Another journey...

News in Cardiff

2007-02-22T18:57:00.000Z

All i have to say is that I was in utter shock whilst reading this article. Do people not have anything better to do?!

Week in The Netherlands

2007-01-16T18:36:00.000Z

Back in Wales

2007-01-16T13:28:00.000Z

I am back in Cardiff after almost a month's leave. Although there was hesitation coming back, now that I am back in my room studying away...it feels okay again. Christmas at home was fantastic. We had a lovely time and it seems that the three weeks i spent at home flew by. New Year's Eve was spent on the couch with my parents; very uneventful...but as it was my last night home I didnt want to go far. I flew back into London on the 2nd and from there Mike picked me up and we went straight to the ferry. We had made plans to spend the week touring the Netherlands and staying in Rotterdam with my uncle. The week in Holland was fabulous too. Every day we were out and about and by the end of it, we were thoroughly exhausted. I'm glad Mike got to see holland, meet some of my family, and just get a taste for what its like over there. Being there made me miss home though and coming back to Cardiff was difficult. It seemed that I didnt have the same excitement that I had when I came over in September for the first time. This term will be filled with more work, less play, and less travel...which I'm trying hard NOT to happen. Next week I am free for a week and trying to make lots of day trips. Also this summer is going to be very busy and hopefully if everything goes as planned Mike and I will be moving back to Vancouver. That in its self is a hassle. As hard as I try, i still seem to accumulate a lot of junk and i know that not everything will fit into my suitcases. But that is a future head ache. Enough said of the future, I am now in the midst of my exams. I've already had two under my belt and one more on Friday. I am trying hard to keep focused for this last one... Mike and I are celebrating our one year anniversary this week, which is also exciting and pretty scary at the same time. I had once said that we're not a real couple until we take a trip together. Well last week when we were boarding the ferry, Mike reminded me of this fact! Yikes! But we'll have a nice weekend together and then in two weeks time we'll celebrate his 22nd birthday.
I do realize that I am still very much a foreigner in Wales. Last night i was walking home and listening to music at the same time. When crossing the street, it is still intuition for me to look left first. I realized this and turned around to look right. But little moments like that makes me realize that as hard as I try to fit in here, it really will take much more time. Two minutes up the street I was stopped by a car asking for directions. I apologized and said I couldn't help them find the street they were searching. After living here for four months now, it seems that I am still not fully familiar with the city. My bike route back and forth to Uni is the span of my familiarity. I will try to do better this term, though, and span my horizons. Instead of taking so many trips back and forth to Birmingham, I will try to encourage Mike (and me) to meet up in different towns to explore those too. Next week I'd like to take the train further west into Wales, as I've not seen (any) of the country really. So, my new year's resolution is to continue travelling and exploring the area I live in. I also find it strange because last year I was never scared to go explore by myself,but it seems that this year I've created the excuse of needing somebody to travel with. That, for now, is out the window and hopefully i'll have some exciting trips in the near future. :)

Hopefully everybody is well and had a safe ringing in of the new year!

(As usual, the photos are totally out of order but I will try to explain chronologically:
Photos start at Mike's engineering ball in Birmingham which took place on December 3rd, then mike, his mum, and i went to the national museum of wales and a pub which are the photos of MIke wearing a tweed jacket, the monday December 11th we went to my business ball, and the rest of the photos are back home in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. )

