Good Morning One and All,

I'd like to begin this with a shout out to two of my homies, Mr. Dressen and Nate Dog. Mr. Dressen was one of my English teachers way back in the days of my compulsory education at  Hastings High School. Through my days in his class watching baseball (Go slow for Slowey), stealing bricks from cemeteries (which I believe is still in the back of the Explorer- ask Danny), and flirting with girls in the back of the room I learned a lot of great things not only about the English language, but about life. I also learned, through our extensive study of Henry David Thorough, Dylan Thomas and a host of other authors, that scribbling a few words down on paper isn't necessarily a lame thing to do. Since then, Ernest Hemingway, Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, Charles Bukowski  and the fictional character Hank Moody have also driven that point home for me. For that, Mr. Dressen, I thank you. I was happy to hear that you are actively following this blog. I also would like to add that I now feel a little bit more pressure to make this little bit of amateur electronic literature as sound as possible. Hopefully I can meet your standards! As for Nate Dog, well, I never really listened to much of his stuff, but I was recently informed that he passed away a few days ago. Hopefully he and Tupac are livin' it up in the Gangster's Paradise.


My first bloggable experience since my last post came last Wednesday when the men's lacrosse captain cancelled practice so we could all go cheer on the women's team for their last game home game of the season. It was only the 3rd or 4th girls game I had ever been to, and my attention to the game at hand was about the same as it was for the previous few. Minimal. Girls lacrosse doesn't particularly interest me. There is no hitting, no cool shots or fakes, the stick checks are lame, and it's just generally less fun to watch. I could say the same about most female sports to be honest, but I do have to agree with Title IX when it comes to beach volleyball. In fact, I would even say men couldn't play beach volleyball if we could somehow do the same with a women's team in some other sport, but that is a completely different topic.
I can say, the only saving grace for the game was the fact that 3 of the guys from my team were refs- and none of them really knew the rules. They pretty much walked back and forth around the field looking lost and getting yelled at for missed calls by members of both teams. Thank goodness I didn't know the rules! Those girls were fierce- like Tyra!
The act of being at the game was fun though. With all of the guys there most of them brought their sticks and some snacks and stuff so we just hung out on the sidelines playing catch and eating Doritos and salsa. We even had a rugby ball which I attempted to kick and failed horribly at on my first few attempts. I do have pictures of some activities below.


On Friday night at about 12:30 a few friends and I were enjoying a quiet night in having a few beers and playing poker in the kitchen of my house and all of a sudden a strange female began to knock furiously on the window. At the time it looked like she was wearing just a regular red hoodie and she then proceeded to yell, "Hey, let me in!"
I looked around at my friends to see if any of them recognized her. None of them did. I replied, "Who are you?"
To which she simply said, "Just let me in!"
I obliged and nodded towards the door signaling that I would indeed let her in. I just hoped she didn't have some sort of weapon or bludgeoning object she would use on me the moment I opened the door and then steal my wallet and run off. Thankfully, she didn't. I was, however, met with another surprise. When I opened the door I quickly realized she was dressed in a full body, furry, red dragon suit! I couldn't help but laugh a little when I saw this and all I could think was, "only in the U.K."
It turns out that our new dragon friend actually didn't know a single soul that lived in our house, and  she didn't even live in the village. She was staying the night at her friend's place and on her walk there she saw us sitting around the table and decided it looked like fun so she wanted to join.
So we sat around the table playing poker and drinking and talking with a very drunk lady dragon. At one point she looked at me and said, "You know, you're a very attractive boy."
"Well thank you" I replied, "you are a very attractive dragon" and the night continued.
She ended up leaving around 2:00 or 2:30 in the morning, and while we were all about ready to go to bed, we had to admit, it was kind of sad to see her go. I don't think any of us ever learned her real name, since we just called her "Dragon Lady" the whole time, but it was one of the greatest surprises we could have ever imagined and it turned what would have been a pretty normal night into a night worth blogging about.


