ALLONS-Y

Last weekend we ventured to Cardiff Bay to go to the Doctor Who
Experience and Studio Tour! Step one was finding the right bus stop.
Since we have not gone on any of the city buses yet this was not as
easy as you may think. We got to the street with all of the bus stops
on it and had to find the HV bus stop. We walked around every bus stop
like a bunch of dopes and eventually figured out that our bus stop was
on the other side of the street, so we an across and found our stop.
We had to ask the bus driver how much it was and he just looked at me
at first and then told me and started driving before we even bought
our tickets so we could have not even had any money but i think there
is something wrong with bus drivers here. So we got dropped off in
front of the Doctor Who Experience, went in, found out we missed our
time, got a new time, waited around for a while and then we made our
way to the TARDIS!! I didn't expect to actually get into the BBC
studios but we got our visitor passes and got into the studio! They
showed us around the studio and told us what was filmed there and when
they use the TARDIS that we were going to go in. It turned out to be
the TARDIS that they are currently using so we couldn't touch it or
anything but i got to take lots of pictures and geek out completely
about being in the TARDIS. It was cool to imagine all of the different
actors and actresses that had been in the very same place that i was
when they were actually filming one of my favorite shows. It was also
kind of odd to see it in real life because it is just a set piece so
the outside of it is just plywood and support beams. However it was
still an amazing thing to see! We then left the studio and made our
way to the Experience. During the experience we were brought into many
different rooms and received "calls" from the Doctor telling us that
he was trapped and we needed to help him. So we got to feel like we
were in one of the episodes, Daleks chasing us, weeping angels coming
after us and a 3D space battle to top it off! It was awesome. We then
got to see all of the costumes and props and monsters used in the
show. I was especially excited during this part because it felt like
the actors where there with us and the monsters could come to life any
second. After we saw all of the things to see we made a quick spin
through the gift shop, got a bite to eat and made our way back to the
bus stop. Overall this was a very successful day trip, we had a great
time at the Doctor Who Experience and cant wait for our next studio
tour at the Warner Bros Studios in December!!

