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!!!

Oh the adventures I have ...

Well today started out to a very interesting start. A group of us had gone out last night to celebrate Halloween and well to say the very least we had a really good time, closed the club out at 3 and walked back up to the dorms and then for whatever reason I stayed up until 5 am haha. Oh well it was a good time. Well even though I was up until 5 am I got up around 9:30 because my friend Brie and I had planned to go to the cinema to see a movie in Llandudno Junction which is just a few towns over. Our plan was to go see Paranormal Activity 3 because it’s Halloween weekend and we like to scare the trousers off ourselves lol. Needless to say after only about 4 and a half hours of sleep I wasn’t on the top of my game. But we headed to High Street because Brie needed to buy a new phone so we headed to the phone store. She had a phone all picked out and was just about to pay when … the fire alarm went off and all of the stores closed down and we had to leave, without the phone. So we headed to a different phone store so she could get a phone. Then we went and got coffee to try and wake ourselves up. We waited for our bus, and hopped on just after noon. I wasn’t really sure how this whole bus thing was going to work having never really taken public transportation before, that and I was way tired from the night before. It turns out that the bus station we have in Bangor is not typical of the other bus stops on the way. Instead of the bus stopping at every bus stop when you want to get off you push a button and then the bus driver knows to stop at the next one. Now I know this sounds pretty simple but for me coming from Wisconsin where we don’t really have bus services at least not that I’ve ever used this was a new thing for me. So I began to panic a little because I realized that I had no idea what-so-ever where we were suppose to get off. I kept trying to read signs and began seeing signs for Llandudno Junction but I was still looking for something that resembled a mall or a cinema or something and since I didn’t see one I figured we needed to keep going. Well then I began seeing signs for Llandudno which is a different town and figured we had gone to far and missed our stop so we got off. We began to look around and try and figure out where we were which is really hard when you are in a town that you’ve only just passed through on a field trip at the beginning of the semester. So here we were, Brie, Chris and I. None of us from Wales (Brie’s from Iowa and Chris is from Bulgaria) none of us have smart phones or anything with internet capability and no clue of what to do. Oh I should also probably mention that Brie broke her foot 6 weeks ago and on Thursday got the okay to start walking on her foot. So we begin walking hoping that we can find some place to get some food and maybe some wifi so I could try and look up where we were on my ipod. We found a McDonalds after a bit of walking. Now this McDonalds was quite the place too, we walked in and were bombarded by a employee pushing us into a line. I tried to look at the menu but it was not a normal McDonalds menu, I was confused and tired and hungry and everything is different so I just got a soda and onion rings (yes they have onion rings!!!!) and then went to go find a table … of which there were none open. There were quite a few tables with people just sitting there talking, we were annoyed and after about 5 minutes of walking around we finally found a table and sat down to eat and I pulled out my ipod to try and figure everything out. I found that the cinema was much to far to walk to but we could get back on the bus and then just get off in Llandudno Junction. After realizing this we decided to hang out in Llandundo for awhile because there are quite a few shops and things to do to keep us busy for awhile. We went into some stores and grabbed toasties. We had about 2 ½ hours to get to the cinema so we headed over to a bus stop. There was a store right next to the stop that sold basically touristy Welsh things so we went in quick and Brie and I both bought Wales sweatshirts. I talked to the shopkeeper a little and he asked where I was from and I said the states and he asked which one so I told him Wisconsin. His eyes kind of lit up and then went back to normal as he told me that his ex wife went to Wisconsin and met her current husband there. … interesting but I digress. We went back out to try and figure out the bus just to realize that we really had no idea how to get to Llandudno Junction. We decided to go back into the shop and ask the nice shopkeeper if he knew which bus we should get on. We walked back in and the shopkeeper was talking to a lady so we waited and then told them our story and how we were trying to get to the cinema in Llandudno Junction on the bus. There response was “How are you getting to Llandudno Junction on the bus???” “ummmmm it’s on the list of stops? I don’t know,” was our response. Inside I was thinking oh crap we’ve just gotten ourselves stuck in Llandudno. Then the man asked the lady “Are you going near Llandudno Junction?” She said she was and that she would drive us there.

