Week Four: Wales, Windsor and Wankered

For the start of week four in England, we thought that we would take a sporadic trip to Wales with a group of 7 other girls. It was quite the group, and it was quite the trip. We left Saturday morning fairly early and took the train from Cheltenham to Cardiff Wales. I felt bad because I didn’t plan any of this trip, I merely tagged along but it worked out well! We went to Cardiff, and went to Lallandaff Cathedral which is the second oldest cathedral is the whole of London, so pretty sweet. It was built in 1120, which is so old, it is amazing how old things are here, because in America old is about 1800’s but here old is about 1300’s so it is quite different. Anyways, sorry for that bit, but yeah, we went to Lallandaff Cathedral and went in this little garden-ish tree area, and took some AWESOME pictures! Also, it was really sunny that day, which made everything 10 times better! Then I had a jacked potato in this really quaint Tea Room, it was adorable. Then we headed off to Cardiff Bay which was beautiful!!! The sun was shining, and the water was glistening and it was fantastic! The bay had some sailboats in the water, and while Greg thought it resembled a Boardwalk, I disagree; it was much prettier than a boardwalk and not as commercialized. So yeah, Cardiff bay = must go. Oh yeah, it had this really pretty RED building, which was Greg’s favorite, he was obsessed with taking photos of it. Oh yeah, it also has this mirror/tower/cold water fountain. Next we went to the hostel, now this was our first hostel experience, so we were a bit nervous about it, but it was very nice. Nomad was the name of the hostel, and it was very accommodating. Since we had a group of 10 of us, we split up in two different rooms, and the rooms just consisted of bunk beds with no decoration what so ever. It was fine for sleeping; I am developing this wonderful habit of being able to sleep anywhere, it is great, most of the time. So yeah, we chilled out that night in the hostel and whatnot, and then got up bright and early the next morning.
We headed off to Carphilly Castle, which was awesome. The castle was somewhat of a fixer-upper, but if I was built in 1270, then I would be falling down too. Some parts were eroded and such, but it was huge. With a moat and catapults and everything, the castle was most impressive. The castle was kind of difficult to get to, and we spent a good couple of hours walking around the castle, so that was out Day Two of Wales. We ate lunch/dinner in a Free House Pub, which had some of the worse service in the world, but oh well, it happens. So Wales was a great weekend!!
So the week went by, and I went to my classes, had fun, and played field hockey. At field hockey I had an American moment. All during practice all the girls kept saying “I am so Knackered, and Wankered” now, me being an American I didn’t know what either of these terms meant, I naturally assumed that it meant they were drunk, because well, the English tend to drink quite a lot, it is truly a part of the culture. So since all the girls kept saying how Knackered and Wankered they were, I was getting really worried that all these girls came to practice drunk. Later, I asked a girl what Knackered means, and it just means that you’re tired or exhausted. I was relieved to realize that, but felt pretty dumb.