Another topic that has recently come to my attention (that actually has nothing to do with Wales or my life here at all) is the nationwide acceptance of a new song on youtube called "Friday" by one Rebecca Black. It turns out, while I've been away, the increasingly mediocre music tastes of the American public have gotten even worse- a feat I no longer thought possible with the recent achievement of super star status by performers like Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber. I am responsible for one of the 35,613,780 views, and I am not proud of the fact. Within 40 seconds I was ready to close the tab and go double Van Gogh on myself- you may be happy to hear I refrained. I stayed with it and ended up watching the whole thing and all I could think was, "What the heck America?!" I know our government is probably into some pretty shady shit, but we must have done something pretty bad for God to lay this one on us. Apparently this song is now on iTunes, the girl has been on multiple talk shows, is about to release an acoustic version, and is now about to become a millionaire because of this song, leaving me to ask myself, "Dylan, what kind of song can you make up that can exploit the increasingly poor music taste and judgement of the impressionable people of the greatest country in the world?"
I understand that paragraph was a little bit harsh, but I feel like there has to be a point where people draw the line. Sometimes it seems like we're drowning in a cesspool of "talent" and these new stars are all just taking the batteries out of their clocks when they hit 14 after so they can ride the fame wave a little bit longer. I mean, more power to them for sure, its good business for them. But to be honest, if a club spends ten grand to get a cast member from "The Jersey Shore" to make an appearance, they lost my business hands down. Maybe this is what happens every generation with musicians and single serving celebrities, and this is just my first time realizing it. I suppose that's just the American Dream in action.

Speaking of the American Dream, I must get back to writing an essay due in a couple days on how the story of Jay Gatsby exemplifies the perils and possibilities of said dream. The sun rises and falls fast here in Wales and I'm hoping to not have to keep the midnight oil burning again tonight.   I hope you all enjoyed todays post and I'm sorry it kind of trailed off into a rant at the end there. Pics of the lax game below:

Only picture of the actual game.

Game supplies. 

Barney, and his awesome homemade sweater.

Tim, he's American. 

Tom.

Action rugby shot of John.

More action shots.

Refs hard at work.

What is going on?

Men's captain, Howard.

Some of the guys. John, Tom, Barney, Will.

Fin. 

PI DAY!

Hi there,

Just to let everyone know, today, March 14th, is Pi Day (3/14 ~ 3.14) and thats about it. I really have nothing else to say on the matter, except I know my mother probably finds it pretty amusing- just over 11 more months until the next Hootie Hoo Day too! Love you mom!

Over the last week, I can think of a few events that distinctly stick out in my mind as being out of the ordinary. And when I say out of the ordinary, I don't mean like crazy Indiana Jones style adventure, but more of a simple break from the routine of class, grocery shopping, and watching rugby and football matches at a pub.

The first cool thing I did was take a 5 hour walk with Tom, one of my housemates. It was on a Saturday and both of us were kinda bored and there weren't too many other people in the house so we went out to enjoy a nice afternoon stroll. We ended up finding this little pathway that wound into the woods and down by a stream and through a field and all kinds of stuff. Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera because I didn't know we were going walking in such a cool place. But I will go back down there and get some pictures another time and probably make a better blog post about it.
On our walk I found a perfect place to go camping for a night by the stream and we also found a dirt bike course with jumps and stuff. Somehow, we also found a real walking path and decided to take that instead of just walking through bushes. We wound up down by the beach and stopped at a pub to eat and walked home. All in all, a very successful day/walk.

