Amsterdam, Netherlands

After another exciting week of classes at Swansea, it was departure time for the student trip to Amsterdam in the Netherlands! 

The trip started on Thursday evening with a bus ride from Swansea lasting approximately five hours.  That was followed by a ferry ride of an hour and a half to France, followed by another five hour bus ride up to Amsterdam.  Needless to say, it was quite a lot of sitting.  I went on the trip with another student from the University of Iowa, Jess, so we were able to make the trip a bit more enjoyable!

We arrived on Friday morning and the two of us decided to just walk around and check things out.  While wondering, we found a shop to buy tickets for various things at discounted prices (of course all college students love this) so we purchased our tickets to a Van Gogh museum, the Heineken Experience, and a canal tour.  That afternoon we walked over to the Heineken Brewery and they showed us the entire brewing process for the beer.  It was a very neat experience!

Jess and I decided it would be best to have an early night so we could get up early and beat the crowd to the Anne Frank House.  We ended up getting there about an hour after it opened and there was no line.  It worked out perfectly!  When we were finished, the line was extremely long.  The Anne Frank House was really interesting and I would definitely recommend it to everyone.  There is a story to every room and the way the exhibit is laid out really makes it flow.  They take you through the entire house and the entire area where the family hid during WWII.  The original diary of Anne Frank is inside along with videos and pictures from the time and events.  I'm so glad I went.  It was a great learning experience and something I will never forget.

After the Anne Frank House, Jess and I headed towards our canal tour!  It was very fun to see the city of Amsterdam from its waterways and there were plenty of opportunities for great photos!  One thing I would have changed about the canal tour would be to do it in the evening when the city was lit up with lights.  The next time I am there (next week) I plan on making that change!  The Van Gogh museum followed the canal tour.  We had the choice between seeing the museum with all of his original paintings or seeing the museum with new versions of his paintings with more vibrant colors, a lot more paintings, and multiple 3D animated paintings.  Of course we chose the museum with vibrant colors and paintings in 3D.  It was very cool!  I have to admit that my experience in art museums is very minimal, but I'm happy to add this one to the list!  There was also a story of Van Gogh's life on the walls and it was related to all of his paintings and the themes you could find within the art at certain times of his life.  Very neat!

On Saturday night, we met up with one of Jess's friends from the University of Iowa who is studying in Spain.  She just happened to be in Amsterdam the same weekend we were!  We followed them to the red light district to experience the atmosphere.  I'd have to say that it was an eye opening experience, and definitely not what I was expecting. 

On Sunday, we made the same long journey back to Swansea.  I have to admit that I'm very excited to be flying next time, rather than taking a bus and ferry all the way there.  The next trip will be Amsterdam for the Lumineers concert and Emily's birthday!  Plans for Easter break are still in the making as well, but we have a better idea of the places we will be going.  The tentative plans include parts of northern Wales, Venice, Rome, Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, the city of Prague in the Czech Republic, the city of Vienna in Austria, Paris, and end in London.  More information will be coming soon!

London Calling!

This has been a fantastic week in the United Kingdom! 

The trip to London was a great success.  The only thing that could have made it better would be adequate sleep!  Our coach to London left from Swansea at 4:30 a.m. on Friday morning, and arrived in London at 9:30.  Upon arrival, we bought a map of the city and decided which landmarks were most important for us to see in the short amount of time we had.  We had all day Friday, and most of the day Saturday to explore, as the coach was heading back to Swansea at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday night. 

We started out the journey Friday by exploring Westminster Abbey Cathedral, and then walked a bit farther to Westminster Abbey itself. After that, we headed to Big Ben, The House of Parliament, and the London Eye.  It was absolutely beautiful and so amazing to see these sights in person!  We paid just under twenty pounds to take the trip on the London Eye, and I'd have to say it was the best twenty pounds I have ever spent!  The views from the top were incredible! 