Back in Atlanta

2006-12-24T17:47:00.000Z

I am back in Atlanta!! My entire family (and sister's boyfriend too) are all here. This is the first time since last Christmas that we are all together; which is quite nice. Its difficult at the same time because we are 7 very opinionated people. Last night we tried to watch LIttle Miss Sunshine and you should of seen it. First it was a hastle of who claimed which seat. Then, when everybody was finally sitting down, we tried to start the movie however it indicated that it wasnt made for the appropriate region. You should of seen our reaction. Apparently there was a problem with our DVD player. Its great to be home again and to be in this environment. I miss hanging out with my sister especially. The other day we baked cookies for an entire evening and we take on really bad crafts project. My mom wanted little tree place tags for Christmas dinner that she had seen in a store. I was stubborn enough to say that that was too simple and we could easily do it ourselves. So tes & i went to michael's arts and crafts store and came back with glue, glitter and paper. We spent the evening geting glue on basically every surface except our Christmas trees. We also wanted fake snow on the tree but then realized that it dragged the paper down too much. It was a blast. Now that we're finished, my dad is determined that those things are not going on his Christmas table. Ha...we'll see about that.
I look back at this year very fondly. The last two weeks were especially great. I went to Michael's mechanical engineering ball, which was fantastic. I loved the dress i got (after quite the episode with a broken zipper in the dress). The ball was a big success, Mike helped organize it, and i was very proud of him for the great evening. My outings to birmingham have always been great. THe last time i was tehre we went to a German fair where we ate bratwurst on the streets and listened to bands. The atmosphere was great and all the stalls had their own crafts/foods/linens for sale. I ended up with lots of German Christmas treats to bring back to my family because my parents grew up on them. The weekend after the engineering ball MIke came to Cardiff. On the Sunday we met his mom and went to a traditional English pub...im going to admit that i'm actually liking these pubs very much. There is good atmosphere and I like the fact that you can sit and chat for hours. That doesnt happen very often anymore in American restaurants. You sit down, 1.5 hrs later they expect you to be gone so the table is free for the next customer. On monday night Mike & i went to my business ball in Cardiff's city hall. The location was absolutely beautiful; and we were greated with champagne coctails. We had a fancy meal and afterwards danced until I was exhausted. The next morning,since it was my last day of uni for the year, i decided i'd get up and bike to my 9am class. Ha-tunred out it was canceled but ofcoarse i didnt know that. So i was pretty exhausted when the next morning at 4.30am a taxi came to pick me up to take me to cardiff central station. From there i was catchign teh train to London Gatwick. My flight was 9.5 hours and just too long. I was squashed into a corner where i was locked in because a big man was sitting in the middle and on the other side of him a lady with an 8 month old baby on her lap! It was a long flight...
The first couple of days back in Atlanta i mainly slept and lounged around the house. I havent done much work (at all) but hopefully that'll come once Tessa, Matt and Dirk leave again. I have to get my act together because i've got a ton of work to do. I'm thinking that ill go to my dads office next week and sit in one of the cubicles.
It is now Christmas Eve and the family is just hanging out. There are way too many dogs in this house because we're taking care of two neighbors's dogs (plus our own.) I'm going on a walk with them later through the forest to tire them out some. For now, my banana bread is in the oven, we're listening to Christmas music and just enjoying being home (and together!). Tommorrow (on Christmas) we'll have a nice breakfast, open pressents and we'll cook up a nice meal.
I hope everybody has a lovely Christmas with their families. I hope the day is merry and filled with warmth and happiness. :) Merry Christmas!!

2006-11-13T19:38:00.000Z

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 :)

2006-11-10T11:08:00.000Z

Me sitting on boulder in park:

Michael:

