FLAT 225

The Student Village consists of a number of buildings containing lots of flats. They are pretty much the same thing as our suites at Hamilton except for much older and dirtier. There are buildings that have updated kitchens and bathrooms and are newer, but we didn't get lucky enough to live in those.

My flat building is the farthest one into the village, up a pretty steep hill. I am about a 5 min walk from the bus stop, but I end up running practically every morning because I forget how far away I am and buses around here don't wait. Our flat is made up of 1 hallway with 4 doors down one side, 3 doors and the entrance to the bathroom down the other, the entrance to the flat at one end, and the door to the kitchen at the other. There are 7 bedrooms, 2 guys and 5 girls. The bathroom consists of 3 separate rooms, one with a toilet and a sink (for the boys), one with a toilet, sink, and bathtub (for the girls), and one with a tiny stall shower. I don't think I'd ever get in the bathtub though, it is pretty dirty. The girls just use it to shave their legs sometimes. The kitchen is pretty normal, sink, oven, stove, cabinets, kitchen table.

Two of the girls are from England, one of the girls is on my study abroad program from Minnesota, and the other girl and 2 guys are from Wales. One of the girls is engaged and the other girl from America has a boyfriend, but the rest of us are single. I love everyone I live with! Our flat has so much fun. We have gone out and played frisbee at midnight, we have gone out to clubs together, we made a very strange snowman on night when it snowed really hard, and just have fun hanging out in everyones rooms or all cooking at the same time in the kitchen.

I think part of why I love it here so much is the people, I have made such good friends both in and out of my flat, it is going to be really sad to leave in June!

Hannah, Emily, Me, Jenny

Sir GaGa, our snowperson

My Room

Our flat building

BATH

This picture perfectly sums up the English city of Bath, the Cathedral and the Roman Baths. Both are next to one another in the middle of the town. It is the exact kind of English town I have always imagined, all of the buildings looked really similar and old and all of the streets and shops were very quaint.

First we took a tour of the Roman Baths. We were given self-guided audio tour devices and we walked around. Most of what you see is the newly built replica of what it used to look like. As you walk, you can see the ruins of the old baths though. We walked through without listening to too much of the audio because there were little things to read about what you were seeing that made it much faster than listening to all of the stories.

We kept walking around the city and found most of the other famous places there were to see. We went up to the Royal Crescent and Royal Circle, both were areas of houses that were small and about 1 million pounds each. Johnny Depp has a house in one of them! We also found Sally Lunn's house, the oldest building in the city, other than the ruins of the baths, that is now a bakery. We did a lot of shopping and listened to some of the music people were playing on the street and went and had hot chocolate in a little bakery.

Bath was a gorgeous town, kind of what I imagined every town in Britain to be like and what I assumed Swansea would be similar to. Boy was I wrong, but I like living in a city and it is fun to get to visit these kinds of places on the weekends!

Bath

Guys in the Roman Baths

The Royal Circus

BIG PIT & CARDIFF

Our first field trip with our orientation program was to the Big Pit and Cardiff. The Big Pit is an old coal mine about 45 mins outside of Cardiff. When we got there, it was really cold and snowy, unlike the nice day we left in Swansea. We were given headlamps and battery packs and descended 300 ft below ground into the mine shafts. It was a little depressing walking around down there because it seemed like every time we stopped for the guide to tell us about something it was about how people died down there. It was really cool to see the system and how everything worked. There were even horse stables underground where they kept the horses that pulled the carts once they were banned from having children do the job.

There was a really cool gift shop there too. There are stands in stores with peoples last names on things like we have all over the place in the US with first names. I got a cool keychain that says Webster with our family crest on it. I also got a flask with a welsh dragon on it...really cool!

The Big Pit coal mine near Cardiff

Ready to go underground into the Big Pit

Our next stop of the day was in Cardiff. We got dropped off out side of the Welsh National Museum which had free entrance, so we walked through there for a while. Cardiff was a beautiful city. We walked around for a while and decided to try and find the castle. We followed signs that pointed to where it was supposed to be and we ended up walking down a very busy street of shops. All of the sudden, the shops ended and there was a castle. It was really cool how the town was built around the castle. We decided not to pay to go into the castle and save that for another day when we could come back and spend more time there. Instead we kept walking and found Millennium Stadium, where the Welsh national football and rugby teams play. I can't wait to take a weekend and go back to Cardiff to explore it some more!

Millenium Stadium in Cardiff

ORIENTATION

On our second day here, the American Studies dept took all of the Americans in Swansea on a trip to Mumbles. We were supposed to go to the Gower penninsula which we have heard is one of the most naturally beautiful places in the world, but the snow apparently made it impossible to get to. So instead we walked around the Mumbles for a while. There is a very large group of students here from Iowa State and University of North Carolina at Wilmington. My group has become really good friends with 2 girls from Oklahoma, so now the 7 of us hang out all the time. The Mumbles was really beautiful but it was really cold, so we ended up spending most of our time sitting in the cafe there drinking hot chocolate.

