Wales

This past weekend I traveled to the western coast of Wales, north of Haverfordwest, and spent the weekend at an adventure lodge called 'Preseli Venture.'  I departed from London midday on Friday and arrived in Wales late Friday evening.  We were served dinner when we arrived (the trip was all inclusive, except alcohol of course), and everyone started to get to know each other.  I only knew one other person on the trip, but all the students were Arcadia study abroad students in some way shape or form.  The first night was pretty laid back a group of us played jenga (some pretty heated games of jenga as well).  Eventually, however, some people thought it would be cool to walk to the beach from the lodge, about a mile, IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT. It was so dark.  While the walk ended in a failure after we trudged a half mile on muddy terrain, there was one thing that I enjoyed.  STARS.  I had forgotten how awesome it was to see millions of stars in the night sky.  In London, I don't even notice them, they don't exist, but in the middle-of-nowhere, Wales they do exist and it was breathtaking.  It reminded me of lying on the dock at Lake Placid just looking at the stars.  Good memories.

The next morning after breakfast I was scheduled to go hiking.  Since I didn't really plan on doing much hiking in London, I wasn't exactly prepared for this.  I ended up hiking in jeans and indoor soccer shoes, but it wasn't a too strenuous or tough hike.  It was beautiful though. The sun was shining bright, and the path followed the right along the coastline where Wales meets the Irish sea.  To one side was the blue/green ocean and to the other side were infinite rolling hills of green.  This reminded me of Ireland.  We walked along the cliffs that just seem to explode out of the clear water, past pebbly beaches and eventually back to the lodge where we relaxed before lunch.  I passed the time by reading a book about kayaking (an event I would be partaking in tomorrow).

After lunch, it was time for a little coasteering!  It's kind of a mix of hiking and climbing on the coastline, where the water meets the land.  We prepared by suiting up in cold water wetsuits, wetsuit vests and shorts,  cold water socks, life vests (buoyancy aids, as the brits call them), and helmets.  Eventually I looked something like this...

Coasteering was brilliant.  A once in a lifetime oppurtunity.  We swam into caves, climbed along rocks, jumped off cliffs and got really cold.  The water was freezing, but it was a great time.  Our guides were fantastic as well.  Steve was a quirky, fun adventure nut who kept having us eat the local plants and sea creatures and enjoyed power lunging.

(Steve lunging, i'm in the white helmet)

After coasteering, we warmed up, drove back to the lodge, showered, ate dinner, some people got HAMMERED (not me), and went to bed.  Next morning, my last day, was sea kayaking. We wore a smaller wetsuit for this, and a cool windbreaker that looked like it was from the 80s. REAL HIP!  Kayaking was cold, but not nearly as cold as coasteering, because you didn't need to get wet if you didn't really want to.  We went over the basics in a lagoon before we went out venturing fourth.  We kayaked along the coast, went in some caves, saw a gigantic seal, had a hot chocolate break and battled the wind and waves on our adventure.  This was another thing I never thought I would be able to do in my lifetime, and I am grateful I was given the chance to do things like this.  

After returning to the lodge, we packed up, said our goodbyes to the staff (they were great, each one of them, so much fun) and made our way to the train station.  We had to take a bus to Swansea because the train union was on strike, but made it back to London around 930.  With plenty of time to write my paper that was due monday night, hehe.

link for the pictures posted by the lodge:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=288448&id=45235119669

Thanks for reading!

My tour of Italia (Milan and Venice)

Once again sorry for the delay.  This past week has been busy with Arsenal games, biology labs (they call them PRACTICALS here), and social outings.

Here is, as promised, a continuation of my last post, documenting my adventure through Italy.

After leaving Rome and arriving in Milano, the next few days were fairly laid back.  First of all, it rained for probably 36 hours straight after I arrived.  I think it was making up for all the fantastic weather I had in Rome.  Rachel had class during the day, so I hung out, did homework, ate food, and just relaxed, because I was on holiday.  When Rachel wasn't in class she showed me around Milano.  We went to Duomo, strolled through the fashion district, and ate panzerotta.  Panzerotti is a stuffed pastry, similar to a calzone but smaller and more delicious.  I could have eaten 3 or 4, but I managed with only one.  We 'saved' some money by cooking dinner every night.  Saved is in quotes because we would end up buying WAY WAY WAY too much food and probably ended up costing the same amount, but there were some good leftovers too.  On that note, trying to prepare rice when all the directions are in Italian and not knowing any italian is pretty tough.  That is one thing I am glad I don't have to deal with most of the time: LANGUAGE BARRIERS.  Sometimes in Italy it would be so hard to do simple things like order food or drinks, which is frustrating.  Towards the end of the trip I was glad to be going back to an english speaking nation, and I no longer take that fact for granted.

After Milan we headed to my final destination: VENEZIA.  The train there was uneventful, although it was 20 minutes late and we sat on the platform for another 30.  Upon arrival in Venice, I was first struck with it's unbelievable location.  It's similar to an island in the way that it is about half a mile from the mainland, but isLANDs have LAND, and Venice is just buildings built in the water.  It is an amazing sight.  Our group (Some of Rachel's friends, her flatmate Brittany, Rachel and I) decided that it couldn't be THAT hard to navigate through the city to our hostel, which google maps said was only a 15 minute walk away.  We were wrong.  The walkways are randomly placed, their names change or they aren't marked well, and there are so many of them.  After quite the adventure, we arrived and we were greeted by the owners.  The place we stayed was awesome and the owners were very nice and accommodating.  Two of them owned a nearby restaurant and gave our entire group 20% off our dinner and even made a reservation for us.

The next day was our only full day in Venice, and once again the weather was perfect, mid 50s and sunny.  We saw the sights: Rialto Bridge, Piazza San Marco, the fashion district (armani, prada, burberry any high end store you can think of and they are all in the same area.) and just enjoyed the beauty of the city.  There are no cars in Venice because there are no roads, and if you stay away from the Grand Canal and main tourist attractions, in the maze that is Venice, it is very peaceful and quiet. A polar opposite of Rome.  We ended the day with a dinner at a restaurant recommended to me by my good friend Anthony Bourdain.  You might know him from the Travel Channel or appearances on Top Chef.  The venetians are some of the nicest people I have ever met and experienced in my travels.  Claudio and Giorgio from the hostel and restaurant were so generous and the owner or host was the same way at this restaurant,  Al Mascaron.  We sample some of Venice's famous seafood and closed the restaurant down.  They even brought us more wine on the house.  The next day was somewhat stressful in that I didn't know where to catch my bus to Treviso (the airport I flew back to London out of) and Venice was still confusing.  After getting lost a couple times I figured it out and made it to the airport to fly back to London, which feels like home.

My trip to Italy was simply amazing, but it is only the beginning of my adventures abroad.  I am so thankful for this opportunity and especially thankful for those people that made it possible (that's you Mom and Dad).  This weekend I go to Wales and only have 3 full weeks of classes until I have all of April off and until my family gets here!  Yesterday I met with some friends and planned my next adventure, after wales and before my family arrives, to Brussels and Amsterdam.