A Game, an Essay and a Nice Long Bath

Hello!

The last few days have been pretty hectic, but hopefully now that classes are starting this week I can get into a pattern and post more regularly.

Last Wednesday I played in my first lacrosse game in about two years, and it was a long one. Instead of playing 12 or 15 minute quarters and stopping the clock when the ball goes out of bounds or someone scores, they just play 20 minute running time quarters. This sounds like it would be in my favor, and, if the field we played on wasn't in swamplike condition, it probably would have been. However, with the ball not moving much when it hits the ground, and therefore not going out of bounds anyway, the game seemed to go on forever- It probably didn't help that we only had one sub for the entire team  either. But, we won and it felt great to get back on the pitch (that is British for field)!

We finished up our orientation class about British culture and politics on Thursday and now all I have to do for that class is write a 2,500 word essay on one of six specific questions the professor has given us to choose from.  He was also very specific on how we should write our paper while answering the question. Apparently here each essay question they give out has to be approved by 3 different people before they can use it in a course.  I think thats because in the school system here most classes don't have homework and base most, if not all,  of the grade on exams and essays at the end of the semester.  I have until the 7th to get it done though so I imagine I'll be doing that throughout the week.

On Friday I started registering for classes. I'm only allowed to take 50 credits total this semester (which is similar to 15 or so back home) and 10 of those were already used up by my orientation class. As of now I am taking 3 classes (which account for my other 40 credits) and only actually have lectures on Wednesday and Thursday (I think I'll be taking some long weekend trips!) The classes I am taking are: Control Systems, Marketing Management and American Word-American Image. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get into the California Dreamin' class, but, in the last class I listed we will be reading about eight 20th century American  novels and relating them to film, art and pop culture so it seems like it will be just as cool.

Saturday we had our last group excursion with the study abroad program and we went to Bath. Bath is an old Roman town that was well known throughout the empire because it has a natural hot spring that the Romans deemed as a sacred and very holy place given to them by the gods. They made a huge pubic bath house and temple there and the city became a place that people from everywhere in the empire visited to worship or relax or whatever they felt like. I thought the city was absolutely amazing. The bath itself is the most well preserved Roman spa in the world and it would have been so cool to be alive 1,500 years ago to see everything still standing and painted and taken care of. The rest of the town was very cool as well. There were a lot of street performers and little tea houses and restaurants and shops that gave the city a really cool atmosphere.

Later that night, my roommates and I all went out for the first time since I've gotten here. It was fun to be able to hang out with all of them at once and we ended up going to a club in town... On the way into town I met 3 British kids on the bus who were all majoring in American Studies and wanted to live in the USA when they graduate- smart kids! They said we have the best tv shows and food and music. Most of the people on the bus were really drunk and started some weird chants on the way into town. The English and the Welsh don't get along too well here, and after everyone had done chants that included Sweet Caroline, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song, ABBA and some other random pub chants, the English started singing their national anthem and the Welsh responded the same way. It ended with all of the English people baa-ing like sheep by the time we arrived at the bus stop (the English call the Welsh "Sheep Shaggers" because they have so many sheep here).
The club itself was pretty fun, but I'm not much of a club person and I probably looked really awkward the whole time we were there. Also, drinks were pretty expensive and it took 45 minutes to get one, and you had to scream your order to the bartender because it was so loud in there.

Sorry for the length of the post, as I said, hopefully I'll start getting on here more regularly and then you won't have to read a 4 page entry every time.

Be safe, be kind and be responsible.

Lacrosse team after the victory!

The sign outside of the Roman Baths. 

The Roman Baths- this is the natural spring that still feeds the main one, it also used to feed all of the other smaller baths too. 

Floor Mosaic. They used to be everywhere at the baths this is one of the more well preserved ones. 

The main bath from above. 

A statue of some lady. The numbers on the stand below her are for these little walkie-talkie tour cell phone things we got. 

The main bath. It was a cold day and the baths were steaming the whole time, it was really cool!

The main bath with the Abbey behind it. This picture is better than the one I got on a postcard. No joke. 

Me with my walkie-talkie/cell phone tour guide. 

I took this picture because of the archway over the street. Normally I wouldn't put it in the blog because its really not that cool. But, the best part about this picture is that there is a sign above that girls head, and it looks like she just fell in love in The Sims. I did not plan this, but just got lucky with a well timed picture. It amused me, and hopefully it amused you too. 

The Abbey. The two kids in the hats and backpacks are Alex and Kyle. They're from ISU also. 