After the London Eye experience, we enjoyed a cup of coffee at Starbucks, and then continued the journey on foot to St. Paul's Cathedral and finally the Tower of London.  The architecture of all of these sights is amazing.  When we made it to the Tower of London, it was about thirty minutes passed closing time, so we decided we were going to come back the next day to tour the inside.  So, we took a journey on the underground to our hostel in an area called Earl's Court.  The hostel was a whole other story, just like a hostel should be.  We don't need to talk about it...

After settling in, we made our way to a local pub for dinner, where I enjoyed a yoghourt marinated chicken sandwich.  Sound interesting, right?  It was surprisingly nice.  A group of friends from Iowa State University happened to walk by the window we were sitting at, and we then spent the evening with them.  We made in an early night so we could get up early Saturday morning.

Our first stop on Saturday was at Abbey Road to experience the Beatles crossing first hand!  We've got the picture of course!  After Abbey Road, we walked past Hyde Park all the way to Buckingham Palace in hopes of watching the change of the guards.  We were there plenty early, but there was absolutely no way we were going to see anything due to the massive amounts of people, so we continued on back to the Tower of London.  We toured the tower, seeing the Crown Jewels, and many other awesome sights. 

We took another walk across the Bridge of London and made it back to the area of the coach station.  After dinner, we headed back to Swansea with many memories made in a very short period of time.  I am definitely planning on traveling back to London sometime this semester to see more of what we missed.  There are so many sights to see, I feel like we just scraped the surface.

This Thursday I will be heading to Amsterdam on a school trip.  We are traveling through the night on Thursday and spending two nights in Amsterdam to explore throughout the weekend!  I look forward to sharing more exciting stories next week!

Westminster Abbey

Big Ben and the London Eye

Big Ben

The Bridge of London

Natalie, Emily and I on Abbey Road

The Tower of London

London Eye

Swansea University/Student Village

Hello Everyone!

Let me just start by mentioning how thankful I am to be in warmer weather than back home.  It's great not dealing with subzero temperatures.  I would take rain almost every day over the bitter cold! 

This week in Wales we haven't had any organized trips, so there isn't too much to write about.  A group of friends spent the weekend in Scotland, so I look forward to hearing about their experience!  Plans are still being made for a trip to London next weekend, and a trip to Amsterdam two weeks after that for the birthday of my dear friend, Emily Freund!! We will be seeing The Lumineers on the 26th of February, in Amsterdam.  Happy 20th birthday to Emily!

It was an exciting Sunday this past weekend due to Super Bowl XLVII.  Believe it or not, they showed the game live up in the Wonky Sheep for everyone to watch 'American Football.'  I could not believe the number of people that crammed into the little pub on the hill here in our village to watch the Super Bowl.  Most of the audience consisted of British people, as well!  It's really fun pretending that I know a lot about football and trying to explain the rules to all of our new friends when I am by no means an expert.  There was an ongoing chant throughout most of the first half for the Raven's.  I'm not sure what system they used to pick a favorite team in the game; maybe it was just a lucky guess!

I finally took some pictures of the campus at Swansea University and of the flats in the student village that I live in.  It's a bit different from what we are used to in Iowa, but it definitely works!  

 This picture is the view from the Fulton House, right in the middle of campus.  It's a beautiful view, much better in person!  You can kind of see the bay in the very back, behind the trees.

This is the main road coming into the village.

This is the type of flat that I live in.  There are four in each building.

Welcome to flat 33! This is where I live.

Here we have the pub, The Wonky Sheep, and the bus stop.  The laundromat is located on the bottom floor of the building, and The Wonky Sheep is on the top floor.

The two pictures above are of my room in flat 33.  It's still pretty bare, but I'm working on it!

These two pictures are of our kitchen.  We share this space between the ten of us, so it tends to get messy!  Not hard to believe when you have five young men sharing as well... (if you're reading guys, my apologies) 

This is all I have this week!  I look forward to sharing about my trip to London next time!