On Saturday we had a BCA trip to Windsor Castle, this is where the Royal Family resides. I was pretty pumped to go visit Queenie and hopefully catch a glimpse of her. The Castle was really nice, The Queen is definitely living it up here in England. We saw Changing of the Guards in the morning, and that was cool, a bit confusing because all the guards were yelling and chanting at each other, but they had the big funny hats on, and didn’t smile, so that was a good tourist moment. After touring much of the Castle, I realized that the Queen has a lot of stuff that she doesn’t need but is impressive. There were hundreds of paintings of every member of the Royal Family ever on the walls, and some were really big. There were a lot of trap doors too, and one time some elderly woman came through a trapped door in a wheelchair with a security guard and I thought it was the Queen, yeah, it wasn’t. So Windsor Castle was cool, it was a nice day trip. Coming up next in the month of February, is doing assignments, ugh, and a trip to LONDON to see WICKED!!! Which I am beyond ecstatic for!!! Everything is going great here across the pond! Thanks for reading! Best of luck to everyone in other countries and with their lives, I love you and miss you all!! :)

Week Three: Gloucester Cathedral, London, Uni Hockey

Okay so let me Preface by saying how sorry I am for not blogging within the past two weeks. I don’t want to say that I have been busy, but I obviously have. I am realizing that by living on your own makes you a lot busier with little household things, and eats up much of your time, which takes some getting used to. Anyways, so our first weekend at University, a couple of us decided to see the Gloucester Cathedral. It was only 40 minutes away, and cost £1.40, so a really cheap day trip. We had heard that some bits of Harry Potter were filmed there, but we weren’t sure which parts. It was massive, I find myself saying that word a lot to describe buildings and cathedrals around England but it is true, everything is huge and gorgeous. This was no exception. The Cathedral was phenomenal; we walked around it, which over an hour or so. Then we went into the town of Gloucester, which I thought was a bit on the shabbier side, but nothing too bad! We ate lunch in the busiest McDonald’s ever, I know real adventurous, but I was having trouble finding a good Gluten Free option, so Mickey D’s was the best option. After lunch we went down to the “Historic Docks”, yeah, they were pretty Historic looking, in that they were kind of run down, and not a whole lot going on, but it was..nice.  So yeah, after our little bit of walking around, we headed on home to Cheltenham, which was a fun bus ride. Greg and I said that England Bus rides should start becoming amusement park rides, they are ridiculous! All good fun though, I have included a video of what it feels like to be on a double decker bus!!
Later this week, I finally got in touch with some girls from the field hockey team, which is weird to say because they call it “hockey” here, just hockey. So I went to practice on Tuesday night, and the practice wasn’t what I expected at all. The University has four teams, so I practiced with the bottom two teams because I had no clue what the level was going to be, but after Tuesdays practice, the Coach approached me and asked me to come to the 2nds practice on Friday. Oh yeah, the Coaches are male hockey players, so they are quite interesting, men’s hockey is wild! So, Steph and I went to Friday’s practice with the 2nds, and I loved it! It was much better playing, and the practice had a much better intensity level than the other team. I am going to stick with the 2nd team, and hopefully get to a couple of matches to play!! So by time Friday came I was exhausted, but there is no time for rest in England, we had booked a trip to London for Saturday, and the coach was leaving at 5:45am! Well, I am not much of a morning person, so when my alarm was buzzing at 5:30am I was not too happy, regardless, we made our coach, I was passed out asleep the entire 2 ½ hour ride, and we made it to London around 8:30 am. Having never been to London, I was basing everything off of pictures, and the Mary-Kate & Ashley movie “Winning London”, so with that being said, I was ready to take London by storm.
The day started off with a bit confusion about where we had to walk, that is typical here, I still get lost on the regular day by day basis. So we headed to Buckingham Palace to visit Queenie. I was impressed. I wasn’t too happy that there wasn’t any guards with big black hats standing outside, but there was one smaller looking one inside the gates who had a funny walk to him, so that was entertaining. In front of Buckingham Palace was a HUGE fountain, it was really cool looking, I believe it was after Queen Victoria?! Hmm, that sounds about right. So then we walked through St. James Park, which was really pretty and apparently quite massive, but we only walked through a tiny portion of it. Then we made our way to Big Ben. Now, from far away Big Ben isn’t impressive, but as you get closer, Big Ben is exactly what it sounds like, it is BIG! Oh and we heard it chime, which was really loud and I jumped a bit, but that was really nice. We went to Westminster Abbey, we didn’t go into the Abbey because it was £12 or something to see it, but the outside was cool. I am slowly getting tired of churches and Abbey’s and they are all starting to morph into one another, but I am trying very hard to stay interested and just not pass them by. Right next to Big Ben was Parliament, which I thought was a really cool looking building. I think that Parliament in itself is a cool thing, and I really like the fact how every week regular people come in and ask Parliament questions, either national or local. That is pretty cool. Yeah, so Parliament was cool, there was a lot of tourist around this area I thought. Next was the London Eye, now I always thought that the London Eye was some type of secret service thing to spy on other countries, but in reality it is just a Ferris wheel. We didn’t go on the Eye, because it was really really cold and windy out. We were famished by now, so we stopped at an EXTREMLY small, but nonetheless cute, café, where every construction worker in London was eating, so that was a tad awkward, but we were hungry! 