Time has flown since I've posted my last blog. I've been up to Birmingham once more. No adventuruous bike rides this time though, only a lot of work and not that much play. We did make it out on Saturday to the park for a nice walk. The rest of the past two weeks has been filled with work. Its to the point in the semester that sometimes they call 'crunch time'. We've got a lot of assignments, readings, exams coming up, ect. So the mood in the flat here is pretty subdued. A lot of people are going home on the weekends to try to get a break and relax for a bit. We've now been living together for 6 weeks and true personalities are coming out. We've discovered we've had a food thief, some pretty loud people at night, and general complaints about our flat like our radiators dont work, toilet doesnt flush, blinds fall off the wall...this makes it seem pretty bad living conditions, but really its not so bad. Our freezer doesnt freeze b/c the seal is broken and our fridge collects water at the bottom of it...hehe-nice reminder in the morning if you walk into the kitchen with socks on and they in turn are thus wet. Hehe...
Wales is really nice this time of year. I honestly expected weather much like Vancouver where it rains all the time. I've only biked to school in the rain twice so far. I've got fancy waterproof trousers & jacket though so it doesnt bother me. However, what i have come to realize is that my brakes dont work in the rain! The first time i couldn't break was pretty scary--i didnt know if i should jump off the bike and let it crash or should I crash with the bike? Also, I'm realizing that people dont have respect for bikers here (not that they have much respect in Vancouver either). I was almost jammed between two cars by an ediot teenage driver who didnt give me right of way (which I had because i was ahead of him on the road).
Another thing I discover biking around in Cardiff is that I still dont know the city very well at all. There are so many little roads, alleys, and I cant seem to work out where they all connect. Instead of the typical grid: N, S, E, W the roads are in all kinds of directions and not very helpful when you're lost. Also, I think only in Wales can you bike to school and see tractors on the roads next to fancy BMWs and Range Rovers. There aren't many mornings when I dont pass a farm vehicle.
I am officially 20 today and it doesnt really feel like it. I dont think 20 is a big one...there isnt much to celebrate. Except the end of being a teenager!!! Yipee! I dressed up in an interesting outfit for Halloween and made sure to enjoy it b/c it was the last time I could pass it off as being a teenager! Tonight i'm going out to dinner with my flatmates and school friends and tomorrow I'm going on a hike with Mike a hour north of here in Brecon National Park. I'm looking forward to it. I'll make sure to post pictures from the hike on the blog.
And finally, just for general knowledge, who knew that printers could be regionalized just like DVD's?!? I went to go buy new ink for my printer here and on the box it says its compatible with my printer. However, upon sticking the ink in it turns out that its no good. So I called HP and they told me i have to regionalize my printer to UK standards. Who knew? Stupid,eh?

Park in birmingham:

Mike & his flatmate, Andy cleaning their, oh so clean house:

2006-10-30T20:55:00.000Z

Birmingham:
Downtown Gardens:

Jacobean architecture & furnishings:

2006-10-29T23:17:00.000Z

My weekend in Birmingham was great! I went up thursday late afternoon and arrived at Mike's around dinner time. It was a very relaxed evening and most of it was spent studying (lots and lots of microeconomics to read).

On friday Mike went in early to the mech eng building to design a part that apparently was just a square with a hole in the middle! And they're supposed to be graduate students!! He didnt even bring the part home for show & tell....hehe...we came back, baked bread in the bread machine while we went out to a free lunchtime concert at a hall at UBHAM. There were three artists: guitar, singer, and recorder and the concert was just lovely. Mike & I were on our way to the art gallery (which was voted one of the best small art galleries in Europe! I was very impressed!) and we just happened to see the sign for free lunchtime concert. Thus friday was spent very relaxed, got a personal tour of the university, which looks a lot more like UBC. UBHAM has an actual campus feel, very big campus but very nice. The leaves are changing colors here because of autumn and it just portrayed the campus beautifully. We just enjoyed the day walking around and late afternoon, ofcoarse, we did some more studying. That evening we were supposed to go to a Mate's birthday party but Mike fell asleep around 9.30pm and so did his roommate (graduate students, eh?)...Looks like their partying days have past.

Saturday Mike had organized a bike ride for the two of us. I borrowed a friend's bike and we started biking from Selly Oak (Mike's neighborhood) to downtown Birmingham. Birmingham has more canals than Venice and one can follow the canals to pretty much anywhere they want to go. So we followed the canals into the city, met his cousin, Katie, age 20, at a pub for (early) drinks. From there we continued biking to a place called Aston Hall that I had looked up and wanted to go visit. Aston Hall used to be a country house built in the late 1700's by a sir Thomas (if I recall correctly--woops!) and the house was then built in the country but Birmingham has grown so much that its now more or less in the city. To get there was quite a trek because Mike's maps were from 1979!! HA! They show if you go up or down a hill (which is pointless b/c Birmingham is pretty much flat)--so,uhh, lets just say this was quite the adventure. We had a really good time though, getting lost, finding where we are, directions to get to Aston, and then realizing that 15 mins later we were lost again. We asked directions so many times but I don't know if we were too incompetent to follow them or if they were actually wrong...it took us a long time to get there.
When we got to the Aston grounds, we had our lunch and then proceeded into the building. Turns out that this weekend it was the last time open for two years due to major renovations they are going to perform to the hall!! I was thrilled I was able to make it in before it closed. It was very nice to walk around this old mansion, much bigger than I expected. Most of the mansion hasn't been restored, and thus a lot of the original furnishings and structures still remain in the house. The house has a lot of history; like a king who came to stay, cannonball that went through the front windows during WWI. Also, bit of general knowledge, the great hall (which was used for exercise when the weather was poor-who knew that people exercised in the 1700's?!) was a competition between other halls as to the length of the room. This one (see pictures) was one of the largest in the area.

