Rome = my new love

So where to start. Wednesday rolled around and I couldn't stop thinking I was forgetting something and packing and repacking... When the time came I was pretty excited, although not as excited as Chelsey. We begin the journey to Roma at 5 pm. We load on the bus and take the bus to school and then another bus to the train station and then the train to London Paddington and then the tube to London Liverpool Street and then another train to London Stansted Airport. That was a long journey with many changes and no stopping for food. We get to the airport early around 11pm. We don't fly out until 6 am so it was a long night. We start with a late night dinner. I had a lovely Egg and cress sandwich. I love them here. Once we get done we walk the whole airport and I exchange some currency. I needed some Euro! After what seemed like forever with no sleep, we finally got to get our visas checked and proceed through security. I was getting excited again even though I hadn't slept yet. Once through security we all cleaned up a little and started getting ready for the day and Rome.
The flight didn't take very long at all it seemed and I slept a little then. We landed at like 9 am, Rome time and bought the Roma pass and a bus ticket into Rome. The bus took what seemed like forever to get to Rome and I fell asleep on it. Then we walked from the Train station where it dropped us off to our hostel. It wasn't very far and we found it pretty easily. I was happy to check in. While we were getting ready our room was cleaned and we were able to put our stuff in before heading out for the day. We got maps and looked where to go and get money from the ATM and what places we wanted to see that day. We decided on Spanish steps and set out. Lunch was first, because we hadn't eaten since the night before. Lunch was amazing! We all had coffee with it and it was the best of the trip probably. I had lasagna and I loved it. I ate it so fast tho... lol. We then walked back to the Metro to get to the Spanish Steps. After that we made our way down the Via dei Condotti which is the designer shopping road. It was so amazing to see all the fancy shops. We made our way to the Pantheon where Chelsey was meeting her friend from Wisconsin who was in Rome as well. It was gorgeous to walk around the streets of Rome and the Pantheon was very cool to be inside. It was a bit smaller than expected though. After that we made our way to the Trevi Fountain and gelato! Well we ate dinner of course but Gelato was my favorite part. We ended the night after that since it had been basically two days run together.

Day 2 We headed out early and went straight to the Vatican. There was so much to see and do there that we could have spent all day but we wanted to go to the Colosseum that afternoon so we had to kind of hurry through a lot of the place. Chelsey and I went up through the Cupola and it was amazing to see the view at the top. It was however like 500 steps to the top and miserable to walk up. The view at the Colosseum was absolutely the best part for me. Having studied all the Roman myth and being in Rome was just... breath taking. I have tons of photos uploaded to Facebook. I can't believe how many I took. After the Colosseum we walked around the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. All in all i would guess we walked 10 miles that day. It was ridiculous and my feet were dying. But we continued on and went to dinner at Chelsey's friend's house with all the other Americans were! It was so great to talk to others abroad and the food was amazing! I loved the pasta and ice cream. After dinner we went to the roof and checked out the amazing view up there. We could even see the Vatican from there. Then Jeremy called and we walked to meet the guys at the Castle of Saint Angelo. It wasn't that far but after all the walking I just wanted to sit down. from there we walked back to the Trevi Fountain and had some more Gelato and sat around there before heading back to the Hostel. Soooo much walking....
Day 3: Consisted of us doing everything we though we might have missed out on. It was raining basically the whole time but it was still great to see everything. We had Chinese for lunch which was delicious and so much food! but it also allowed us to dry off a little after being in the rain all morning. We went back to the Castle and Via dei Condotti and Spanish Steps. and last but not least we saw the Trevi during the day and did some souvenir shopping while down in that area! After an exhausting 3 days of running about Rome and eating all the food and the beautiful pictures I think I can say Rome is where I want to go back to the most. I summarized a lot of what we did but the pictures on FB will show better all the things we did. The next post should include Thanksgiving day, my birthday celebration, and a proper Rugby game hopefully!

