It's been one week since you looked at me...

One week down, countless more to go. Really, I'm not even counting the days until I get to go back home. Everything here has flown by so far and things are going as well as can be expected, probably even better than what I was hoping for. We're kept busy every day with our orientation class; most days go from 9/10am-5pm. The class is on British politics and culture; so far the main things we've discussed have been music and movies, and how they both show the general decline of Britain. It's quite interesting! Of course I would rather be learning about the time when Jane Austen and Elizabeth Gaskell were around, but it's probably good for me to learn about a more current time period. :)

That's Worm's Head!

See that white speck? It's a house!

So windy!

Isn't it beautiful?! It's so great to see the green grass, the Bristol Channel, have the wind and rain blowing everywhere...it literally takes your breath away!

you can climb out there when the tide is low, so I'm hoping to do that whilst here :)

The cliff sides!

On Monday we went on a little bus trip to the Gower Peninsula to view Worm's Head. The Gower "was one of the first places designated 'An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty' under the Act of 1949" (whatever that act is) and it was completely beautiful. It's just a small peninsula (seven miles by sixteen miles) and the views are breathtaking. It was crazy windy and freezing cold but well worth it. Above are some pictures for those of you who haven't seen them on facebook yet (I tried to put them in below..still learning!)

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were full of classes and getting acquainted with the other students. Every day we're meeting new people, which is awesome, but it's hard to remember everyone's name and where they're from! During the week our roommates were talking about the snow that was expected, but part of me really didn't expect it to be snow like in Iowa. Low and behold, when I woke up Friday morning and looked out my window, there was plenty of snow on the ground and it was still falling down! We got ready for the day, not really sure how to get into campus because the buses weren't running to the student village, but turns out we had a snow day! My first in college! It was a very restful and relaxing day, to say the least. 

On Saturday we had a field trip scheduled to see the Big Pits (an old coal mine, I think) and St. Fagans National History Museum, a Welsh museum in Cardiff. Unfortunately that was also cancelled due to heavy snowfall in those areas, but our professor is hoping to reschedule that. Instead on Saturday I was able to sleep in and then go shopping! I went with Abby, the girl from ISU who I traveled with, and Jess, my roommate. It was nice to get out after being inside the day before. We had decided the day before that we wanted to order Chinese for dinner, so we got a small group together that wanted Chinese...what an adventure that was! The menu doesn't have American Chinese food like what we're used to...there's no sesame chicken, sweet & sour chicken, etc. They also don't have crab rangoons...sad! We also couldn't figure out how to call them, so our roommate Charlie had to help us out with that. The restaurant didn't say how long it would be to get it...we ended up waiting for what seemed like an hour to get our food! And, when it came, our whole order wasn't there! We called back and they said more would be coming, but it never showed up. 3 of the 5 of us were happy with what we got, but the rest was a miss. I ordered sweet & sour chicken balls, not knowing what they were, and they were so good! It was just bite sized pieces of chicken battered and fried into balls that were between the size of a tennis ball and a golf ball, and then I dipped them into sweet & sour sauce. Everyone enjoyed those, so we at least know that they can be ordered again! We're not sure why the takeout didn't work well..maybe they knew we were Americans so they didn't want to be nice, or maybe it was just a bad place to get food? Either way, my food was pretty good! 

Today (Sunday) I'm just relaxing, and later the other girls and I are planning on making our first meal together! Classic spaghetti :) A few other random exciting things happened this week...I booked my spot in the university planned trip to Dublin over St. Patrick's Day! We'll be there Friday and Saturday, with Thursday and Sunday being our travel days (basically). I also booked 4 plane tickets to go to Spain to see Mumford & Sons in concert!!!! I am SO EXCITED for that concert!! I'm meeting my best friend, Tiffany, in Barcelona for the concert (ticket 1). After the concert, which is on Wednesday night, we'll fly to Oviedo (Asturias) on Thursday morning (ticket 2) and I'll spend all day Thursday and Thursday night with Tiffany. Friday morning I'll fly from Oviedo to Madrid (ticket 3) and then I'll fly from Madrid to Manchester (ticket 4). I still need to buy a train ticket to get to Swansea from Manchester, but that can wait awhile :) I am so glad that it is so inexpensive to travel everywhere here! All of my tickets cost somewhere around €100, which is close to $130....America needs RyanAir! 

We still have 1 week until real classes begin, so this next week is more orientation, ending on Saturday with a trip to Bath! I can't wait to go back there--so amazing!!! I hope everything back home is going well for everyone..I still miss you all!