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!