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.