Dublin Lovin

About a week ago Mitch and I went on our first adventure outside out the U.K. to see our friends in Dublin, Ireland! We got to the train station around 5 pm and were sitting on the bench just waiting for the train to come and take us to the airport. We noticed that the train we were supposed to take wasn’t listed on any of the departure boards so we decided to check the online tickets. Well it turns out I can’t do math…big surprise…and the ticket actually said 16:09 which I thought was 5:09. So after this horrific discovery I leapt off of the bus bench and ran down to the ticket booth. The man at the ticket counter looked a little bit afraid as I charged up to the counter and demanded to know when the next train to Bristol was, but he hesitantly gave me the information that I needed and we were able to catch a train out to Bristol and we finally got started on our journey! We had to ask a lot of people for help but we found our way and got to the airport an hour before our flight took off. As we waited in the airport we saw a plane come into the gate near us and I realized that our plane was probably going to be one of those planes where you have to walk outside to get on it like you see in movies. This got me pretty excited because I have never walked on or off a plane like that before so it was just cool. Apparently with the airline we were flying on you don’t get assigned seats and you just pick whatever seats you want so luckily we were able to get two seats next to each other. Now im not sure how many of you have ever flown on Ryanair before but they sure do try to get you to buy a lot of stuff. As soon as we got on the plane they were offering us raffle tickets and magazines and they were selling all kinds of food and drinks on the plane. Obviously all over priced so we didn’t buy anything. This went on for the entire flight and I was surprised when we landed because I hardly noticed being on a plane with all of the selling going on. So we waltzed right off the plane and into Ireland, hopped on a bus and went to find our friends! Luckily there was Wifi on the bus because my phone was not letting me contact them to let them know that I had landed. So after sending out a desperate plea for help on facebook they got my message and we were able to meet them at the bus stop! Many hugs later and we were on our way to their apartment to put our stuff down and catch up. So we stayed up until around 2 am just talking and laughing until we realized that we wanted to get up early and we would actually need to get sleep in order to do that. So Nicole, Olivia and Laura showed us into their apartment where we would be staying for the weekend. The next morning we went out to eat at a cute little café called Queen of Tarts and we had some really good scones! My favorite! We then got to explore all around the city of Dublin, see all of their favorite places and learn some of the history of the area. It was really interesting to see how similar Cardiff and Dublin are. Both are very Urban but at the same time they have parks and very friendly communities. I really enjoyed seeing all of the street performers because it reminded me of Burlington so much. The only thing that was missing was Chair Guy. He’s great. So we got to see all of the cool shops and restaurants in the area as well as St. Stephan’s Green which was super pretty. Well aside from the fact that we almost died a very tragic pigeon death. Teagan, our fearless tour guide, thoughtfully avoided the masses of people blocking one path and took us down a different pat along the pond thing. Little did we know that it was slam jammed packed with pigeons. I really don’t know what’s with the pigeons here but they just fly right atcha. The other day I was just walking and I swear a pigeon almost landed on my head. I think it actually touched my hair. So anyway we had to make our way through the pigeons all over the path and we got stuck behind the SLOWEST moving woman who really appeared to enjoy the pigeons. Meanwhile all of us were whimpering and just making panicked noises as we crept through the pigeon mass. I think by the time we made it past the slow woman we were all running as fast as we could away from the horrible pigeons. I never knew that I was afraid of pigeons but I guess when you get real close to something like that you learn a lot about your self real fast. So before…after….I think this might be out of order but im going with it. At SOME POINT we got milkshakes. They were heavenly. I got a Galaxy caramel chocolate bar flavored one and for those of you who have never had a galaxy bar….you need to. Best chocolate bar out there. Hands down. So after walking just about everywhere in Dublin we were kinda tired. So we went back to the apartment and Mitch and I tried to plan as many of our trips as we could so we could try to meet our friends in other countries. This was a very long and stressful process but knowing that we will be able to tour some pretty awesome cities with our friends is well worth the stress. After doing all of this it was already dinner time. We eventually settled on a place to eat after asking around and internet searching. I believe the place that we ate at was called Porterhouse and it was awesome. We all walked in and were a little confused because it just looked like a bar, no tables or anywhere to eat really. A waiter eventually noticed our confusion and asked us if we needed help. After informing him that we had a reservation he took us to our table upstairs (The place was huge!) and we were able to start our dining experience. And what an experience it was…we made structures out of the coasters, took weird pictures that blinded us and just drew to much attention to ourselves in general. The food was absolutely delicious at the restaurant. I got a really good burger and we all split a piece of cheesecake and a Belgian waffle with ice cream for dessert. SO GOOD. After dinner we made our way back to the apartment to watch Pitch Perfect. Oh, and I got to take a bath which was awesome. I am a total bath person and living with my pod shower just wasn’t working too great. So I finally felt like a real human again after my bath and was ready to just relax and finish up our plans for our trips while watching our movie. The next morning we went out to breakfast at a really cool place called Bewley’s. We were all super excited about getting pancakes because we hadn’t had them in so long but when our orders came we soon realized they were not the same pancakes we were used to at home but they were still very good and overall the restaurant was another winner! After breakfast we were a little rushed getting to the bus stop to take us back to the airport.  However once we got there we realized we were a little early and had time to chat before we had to say goodbye. Once we saw the bus coming we started to say our goodbyes until we hear “Last call for the airbus” so we turned to get on the bus. Well apparently the bus driver woke up on the wrong side of the bed..or the floor because he was not pleasant. He shut the door in our faces and started to drive away. Well let me tell you what, I was not having any of that so I put my had on the door and held up our ticket. He did the mime for talking back at me..you know the one with your hand like the N’SYNC “Bye bye bye” lyrics. So he eventually opened the door and was like “yap yap yapping away..” I didn’t say anything in response I just got on the bus and found a seat. As the bus started to drive away we sadly waved goodbye to our friends and got together all of our stuff that we needed for the airport. Eventually the grumpy driver announced that we were at terminal 2. Not knowing what terminal we were supposed to be at we just read the signs and figured out that it was not the one we wanted so we just stayed on the bus until the next stop. Well mr. grump pot decided not to announce this terminal so the next thing we heard was “Are you going to stay on my bus forever?” Now we were completely flustered and it didn’t help that some woman kept asking us what terminal was and wouldn’t accept the fact that we didn’t know which one it was either. I stood up to get off of the bus while simultaneously trying to zip up my backpack and I guess I missed the dip in the floor which turned out to be a random set of stairs leading to the bus bathroom and I just totally fell all the way down the stairs. The very insistent woman was just like “OH MY GOD ARE YOU ALRIGHT?” I just said yes and rushed off the bus, said thank you to the very grumpy driver and limped into the airport. We got our tickets stamped, went through security and waited to board the plane home. After a plane ride, bur ride, train ride, bus ride and another train ride we made it back to Cardiff! It was such a great weekend and I cant thank my friends enough for showing us around the city!! First big trip=SUCCESS! More to come soon! Oh also, the crossing lights make weird noises. That is all. 

