
35. Read seven different horoscope websites until you find one that justifies your bitchy actions for this month
36. Think about what song you would sing if you ever auditioned for X-Factor
37. Revisit photos of “the dress” to initiate the blue and black/white and gold argument with everyone you know (defs blue and black)
38. Stalk people from Uni on Linkedin
39. Cry when you remember that people get notifications when you stalk them on Linkedin 
40. Learn to count to 10 in a different language 
41. Pray for the people out there that honestly find Benedict Cumberbatch attractive 
42. Learn how to parallel park. This will trick your friends and family into thinking that you have your life together
43. Find out what SmarterChild is up to these days (and let me know)
44. Investigate the process of getting a Sugar Daddy
45. Try a weird combination of food. Can confirm that popcorn and Nutella is a delicious  
46. Make a Ouija board and conduct a Séance 
47. Make a list of all the potentially boring things that your friends could be doing right now (being jetlagged, running for trains etc.) This will make you happy you stayed home
48. Take up knitting
49. Google ‘ferret hat’. Seriously do it.
50. Close your eyes and swipe right to 100 boys on Tinder. Enjoy what happens next 

​Illustration by Twylamae who prefers to draw while her friends are in Europe.