After Aston Hall, we biked to Sutton Park, where Mike spent a lot of his childhood. His grandmother's house is just around the corner of this park, and thus it was great to see where he spent a lot of time. The park also has history to it. During the years of 1914 to 1920, the park was occupied by "her majesty's army" to recruit and train soldiers to prepare for war. Soldiers from as far away as New Zealand were trained in this huge 2000 acre park. Additionally, the original M4 built by the Romans runs through the center of this park. After our stop at the park, we visited Mike's uncle and aunt and his two cousins. Mike's grandmother was there as well, addition to another aunt and the same cousin i had met earlier in the day! So...it was quite the weekend; I feel like I had my share of boyfriend's family visit however in three weeks I'm going to see them all again including more family I havent met yet! Ahh! But, on the more realistic side, it was very pleasant, we had a lovely evening chatting over a few beers;it was the first time Mike had seen them in over a year. Our day ended with taking our bikes on the train back (couldnt be asked to bike the miles back) and we had a relaxed evening eating our home cooked stir fry infront of the 'telly' and watching English tv (just as crummy as anywhere else) and thus we restorted into starting watching 'the Dead poet's society' which we didnt finish because we were too tired.

I came back this morning by train & bus (distortion at Birmingham central station every sunday) and raced to the grocery store before they shut at 4pm for groceries for the week. I also picked up my new and very POWERFUL transformer so my speakers and hair straightener works again. I blew the last one because apparently my hair straightener can jump to more powerful voltage that is indicated on it and it couldnt be transformed in my 100w transformer...(supposedly). So in my MEC backback i had a 300 wat transformer (very heavy) and all my groceries while cycling up my street, which goes straight uphill...it was fabulous...

Tomorrow I've got lectures all day, so I best go to bed sometime soon. This evening I participated in my first ever Pub quiz (english tradition) where teams compete based on a series of questions in categories such as sports, general knowledge, songs, pictures, ect. and whoever has the highest score wins either prize money (our case every participant paid 1 pound-thus total collection of money was price=130 pound prize money) or some other prize. It was great fun for my first pub quiz, despite the fact that we didnt walk away any richer...to the contrary, I lost a pound!

2006-10-26T16:00:00.000+01:00

It has been a long time since I've updated my blog. And as usual, my excuse is that I just havent gotten around to it because I've been so busy. Uni is in full swing. I'm realising (the hard way) that the European system of education is totally different from that of North America. There is no time to catch up and be up to date in your classes. Last year at UBC i had the chapters read before i went to the lecture, so I knew what was going on. Here i've managed to do that once and still, the material was too difficult-i still couldnt follow! The work is tough and a lot, but I'm enjoying the economics behind it. (believe it or not-half the time I dont believe it myself).

Besides school, everything is well. I'm settling into life at Cardiff and everything that encompasses. Including the 2 mile bike ride that it takes for me to get to school and the crappy weather. They say it 'pisses rain' here. I am learning a lot of new expressions and some of the things the Brits & Welsh say is just halarious. The other day my professor said "cracking" when somebody got the answer correct. I've never heard that said, by, well anybody in the US/Canada! Sailing has been great and a good learning experience too. Its great to hear what people say here in a moment of crisis. Our curse words are totally different and today while we were in the process of capsizing, i was just laughing at what was being said. All in all, its been great fun-learning lots, and every night after a full day of library/lectures/biking/groceries/reading/dinner/sailing I always go to bed exhausted.