Ok so now we had a way there but inside I couldn’t help but think that this is the perfect start to a new horror film (not to mention we were on our way to see Paranormal Activity 3!!!) and it goes against everything I’ve ever been taught. You just don’t get in a car with a random person … especially in a foreign country. But we were desperate and figured that it was better to take a ride from this lady who seemed pretty harmless and well between the 3 of us we could have taken her if things went south; better that then hoping on a bus and ending up in who knows where. So we get in this lady’s car and she starts asking us why we are in Wales and after we told her we were students studying at Bangor she began to tell us about her son and daughter and their jobs. Then when Chris said he was going to school for film studies she began to tell us about a friend of hers from Germany who was a director and went to Ghana to shoot a film about death/funeral ceremonies or something like that. And while he was there he contracted malaria so he was in the hospital for awhile and after he got healthy enough they released him but he was not well enough to fly back to Germany yet. So one of the nurses took him into her home and nursed him back to full health. Although of course he fell in love with her eldest daughter but when he was about to return to Germany they decided to break it off because the difference was to grand. However after being back in Germany awhile he missed her far to much so he went back to Ghana and they got married. Now this lady driving us attended the wedding in Ghana. She is also an amateur photographer so when she went she of course took a camera but she decided to only take one camera and one lens. Over the 15 days she was there I think she said she took over 4,000 pictures and she has made up a book with I think about 150 of the pictures and it’s online somewhere (we are going to try and look for it). It was amazing to hear this lady’s stories. Well we got to Llandudno Junction and she tells us that she doesn’t often come here and that she’s not really sure where the cinema is but we’ll stop and ask. So we stopped and asked a young man and he gave us directions but we didn’t make it there so we asked another person. After asking yet another person we got in the right direction but made another wrong turn and wound up stuck on a bridge over to Conway. We were waiting to turn around and she was telling us about this one area that we were facing that someone who had something to do with the Watergate scandal in D.C. had a house over there and other important famous people do too. She also told us about the smallest house in all of Britain that is just down from Conway Castle. Well anyway we got turned around and found the cinema so she dropped us off and we thanked her profusely and she drove off. We had made it. Now we just had another 2 hours until the movie started but we figured that we’d had enough adventures for one day so we hung out in the game room the cinema had.

We finally got into the movie and well I was nervous. I’ve seen all the other Paranormal Activity movies and they scare the bejesus out of me but it’s a fun kind of scared. Well needless to say this movie was just as scary for me if not more than the other two. I just about jumped into Chris and Brie’s laps on many occasions. After the movie we remembered that we weren’t quite sure where to go to get on the bus. And it was almost 10 so it was dark, and we were in a very unfamiliar town and we had just watched a very scary movie. I was not excited about trying to find this darn bus stop. We remembered that there was a train station with a bus stop that we had passed on our way to the cinema so we figured we would start there. We walked there just to realize that bus 5 the one we needed to get home didn’t stop there. Luckily I had overheard another group of people talking about getting to the Llandudno Junction Flyover bus stop and that was what our bus ticket said so we followed them. We found the bus stop and waited about 10 minutes and our bus showed up. We crawled to the back of the bus and awaited our much-desired stop at Bangor. 45 minutes later we stepped out of the bus by the Bangor clock tower. We were home. All we had left to do was walk up b**ch hill and the hill by Morrisons (grocery store) and we were home free.

Needless to say it was quite the adventure of the day!!!    

To the Capital City ... and beyond

Well we just got back from our weekend trip to Cardiff, the capital city of Wales. I started off the weekend on a not so fabulous foot feeling exceptionally sick before we left but luckily that cleared up and all I ended up with for the rest of the weekend was a sore throat which I could deal with. We left early Friday morning and on our way down to Cardiff made a few stops to see more of the sites of Wales. Our first stop was in Hereford, England where we had a lunch break. Three of my friends and I found a little cafe where we got lunch and then we went to explore the Cathedral for a little while. The Cathedral has an exhibit that contains the Mappa Mundi, which is one of the oldest maps of the world with the centre being in Jerusalem. Although because our lunch took a little longer than expected we didn't get to go into the exhibit but we did get to take a good look around the Cathedral which was absolutely gorgeous. 

We left Herford and continued south towards Cardiff making another stop in Tintern to look at the ruins of the Tinturn Abbey. Tinturn Abbey was a flourishing abbey until King Henry VIII began his Dissolution of the Monasteries which put an abrupt end to all monasteries in Wales and England. Since then the buildings have fallen into ruins but with a little imagination one can really get a feel for what they were like in their prime. Even though there are no windows or furnishings or in some places ceilings and walls it is an absolutely stunning place. 