Random Ramblings

    Well, we have been through two weeks of classes already. Seems like we are still going through the registration process. I am taking British Politics, Welsh Politics and Welsh. The politics classes and pretty interesting, I’m not a huge politics person but I’m learning a lot about the British and Welsh culture through the lectures so that is cool. Welsh on the other hand is just weird. I swear to you it is cat language. The double “L” makes a hissing noise…like a cat..which makes for a very funny class with a bunch of people just practicing the alphabet and all of the sudden everyone is hissing. So we have concluded that it is cat language and I will be able to speak to my cats when I get home. It will be wonderful. So not much has happened in the past two weeks other than going to classes and getting books. The classes here are set up so we have two 50 minute lectures a week and there is no set homework that you have to do so I have just been assigning myself readings to do so I feel like I know what I am supposed to be doing for class. Two of my lecturers get really excited about politics or something because all of the sudden I will look up and they will have their eyes closed. Now one of them just starts gesturing wildly with his arms while his eyes are closed so I am afraid he’s going to knock something over or hit one of the students who sat too close. But the other one not only closes his eyes but he also walks around while his eyes are close. So this is particularly worrisome because he is not the youngest lecturer that there ever was and if he falls it could be bad. I don’t know if it’s a thing that people do here or if I just happened to get the two lecturers who do this but it weirds me right out. I also think the people in the library think there is something wrong with me. I have taken at least 24 books out of the library in the last 2 weeks. My two politics classes have a lot of readings so instead of buying all of the books I have just been taking them out of the library. Except some of the books you can only take out for a day or a week so I try to take them out, go and read the chapters and then bring them back the same day. So the librarians see me like 3 times a day taking out and returning books and I’m sure they just wonder why I am taking out and returning the same books every day. Oh well. Also I think I look lost half of the time because they always ask me if I need help. Which I usually do. I have decided that I need to make a separate blog post for all of the weird things that I have discovered in Wales and the weird things that people do so instead of going into all of that now I will wait. Mostly because I am tired and can’t put thoughts together. IM GOING TO IRELAND THIS WEEKEND AND IM REALLY EXCITED TO SEE MY FRIENDS. AHHHH. Okay more blogs to come! Sorry this was kind of pointless….. :D 

Exploring Cardiff

It took me awhile to actually unpack my suitcase. My first priority was getting the internet up and running so I could finally contact my family and let them know that I arrived in Cardiff and was ok. Well mostly ok at least. I was kind of in a state of shock. I vaguely remember just sitting in my empty room for a while just trying to process what happened, but I eventually told myself that I had to unpack and keep moving. So I did. It didn’t take very long seeing as I only had one suitcase. Once everything had a spot in my room Mitch and I made our way to find the grocery store (Tesco) and bought bedding, toiletries we needed and enough food to make it for a few days before we could go back and buy dishes, pots, pans…all that fun stuff. Luckily the grocery store is very close to our dorms so the walk back with all of this stuff was not horrible. I’m pretty sure the sheets I bought are the scratchiest sheets ever but they are pretty so it’s ok!! After we got all settled in we had about a million meetings to go to but none of them really seemed to tell us important things like how to register for classes or what exactly we are supposed to be doing with a week and a half before school starts. So we just started going to peoples offices and asking questions. I can sum up the results of our meetings in one simple phrase “Come back tomorrow.” I almost started saying it for them. Eventually we figured out that the registration process was RIDICULOUS. It was going to take all of the next week, so we decided to explore as much of Cardiff as we could before that started. So in the next few days we did a lot! We went downtown to the shopping area and explored around, found out that malls are called arcades here which was confusing. We went on many tours of the town of Cardiff and Cardiff University so we were actually able to orient ourselves within Cardiff. While we were doing the exploring we figured why not go to the castle right on our doorstep. It cost 5 pounds to get into the castle and we got a castle key card so we can re-enter the castle for free for the next 5 years! The castle was gorgeous! We walked around the castle grounds, explored the bomb shelter area which was kind of creepy but they had funny signs so that lightened the mood I guess and we got to look around in the house/ palace/ I don’t know what to call it but it looked like where people lived in the castle. All of it was pretty and so surreal feeling because how often do you get to just wander around a castle and then walk home? Not very often!

 After the day of exploring the castle we took advantage of a reduced price open air double-decker bus tour of Cardiff.  Thankfully it wasn’t raining so we got to sit on the top deck of the bus, almost got my eye taken out by a tree at one point. That was quite a shock. I was all Tra-la-la looking at pretty Cardiff and then BAM  tree branch to the face. 1^st rule of riding on an open air bus…Duck. The bus took us to Cardiff Bay where the Millennium Centre is. I was very excited to get there because this is where a few episodes of Doctor Who were filmed. As soon as I stepped off the bus I looked over at Mitch and  said “The Doctor Was Here! Right Here!” and I pranced around a little bit. After we walked around this area we got some ice cream at a really little shop. The ice cream here is more like gelato than Ice Cream and it is delicious! We ate our ice cream and then the bus picked us up..drove past the Doctor Who experience (I have got to go there!!) and then we went back home.

