BEACH WEATHER!!!

The past few days in Swansea have been incredible. Its been really warm here, up to 80 degrees, and we all just can't keep off the beach! My days have been full of ice cream from Joe's, walking down the beach, watching the sail boats go out from the marina, and a trip to Three Cliff's Bay! Result: a pretty wicked sun burn...but SO worth it. I think the pictures speak for themselves (and deserve to be bigger than the others!).

Varsity 2010: Swansea vs. Cardiff

Sports aren't always a big deal at Swansea, but on one day a year, they are they biggest deal. Varsity is an all day event against our arch-rivals, Cardiff University. This year, it was Cardiff's turn to bus all of their athletes and students to Swansea for every sporting event in one day! This year was great weather, and from about 11am to 10pm we hung out with friends and cheered Swansea on. We even got to see a game of American football!

We didn't win the football game, but Swansea really kicked butt this year. We won the all around points (so we won the most of the sporting events) AND we won the big rugby match at Liberty Stadium!! We even stormed the pitch afterwords to celebrate :)

Everyone went out to Wind Street to celebrate that night and it really was a great day! If you know me at all though, you know a perfect day without a little misstep just doesn't exist...I actually tripped into a bed of stinging nettles at the start of the day and had a NASTY rash all over my legs for the whole of Varsity. NOT FUN. But I sucked it up, had a beer and enjoyed my first ever Rugby match and a great day with friends :)

Easter Break!!

Hi Everyone!

Sorry I've been MIA for a while, but I've just been enjoying the last of my time here in Wales (oh...and writing essays). BUT, my essays are all turned in and I've got a month now to chill out with all my Swansea friends and bug them while they try to study for their exams! I've got a lot of adventures to write about so I'll start from the beginning....Easter Break! (yes, they can still call it Easter break here...)

I got an entire month for Easter break and spent a good 2 weeks of it traveling with Doug. The first start was Doug's house in Bromsgrove, for some actual home cooking, TV and couches! (It really is the little things in life.) We also went to the Cadbury factory for lots of free chocolate and fun :)

After a couple days there, Doug, Doug's mom and I flew to Hannover, Germany to see Doug's dad, who works in Germany. We spent the day on bikes, touring the city and enjoying the weather!

ps: Germans are ALL fit and active. I've never seen so many people out biking, walking, roller blading, rowing, and running ever in my life.

After Hannover, Doug's parent's dropped us off in Berlin (ya...I've been on the Autoban!), which easily turned into one of my favorite cities since I've been here. We started with an AWESOME free tour of the city, where we learned some amazing history! As you can imagine, the place is full of it, and WWII history of Germany is so interesting. We also saw several parts of the Berlin wall, including a section of the death strip and a part of the wall painted with artwork. We also made it to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the Holocaust museum, the top of the government building, touched a Buggati, saw the Hotel where Michael Jackson hung his baby out a window, stayed in a VERY budget hotel on the outskirts of town, and drank with real Germans in little pubs on Easter Sunday.

Doug's parents came to pick us up a few days later, and we actually took a small detour to a little town in Germany where a portion of the wall and a watch tower still stand. It was good to see a part of the wall outside of the city. Having a wall splitting towns, families and an entire country is a strange concept and it gave me chills to see it up-close.

The next stop was Dublin! We stayed in a great hostel with a ton of fun people, clean rooms and most importantly, free breakfast! lol. Highlights of Dublin included another free tour, a pub-crawl, Guinness stew, the Jameson whiskey factory, the Guinness storehouse, getting a little lost, a wax museum and a very old jail!

There was supposed to be one more stop on my trip, Geneva with Staci, but I unfortunately got sick with the flu the night before we were supposed to leave! This was quite disappointing but turned into a blessing... It turns out that with the pesky volcano erupting in Iceland, and clogging British airspace, we would have been STUCK in Geneva for God only knows how long! Good thing God was looking out for us on this one :)

And that ends my Easter break travels, as I spent the rest of the time writing essays and putting around....