We continued onto Cardiff and made it to our hostel which was right across the river from Millennium Stadium, the home to the Wales National Rugby Union and just down from Cardiff Castle and the main city centre of Cardiff. We had Friday night free so a few of us went and explored the city centre a bit and found a nice Italian restaurant to eat at. We then went to an Irish pub for a drink and headed back to the hostel. I ended up staying up till after midnight just hanging out in the common room with some of the other people from our group but it was very nice to just relax and watch TV for a little while! Saturday morning we got up and walked to Cardiff Castle and took a guided tour of the castle. It was quite amazing. Unlike some of the other castles we've been to Cardiff Castle is mostly still furnished and decorated in the way it was back when it was remodeled. Some of the rooms were absolutely amazing. I think one of my favorite rooms in the castle was the Arab Room it was absolutely stunning. The ceiling was based off of a castle or church or something in Spain I believe I can’t really remember but either way it was absolutely amazing. We got to go through a bunch of different rooms in the castle and our guide was so informative I really enjoyed it. One of the things that he told us that the architect William Burges was a big practical jokester so in every room there was something that was just a little comical. For example in what would have been the Gentleman’s smoking room there was a scary little demon monster on the ceiling in the entrance to the room and in the family dining room the bell to call the servants was a nut in a monkey’s mouth.  Small things like that just to keep it interesting and very unique.

While in Cardiff we also got to go to the National Museum of Wales. We only had an hour there and after an interesting morning leaving the hostel I wasn’t really in the mood to go around some museum. However I knew that I would have to do my sister proud and have a look at the Art Gallery section of the Museum. I began walking around the gallery and found some very unique paintings by some Welsh artists. One I found I really, really enjoyed. The painting is called Chapel and Tip and it is by Denys Short. It was painted around the year 1959 and according to the information next to the painting it “represents two traditional symbols o industrial south Wales – the coal tip and the chapel”

Its kind of hard to see in the picture (which we were allowed to take photographs of some of the paintings so I didn’t break any rules or anything) but the child in the middle is playing with a pink ball. I think that this painting really does depict Wales. After being for a few months I can’t help but realize how dreary and somber this country can be, mostly because it does rain quite a lot here and the sun doesn’t shine that often. It has been said that the Welsh have a different psyche because they live in this kind of environment. I don’t know if I necessarily believe that. Granted I haven’t met that many Welsh people but the ones that I have met don’t seem depressed or down because the weather isn’t exactly what we in America think of as wonderful. Instead I feel like they embrace the weather and they get very excited about nice days like we had today. I also personally feel like it gives the country a different sort of edge. When we are driving around to different castles and sights the scenery around us is absolutely stunning and having a kind of gray background just enhances the colors. I know I’ve said it before but everything here is so incredibly green. Colors seem more vibrant possibly because they don’t get compared to a blue sky so they stand out and are able to shine. I think that’s why I really like this painting. It shows the gray and somber views of Wales but that bright pink ball shows that there is joy and there is color and it makes you appreciate them that much more.

On top of gaining a new perspective of some Welsh artists I was so incredibly surprised when I went into one room where the theme was French Impressionism. Some of the paintings in that room were absolutely amazing and as I was looking at one I couldn’t help but think to myself that I’ve seen something like this before. I went to look at the information next to the painting and I think my heart stopped beating for a second. It was one of Claude Monet’s. I was looking at a painting done by one of the most influential, most well known artist basically of all time. I couldn’t believe it. I continued looking through the room and found that there were 8 more Monet’s, a Vincent Van Gogh, several by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and a few by Edouard Manet. I was absolutely beside myself. I saw three of Monet’s Water lilies paintings! Masterpieces, I was lucky enough to see some of the art masterpieces of the world. It brought tears to my eyes to be completely honest.  The one thing that would have made it better would have been if my big sister had been standing next to me, I wish so badly that she could have been there with me to see them.

As if that wasn’t enough to make the day wonderful after the museum we headed down to Cardiff Bay where I got to stand outside of the Welsh National Opera House. I was in heaven. I wish that it would have been possible to go inside but considering we had limited time it wasn’t. I won’t get to see an opera in the opera house while I’m here but I am going to see Don Giovanni in Llandudno on Tuesday, which is just about as amazing. I’m so excited. I can’t believe how blessed I am to have been able to come to this wonderful country. The experiences I’ve had here will stay with me forever and always.