Last weekend Mike came up. We hadnt seen each other in two weeks and it was great to be together again. its crazy the distance here that keeps us apart. We're about 1hr 45mins apart by car. I used to almost drive that distance round trip to high school every day. Now, that distance seems incredibly far away and a long trek to make. Getting organized, getting on the the train, changing stations, ect. makes the trek a hastle and a lot longer than in a car. So, its not made as often as I'd like. However, he did come last weekend and it was great. Whats more, my dad who had to work in London last week also came to visit me in Cardiff! And for even more kicks, Mike's mom, Pamela, came to Cardiff as well to see us and meet my dad for the first time. We picked my dad up at 8pm friday evening and had a lovely dinner.

The next morning Pamela picked us all up and we drove to Caerphilly Castle in Caerphilly (9 miles north-17 mins according to mapuest.) Well I'm convinced that Wales does not have nearly as many satellites over the country as USA because the directions printed out from mapuest actually told us to "turn onto unnamed road" and to turn "slightly left." We ended up on a single small country lane road where the hedges were so high on both sides that we couldnt see over them. We saw lots of farms, sheep, and country side-a perfect depiction of Wales. We were shocked and i was so happy that my dad could see this side of Wales.

We finally got to the castle (1hr later) and had a great time exploring it. It was built in 1271 and had 3 moots to protect it. The castle was not as fancy as the one in Cardiff, since that one had been completely restored, but as the pictures shows, one of the rooms in the castle-the great hall-was refurbished and is available for events. Mike & I had our turn sitting at the center of the table and I must admit it felt pretty good. ;) The rest of the day was spent exploring the grounds of the castle, had a wonderful lunch at an old pub that is a converted 400 year old farmhouse,

and later in the afternoon we explored Cardiff some more and I showed my dad the campus.

When both our parents left, after a succesful first visit, Mike & i went out to a club that night with my entire flat. We stayed until the club closed at 2.00 am and had , like expected, a very hard time getting a taxi home. The next day, Sunday, was spent recovering from the busy weekend and studying some more. Mike left monday morning at 6am to catch the first train back to birmingham--the weekend was over.

Despite it being really short period of time, exactly 24 hrs, it was fabulous. My dad met Pam, which was important to both Mike and myself. I wished my mom could of been there as well.

This week has flown by as well and tomorrow I'm heading up to birmingham to see Mike. After living together in Vancouver for the summer, we're having a hard time coping with the distance. I enjoyed having him home and just there to support you whenever needed. Its a really nice luxury to have! So, next post should be about my weekend outing to Birmy!!

(p.s. sorry about the jumbled mess of photos-will get it right one day. All the pics are from either the Castle or the pub we had lunch at afterwards. The one photo at night is of walking back via Cardiff after dropping my dad off at his hotel downtown.)

2006-10-12T22:58:00.000+01:00

My running route in Cardiff is quite different from what it was in Vancouver. A lake full of ducks doesnt compare to the Pacific ocean with views of the mountains and the islands. Nevertheless, this is my route-if I was fit enough I could run down to Cardiff bay, (perhaps 5 miles from here), but that is a big IF. I am still exploring a lot of Cardiff, and I think an awesome way to explore someplace is by running. I did this in Greece and Turkey and its great fun getting lost and finding your way home. This was the case tonight...i now know how bad my sense of directions are. I ran up hill, to the left, downhill, twice around the lake, and i thought i was going right and uphill from the lake (to go back to halls) but really i was only running further left and away from the lake and my dorms. I had to stop at the bus station and inspect their maps to find out where I was. I now know more streets that connect to each other...the things you discover running!

The week has flown by and it was filled with a lot of study time and a lot of partying too... I am still considerably behind the other students in my classes, but I am catching up and hopefully I'll get to the new work by this weekend. I now feel like a real economist because all my textbooks are econ related; whereas last year I was still studying a bit of everything. This is exciting for me and despite all my complaining, I think I really do like economics. (i hope!!!)

