All good things must come to an end ... I suppose

Well the day has come, I am leaving Wales and I couldn't be more sad. This has been the most amazing 4 months of my entire life. The people I have met here have been so incredibly amazing and the experiences I have had I will never forget. At the moment I'm going on about 6 hours of sleep for the past 48 hours and it's not looking good for me to get any more sleep before I get on the bus at 1 am. I don't even know what else to say, there is absolutely no way to put what I am feeling right now into words. It doesn't seem real. It seems that all of the people who have already left are just on a trip and I will see them in a few days. But the harsh reality is that I won't. The bond that I have with my friends here is so strong and the thought of having to leave them and the fact that I won't get to see them everyday makes me want to chain myself to a fence so I don't have to leave. Last night in fact I laid on my friends kitchen floor while her flat mates played cards and held on to the chair. Yes I miss everyone back home and I'm very excited to see them but no one can know what leaving feels like unless they have done it. This experience has changed me so much, I felt like I really found myself here and the fact that I have to leave the place that has made me feel the most comfortable I have ever felt honestly kind of terrifies me. I like who I have become here and I'm afraid that going back to everything will change me back to what I was and I don't want that. I would not change anything that happened this semester, I may have hit some rough patches here and there but that is what made it all so amazing. I just can't believe it's actually over. I don't think it's completely hit me yet, perhaps when I get on the bus, or when I get to the airport or on my layover in Copenhagen or possibly not for a week or so, but whenever it does I'm going to be an absolute mess.

Eve of Thanksgiving

Well it is the Eve of Thanksgiving and I'm for seeing tomorrow to be a rather difficult day for some of us. For others though it will be a wonderful Thanksgiving that they won't forget for awhile. You see some people have been lucky enough to have family and friends visit them over this semester. And some particularly lucky people have friends, family, fiance's, girlfriends etc visiting this week. I'm very excited for all of them. It's so amazing that their loved ones are able to come over here and spend this time with them. However for the rest of us I think it almost makes it harder because we see everyone else having people here for this day. They get to spend time with someone they love and although it's not nearly the same as being with your entire family for Thanksgiving it is at least something. I will definitely be missing my family tomorrow. I think we are going to try and skype, after the Packer game of course, but I'm almost thinking that might be worse than not seeing them at all. I don't know, perhaps it will all be fine and we'll have a nice chat and it will be wonderful. Or I will be a bloody mess after seeing them all together and me ... well here. It will just be different.

On a completely different note I only have 3 1/2 weeks left and I don't want to leave. Although I miss my family and friends like crazy, this place has been the best thing I have ever done. And I've gotten to see so much of Wales and so much outside of Wales. For example this afternoon I got back from a few day holiday to The Netherlands! 2 of my friends and I headed over toward Amsterdam on Monday and stayed with some people from Central College who are doing the Leiden programme and got to explore a bit of Leiden and a bit of Amsterdam. Both cities are absolutely amazing!! They are so gorgeous with the canals and the rivers and all of the buildings!! Oh I absolutely loved it!! While we were in Amsterdam we also got to go to the Van Gogh Museum and see some of his amazing masterpieces! Unfortunately Starry Night wasn't there, it's at a show in New York City actually but we got to see the Sunflowers and Iris and so many other amazing paintings/drawings/sketchings. We also went to the Anne Frank House which was so amazing. It was a very emotional experience to see the house that she and her family hid from the Nazi's in. We got to walk through the bookcase that closed off the building to their Secret Annex. And there were pages from her actual diary, in her actual hand writing on display. There were videos from people who knew the family or knew Anne and also a video of her father who survived The Holocaust. That video was one of the most emotional parts of the museum because he talked about how he had never known that Anne had all of these thoughts and feelings toward what was going on until he read her diary. He spoke about how he didn't really know his own daughter and that he believes that parents don't really truly know their children. I thought that was an extremely powerful statement but I also believe it to be rather true. Its very true that our parents don't really know exactly who we are especially as we grow older. Not that it's bad and I don't know that there is anyway to change that but we are all slightly different around our parents than we are around our friends and it's not that we are lying to either party it is just that we are different. However it is fairly easy to incorporate how you are around your parents when you are with your friends, but to do the opposite is darn near impossible. I just thought it was a very interesting thought that Otto Frank had. I really loved Amsterdam. There was definitely stuff there that I didn't get to see on this trip and I would really like to go back some day and see more of the city. One day was just not nearly enough time. Although we were dead tired when we got back to Leiden last night and when we were leaving this morning. But I do think it was the best mini trip I have been on in this whole semester!

