Cardiff Days 2 and 3

This particular day we had all planned out. We took a waterbus from the bay area to the city centre where we took a tour of Cardiff Castle. From there we had lunch at McDonald's then walked to the Cardiff Museum. Afterwards we did a bit of shopping--or rather the girls went shopping and I kind of sat around--then we headed back to the bay area for dinner at Eddie's American Diner.

Then we parted ways for the night again.

The following morning we went bowling, one of our group members was adamant about that, and we walked to the train station and left.



Waterbus after arriving at the city centre.



Cardiff Castle Clock Tower



Cardiff Castle Living Quarters



At McDonald's for lunch



This is actually a guy and not a statue. Street performers like this are really interesting. You toss a coin into their bowl and they react. This particular guy interacted with whomever put a coin in his bowl. Sometimes he shook your hand, for girls he spun them around like they were dancing, etc.



This is an actual Monet painting, found in the Cardiff museum.



Eddie's American Diner in the Cardiff bay area.




Next post I will talk about my weekend here in Liverpool. I went on the Fab Four Taxi Tour (Beatles) and spent two days in the Liverpool City Centre.

Also, please please please stop asking me to post pictures. I only post a select few here on my blog but I post ALL my photos, with very apt descriptions on my Flickr page. There is a link to the right of the page but also here:

Cardiff, Wales

So we took our trip to Wales. I got up at 6:30 in the morning last Friday and met my group at 7. We had a little trouble finding the right bus and the right bus stop so we asked the security guys. They didn't know the bus but did give us the right stop. So we waited a bit in the cold morning air until bus 79c arrived, a classic English double-decker bus.

From there we took a bus ride to the city centre. We weren't sure where to get off but figured out it was at the Lime Street station, our train station. We then went inside, got our train passes verified and headed over to the customer service desk to figure out which trains to take and what platform they were at. Our journey was in two trips. We took a train from Liverpool to Birmingham where we got onto another train and headed to Cardiff. It was about a 4 and a half hour journey.


At the train station.

On this trip we couch surfed. Couch surfing is an online community where people looking for places to stay get in contact with people who offer their couches, guest rooms, floors, whatever to travelers. We had a group of five so me and two others went to stay with one guy named Robert (he picked us up at the train station and walked back to his place) and the other two stayed with a younger guy named Bub.

So our group traveled to Robert's house where we saw our living arrangement. The two girls shared the fold-out couch and I slept (comfortably I might add) on the floor. Our host was very generous and let us crash in his living room, use his television, and even his computer. He also had breakfast out for us each morning including coffee, tea, pastries, and orange juice.

Then we traveled to the bay area where Robert showed us around the sights a bit. We then traveled to the other host's apartment. His was fancy and overlooked the bay.


View from Bub's balcony.

Afterwards, Robert took our group around the bay some more and showed us all the sights there were to see. He gave us quite a history lesson. The Norwegians occupied the bay, mining coal. Wikipedia it if you're interested in a more detailed expression.

After walking around the bay, we went to an Indian restaurant for dinner. Each of us got a different dish. Some chicken, some lamb. Everyone sampled everyone else's and most were good. I particularly liked the lamb dishes. The only downside was that it was a bit more pricey than most of us wanted to spend and there was food leftover. Oh well. Next time we'll share better. We did share rice.


At the restaurant.

We then went our separate ways. The girls and I stayed up planning our trip for the following day and then we went to bed.

That was the end of day 1 in Cardiff, Wales. Cardiff, as I said, is the capital city of Wales.

Also, please go to to see all the pictures I post from my trips. All have descriptions.

Day 2 to come later.

Continuing previous post...

After a long flight and several hours of not sleeping, we arrived at the airport in Manchester. From there we met Paul Cowell (no relation to Simon) who is kind of our advisor/connection to Hope University in Liverpool, which is where we are staying. We took several small busses to the University and got our rooms. They're pretty nice, en suite rooms which means they have private bathrooms. The bathrooms are pretty small, as you can see in the picture below. It's kind of just a small closet: sink, toilet, shower stall. The room is not bad for a single-person one. A nice, comfy bed, a desk and shelf area, and that's about it. Plenty of conveniences.

After arriving here, we got to do whatever for about an hour and a half and then we met up for lunch in the Refectory (cafeteria to those in the US). I took a shower, unpacked, etc. Then we were told how the food worked and such. It's similar but a little different from the food places at Ball State. No swiping ID's or anything. They just kind of know who we are. Each meal is worth about 4 pounds. For breakfast you can get cereal, yoghurt (that's how they spell and pronounce it), orange juice, coffee/tea, and a full English breakfast which is hashbrowns (like those you'd get at McDonald's), eggs (they don't do eggs a thousand different ways like we do in the US, they're usually poached but you can get them fried or scrambled), bacon and sausage. Their bacon is thick like ham, but cooked and tastes like bacon. It's delicious.

The other meals are different. For dinner (our lunch) you can get pretty much anything as long as it adds up to 4 pounds or less. This includes soda, a candy bar, and all kinds of different meals. Chips (fries) are great here. They're always available for dinner and tea (our dinner) and are kind of like steak fries in that they're thicker than our fries back home. I have yet to have a fish and chips meal. Some of their food is great, others not so much. Sausage rolls tastes like pigs in a blanket, their hot dogs taste like breakfast sausage. I had an eclair dessert last night and it was delicious. So basically their food is a little similar to ours but mostly different in subtle ways.