I'm getting to know people in my classes, whom are all very friendly and helpful. Most of the second years and up live in student housing, just behind the main 'drag' of the university. I live 2 miles away, which always posses problems. But this past weekend I got a speedy road bike from Mike's mom and thus I now bike to school and back every day. I really should correct that and say I coast to school (downhill ride) and bike uphill (to university hall). Nevertheless, I'm really enjoying the freedom and the fact that I dont have to wait for the bus!! (only comes once a hour and picks up from campus 10 to the hour and classes finish on the hour-so i have to wait 50 mins: dont have that kind of patience thus I bike!) I am still conscientious of biking on the WRONG side of the road and thus I pay more attention to the cars then to the asphalt that I'm biking on. Tuesday morning was the first morning I pulled out my new bike and I'm almost at school when a) i pass a pub (one of many on my route) and b) I hear a big POP! Sure enough, there was a glass on the road and I hadn't seen it and I got a puncture through both my inner and outer tire. What luck! After coughing up 22 quid (slang for pounds=44CAD) , I was back on the road again.

I signed up for the sailing club and this past wednesday the club met and went sailing in Cardiff bay.
Picture is of my friends getting dressed in wetsuits for the first time. There were about 20 students and 7 'instructors' (experienced students). I guess my friend Jane and I should of known we were in trouble as soon as I read the 2 persons max sign and we were with 3 in this small little dingy. I asked my instructor about it and his response was, "ohh-dont worry!" 5 minutes later-we'd capsized!! It was fantastic fun. I now know that sailing in a dinghy is totally different from the 45 ft. yacht I was sailing in this past summer. The sensitivity of the dinghy makes it really fun and the speed that they can acquire is pretty impressive. The Cardiff bay is enclosed, which is only relatively new. 5 years ago they put up an artificial barrier to help build up the water level in the bay, which before used to be covered only in mud. The bay is now being developed with new residentual housing, posh retail stores and restaurants, and the Cardiff theater/opera house and Wales government debate chamber are all located here. Cardiff has some pretty spectacular architecture (both of the old and new variety) and the opera house and debate chamber are incredible. The Opera house is made completely of Welsch products. Back to the water part... this enclosed space is great for learning how to sail small dinghys. We had such good fun and just laughing the entire afternoon through. The only downside of the entire experience was the lack of boots that came with my wetsuit and thus my feet had lost their color by the end of the afternoon. It hurt to walk! I was in the water twice because i had a go at the helm on this overfilled dinghy and soon enough, we were all in the water again--thanks to me!! woops! But just for the record, later (on a different dinghy) I was at the helm again and tacking was no problem; no more capsizing.

That same evening was Rubber Duck evening at our union club. Don't ask why it's called Rubber Duck, but the theme of rubber duck that evening was Pornstars. (I am not proud of what comes ahead)... I was against this from the beginning, but all my flatmates were all so incredibly well dressed (they call it fancy dress; and in our terms fancy dress is what they call smart dress) so I faltered and also decided to dress up as a pornstar. People like to dress up in all kinds of costumes, which I don't remember doing once in Vancouver. I had to go to my friend's closet because honest to God, nothing in my closet would look remotely like a pornstar. So here I am, 'shopping' through my friend's closet and she pulls out this bright colourful dress and she shouts, "go as a sleezy housewife!" Thus that is the explanation for the following photos. I went out with a bunch of flatmates, which was lush (Welsh/english for great fun).

It's now 11:30 and usually people are still chatting to each other with doors open but because of the quite eventful evening last night, we're all going to bed early. Just to let you know that I'm not here for just for the fun and games, I applied for a summer internship today housed here in Vancouver for a firm called DTZ Consulting & Research; they research the real estate market and help with all kinds of aspects of the investment in real estate process. I would mainly be in charge of gathering economic data and summarzing the findings into reports which would then be presented to clientele. Its a competitve position but the least I could do was try, right? I am also waiting to hear back from a store that I applied for a job for; who know's whats happening there but I expect to find something out tomorrow. The weekend is looking bleak with a ton of work and flatmates leaving, but perhaps I can get a hike in on Saturday to a castle called Castle Coch-supposed to be very nice!