Cardiff again!!

Well on Friday morning my "little brother" Jake and I hopped on a train, our destination - back to the capital city of Wales. We both had tickets to see Tyler Ward and Boyce Avenue at the University down in Cardiff. We were both really excited for the concert and for the chance to get out of Bangor for a few days and explore on our own a little more. We got to Cardiff around 11 Friday morning and began our quest to find our hostel. We got a little turned around, mostly because we didn't have a map and well just weren't really sure where exactly the hostel was. So we got through the City Centre and headed in the direction we thought our hostel was in. Turns out we were just a block away at one point in time but we weren't sure so we kept on walking and ended up in a very residential part of the city. We found a lot of random places like the YMCA and some other places and after about 15 minutes of walking around Jake remembered that he had internet on his phone ... so we looked the hostel up and after a bit managed to find our way there. We got our room and all checked in and then headed back out to explore the city. We walked through Bute Park next to the castle and had a really good time just talking and enjoying the park. We left the park and just kept walking. We found the Civic Centre of Cardiff which is where the City Hall is and there are some Uni buildings there as well. And then we realized that we were right by the National Museum of Wales, the one I mentioned in my other Cardiff blog with all of the amazing paintings! So since it's free we decided to go in and actually look at the rest of the museum. It was very cool they have exhibits on the rocks of Wales and how Wales was formed and the ancient animals that inhabited the area back to the dinosaurs. But then of course we had to go back and look at all of the wonderful paintings once again. After the museum we headed back to the hostel to get ready for the concert! They opened doors at 6:30 and since they've been playing to sold out houses we wanted to get there by at least 5:30 to get in line. We made it there just after 5:30 but much to our dismay it was raining ... and continued to rain harder and harder and my little umbrella was not quite doing the trick of keeping us dry. After about a half an hour a security guard came and told all of us in line that we could go wait in the university pub and they would let us know when they were opening doors ... so instead of getting absolutely soaked thats what we did. We got into the venue and got right up to the rail of the stage. I was literally feet away from Tyler Ward and Boyce Avenue. It was the most amazing concert I've been to in awhile!! We headed back to the uni pub after and had a few more drinks before calling it a night and heading back to the hostel. The next day we got up and had breakfast and checked out of the hostel and headed back down to the city centre. We had decided to get on one of those bus tours that take you all over the city since we had some extra time and didn't really know what to do with it. We got on the bus and it took us everywhere. It was so cool to see some of the buildings that we hadn't gotten to see the first time we were there and learn more of the history of Cardiff. The bus then took us down to Cardiff Bay where we got off for a bit to explore more. We went inside Millennium Centre which is the home of the Welsh National Opera and the BBC Orchestra and other amazing groups. We couldn't go see the stage because there was a performance going on but just getting to go inside the building was so amazing!!! We hopped back on the bus and went back to the city centre where we had just enough time to stop in a pub and watch the end of the Wales vs. Norway football match (which we found out later was actually in Millennium Stadium and we probably could have gotten tickets to it :( ... ) and headed to the train.

It was such an amazing trip and I'm really kind of in love with the city of Cardiff now. I could definitely see myself going back to Cardiff or even living in Cardiff for awhile.

Family :)

The closer I get to leaving this amazing place and the amazing people I have met here the sadder and sadder I get. I don't think I have ever felt so at home so far away from home. I have met some amazing people here and I just can't even being to think about what it's going to be like when I don't get to see them every day. Before I came over here I thought I was going to make all of these great Welsh and English friends, and I have however most of the people I've become really close to are my fellow Americans. I don't know if this is how every study abroad group is but the group of 29 of us have bonded so much over the past few months. I feel like we really are one big family. We've got a Papa Bear who is always looking out for everyone, we've got a few study abroad 'moms' who are just always prepared with bandaids and kleenex and medicine, i feel like i have about 10 brothers that I've never had before who would do just about anything to protect us all, I've got so many new sisters that I feel like I can talk to about anything. Leaving these people is going to be the hardest thing I think I have ever had to do. I already know that I will be making as many trips to Iowa as I can to see all of the people there. And hopefully trips to Nebraska, Texas and New York too. Its amazing how close people can get when they are thrown into an unfamiliar situation for an extended period of time. Realizing all of this makes me want to spend as much time with everyone as I possibly can. Sleepovers, movie marathons, late night talks, football games, small trips and junk food nights will be common occurrences for the next month and a half you better believe it.

