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
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