2006-10-08T21:54:00.000+01:00

My third weekend in the UK has flown by, just like the previous two. Time seems to be distorted here as the weekdays seem to take ages to go by, but weekends (as always) are gone in an instant. Mike came up this weekend from Birmingham. He caught the train up Friday evening.

We had a wonderful weekend exploring Cardiff. There are still many places here that I have yet to see, so this weekend we went to Cardiff Castle (big castle in the heart of the town.) On the way to the castle we quickly realized that there was some sort of sporting even going on in the city because of all the Welsh perephenlia beign sold on the street corners. It turned out that Wales was playing football at the Millenium stadium in the heart of the city. Thus there were many crowds of people, decked out in Welsh gear, heading towards the stadium and creating a general racchus.

The castle sight was first occupied by the Romans in circa 75 BC, then the normans came alone, and a long time afterwards the castle was owned by the owner of the factories of black gold. (i.e. coal). He was the richest man in the UK at the time. That man, had so many homes around the world, that he gave up the castle to the city of Cardiff. This is the only castle in the UK that is owned by the city, all the others are still privately owned. The history of the castle is really intriguing though. At one point, one prince was angry at another prince, crossed the English channel and collected his brother from Normandy, and returned to Cardiff to imprison him in a tower here at the castle! He was imprisoned for eight years when his death set him free. There are 100 rooms in the castle, and most of them have been restored to their former glory. One room is valued at 20 million pounds (the ceiling is covered in gold), another table in the dining room valued at 6 million pounds. (To get to USD multiply by 2). Additionally, the castle grounds itself are quite large and secured by a huge wall around the premises. Saturday flew by in Cardiff.

Sunday morning, Mike's mom, Pamela, came by to exchange my bike, spend the afternoon in Cardiff with us and to drive Mike back to Birmingham. We went to Cardiff bay, which is the location of where the old docks used to be that shipped out all the coal that was produced in Wales. After the coal rush died down, the docks turned into a ghost town, but now they are pumping money back into that part of town and revamping it. The architecture of the buildings along the bay are incredible. Very modern but really unique designs. We walked into the parliament building, a historical church, and the opera house. There are tours given in all of these buildings, but unfortunately we didn't have time for any of this. We grabbed a traditional English lunch (what is known as dinner here) at a pub. A traditional English dinner includes roast beef, roast potatoes, pees, carrots, a muffin/bread like thing and ofcoarse, everything covered in gravy. 'Fat free' are words problably not known around here. At the end of the afternoon, Mike and Pam set off to Birmingham and the weekend is over.

I've got class from 10 to 2pm straight tomororw, then a two hour break (break=library time) and then a modern british economic history course. The week is going to be very full, but i'm looking forward to sailing wednesday afternoon.

2006-10-05T21:11:00.000+01:00

It is difficult to start writing on a blank space. To get ideas popping into my head I look around my room to find some inspiration. But then I realize that my room is inspiration, as it is all new to me. I find myself in this unfamiliar room, in an unfamiliar city and in an unfamiliar country. I've now been in Cardiff for 12 days and its well, been exciting, scary and fantastic all at the same time. I'm still having a bit of a culture shock (will tell later of the best stories) but hey, that's all part of the journey right? People say its difficult to pick up your life, but I got to tell you, it can be done in 12 days time. I'm now, should say-reasonably, well settled in. I've got great friends in my flat, got friends in my lectures, and I've got friends that I've met via clubs and societies. (And most important of all, hehe... my hair straightener and speakers are up & running!!)

What has impressed me most is that the Welsh people are such a friendly and congenial population as a whole. I really should correct that and say the people of Great Britain. Cardiff is quite the international city and the university reflects that very well. I now regard Welsh, British, Scottish and Irish peoples as totally seperate identities, as on the first day of my arrival here I was taught the differences between their peoples, cultures, sentiment towards the others (i.e. football & rugby) and their accents. Another thing that I've noticed is that accents are a great conversation starter. For the first time in my life, I've had a different accent then the majority of the population. In France & Miami I had always picked up the language pretty quickly that I never had a significant accent, but now here in the U.K., my American accent, what I used to shun away from, is a conversation starter!! Who knew? Most people can't place my accent, which really isn't Southern USA nor is it west coast Canada. Another thing that I had worried about in the past is my American accent, well, it being too American, when I travel abroad. I don't want to suggest that the Welsh people aren't up in their political world, however, so far, I've not had a single conversation about American politics, the Iraqi war, or American sentiment in general. In Greece this past summer, I had a conversation with a Greek monk who pinched and stuck up his nose when he mentioned the United States. So, so far no clashes yet!