Week 7 & 8: Ireland, Chepstow, and Tinturn

Well let's see what happened next... Nov 1 - Nov 5 I spent the whole time reading books and books and more books for research... I had a 3000 word essay i wanted to finish as soon as I was back from Ireland so I started it the week before. I was able to get an intro done and most of the reading done before we left on Sat for Ireland. Sadly Nov 5th was supposed to be the Guy Fawkes fireworks but due to rain was postponed until the 9th... So Saturday arrives and I am excited and packed up and ready to go! We leave the house around 1 and go to the train station and then head out to Bristol where our  flight departs from. We get there and get on the bus and head to the airport. It was a long day of travel. I grab a bite to eat and some coffee with Tori and Sophia and exchange some money over. We board the plane when the time arrives and we get our seats! I had window which was nice I like to be able to look out. The flight was so short! We literally felt like we had just taken off when they announce that we had to put our things away for landing. We land in Ireland around 730 pm... Jeff was waiting at the airport with a sign and all! Good times! It was great to see him! Honestly, I wasn't sure i would get to see any of the people I met in Korea again and now I have seen a bunch of them! By the time we land and get on the bus and get back to his place everyone is starving! So we order some, I think, thai food. mine was just rice and chicken and prawns! Delicious though! We stuff our faces and by the time we are done no one feels like going out so we play Wii! Sophia and I get really into and I love it! We start the morning around 10 and begin our walk in the sunshine which we didn't expect!

It was beautiful but still very very cold! We head to the city centre to get Tori some money and look about. We then proceed to Trinity College campus. It was massive and beautiful and I wish I went to school there! It was fantastic. Then we walked over to Christ Church Cathedral but didn't go in. We just walked around and took pictures and met a nice couple who took pictures of us all together ! We also walked through St. Stephen's Green park. Everything was so green and still amazing looking. We also walked in the city centre where all the street performers were and I bought some lovely souvenirs! For lunch we had mexican! It wasn't exactly perfect but it was close enough to satisfy me! I was so happy at that point and it was sooo good! although we found out food in Ireland is rather expensive. Next we try to get on a bus that would take us to a country village. It was a little wait to we went to a pub and grabbed a beer, well I had cider. But it was exactly how I pictured them to look and it was very nice to just get off our feet since we had so many km to walk still. Once we got on the bus I snapped shots all the way out to Enniskerry. It was so quaint. I liked it and we walked around and found a cemetary where I swear I saw and black and white horse but we never found it. Rather creepy lol... While out there our walk didn't take as long as we planned so while waiting for the bus we had a lot of fun taking pictures and being silly. We even found an old green and white phone booth! Sweet! Once we got back into Dublin we decided to see a mall which was great and packed full of christmas stuff already! and then we wanted to see a movie so we went back to city centre and got a ride from the eco travel things. They were basically modern horse and carts lol. We saw Due Date that night and the movie theater was huge! I took a picture with two random girls from the Netherlands because Tori and Sophia refused to come with me up there!

Rude! lol Sophia got in trouble for taking pictures with the curtain up later which made me laugh. The screen turned out to be huge and seemed a bit bigger than ours back home... Not sure if it really was, may have just been the layout of the theater. I really liked it. The movie was freaking hilarious. I laughed out loud just about the whole movie! Tori and spent the next day randomly quoting our favorite parts! When the movie was over we headed back to Jeff's to play some more Wii! It was raining which sucked a little but as a whole the day was amazing! 

Day two would also start in sunshine and end in rain as well. we started out back in city centre looking for cigarettes as souvenirs for people. We saw protesters in the square! They were dressed as father time it looked like but i am not sure. We stopped for coffee and found a little candy machine but instead of candy it dispensed Pringles!! How awesome is that?! After coffee and failing to find fags we went to the zoo! I love the zoo no matter where I am so I was super excited! We spent a couple hours wandering the zoo and looking at all the animals. it was super clean and didn't really smell like most zoos do. It was nice but it was also kinda small... I was just happy to see all the animals even though some made me sad. After the zoo we went to lunch at a pub which was delicious I had something healthy but it was still delicious and everything came with chips so less healthy lol... Next we made our way to the Guinness factory!

 It was legit there! I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. I hated Guinness itself though. I spent forever in the shop deciding what to get! I settled on lighters for my friends that smoke and I couldn't get awesome cigarettes for. Then Jeff showed me some mustard which I had been looking for for a teacher! I was happy to have finally found some! Then we went to dinner at TGI Friday's which was amazing to get a burger and hot wings! But they didn't have Ranch which was lame! I also got a lovely cocktail. I love that I can order drinks here with dinner. I will be taking advantage of this same benefit when I am back in the states. After that it was another exciting night of Mario on the Wii! I am not going to lie I was an addict. But we also had to go to bed semi early since we had to be up at 5 to catch the bus to catch our plane to catch our train to catch our bus home... lol sorry i had to put that it amused me. 