We had a course we took for our first 2 weeks here while the British students had exams from last semester. Our course was British Politics and Culture Since 1945. The professor was awesome and he did a really good job of making it interesting for us. We alternated lectures on politics with ones on culture and the culture ones usually involved watching movies or talking about music. We had an entire lecture on The Beatles and some other 60s music and an entire lecture on James Bond. It was all day everyday for 2 weeks with 1 or 2 hour gaps in the schedule every now and then while seminar groups met.

The American Studies course took us on 2 field trips with the course, the first weekend to the Big Pit and Cardiff and the second week to Bath. I'll write about them in separate posts.

To end the course, we just had to write an essay. It was supposed to be 2500 words, plus or minus 250 and we got the topics on the first day of class. I wrote about how 1960s music reflected post-war politics and culture in Britain. It was actually really interesting to research. Here they do most of their work independently, there is very little homework or required reading. Most professors just give out a reading list and expect you to go check books out of the library that interest you and do it yourself. So I got some books about 1960s Britain and used Hamilton's online journal resources to write my essay. When it was done, it ended up being 2495, I don't think I could have gotten much closer if I tried!

We haven't gotten our grades back yet, but apparently here a 70 is an A+. He said he is grading these essays out of 65, so a 50 will be an awesome grade. The grading scale is certainly going to take some getting used to!

The course was a really great introduction to coursework over here. We got really lucky with the professor and he made it interesting. A few groups of students didn't come over for the pre-sessional course and they got here like 2 days before classes began. I can't imagine coming over and jumping into classes! I think we were so much better prepared after having done that.

The Arcadia group at the Mumbles

"The Big Freeze" in Britain

WALES...finally

The morning we were supposed to leave London to come to Wales we woke up and were told we couldn't go because of the snow and that if we did try we would probably get stranded along the way. We went out and started walking around London again just to get a phone call an hour later that they changed their minds and we could leave. So we hurried back to the hotel, got our stuff together and headed to the train station. The train ride was really pretty, but with snow everywhere I felt like I was looking at upstate NY, it was just snow covered farm land everywhere we looked!

We were all a little disappointed when we got here because the people at Swansea weren't expecting us and we didn't have anything we needed and our rooms and flats were really dirty. After we all found our rooms in various flats around the Student Village, we took a taxi to a giant Tesco Extra, basically a Super Walmart. We were really hungry and when we got to the shopping center where Tesco was all we could find to eat was a Pizza Hut, so that's what we had our first night in Swansea...kinda disappointing. We had a very successful shopping trip though and got ourselves some food and towels and other stuff we needed. Once we got back, I cleaned my room and unpacked and started to feel a little better once it felt more like my room.

The next day we went down to campus to check it out and walked from there into city centre. Campus is about 2.5 miles from the Student Village, all downhill. From there, city centre is about 2 miles of a flat walk along the beach. The city itself is pretty small but relatively spread out. There are a lot of shops and stuff to do in city centre, and the beach is right across the road from campus. Everything is really well connected with a bus system, we just had to wait a few days to get our bus passes.

It is hard thinking back now to the first few days when we knew so little and we were really confused about where we were because Swansea was nothing like we expected. I think a lot of us thought it would be a typical little British town with lots of little cottages and everything within walking distance. It is really strange having to rely on public transportation to get everywhere, I can't just roll out of bed an hour or 30 mins before class, I have to give it at least 2 hours. I really do love Swansea now, even though it didn't turn out to be quite as I imagined it would. It is nice to be experiencing something different than Hamilton's little campus for a while and being in a city instead of a small town.

Our School

The Campus

The beach directly across from campus

LONDON

Our trip started with 3 days in London for Arcadia orientation. I met up with the other 4 students on the Arcadia program going to Swansea the first night we were there and we all started hanging out together. We had some boring orientation lectures, like the differences in the education systems and how we should be representing America, but we also had some pretty cool lectures, like when a member of the House of Commons and of the House of Lords came in to tell us some about politics. We also got to do some sightseeing, they took us on a tour of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater and to a show at the Phoenix Theater called Blood Brothers, with Sporty Spice playing the lead role. My friends and I did some sightseeing on our own too one day in the snow. We were really excited to take pictures with the Palace guards in the snow, but apparently Britain shuts down in the snow and we found that to be amazingly true when we got to Buckingham Palace to find that there were no guards outside.

We ended up with a lot of funny stories from London, like the night we finally figured out the tube system. We got on a tube that we thought was going to where we wanted then after like 2 stops we realized we should get off and check it out again. Turns out it was wrong and then we realized the railings inside the tube show you the color of the line so after that we had it all figured out. A lot of people went out and started drinking right away from the day we got there, we didn't even have our first drink until the 3rd night...we felt so lame. We went to Harrods and acted like complete tourists walking around and looking at everything we couldn't afford then we went to the Arcade and I bought a westie stuffed animal because westies are popular over here and I miss my puppies and it was all I could afford!