 One of the last things we did before registration started was going to the Twmpath, or the Welsh folk dancing. When we signed up for this we thought it was going to be watching professionals dance and listening to the band. Well, when we got there we found out that this was not the case. There was an empty dance floor and a live band. It looked like we would be the ones dancing. While nervous at first to dance with all of these people that I didn’t know yet, anyone who knows me knows that I love to dance and will get totally into any new dance I learn. This case was no different. Learning this dance was the most fun that I had since arriving in Cardiff. I met some other international students, learned a new dance and laughed along with everyone else at how ridiculous the woman announcing the dance moves was being. She kept yelling and saying it was hopeless that we were going to get it right but we should give it a go anyway! Real encouraging lady. So after the Twmpath we had registration to look forward to.  We had to go to each department that we wanted to take classes in and then they would show us when and where the classes were being held and sign off on the classes. Each department has their own time table so it was very challenging to get classes to line up from more than one department. It didn’t help that the meeting times and places for each department were all wrong so once again we had to sit through a chorus of “Come back tomorrow” whilst wandering around angry and lost. Well this went on for a whole week. Oh and it was also Freshers week where the school organizes late night parties and dances with free alcohol for the freshman to go to. So that was REALLY fun! (Catch the sarcasm?) While we were trying to get stuff done all week it was 24/7 party for everyone else.  Luckily we were able to break up the monotony with a trip to Caerphilly Castle, the biggest castle in Wales. We hopped on a train from Cardiff and off we went to Caerphilly! The castle was soooo pretty! There was school trip there of elementary aged kids who were just running free around the castle and it was so adorable and made me miss being in the schools and working with kids. We got to see some of their reactions to all of the things in the castle and they were just amazed by everything. The castle had electronic components to it which was very odd. There were touch screen display cases that allowed you to go through the history of the castle with cool animations and noises. I think we enjoyed playing with all of the electronic components just as much as the kids! We wandered around the castle, took a lot of pictures and then headed across the street for some lunch! Over all it was a very successful day trip and prepared us for bigger trips in the future! 

 That's the potty....thought you all would like to see that.

Oh, and i found a Dalek...nbd.

So for the rest of the week we figured out registration, got all of our groceries and other essentials for living and finally settled into our new home at Cardiff University! 

Arriving in Cardiff

So…arriving in Cardiff. Well we took a train from London which was awesome because I had never been on a train before! So I wanted to be like “GUYS I’M ON A TRAIN” but I feel like I would have gotten kicked off the train thus ruining the whole experience. So I just sat in my seat and ate the delicious chocolate treats that one of the IFSA Butler guides bought for us. They were really good. It was like a crunch bar except it was like those no-bake chocolate peanut butter cookies…minus the peanut butter..and it was a bar….I don’t know, I’ve never had anything like it. It was good though. Any who, we eventually got into Cardiff and were still exhausted so we were kind of oblivious to driving by cool things like a castle and the actual school. Then all of the sudden they were unloading us and our bags from the Taxi and shuffling us into a building where some very chipper people were asking us for things like our names and student ID numbers…very difficult questions to answer you see. The divided us into groups by where we were living along with all of the other international students who arrived at the same time and then our IFSA Butler people were all like “ Ok then, Bye” hugged us and left. I sat there for a minute and thought…what just happened? One second we were being fed chocolate treats and the next we were on our own waiting for someone to bring us to our rooms. Waiting seems to be a theme with my abroad experience. We sat in that room for a good two hours watching other people being brought to their dorms and being excited while we just sat there in confusion because no one was telling us what was going on. Finally some random college student called us over and loaded us into a mini bus and peeled out into the road and off we went to Talybont North! They dropped us off in front of the reception area to get our keys and registered with a doctor and then pointed in the direction of our dorms, gave us our bags and left. So off we went with our 50lb. luggage just rolling along behind us. We got pretty lost trying to find our dorms but someone noticed our confused faces and showed us the way. It was then that I realized I was on the top floor and there was no elevator. Thus began the long climb with my 50 lb. suitcase up countless flights of stairs. There were a lot of other people moving in that day and so many dads asked if I wanted them to carry my suitcase up and every single particle in my body wanted to say yes and throw my suitcase at them but then I thought “What if he tips over, falls down the stairs and injures himself? Then it will all be my fault and that poor student whose father just fell down the stairs carrying my suitcase.” I would just feel so bad. So I politely declined and continued to hulk my suitcase up the stairs. I finally got into my room and just sat on my bed. I didn’t get any pictures of my empty shell of a room but here are some of my room fully furnished! Woo!

 Ok I’m really tired so I will have to put exploring Cardiff in the next post. There are just too many things!!! Ok, have a nice day everyone!