Back in Swansea I did laundry Tuesday and tried to write some more and did nothing else until the fireworks. They weren't american sized but there were still impressive for a small town. We unfortunately walked back to the car right as the finally was going off and got crap falling on us... My eyes burned pretty bad after that. but that ended the longest day of my life lol Travel wiped me out completely!  Wednesday I started again on the evil paper that would consume the next three days of my life. But I finally finished it on Friday thank god! It was such a relief... I don't think I did anything else until it was done except maybe eat. So many hours at the library and soooooo much reading... but It is done and now on the editing phase... Saturday Tori and I went on the trip to Chepstow Castle and Tinturn Abbey.

 It was beautiful at both places. The castle was a lot larger than I expected and it was in a lot better shape than I thought looking at pictures of it. You could still walk into certain parts and along parts of the wall. We had a cool guide and he was dressed as monk for the Tinturn abbey tour. I loved it! After the tour Tori and I walked up a small hill and then back down through town. It was a lot bigger than we thought as well and it was such a cute little town. I would totally live in a place like that. Who wouldn't like to wake up every morning and open the blinds and see a castle?! Next up Tinturn Abbey which was again guided and sooo awesome! I took so many pictures there of the same thing because the sun wouldn't stop ruining them all. I did get a couple that were alright though. After the tour we looked at souvenirs and got a proper coffee and cake from a tea house. Tori had the strongest machiatto I have ever tasted! Ever! Then we got back on the coach and came back to the house. I skyped with my parents that night and couldnt go to sleep so I edited some pictures which are in an album on FB. I finally went to bed around 3 am to get back up around 9 to head to the library with Chelsey to get books for the next paper. So much for my freedom. So today I looked through a ton of books and finally settled on a few that seemed to be alright. I read through the chapter that I am critically reviewing... and now I am writing this blog. 

It has been an eventful two weeks and things don't seem to be slowing down. I am working on writing this paper and now I am totally going to get it done as soon as I am back from Rome. I am totally going to do it! But until then I am focusing on ROME!!! It is so close and it is going to be the most amazing thing ever! I can't wait and I can't believe how extremely lucky I have been this semester to be here! Well tata for now! I will write again when Rome if done!

Week 6 & 7 Oakwood Theme park, Horseback Riding, and Halloween!

Alright this week started out slow. Again I don't have classes on Monday or Tuesday and I find myself watching a lot of TV and being bored on those days when I don't have assignments to read. After those two days drag by Wed. Tori and went to town and got food and looked for some Halloween ideas... Nothing really sprang to mind. Thursday I had my usual favorite class and started ideas for my first paper which is due Dec 14th. I am going to have it done by the time we leave for Rome hopefully... lol unlikely but hopefully. Then on Friday I took a walk with Chelsey around Killay it was a nice relaxing venture which we need to do again this week. And Saturday well Saturday was my favorite. We went up to Oakwood theme park here in Wales. It's not a huge theme park by any means but it was still great fun. The picture is of Speed which was my favorite! that drop was amazing and it went pretty fast. We rode this one about 5 times throughout the day. Since it was a small park we were able to ride all the rides we wanted and then some. We even did one called Bob Sleigh which was like a tobogganing track and Tori and I almost crashed because we went too fast lol .all in all we probably rode ten different rides and most of them we rode twice or more. The operators were also very enjoyable and friendly since it was so empty they let us stay on the ride and just go again! Epic. My favorite (not really but close) part was totally when Tori got stuck in the first roller coaster we got on. In the states I have never ridden a roller coaster that required you to push down to release the lap bar but this one did. And Tori and I had pushed the bar as low as it would go. So when the time came she couldn't get it to pop lose lol. Finally I told her this might hurt and threw my weight down on the bar to push it low enough to pop it loose. It totally worked so yay us! Also we rode swings that were airplanes and you could actually steer with the ruder. I loved it and had a blast twisting and turning while spinning. We also played a shooting range game kind of like the one at Bass Pro Shop in OKC, only this game shot water at you if you hit the dead center. I got shot 3 times and i don't understand how hitting a bullseye merits getting water shot at you but at least i knew I was a good shot! the last ride which I refused to ride, was the water ride. It was literally the most massive drop I have seen on a water ride. The wall of water that flies up from it was amazing. The ones that did ride were all pretty soaked but I think it was well worth it to them. The video I have was pretty amazing I wish I had pictures but I opted for the video (which is on FB). So after that we drove back, well Liesje, drove us back to Swansea. And with that my week was over.
Week 7: Sun - Tues same lazy routine of sleep, watch tv, walk with Chels, eat, sleep.. the never ending cycle lol. Although I did pick a topic for one of my essays but it will be the second one I work on. and on Monday Tori and I went costume shopping and she got an awesome American Gansta costume and I bought leather leggings and Gloves and used my own clothes to assemble a Rocker/ Biker chick. It was pretty epic and I will post a picture farther down with my full costume on. Wednesday Christina and I set out and found her some black cat ears and a collar and gloves and she decided to rock that look. That night we went out with some of my house and the other Americans and went to Yates and Revs for some drinks and fun. This was a big week for me since i normally am a Home body lol. Thursday and I dragged myself to class and then took a nap. I was just not used to going out and found it hard to sleep after having had a drink. Not my idea of a fun time.