Since we got here, everyone has been apologizing to us for Britain and it’s awful cold and snow. They don’t understand that every one of the Americans who are here are from places where it snows way more than here. The temperatures have been right around 0 degrees Celsius and they are walking around bundled up like I’d imagine people in Alaska. It is quite ridiculous. I just can’t get over all the people saying I’m so sorry for my country for welcoming you with this kind of horrible weather…I just want to tell them all the I love the snow and I can’t imagine a better way to see a country! It is beautiful!

London was amazing, I really hope we get to go back and spend some more time there! It is a lot like NYC which I love, but I definitely like London better. London isn't quite as overwhelming and it's easier to get around and I definitely felt safer than in NYC.

London!

Shakespeare's Globe Stage

Exploring London in the Snow

Our first drinks in the UK

Crossing the Big Pond

My journey started with a few days in NJ with Jane where we visited NYC for New Years. My flight got cancelled so I got there a lot later than planned on New Years Eve. Since we were a lot later than originally planned, we were only able to get within 10 blocks of the ball but the excitement and screaming of the crowd made it totally worth it! There were great fireworks afterwards too! We spent the next few days just hanging out and shopping before my flight left on January 3.

I flew IcelandAir from JFK to Reykjavík to London. I watched 500 Days of Summer and then slept for about 3 hours. There was a lot of turbulence so I didn't feel so well for the first part of the flight and they didn't provide us with meals so I paid for a sandwich which I didn't eat too much of. The flight left about an hour late from JFK because we had to sit on the runway forever so we got into Iceland late. I really wanted to get a souvenir from Iceland, so I walked as quickly as I could to the shops at the complete opposite end of the concourse from my gate and ended up buying a postcard and a pair of nice Icelandic wool socks because the tshirts were pretty lame. I had no idea how much I was paying because I didn’t know the Icelandic currency, but I think it ended up being about $11, so not a bad purchase.

The flight out of Iceland ended up getting delayed by almost 2 hours because of technical problems with the plane so we had to wait for them to get a different plane and do all their checks and whatnot. So I was in a rush when I got to London because I didn’t want to miss the group transportation. Turns out there were a bunch of flight problems, so they held the transportation late and I made it after much confusion about where to go. London was total chaos when I got there. I practically ran from my plane to baggage claim. Luckily customs went smoothly and very quickly and then both of my bags made it even though the baggage took forever. I got out to the area where everyone was standing with signs expecting to see someone from Arcadia waiting but after what felt like forever of looking around I couldn't find anyone and I figured I must have missed it. So I called the Arcadia office and they said someone was there and I still couldn't find them so I went to airport information and they started making announcements. Finally airport information called Arcadia again for me and we figured out I was supposed to go to a different concourse which was really far away so as tired as I already was, I walked the 15-20 min walk underground pulling my 2 50 pound suitcases. I did finally find the group though and we got to the hotel and everyone pretty much passed out.

NYC for New Years

View of Iceland from the airplane as the sun was rising

Where am I and why am I here?

I am spending this semester in Swansea, Wales at Swansea University. I am here through Arcadia University, a huge study abroad program based in Pennsylvania. Why Wales is the question everyone asks...so here is my answer. They had the courses I wanted to take, simple as that. I was originally looking for a course in interface design and web design and I only found 2 schools that had them, Swansea and one in London. Wales is different and I know too many people who go to London, so I figured why not? It is also right next to the beach and in a great place to do a lot of traveling from and I can sail while I'm here. I learned after I got here that Swansea is the University closest to the water in the world, it beats lots of other schools that you think would be closer like in CA or FL by about a meter.

I am living in a flat in the Student Village, about 2 miles away from campus. The Village has mostly first year students because after that most people get their own house with their friends. I live with one other American on my program and 5 Swansea students, 2 from England and 3 from Wales. They are all 18 and they're all looking for houses for next year and talking to landlords and viewing houses and talking about deposits...it seems so weird to have to worry about stuff like that! Our flat is made up of all singles and we have a bathroom and a kitchen. We have to cook for ourselves which is a big change for me since I've never in my life cooked for myself, but I've been getting by just fine. Here is my address in case anyone wants to send me anything, I would love to get some mail!!!

Julie Webster

Hendrefoelan Student Village

Woodside Flat 225 Room 6

Swansea University

Swansea SA2 7QW

Wales, UK

My phone number is 07576935503 but my phone is really awesome and it's a Skype phone, so if you call me from skype on your computer it will ring my phone making it a free call for both you and me! So skype me at julie.g.webster anytime!

Here is a map, Swansea is in a little green part on the second peninsula up from the bottom left!

Welcome

So I created this blog before I left the US and have yet to write in it...go figure. I have done pretty good at keeping up with a real journal though. Now I'm going to update this to where I am now and what I've done so far then try to keep it up to date from now on!

For those of you who want to follow my adventures in Wales, here you go! Let the journal entries begin!