One of the street performers. He was juggling flaming sticks while riding a 6 foot tall unicycle at this point. He was pretty funny too. 

Part of the Circus. A place where rich people live in bath. 

Look how big this tree is!

One of my favorite parts of the baths. This was on the front of the temple back in the day. Nobody really knows who it is of- some say Neptune, others a Celtic god and some a male gorgon. One theory is the face and hair look like that of someone (in this case Neptune) at the time when they are laying back into a bath (hair going all around and wild, etc.). I don't really care who it is. I think its cool. 

Goodnight all!

Oh Hey...

One more thing,

I had my first lacrosse practice to day in like two years... it was interesting. I am out of shape, but excited to get back into it for the semester. I also get to start in our first game... ON WEDNESDAY!

More to come...

"Riley still highly smiley"

Alright,

It has been a few days since my last post, and, as I know you are all more anxious for this than all of Germany is for David Hasselhoff's next single (I heard he'll be doing a rendition of "Oops I did it Again...), I apologize.

The last few days  have been pretty busy. I generally have class for either one large chunk of time during the day or a few very inconveniently timed blocks during the day, so I haven't had a lot of free time when its sunny out to explore the city... BUT, on Friday I got a few hours so I headed to City Centre! Its a pretty cool place really. There are a lot of just walking streets with shops and pubs and restaurants all over and I spent a little over 2 hours wandering. I ended up seeing some of their port and a church and most of the major streets. I also saw the Dylan Thomas center, and I'll probably end up going back there to check it out pretty soon. There is also a place called Plantasia that looks like a giant greenhouse pyramid with a bright green light at the top. I'm pretty sure its some sort of exhibit thing, but I did see a sign that says children can have their birthday parties there, so it must be fun right! Maybe I'll check it out.

The next day we took a trip put on by the study abroad office to an old coal mine called Big Pit and then later to Cardiff to spend a few hours roaming around the city. Big Pit itself was really cool. We got to take a tour down into the old mine- its no longer operational and heard the history of the mining industry in Britain and the effects of the closing of the mines on all of the surrounding areas. At one point they were mining over 250,000 tons each year out of the Big Pit Mine alone!
After our mine tour we went to Cardiff  (the largest city and capital of Wales), where they gave us about 2 and a half hours to walk around and stuff. It was nice to be able to walk around without all of my luggage this time! We walked past a lot of cool stuff including the Cardiff Castle and the Millennium Stadium, which is the National rugby stadium of Wales. I plan on going back and touring the inside of the castle, but since we only had a little bit of time and it costs about 11 pounds, we wanted to have more time to do it.  There were so many pedestrian streets filled with shops and cool stores, a few hours wasn't enough. I saw a sweatshirt with Mowgli on it and he was carrying a boom box and it said, "Where's the Jungle?" I thought it was funny.

That night, the bar manager told me they would be playing the Bears/Packers game at the bar on Sunday night and that we should stop in. So a lot of the Americans and a few British people (including my roommate James) went to watch the game. During this time, the manager also told me that he was looking at getting onto the American football team for Wales and he was going to a tryout/practice next Sunday and he invited me and a few other Americans to go with him and help him practice and get ready. It should be a fun time! haha

The first picture here is where I got the title for this post. I found it in this newspaper thing that we can get for free on the bus. It mostly has articles on sports and popular culture but it also has some really funny articles too. One of the articles the other day talked about a British primary (elementary) school that was teaching their kids about World War II and to show the kids how scary it was and what it was like to live back then they showed clips on tv of the Blitzkrieg and said London was being bombed. To cap it all off they sent all of the kids (ages 4-11) into an underground shelter and set off a firework outside. I guess the school got a few angry calls from parents about their children being scared and having nightmares... I suppose I don't really see what is wrong with the whole situation...  Either way, there are times when I find myself laughing out loud while reading some of these articles. Riley the smiley dog was a featured article on page 3... and I thought it was great.

 This is a great cereal. It tastes like Life with chocolate in the middle- Mikey would definitely like it. 

A street performer in Cardiff- walking a tightrope and playing a fiddle!

They have Toys R Us's here... 

Some central plaza thing in downtown Swansea

Cool street in Swansea

Swansea "Castle" its like two walls that are falling down... cooler than the American castles though!

One of the pedestrian streets in Cardiff, very cool. 

World War II Memorial- Cardiff

Millennium Stadium

Me in front of the back gate at the Cardiff Castle- the lady wouldn't let us sneak in. 

Cardiff Castle

Cardiff City Hall

Dragon on top of Cardiff City hall- sick!