Then Friday rolled around. This was an exciting day! We were going horseback riding!!! We arrived and they had us fill things out and then we got instructions on how things would work. We started with getting assigned a horse and brushing the horse down, moved on to saddling the horse and the basics of riding. MY horse was the sweetest horse ever and was named Bottom. that's him there in the front of the group. He was beautiful. I really started to wish I had had a horse back in Oklahoma and had learned to ride. He was very good the whole time we were together. He didn't do anything like bite or head butt me like Mallory's horse Chico did. We got along great! He also didn't pretend to be nice and turn into a demon like Tori's horse Favor did. We had an epic ride with the most beautiful scenery around. We saw Three Cliffs Bay and Oxwich from a distance. We walked down a trail pretty much onto three cliffs it was lovely. I have great pictures from it too. We rode for an about an hour and half before heading back to the house. It was a tour of course and lead by a guide. It was fantastic and I wish I had time to go again. I think I would be up for it. Saturday was a boring day after which was probably the best since i was sore beyond belief. I went to the library and checked out 9 effing books for my research for my paper. It was dreadful to carry back to the house. then I went to Sainsbury's to buy a few things for rice crispies and they were yummy! Probably making more today. Afterwards Tori and I went to a house party at house 5 it was crazy packed in the kitchen and we mostly just took pictures of everyone on Chelsey's camera. She was a bit too drunk to notice so that is always entertaining. We only stayed a couple hours and then headed home to rest up before the big night, HALLOWEEN!

Halloween is so epic that is gets its own paragraph. We woke up an started the day by running into town for odds and ends we needed. I really shouldn't have spent the money but I figured I live once and if I eat bread and water for a couple weeks its worth it. I plan to live on grilled cheese and soup starting this week once i go to the store. lol So we found me some awesome tattoos for my outfit and got some other things tori needed for her costume. Then we headed back to the house and started cooking a light dinner and getting things ready for the night. We had a little tuna salad and chips and watched Hocus Pocus and then it was time to shower and get ready. Starting at 6 we all showered and then I went to Mal's house for her to do my makeup. that didn't really take that long and it looked amazing for the photos. then I came back to our house and Tori worked on my hair. It was really easy compared to what I thought it would be and as you can see it turned out pretty awesome. I sprayed in some red Hair dye and it was complete. the part that took us the longest to get me ready was my tattoos. Those took like 45 min just to put them all on. Then it was time to figure out tori's eyelashes. I am no whiz with fake eyelashes so I was nervous. I also did Christina's makeup which made me nervous since i normally don't do makeup for anyone but myself. It turned out pretty good and I think we were ready. We started the pre-game 9ish and only had one glass here before getting the bus and heading to town at 10. Summer, Tori, Christina and I were all ready for a good night of fun and costumes and dancing. We were glad to have Summer come with us and at least experience the night life here. We started at Yates which was a nice place to start kinda quiet that night and then moved to Revolution. After drinks there and the most difficult bathroom break we headed onto Odyssey, where my life got completed again for like the tenth time since being here. We hit the dance floor immediately and it was a good crowd but not too packed. Tori and Christina and I rocked our dance skills and tried to bring Summer out of her shell. We got her dancing a little and we were proud. Next thing we know we are surrounded by 4 guys who were semi creeepy and staring at us. I think it was because A) we looked hot lol B) we don't really dance like girls here and C) They though we were drunk. We ignored them and rocked our dancing for a about an hour before we took a break and then hit the floor for a couple more songs before deciding it was time to get some food and go home. MCD is the number one place here and it was just what we needed. We get back and Tori and I looked at all the pictures we have taken for the night, including a very good Edward Cullen costume. It was completely epic and I wish they had more nights like that. Normally people don't go out in costume unless there is a Fancy Dress party at one of the clubs or for a society. but then again that happens quite often here... Well It was a good week and I can't wait because now the travelling begins. Look for my next Blog on Ireland, Then Tinturn Abbey and a Castle, Then Rome, Then Paris, then London again and Finally my trip home...