Chronologically, the next of these extraordinary events was a little hike I went on with my Canadian Colleague, Pause.
Basically he saw a big hill in town that he wanted to climb to the top of.  I said I'd go with him and keep him company in his quest to suppress the growing human desire to conquer the forces of nature around him by championing this hill and establishing his dominance over all things in the bay area.
Now, this hill, known by the locals as "Kilvey Hill" because that's it's name, is the tallest hill in Swansea and it stands about 633 feet high. In fact, according to the Wikipedia article on this hill, it is not a hill at all but rather a "sub marilyn" that has a great panoramic view of the surrounding area as well as a transmission station at the top. Also, according to an ancient legend, the Romans had once climbed this hill too, and maybe even built something on the top (oooohh).
We found a bus that took us to the base of the hill, where, conveniently enough, there was a trail and a sign that read, "Kilvey Community Woodland." Brilliant! We had found the correct place to begin. So we set off on the trail up this majestic sub marilyn in hopes of glory, fame and a decent picture to put in this blog. What we got was more than I could have ever hoped for- not one, but 37 pictures to chose from to put in this blog!
You'll notice in the pictures below that this excursion was more than a simple walk. It was fairly steep sometimes, and there were more than a few times when my fellow traveler and I were panting. We also made it our duty to explore as much of this hill as possible, so whenever we saw a small path through some tall grass or something, we took it!
One of the aforementioned paths that we found about 2/3 of the way up the hill led us to a small corral with two horses in it. They were very friendly and they let us pet them and, well, thats about it. We continued our journey to the top of the great Mount Kilvey-monjaro and about 10 minutes later, we were at our destination! The view from the top was really quite nice, and I even got a picture with me in it (check out the pictures below!).
The first thing we saw when we got to the top was a big mound with some rocks in it... could this be an ancient roman ruin? Could all of the legends and lore actually be true? Probably. But the world may never know... We also found a huge pasture surrounded by a barbed wire fence. The fence, however, was broken in many places so Pause and I figured it would be safe to go in and look around. After about 20 minutes of walking all the way around this giant field we determined that it was indeed safe to be in there. While we were walking back to our point of entry Pause pulled out a flask. "What do ya say to a small victory drink, eh? I got some rum ya hoser."
I figured it couldn't hurt and decided to take a small swig out of the flask... Big mistake. This was the worst rum I had ever drank. I spent the next 5 minutes trying not to throw up because that stuff was terrible.
Here I was on the top of this huge hill, that could arguably be considered the 8th natural wonder of the world because of its immense size and beauty and the shroud of mystery that conceals each and every one of its ancient and terrible secrets, and all I could do was curse that god forsaken rum. I eventually remembered I had brought a bottle of water and took a drink from that and all was better.
We continued the exploration of the top of the hill when Pause noticed something that kind of resembled a dark, spooky path leading into the woods. We decided to go in and check it out. It turns out, it wasn't nearly as dark or spooky as we had thought, but our sunglasses just made it seem that way. Walking through this forest though, I all of a sudden realized why Robin Hood and his Merry Men decided to live in the woods. Not only did they get out of paying taxes, but the woods here are absolutely awesome! We entertained the idea of getting a tent and camping out there one night in the woods, but decided against it when we noticed huge piles of what looked like animal poop laying everywhere. I would also like to emphasize the words HUGE and EVERYWHERE in the previous sentence, because it is completely true. Whatever animal dropped those deuces is not an animal I want in the woods that I am camping in (poop pictures below).
After this we decided to turn around and walk back down the hill. We had lacrosse practice in a few hours and had to figure out a way to get home.

A few days after the hill excursion, the lacrosse team had the semi final match against Imperial College in London. We didn't get to play in Hyde Park, but we did get to wake up extra early to take a 4 and a half our bus ride to play the game, which we ended up losing 5-8. The worst part was that it was a winnable game, but for the most part we played well and fought until the very end. Swansea had never made it that far in tournament play, so it is definitely something to be proud of. Another positive that came out of the loss was that I finally got to shave. I made a joke a few weeks back that I wouldn't shave until we lost or until the season was over and everyone took it seriously and I went about a month without shaving.... It was difficult. But I got to shave and plan on getting a haircut here soon so that should be good, and I'm sure it would make grandpa happy.