After we regained strength, we walked to Cleopatra’s needle, which was like a lot of exhibits in London, under construction, but that was cool, they had some monstrous sphinxes near it too. Next was the most exhausting part of our day. We walked to King’s Cross Station, which is where the infamous platform 9 ¾ is! This was a staple for Greg to see, so we had to make the 3 or so mile hike up to it. Most of the walk was uphill, so that was fun, and once we made it to King’s Cross we found a sign that the Platform had been moved, oh joy! So finally we found it, took our picture, and kept moving. By this time, we just needed a rest, so we sat in a nearby café, I don’t remember where, and just rejuvenated ourselves. Next was St. Pauls Cathedral, which was by far my favorite place of the trip, it may even be my favorite place in all of England so far!
This Cathedral was gorgeous, now going into it, I had no expectations, and from the looks of it, it didn’t seem too big, but boy was I wrong. This was bigger than massive, it was immaculate! We actually went in right while a service was happening, and I am so glad our timing was that way! We weren’t allowed to take any photos while we were inside, and at first I thought that was lame, but looking back I am glad it happened that way, because my memories of the inside are so beautiful I don’t think a photo could do it justice. A boy’s choir was singing when we walked in and they were amazing! It was so nice to hear this choir fill up the ridiculously tall ceiling. I just sat there in the back, and listened and look at the paintings and details of everything. The organ in the front was really old, but gorgeous. I sat in there for at least 20 or so minutes, and then the service was over, but it was amazing. That is one place that I would love to go back again! It was an awesome experience! Next was the millennium bridge, again, this was the bridge that in Harry Potter VI moved in the opening scene from the dementors ( I think this is the last HP reference, I know that I sound like a huge HP buff, but I really am not, it is just a connection!)
So yeah, the Millenium Bridge is a walking only bridge, so that was cool, there were some roller bladers on there, haven’t seen anyone rollerblading in years! Then we quickly went through a few floors of the Tate Pop Museum, which had some cool stuff then again, it also had some stuff that a 3 year old could have made. But we saw some Andy Warhol art, which was neat, it reminded me of my roommate Allyson because we had an Andy Warhol piece in our room  Next, was the Globe Theatre, cool, Shakespeare, really old, really small, yeah. The London Bridge was the next thing to see, now, I think everyone knows that the London Bridge is famous, I mean it is in Fergie’s song, and the song London Bridges Falling Down, so it must be something if all these people are making millions off it right? Wrong. The London Bridge was just a typical, maybe even less looking boring bridge. It had nothing special about it, it wasn’t even that old. We couldn’t even find it for the longest time, until we found the tiniest sign saying “London Bridge”. Lame, I was disappointed. However, all those songs about the London Bridge should really be about the Tower Bridge, because that is cool.
The Tower Bridge was awesome, it is a draw bridge, with two huge towers on it, hence the name, and right when we went it was about to get dark, so all the lights came on, which added to its cool-ness. We got to walk across the Tower Bridge, which was a bit frightening because it is really big and there were loads of cars driving by (on the opposite side too). So yeah, here is some travel advice, if you are ever in London, forget the London Bridge, go to the Tower!
After the Tower Bridge, we were pretty much dead. Our legs were killing us because we had been walking since about 9am, and it was nearly 6pm, so that is a lot of walking. We saw the Tower of London, which was like everything else, massive, and terrifying looking. I was afraid for those who had to go there before, because it has a very mean look to it. After the Tower of London we took the Underground and headed back near our coach, we were heading back to Cheltenham around 8pm. So by time we got near our station, we had a sit at a nearby pub, which I don’t even remember how good the food was, because we didn’t care one bit, anything was good by that point. So we ate, then went to the coach station, and got back to Cheltenham around 11:30pm. It was an extremely long day, but an extremely exciting and great day too! We sat a lot in London, but we still have a lot more to see! So I am looking forward to going back and seeing everything else!