oh yeah, and that's the castle...

So, since I'm wide awake, I thought I'd give you an update since its been a while!! I don't even know where to begin! Before I get on to the castle (which is AMAZING), I'll start with Millennium Stadium, a little less exciting, but still super cool! On Wednesdays, we only have one class from 9-10, so we decided to have an adventure for the rest of the day to go and find the famous Millennium Stadium. Needless to say, we found it! It's huge, and kind of hard to miss, but hey! it was a fun adventure :)

Here's one tiny corner of it:

it's massive! anyways, you walk down a bit farther and there is a row of flags, accompanied by mosaics on the ground in front of each flag for that country.

USA!

Across the water there were all of these beautiful homes :) I especially love the one with the teal trim! So cute! Then, across the street and under a bridge we found this adorable water-bus stop!


That big thing in the back and to the left, yep, that's the stadium. Here's the same shot with the 4 corners of the stadium marked so you can have a little bit better idea of how big it is:


and here's a closer shot of the water-bus stop :) I love it!


Now! On to the castle! Which is literally in the middle of the city. It's kind of mind boggling. Here you are, walking down Queen street, which is all shops and food places, and then one side of it is still shops, but across the street it's a castle. Awesome. So, we got out tickets and headed in:




and that was only the beginning... So with your ticket comes a tour of the main castle, and the signs say you aren't allowed to take pictures inside of the castle. We, however, had a wonderful tour guide that allowed us to take some! And there were more than enough picture worthy sights, here's some:

omnia vincit amor et nos cedamus amori
"Love conquers all, let us too surrender to love"

The Children's room.


The ceiling in the Arab room. Literally THE most amazing ceiling I have EVER seen.


The story of Abraham and Isaac, and how Abraham obeyed God and was willing to sacrifice his son, but God provided a ram as a replacement. Foreshadowing God's provision for us in Jesus Christ. In stained glass.


The library :)

After fully exploring the inside and hearing lots of amazing history, we headed outdoors! It was about 32 degrees or less, so we were freezing! But we went on to explore Norman's Keep, the inside of the castle wall, and the South Gate.

Norman's Keep


inside the wall


and the south gate!

Needless to say, we had a lovely time! After spending a good few hours there, we headed down to "chippy lane" for some fish and chips at Dorothy's that were delicious!! A perfect end to an amazing castle adventure :)
On the academic side of things... haha classes are going well. I'm still getting used to the class schedule, but its better than it was a week ago! Still clearing a few things up with the module leaders, but for the most part we are jumping on in! Tomorrow we start collecting data for a group project in our exercise physiology class that requires me to do a VO2 max test. This test basically entails of pushing me (and 9 of my classmates) to just over 90% of my age predicted heart rate max, all the while taking down various other information. This then allows us to see how much oxygen I can take in maximally... essentially its a test of my aerobic fitness. Then in the following 2 weeks we will see how aerobic fitness is related to recovery time.... if that makes no sense to you at all, don't worry about it. haha. Anyway, seeing as that is tomorrow morning, I am headed to bed! Goodnight all :)
love, emily

It doesn't ALWAYS rain in Wales...

I promise. It really doesn't. It was clear most of last week and all of this weekend! However, clear weather means colder temperatures... So, we were still all bundled up! Wow, a lot has happened since my last post! Basically, most of our school stuff finally got sorted out, we have some stuff to catch up on (the classes here are over the entire year, not just one semester) and a couple classes start this week instead of last week! So, we will definitely have lots to do this week, school-wise, and we have some fun adventures planned for the weekend!!! Now for the fun stuff of this week :) Since Cristina has been sick and Jessica decided to also get sick, we didn't do a whole lot of exploring, but we still did some! While Cristina was still recovering, Jessica and I, along with our flat mate Kate and her friends from home (now our friends :)) Cat and Sally, went to the local museum [which was free! woo!] It was really cool, they kind of had a mix of everything. They had teapots, sculptures, paintings, Welsh history [but of course!] and some natural history. The building itself was beautiful. Here are some fun pics from that afternoon :)

Awesome clock on the city building next door :)

Dutch Porcelain :)



The clock tower glowing with the setting sun.