                                                                          family <3

A night at the opera

On Tuesday I got on amazing opportunity over here in Wales. I got to go see the Welsh National Opera’s performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni in Llandudno. It was absolutely amazing, for only £19 my seat was in the first balcony off to the far stage left side in the second row on the end. I could literally see the spit coming from the mouths of the actors. I could see every facial expression, every emotion, every move, (well except when the were up stage left, that was a little blocked from my view). I don’t even have words for how happy I was for those 3 ½ hours. I have sung a few of the arias/duets from Don Giovanni but I never really fully understood the plot line so it was so incredibly interesting to see the opera in it’s entirety. For example one of Zerlina’s aria’s I sang back in freshman year and I really wasn’t sure what it was about. I mean I had looked up the translation and the story line but I just never really understood the words. Actually seeing that aria be performed within the context of the opera gave me a very different light on the aria. It turns out that she is consoling her husband Masetto who has just been beat up by Don Giovanni who is disguised as his servant/side kick, Leporello. As Zerlina is singing this aria she is essentially telling Masetto that she, and she alone has the key to making him feel better. She had the medicine that he needs but you cannot see it, it is within her. Basically she’s very unsubtly telling him that if come home with her she will make him forget about all of his problems * wink, wink, nudge, nudge * if you catch my drift. Needless to say I found that particularly funny. The whole opera is based around how raunchy Don Giovanni is and how he just goes from town to town sleeping with women. In fact Leporello at one time sings his Catalogue Aria in which he informs Donna Elvira (a woman who Don Giovanni has once “courted”) of the number of women Don Giovanni has slept with in the different countries 640 in Italy, 231 in Germany, 100 in France, 91 in Turkey but in Spain …. 1,003. Basically Don Giovanni is a huge man whore. The opera itself is pretty hysterical in some parts. I mean then in the end Don Giovanni gets dragged into the pits of hell for his sins and for killing Donna Ottavia’s father.

It was just such a wonderful experience. The actors were wonderful. Leporello made me laugh on so many occasions and the actor who played him, David Soar, had such a wonderful bass voice I was in heaven. The costumes and the set were also so intricate and fitting for the opera. I really thought that it was an extremely well done performance. One of my goals while I was here in Wales was to see a performance done by the Welsh National Opera and although it wasn’t in the Millennium Centre in Cardiff I at least got to see them. If I could I would love so much to be a part of a company such as the WNO. Seeing the performance just ignited that desire even more. I guess I’m just afraid of failing or of not having the voice to do it, which right now I don’t at all. It’s just hard to envision the possibilities of the future when your dreams are as big as national opera, it’s quite scary especially when you keep getting pushed down as I have in the past 3 years. I suppose only time will tell. For the meantime I will hold on to the amazing-ness that was Don Giovanni by the Welsh National Opera.

                                                        view of the stage from my seat!!

                                                                 WNO trailers!!! 