Cardiff University is a world of difference of the University of British Columbia. I loved UBC, although the first semester there wasn't the easiest time I've had, after some time, I settled in pretty well and met some incredible people. I got used to the lifestyle in British Columbia, which is well, very relaxed and peacy. My best friend there, Char, taught me a lot about recycling, conservation of the world, and Simon from upstairs taught us to compost our food. (Which I'm going to try to start here at my hall). Those items, are all a distant world from Cardiff uni. Cardiff is tiny in comparison to UBC. Cardiff, the city, has 35,000 undergraduates, as compared to the 40,000 undergraduates of UBC alone. On my first outing onto campus (I live 2 miles away from campus) I walked straight past all the university buildings. I had to pause, pull out my map, (urgh! how touristy), and realized that I had walked right past the main 'drag' of the uni!! The office buildings are converted old housing. The student union looks like a tiny building from the facade but really is humangous if you walk in (it houses a club, pub, great hall, study areas, and many offices). All my classes are in the business building for the entire year. To be really honest, the university is great. So far my courses have been really challenging (my economics courses have been much tougher than at UBC) and well, the only problem that I have with the uni is that there are not nearly enough COFFEE shops here!! The students and faculty that actually drink coffee (not many) drink it from those machines that you find at gas stations. Coming from Vancouver (which pretty much has just as many coffee shops as the founder of coffee, Seattle) i am horribly dissapointed! There is only one coffee shop relatively near campus, which I've been to every day so far, and just still doesn't have the same feel as coffee shops in British Columbia. At UBC every 3rd lecture building had its own coffee shop (presumably Starbucks orTim Hortins!). All the Cardiff Uni students have been really welcoming though, are all very friendly and well, students here know how to party....I think I've been out here more often than I did in the entire length of last year. (I didn't party much at UBC). After my incredible sailing experience this past summer, I decided to join the Cardiff Sailing Club. I was quite tired that day, and was speaking to my brother on the phone and saying how I didn't want to go out that night. He suggested, why don't you just go to the meeting and don't go to the pub? Well, the meeting just happened to be at the pub!! What better way to meet people than over a pint of beer? That in a nutshell suggests the people here: all in for good fun but they know how to study when it comes down to it (i'm assuming)...we're still in the partying stage!!

Lastly, another important thing in my life is Michael. He was a big part in my reasoning to do a year on exchange to Cardiff, Wales. I was a little nervous about how things would be for us here. However, some things never change no matter where you are. Its been fantastic so far! He came and picked me up at Heathrow airport at 7am (which means he had to be up at 5:00 am to come and get me.) You should of seen me on that airplane, I was a mess!! I was already so nervous about coming to Cardiff on exchange, but whenever I meet Mike I still get those butterflies in my stomach (yes, i know-how girly). Seeing him again (hehe-we had only been apart for 20 days!!) was incredible. From Heathrow airport, we attempted to drive south to Chichester, his home, but me holding the map we most definetly drove into London instead (which is East not south west!) That long weekend flew by. I met his family and close family friends. He showed me around Chichester, his favorite places and went on a bike ride with a flat tire & a missing pedal! On Friday evening Pamela, Mike's mom, Mike and I drove to Bristol where a close family friend has a 250-acre farm. It was incredible. I had never actually been on a proper farm before, let alone spent the night. I realize now that there is nothing like waking up early on a farm, with livestock around you and being able to go for a walk around the property. The previous day Mike & I had both bought second hand bikes. So that day we biked down the lane (I had never used or heard that word since Anne of Green Gables the movie!!)-i thought it was so romantic!! After getting a personal tour by Brian, the family friend, around the countryside, Mike & I finally set off around 2pm to Cardiff...12 days later, here I am.