Other than those trips there hasn't been too much. The weather has been very nice the last few weeks and I've made quite a few trips down to the beach with friends to play catch or hang out or have a fire or something. I have a pair of shorts that have smelled like campfire for about a week and a half now and I'm not even a little upset about it. Everyone here seems to be getting excited for the better weather and we have started making plans for bbq's on the beach and weekend camping trips in May and June.

Thats all I've got for now. Some pictures below of the Kilvey hike and other stuff.

The hill we walked up to get to the bottom of Kilvey Hill.

Sign.

Mumbles Lighthouse in the distance.

A view of the city. 

Horses.

Another city view.

Swansea Port and stuff. 

Pause in the pasture.

View of the other side of the hill. 

More pasture thing.

Could these be Roman ruins???

Some gross bench thing at the top. If it was made by the Romans I don't know. But it did have some graffiti which I doubt the Romans originally put on there.

Me at the top. 

Not so spooky woods.

Spooky? More like "poopy"

One pile compared to Pause's foot... woof!

The End. 

A bumble to Mumbles and a bit of ChilLaxin'

Greetings one and all!

Once again I will begin this post like so many of the other ones with an apology for the lack of attention being paid to this blog by myself. I suppose if this blog was a goldfish, it would be belly up in a algae coated fishbowl due to my negligence.

I will start this one with answering some questions posed at the end of the previous post. I did end up going to Mumbles (if that wasn't inferred by the title) and I still have no idea about the birds and cannot give you a definitive answer on that question. As for the question "What the heck is going on right now?" well on that one I was just trying to be amusing. The saga continues...

I ended up walking to the small, posh fishing village of Mumbles via the beach and the promenade that goes all the way there. It was a very nice walk and I did it with my new Canadian buddy and lacrosse teammate, Pause. Pause is a very rotund and funny kid with some odd insight on certain topics and a lack of a filter from his brain to his mouth, similar to one Mark Roberts. Our walk was filled with talk of a variety of topics including lacrosse, women, living in house boats, traveling and disregarding do not enter signs. Pause had also heard of a castle that was in Mumbles and on the way to our destination and suggested that we try to find it. I obliged.
The only problem this posed was that neither of us knew exactly where this castle was, but, as any good adventurer will tell you, "To find something in an unknown location, you must first arrive at the location and then open your eyes." Ok so that might be crap advice and I personally don't know any Frodos or Aragons but I'm sure that if they were in our position they would have done the same thing we did- looked for a sign or some sort of clue that the castle might be nearby. And when I saw a place called the Castle Garden, I figured that the castle we were searching for may be quite near indeed.
The Castle Garden didn't look like a garden at all, but rather a path through an area of ancient deciduous growth. It was heavily guarded by a thick wooden gate (probably made of some sort of semi-hardy wood) that had a block of wood chained to the back to ensure the ability of said gate to close. After slight deliberation and amazing tactics, we pushed the gate open and continued on our quest, only looking back to take photographs of our conquest (seen below).
We continued on this path for about 2 minutes- an amount that was only made longer due to Pause and I taking pictures of trees, it would only take about 45 seconds normally- and we made it to the stairway from hell.
Now this stairway wasn't too long but the spacing of the steps was the absolute worst. Each step was about 1.5 of a regular step length and Pause and I got slightly distraught throughout the endeavor. You have two options with steps like that. Either take larger steps and risk potential groin injury, or just grin and bear it with two times the amount of steps. Well, we grinned and beared it, finally reaching the top after a grueling 30 seconds of stairs. Woof.
Once we reached the top we were met with an amazing sight. An old, broken down structure with scaffolding around half of the outside. We had found the Castle!
The castle sucked really. We couldn't go in. Half of it was breaking. And there were signs saying we shouldn't go near it (which we ignored),
After exploring the castle grounds, and going down the "Stairs of Doom" again, we proceeded on our quest to the pier at the end of the bay. On our way we saw a big clock tower that looked interesting and decided to explore once again.
The clock tower over the town proved to be a church by the name of the 'All Saints Parish'. This church has been churching for a long, long time and is over 1000 years old. You can especially tell by the defensive style  the clock tower was built in. It was a cultural and militaristic center of the city way back when.
The church was beautiful. We didn't go in because mass was going on but we took a long walk around the outside. It turns out that they turned many of the tombstones that surrounded the church into the sidewalk that gets you to the doors (a concept that I was fairly alright with, but my Canadian colleague was freaking out abooooot). The church itself was very pretty though and maybe someday I will go inside it, possibly even attend a service? That would be slightly strange though.
From there we continued our walk to the pier which turned out to be much more entertaining that you would imagine. After the church we were within about a 20 minute walk, but we had to pass through the boat launch and the docks. While we walked by, we saw some of the best names for ships that I have ever encountered. Pictures are shown below. I don't even want to write down some of these names because I don't know if you'd believe me.
At the pier we met with 3 other Americans that were doing a similar trip (except they took a bus rather than walked- their loss right?). By the time we got there the tide was in all the way, but apparently, if you get there when the tide is out, you can walk to the light house and there is also a sweet cave on the other side of that island. I'll have to see it sometime no doubt. Pictures to come in the following weeks hopefully :)
After that we ended up in a pub watching the 6 Nations rugby match and eating fish and chips. Then, we decided to go home, and that was an adventure in itself.
On the bus from Mumbles to Swansea, I ended up dropping my wallet. This was a complete accident, not fueled by alcohol or any other chemical substance, but rather complete American ignorance and detachment. Who knew that wallets could fall out of cargo pants?!
I ended up going to the station, where I waited for the bus to come in, and asking the driver if he had found it. Thankfully someone had turned it in and my life was back in order.