Yesterday, Cristina and I did a little bit of adventuring and found some photo-worthy spots :) Here's what we found!

Really? a mattress in the middle of the sidewalk?? haha

I love bright colored doors :)

That's all for now... more to come in a couple of days!
Cheers!
love, emily

Why would you leave California???

seems to be the most frequently asked question lately :) There are many more, both from us and from them, but we are definitely learning a lot! All of my flat mates are awesome! They're all super nice and answer all of our questions, more and more of which come up daily!

On Saturday, we gave the bus a shot and headed down into town! It was really fun just exploring the city and what's around :)



All of the houses are amazing :) I LOVE them! They all just look so nice and cozy.
And they have lots of amazing colored doors, that I also love :) I can't help myself! Everything here is just so beautiful, and I am loving it!
As far as classes go, we had one class today [we were supposed to have 2, but for some reason no one showed up to the other one...]. It was an exercise physiology class and our teacher is Greek! Not gonna lie, he was kind of intense during lecture, but we went and talked to him after to explain that we are exchange students etc. etc. and he was really nice :) Tomorrow we have our first trampolining class! Which should be interesting, and I think we have another class and then a lab, which they call practicals. Hopefully we can be legitimately enrolled tomorrow and get our student i.d.'s and such. Anyway, that's pretty much all for now! I'm sure we'll explore more of the city a bit later in the week!




Cheers!
love, emily

Day 2

Hello all! Cristina, Jessica and I made it to Wales safe and sound at about 9 last night (11 hour plane flight, 3 hours [due to traffic] in the car to Cardiff from London, plus 8 hour time difference). We got set up with our rooms and immediately tried to connect to the internet to let our parents know we were safe :) Needless to say, it had been quite a day and we were exhausted.
Today, we were supposed to register for classes and get student id's and such, however, the admissions office people were on holiday, which prevented us from doing any of that. So, we will have to wait until Monday morning... Anyhow, we went to the local supermarket, Sainsbury's, to get some groceries, which was fun :) It's really bizarre [and kind of scary] being on the wrong side of the road... We also unpacked and got settled in. The dorm I'm in is called Stuttgart and I have my own bathroom and everything! It's great! (I'll post some pictures soon) The campus is WAY smaller than CSULB, which will make it much easier to get used to. I've met a couple of my flat mates today, but most students will be coming back tomorrow and Sunday.
Tomorrow we are going to explore the city! We will head down to the city center by bus and go from there! I'm so excited, and, of course, I will take plenty of pictures to post! Hopefully it won't be too rainy...
Learning so much already!

Cheers!
love, emily

TODAY

Though they are mostly done, as of right now, I can't say my bags are fully packed :P, I leave tonight!! A few more errands still to run and a brief visit to my grandparents and then I will be LA - UK bound!!
See you on the other side of the pond :)

{0 days till departure!!!}
love, emily

week

Ok, clearly I'm freakin out because I thought to myself, I leave in a week, maybe I should write another post on the blog... only to realize that I did, in fact, write one two days ago... Anyhow, since I'm here, I figure I'll write a little something :)
Right now all of my focus is on checking things off of my list! I ran errands with my mom yesterday and checked about half of the list off, so progress is being made and it feels great!
By the way, I just started reading a book called How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn, which is FANTASTIC and you all need to read it! It is set in Wales, of course, and I'm about 5 chapters in and I'm seriously loving it. So, find it at a used book store, borrow it from the library, head over to Borders (where I got mine, with a 50% off coupon mind you) or Barnes and Nobles, or any other place that sells fabulous books and read it! It's getting me really excited!
Also, lately, I have been working on some cards to give people before I leave and such so if they turn out at all, I might post some pictures in the next post, which may very well be 2 days from now...
Wow, I am all rambles tonight!
Hope you all are having a lovely first week of the year :)

7 days......!
love, emily

Single digit days!

About 30 things on my to-do list (and I probably missed some things...) and only 9 days to do them in... this is insane! I'm getting really excited and I can't believe it has come up so quickly! I have a few more things to get, but majority of what I have to do is packing and getting a few other things sorted out. That's about all for now, I'll probably make one more post before I leave! :)

Happy New Year!
9 more days!

love, emily