The Scrambling of a Gorge

I have grown to really love Thursday’s over here, because Thursday means I have Outdoor Pursuits, which means that I get to do things I would have never imagined I would so. So far in O.P. I’ve gotten to go surfing, low/high ropes courses, kayaking, sea level traversing and now gorge scrambling. Now some of you might wonder what exactly is gorge scrambling. I thought the same thing. Turns out its one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done. How gorge scrambling works is you a) find a gorge or a part of a mountain that has been cut away by a river that runs from the top of the mountain down the side of the mountain. Since these rivers have been flowing for hundreds if not thousands of years so there is quite a deep gorge cut into the mountain. The gorge we went to is in Conway Valley and is called the Afon Ddu (Black River) gorge. As for the part b) once you find a gorge and have all of the appropriate gear you “scramble” or essentially climb up the gorge. Doesn’t sound to terribly difficult right? Wrong. Since it is a river that is flowing from the top of the mountain there are waterfalls and pools and rapid like places throughout the gorge and the rocks are extremely slippy and there is lots of moss that you want to try and leave undisturbed. Needless to say we knew we were going to be getting wet so we wore full wetsuits to keep warm and protect us from the rather chilly water we could potentially fall into. We started by doing some rock hopping which is similar to walking on the big rocks down by Lake Michigan in Kenosha or on Rib Mountain in Wausau so that wasn’t too bad. After a bit of rock hopping, and trying to stay dry, we got our first feel of the Afon Ddu water when we crawled through the Elephant’s Ass. Yes, the Elephants Ass. It is two very large boulders with a small space at the bottom that you can squeeze through and pop up on the other side. It looks as though you are climbing into a large stone elephants buttock. Oh and since you are climbing up there is rushing water underneath you. It was awesome!! We continued up the gorge squeezing ourselves through rock formations and tight squeezed and in and out of the water. We got to this one part and there was a small pool which a nice rock that you could slide on so we slide head first on the little rock into the pool, just like a slide! We then got to do a bigger slide up a little farther where we took off our life jackets and stepped into them, so it looked like we had weird bulking diapers on, and slide down a longer “slide” into another pool. We did trust falls off the edge of rocks into pools and climbed up some waterfalls and even got to stand underneath one of them for a while. Words don’t describe how amazing it was. The gorge itself is so incredibly beautiful I didn’t take my camera with me since we were going to be getting wet but one of the guys in my group took his so I’m going to try and get some pictures from him a little later. But it was easily the best day of O.P. we’ve had so far, at least in my eyes. Oh and once we got to the top of the gorge we got to jump off a small cliff into a real deep pool below us. So much fun!!! 

Clubs and such

While we are here in Bangor our program through Central College requires us to be involved in a club of some sort on campus. Back at the beginning of the semester they had sort of organizational fair where all of the different clubs had booths. At that point in time I had no idea what kind of club they even had over here so it was very interesting. They have all of the clubs you would expect a uni to have like futboll, basketball, table tennis, a music society, an art society etc ... and then there are some rather different ones such as the society I joined, Trampoline Club. Now I know what you're probably thinking a club where all you do is bounce up and down on a trampoline. Well essentially that is correct however these aren't your regular backyard trampolines. They are the ones that divers and gymnasts train on or the trampolines you see in the olympics, and some of the people in the club are absolutely amazing! We had our first go on the trampoline back in September and trust me it is much more difficult that one would expect. However after a few weeks and some points from some of the older members of the club I successfully managed to master the 'swivel hips'. This is where you do a seat drop, bounce and then sit, and then while you are bouncing back you twist your body around and sit again. If you are going high enough and have enough momentum you can do quite a few in a row. I think at the current moment my top is 5 which is still pretty good! Well today two of my friends and I went for club practice and after our first go we decided to ask someone to show us how to do a new trick, the front drop. The front drop is when you're jumping and while you are in the air you kick your legs out behind you and your arms bent in front of you and you land on the trampoline in basically a plank position and then bounce back up. Sounds fairly easy ... not so much. I started with a mat on top of the trampoline and I laid down and Laura, one of the coaches/helpers, showed me the hand and arm position. From that I went onto my knees and began to bounce and then while I was in the air flattened out and landed on the mat. After getting that pretty well down I stood up and did basically the same thing. It is a pretty scary feeling the first time to just see the mat getting closer and closer to your face as you are coming down on it but it's also very exciting. After getting my form right we took the mat off and I began to actually jump and as I was coming down Laura would throw the mat out underneath me to protect me if I landed wrong. I was starting to really get the hang of it and Laura said that when ever I was ready I could have a go at it without the mat. So I did. And it was awesome!!! It was so exciting to learn a new trick! I can't wait to go back on Sunday and possibly learn something new!! This is definitely one of those experiences that I never thought I would have when I got over here but I'm so glad I took the chance to join a club I had no background in. So far I've met some really great people and I'm really, really enjoying trampolining!!!