After dinner on Monday we were shown around campus by Paul. Given a library tour, etc. Then a few friends and I walked down the street to where a few shops and the post office was. Exchanging money is pretty easy. There are plenty of ATMs but I haven't needed to use one yet.

I did go to a pub the second night I was here for a drink. I had just one drink, a Bulmer's which is a hard cider. It's good, refreshing, kind of tastes like America's Woodchuck. Met a couple locals. They were nice guys, helpful and all that. They answered our questions and asked some stuff about America. Good people. Speaking of, pretty much everyone here is kind and polite. They always gave us directions if we asked.

The second day we had a short lecture that was bascially an introduction to things and then my friends and I hung out and like I said eventually we went to the pub.

One Wednesday, that's yesterday, we had our first school visit. I'm co-teaching with my friend Christine in a year 6 class (which is equivalent to our grade 5, so 10 and 11 year olds). This is these kids' last year in primary school. They just finished taking the standardized tests (which are nationally based assessments) so this week was more energetic instruction. We didn't teach at all, we just observed, got familiar with the school and students a bit and so on. We also got to see a dress rehearsal-type performance of a school play. Unfortunately I didn't get any photos. It was a version of the 3 Little Pigs and was excellent. It was very entertaining to say the least.

The kids were good. Ours didn't ask us any questions about America and such though like the other students did to my classmates. They'll probably warm up to us when we come back in a few weeks. Next week and the following week is their holiday (break to us, they go year round so this is one of their breaks).

After school I took an interesting trek to ASDA (the European Wal-Mart). We were told it was a 10-15 minute walk from our school. We got directions and ended up walking through a large park that was very confusing because there were no maps of it and several forks in the road. Eventually we got out of there (with some good photos, I might add) and made it to the street where we walked, got onto another street, and eventually made our trip to ASDA, which apparently isn't the same one that everyone else went to by bus. So we got some things, and with a little difficulty figuring out which stop to take, got on the correct bus and made it back just in time for dinner. It was exhausting but a nice little adventure.

After all of this, I had a day of lecture and also my travel friends and I discussed and planned out our weekend trip. We were going to go to Edinburgh, Scotland because we all really wanted to take this first weekend (which happened to be a four-day one because Monday is a bank holiday here in the UK) but we had trouble finding a place. As it turns out, this weekend was the World Rugby Championship or some such thing so nearly everything was booked and there were 60,000 people invading the city so we decided to steer clear. Instead we ended up planning for Cardiff, Wales (the capital city) with a side trip to Swansea (a nearby large city). We also decided instead of staying in a hostel, that we would couch surf.

www.couchsurfing.org

It is this worldwide community where people give their couches (or guest room or whatever) to travelers free of charge. The site is a networking one similar to facebook or myspace where everyone has a page with information about them, as well as reviews and such. Travelers and hosts alike are reviewed. This way travelers can check out their hosts beforehand and hosts can check out travelers before accepting them.

For our trip, we had a group of five so three of us (Christine, Kasey, and myself) stayed with one guy and two others (Jessica and Deborah from my group) stayed with another. I met both hosts and both were very nice. The one I stayed in lived close to the bay and the other lived a little further away.

In my next post, I will talk all about the trip and provide ample photographs.

This post is going to be very long. I have about three or four days worth of information and stories to include in it. The reason being that we were having issues getting connected to the Internet in our dorms and its finally been resolved. I've been waiting to blog because I wanted to upload photos as I talked about stuff, so here we go.

Mom and Dad took me to the airport on Sunday. It was a relatively short trip. Stopped at Cracker Barrel for a nice breakfast. We got to the airport early and waited around for awhile. My friend Christine, who is also on the trip, got there early as well and so we sat together and waited.

Security and baggage checking was a lot easier and quicker than I expected. Actually, it took me longer to wait and get my baggage checked than it did to go through security. I've never flown before and so had no idea really what to expect but everything went smoothly so no worries there.

Our first flight, from Dayton, Ohio to Atlanta, Georgia, was my first ever. The only thing I don't really like about flying is the occasional weightless feeling one gets as the plane makes its ascent. Unpleasant but not unbearable.

Then we touched down in Atlanta where it was a little rainy. Made it through the Atlanta airport (had to take the shuttle/train. I'm not sure the official name of it). Then we got to our gate and had about 2 hours to unwind, get some food, or whatever. I bought a UK to US adapter there that is currently allowing my laptop to charge without any problems. Love it.




This is the plane we took from Atlanta to Manchester, England. It was pretty big, seven seats to a row. I got a window seat for this one. The other plane, which I don't have a picture for, was rather small. It held, I don't know how many few people with four seats to a row. For that one, I didn't get a window but I was close enough.



This is just a picture of the food place I had a slice from in Atlanta. It wasn't bad. Kind of like Sbarro's.



Here's an evening picture of the sky and wing out my window on my second flight. Speaking of, our second flight was about 7.5 hours long but not too bad. I didn't sleep at all until I got here. This past night was the only one I slept all the way through. Still tired though. I was up last night with a couple friends making plans for our trip this weekend which I'll get to in a bit.

Liverpool

I made it safe. One short flight, one long one. Take-off was...interesting. I didn't care so much for the floaty feeling you'll occasionally get but no worries.

Working on the Internet situation in my room, not quite working yet but hopefully will be soon. When it does work, I'll post quite a bit more, including pictures.

Just letting everyone know I'm here and I'm safe.

Take care!