I am once again guilty of not updating my blog more often. What can I say, time slips away. The past few weeks have been really busy; packed with studying with the occasional nice breaks. :) On November 10th, I officially left my teenage years behind and turned 20! Finally! Glad to leave the teens behind. My birthday was wonderful. I went out with my friends for a nice dinner and went out to Bar Billabong afterwards. It was very relaxed and just enjoying a good meal in wonderful company.

Birthday Dinner photos:













On the saturday following my birthday Mike and i went on a 22 mile bike ride to a nearby castle called Castle Coch. The castle used to be a medieval castle but was destroyed in a battle. In the late 1900th century, a coal mine ownder- (i.e very rich man here in Wales) decided to rebuild the castle in a fairy-tale like manner as a nice summer retreat. The castle has thus been refurbished in a fairy tale-esk style and when wondering through it feels like walking in Disney World. Unfortunately, the castle was never used often; only when his kids had infectuous diseases did they go there!!
Mike and I really enjoyed our bike ride and just being away from books and uni life altogether is very gratifying. We had a lovely picknic on the castle grounds and went for a walk after we wondered through the castle. I also learned that now that I turned 20 I dont know how to bike anymore! On our way home, I literally just fell down while biking. Full on wipe out to the side. It was brilliant. All of a sudden Mike just saw me flat out on the ground. So, after all those years of being able to bike, as soon as I turned 20 i lost it!

Castell Coch Photos:




















The following weekend I went to my first rugby game!! I was so excited to go to well, for one a rugby game, two, an event in millenium stadium (huge stadium here in castle), and finally, to see Canada play Wales in Rugby!! :) It was so good to hear the Canadian national anthem and to see Canadian flags flying around. The game itself was almost sold out, 74,021 people were there out of a total of 74,200 seats. Canada lost the game (62-28 Wales) but they put up a good fight. Everybody said they were very impressed to see Canada play that well against Wales (supposedly the #1 team in the world). I couldnt believe how viscious rugby is though. I couldnt believe these guys who were going head on into the other player. The game also didnt stop every two seconds as in American football, which was great because it keeps you on your toes. I also enjoyed listening to all the men shouting, "go left!" , "ref that was such a bad call", ect....as if they can actually hear you. I was in the highest level-really high up and all these men we're shouting at the players as if they could hear. It was great fun and the atmosphere was really good. Walking out of the Millenium stadium into the night, surrounded by 74,000 fans, it was fantastic. People shouting shants for Wales and everybody dressed up in red. (Funny because the national color for Canada is red as well and Canada wore read whilst Wales wore grey jerseys).











On the Saturday my friend Katrin and I went to Ikea to have her first Ikea meatballs! She, now an x-vegetarian, really enjoyed them. We had a blast walking around Ikea; as she calls it, we went for a "mootch." It was really lovely and later that night we put together my night-stand and lamp whilst watching Desperate Housewifes and eating chocolate truffles :) Don't need boys to put together furniture-we did it by ourselves with a kitchen knife and scissors...(didn't have a screwdriver)! Ok, so maybe i did lose a nail....woops!

This weekend I didnt see Mike because he went to a family reunion in Bristol. It was also his brother's 25th birthday! He was also sick and had lost his voice so contact between us went to nill except the few whispers he could manage on the phone :( But after five days of silence his voice slowly came back to him.

This past week I had an exam in empirical economics that didn't go so well. I was really dissapointed as it was my first exam here in Cardiff. I felt so confident going into the exam as well and as soon as I opened the exam, I knew I was in trouble. So that was a dissapointment. I have another exam in Political Economics of the EU coming up in two weeks and hopefully that'll go better.

Lately my relationship with Mike has had some bumbs. We've just had a hard time adjusting not living together anymore and both being so busy its hard to find time for each other. However this past wednesday Mike called me up and said he was coming to Cardiff!! What a surprise. We hadnt seen each other in two weeks and weren't planning on seeing each other this weekend. It was a fabulous surprise. The following day was American Thanksgiving and I had organized to cook my flatmates a traditional thanksgiving dinner. Mike was a great help and on Thursday morning we started in the kitchen at 11am. I baked an apple pie, pecan pie, corn bread, a BIG turkey for 10 people, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips, brussel sprouts and gravy. I was very happy MIke was around to help me with the turkey!! Here in England they dont deliver them the way they do in America with a pop-up thermometer and all the guts already out of the turkey. Mike literally had to stick his hands in the turkey center to get out the liver, heart, ect. How lovely-we put that in a pot and made turkey stock out of it for the gravy. This was also the first time i had made gravy and hopefully I played close enough attention so I can repeat it for CHristmas dinner. It was a lovely meal though and the first with the entire flat together. The meal turned out really well and a big success-and now we want to cook a joint Christmas meal with the other end of the floor as well! However, that will then be 25 people not 10 and this time it wont be me cooking! I hope my flatmates got a taste of what American thanksgiving is like and perhaps that they too celebrate it in the future.

















The rest of the weekend wasn't nearly as eventful. A lot of studying and just hanging around Uni hall. Mike & I went to go see James Bond Casino Royal which was great. I highly reccomend it. Its a good show and just good entertainment which keeps you on your toes. It had a bit of everything in it; definetly a crowd pleaser in my opinion. The weather in Wales has turned sour. We've had record breaking rain fall and in 20 minutes it can be any of the following options:
a) sunny
b) sunny and raining
c) dark and cloudy but no rain
d) dark and cloudy and rain
e) Hailing (happens more often than you think!)
f) windy
g) windy and intense rain coming at you from a different angle then usual-makes biking even more interesting!
Its ironic because a couple posts back on my blog I commented that I expected the weather to be much worse in Wales-ha

Well, I'm coming to my end. I've caught up in two weeks of posts. This morning we woke up and Mike dragged me on a run around Roath Park. Afterwards we walked into town via Starbucks and I did the first of my Christmas shopping. I said goodbye to Mike at 3.30 at the trainstation; promising to see him again on Friday. While walking out to my bus stop Mike rings and says we misread the time and his train doesnt depart till 4.30! So that was fab and we were able to grab some lunch before saying goodbye again. I'm excited for this week to fly by because next weekend I'm going to Birmingham for his mechanical engineering ball! I get to wear my (mom's) ball gown and Mike is wearing a tux! I cant wait for his ball and for my business ball on December 11th.

It is shocking to think that I only have two weekends left before I fly back to Atlanta. I first typed in Vancouver there--its funny to think that I consider Vancouver to be my home but thats not really true. My home is where my family is, which is Atlanta, but I really am looking forward to going back to Vancouver next year. Don't get me wrong, I love my exchange year here in Wales and i've learned so much, seen so much, and met many great people. But at the same time, I can't wait to go back to Vancouver. I missed my family this past week because everybody was home for American thanksgiving except me. Its been a long time since I've seen them but I really do think the webcam helps me a lot. I see my mom pretty much every other day on the webcam which is fab. When my parents have bought another piece of furniture for the house, or if my dad painted something, they'll show me on Skype. Or when Maurits is eating my mom's Dutch pancakes on monday night he'll pull up the laptop to the stove to make me jealous. Its great--really!

I hope everyone is doing well and getting into the Christmas spirit. Cardiff is all decorated with Christmas lights, decorations and a very large Christmas tree infront of city hall. It looks lovely. I'm excited for Christmas to come around; to be in good company at home in Atlanta :)