As for lacrosse, our university team is doing pretty well. I don't like playing for the city team, but sometimes it is something to do. We are now in the semi-finals for the nation. We might even play in Hyde Park next Wednesday.

Today was a beautiful day in Swansea. I awoke around 9 am and read a little bit outside and watched a biographical documentary about Hunter S. Thompson. Then, around 2 pm, I got a call from some of my lacrosse teammates saying they were going to play catch on the beach and they wanted to know if I was interested. Of course I was. I was soon on my way to the beach with a lacrosse stick and waterbottle mix of whiskey and coke. At the beach we played catch for about an hour and a half and then we decided to get into the fire business. And business was booming. Soon we were competing for the best fire on the beach with our similar fire-making neighbors. We won. After 7 hours of continuous kindling, drying, burning and the occasional friendly banter with what we perceived to be a formidable opponent, we had established ourselves as the dominant force of fire tribes, and how glorious it was.
We basked in our glory until 10:45 when we realized we had to leave to catch the last bus home. The fire and the beach were amazing. They were a tribute to what is true and primal and real and good in all of us and aided us in bonding at a subconscious and complete level. I don't want to sound gay or nothin' but it was truly a spiritual event. (Inspiration taken from a mixture of Hunter S. Thompson and Orgazmo for previous entry).

Basic Paraphrase: The fire was fun. And my friends and I had fun.

That is the basic update of the cool things have happened recently. I will try to repost soon.

Beach on the walk to Mumbles/Same one we had the fire on

Mumbles in the distance.

Swansea behind us.

The gate of the Castle Garden. Oh no!

Castle Garden. 

Castle with scaffolding. 

Disobeyed safety sign. 

Wicked stairway. 

Militaristic church.

Funniest boat. 

Other funny boats...

Va Va Voom.

End of the walk. Lighthouse at mumbles.

Samesies.

Dragon on the pier. Kinda cool. But you had to pay to go on the pier so we didn't. It wasn't THAT cool.