Circle of rocks in a park. 

Cheers!

Bus Passes and Early Classes

Greetings Earth People!

When we last left our hero he had just returned home from a long bus excursion to the Gower Peninsula (I think). Since then, not much has happened. We got into our orientation class pretty heavily over the last few days. I have had to be at campus by nine in the morning three of the last four days, and had to stay until five for the same amount, so there hasn't been a whole lot of time to explore the city or surrounding area- hopefully that changes when regular classes begin! But the class is very interesting and time passes fast!

We just finished up talking about major cultural themes in British film and now are moving on to music. Its really cool how accurately contemporary forms of expression reflect political, social and cultural issues of their time. I suppose that's how it should be, but in the United Kingdom it seems like they are a little more real about it rather than with the glitz and glam of Hollywood and the current popular music scene (at least I HOPE movies like Beerfest and Napoleon Dynamite and artists like Lady Gaga and  Ke$ha don't paint accurate pictures of current cultural themes in our country!).

My roommates are all still busy studying for their exams, and since its only light from about 8:30 to 4:30 I end up spending a lot of time in my room reading and playing spider solitaire. There is also a bar here at the student village I live at (not to mention a bar and a convenience store that sells cases of beer and bottles of wine on campus) and often times me and a few other people on my program will go and have a few pints and watch a football (soccer) match at night so we don't  disturb our roommates' studying.

Fortunately, the days are getting longer and my roommates are finishing their exams- and I won't be having 8 hours of lecture a day- so there will be many more stories and exciting tales and pictures soon. Until then, here are some pictures of my roommates. Also, throughout my trip I plan to take pictures of things I find funny or cool so I'll start posting them as well. So if there is a weird picture of a Taco Bell in the middle of a landscape album that's why (I haven't seen a Taco Bell yet though).

Ryan (he's from Colorado)

 Aaron

 Claire (She's from Pennsylvania)

James

Lee (With Laura and Zoe) 

 Laura

Ellie (on the right)

Tom

Zoe

Thats all my roommates, now here is something I found at the grocery store. 

Canned "American" Hot Dogs... I had to buy them, they were only a pound for 6! I'll tell you how they taste when I eat them... If I eat them... 

Just kidding I will, it will be a nice change from bell peppers and rice!

This picture was taken specifically for Colin Hueser, but hopefully everyone enjoys it. They had a lot of fun cards in a convenience store I went into today. Maybe I'll take pictures of more. But I liked this one... 

See you later!

Gower Peninsula, and the Beginning of Class.

First off, I'd like to apologize for not having posted for the last few days. I know at this time, I don't have any followers, but to the 4 or 5 I might eventually get, I'm sure that if you had been following me at this time you would be very anxious and frustrated that it took me so long to post more stuff. In my defense, I couldn't get on the internet here until today and now I have some catching up to do. Thank God I typed what I wanted to say the day things happened and just saved them so I could copy paste them!

And now, back to business.

This post is going to be covering the last few days, and I expect probably the rest of the posts to be multi-day ones too, unless I have a lot of cool stories or continue to have lots of free time, in which case I'll probably just be posting to read myself talk. And so it goes.

Our orientation and trip to the Gower Peninsula went pretty well. The Gower is Britain's oldest and first nature reserve. It is a very pretty place and I intend on going back there sometime to spend some more time. Our field trip took us about 3 and a half hours- 3 hours and 15 minutes of which were in a bus (it turns out, coach buses are not very comfortable when you're dipping and weaving around coastal Welsh roads, I almost hurled). Usually they would have let us out more, but the weather was bad and I guess they just didn't trust us not to jump in the puddles. It was very beautiful country though, and I should have some better pictures posted another day after I have gone back (but for now you'll have to deal with these!).

Today we started our British culture and politics class in which we study almost all aspects of British culture and history since 1945. It was very interesting and my professor is very entertaining. Its also nice to be able to take a history type class and not have to deal with numbers and formulas for a change. Unfortunately, the main theme to his lecture today was that the last 65 years of British life has been pretty bleak for the most part... I think he said it gets better though. I'll let you know if he has any really cool facts.

The pictures below are from my excursion to the Gower Peninsula. I should be going back on my own some other time and I'll get better pictures.

 A map of the Gower

 Me and Alex

 Just some pictures at Rosili

 There was so much sheep poop. 

 If you check the map, The Mumbles is a fishing village near where I'm living. This is a fisherman there. Hopefully I can get out and catch some stuff while I'm here.