Can't think of a good title...

The last week or so have been pretty busy catching up on things and then also preparing for others. In outdoor pursuits last Thursday, I went sailing and Derek went surfing. We used smaller sail boats so we each had our own. We didn't have enough for everyone so I was paired up with the other smallest person in our group. Which worked out really well becuase when you were on your own boat it was fun but it was kinda boring cause there wasn't anyone to talk with. We went sailing in the Menai Strait and the morning was pretty easy but when the tide turned after lunch, the water was very choppy. It was enough that John, our leader only had two sail boats in the water at a time. This was fine becuase only a few people actually felt comfotable out there in the rough waters. I did get a bit queasy again due to the constant motion of the water... From the sounds of it, surfing went really well as well. Derek was more tired than he has been any other OP day because they were constantly swimming or trying to surf. He got up on the board pretty early on in the day and some of the others in his group didn't get up much if at all. He did get a good rash/rub on his neck from his wet suit rubbing salt water on it all day. It looked pretty red and then getting some sun on it this past weekend sure didn't help things.
Linda, Derek's mom, made it to Bangor on Thursday as well. We were able to show her around and go to Caenarfon Castle on Friday before heading to London. We staying in Vandon House again with Beth and Zach. We went to all the sites with Beth as our guide. Saturday night, we went to Wicked, which was amazing! If I was studying in London, all my money would be going to tickets for musicals! Sunday morning we went to church at the Westminster Abbey Cathedral which was pretty neat with the all boy/mens choir. Then we rested up Sunday afternoon before Derek and Linda took the train to Bath. They stayed there yesterday and today visiting the Roman Baths. I came back to Bangor Monday morning to go to my classes yesterday and today. Tomorrow I will be joining them again in Liverpool to tour around and go on the Beatles tour. Derek and I will be heading back to Bangor tomorrow night and Linda will be going to Manchester to catch her flight on Thursday.
I think that my OP group will be either surfing or outdoor mountain climbing and Derek's group will be either outdoor mountain climbing or sailing again but with individual boats this coming Thursday. It all depends on the weather! Then this Friday Derek and I are heading to Scotland. We have a long weekend with Monday off due to the "bank holiday" here in the UK and it will be something to take Derek's mind off missing his first Tulip Time in his 21 years of life. We will be visiting Glasgow, Edinburgh, and then hopefully St Andrew golf course and Lochness. Other than that, we are just finishing up with classes and preparing for final tests and papers.

Backpacking

Alright here is a picture for all of you were wondering how we traveled Europe over break. This was taken in Venice as we were waiting for a bus to the airport. It pretty much sums up the way we were feeling at the time. We had been walking for quite awhile. Those bags were not exactly light either but I suppose that is our fault. I'm sure we would all do it again in a heartbeat though.

Castle, $$, and French Fry Sandwiches

Today we had our first fieldtrip since spring break and it was great to get everyone together again. We also had a few guest, Jen Stewart and Katie's parents, join us for the day. We started off by going to Conwy and walking around the town on the walls that surrounded the town many a couple hundred years ago. Then we got a guided tour of the Conwy castle. This was the first castle of all the castles that we have visited that we got a guided tour. Tecwyn has it planned this way so that we do our own exploring in the castles at the begining of the semester and then have questions for the guide when we do actually get a tour. The Conwy castle was a very strategic castle for defense even though the king only stayed there one time. While we were walking through Conwy, Derek found 20 pounds, which would be $40. So that made his day since it paid for lunch. :) We stayed in Conwy for lunch before heading to Llandudno. It is hard to pronounce unless you have heard the town name be said so go to the following link and you have a better idea of how it is said. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/llandudno
There we rode a tram up to the Great Orme, the ancient world's largest copper mine. It is a mine that is from the bronze age and was just discovered in 1987. It was pretty sweet because our tour guide was the guy that was the first guy to send in samples to get the dates of when the mine was used, so he knew his stuff. We were able to walk down into the mine and go through quite a bit but they are still exploring more and more of the mine as it is very extensive and archeologists are taking their time so they don't miss a thing. Of course we all wore hard hats as we walked through the mine. At times it was shorter than I was and it was only wide enough for us to go through in single file throughout the entire part that we were allowed to walk through. After going through the mine, we had a few hours to explore the town of Llandudno because even though we have been there before, we were only allowed enough to spend time out on the peir the last time we were there. If you look at the pictures in the Snowdonia album, that is where the last two pictures were taken. Derek used his findings to buy some dress shirts that were on sale. He figured they would work really well for his intership this summer.
On the way back to Bangor, we stopped at the neighboring town where the movie theater is so a few students could go to a movie tonight. Now we are back and have been to the ultimate frisbee social, eaten frech fire sandwiches (they only brought us french fries and bread since there weren't many people), and are now catching up on emails in the lab. Of course it is right about 11 so they are going to be kicking us out soon. We will work on getting the pictures up later this week when we get another computer, of our own, when Derek's mom gets here on Thursday. Tomorrow we may be heading to Chester to watch the Central students play rugby depending on the weather. If not, it will probably be another Sunday afternoon of writing papers... and naps. :)

Eathquake!!

No, we did not have another earthquake but you did back in the Midwest. We were surprised to see that a 5.2 earthquake had hit somewhere in south Illinois with some claiming that they aftershock could be felt in Des Moines, Iowa about 5 hours later. Crazy.

We had so many nices days this week with sunshine and the warmth of the sun but today however it is rather chilly. The sun hasn't been out and the wind is blowing so it has been a little colder but it is not raining. We did have a great day yesterday for OP. Anna went sea traversing and had a great time. She said it was the thing she has liked the best that we have done so far. I went sailing a 20 foot boat. We split the group in half and so we had 4 in one boat and 5 in another. It was the first time I had ever gone sailing. It took awhile to get used the notion of the boat rocking so much and getting used to all the jargon and new concepts. Being from a landlocked state we don't have much exposure to the sea with tides and winds. I compare it trying to learn to drive a car for the first time only you can't just put the brakes on and stop. There is a lot going that you need to be aware of when you are out there. It was a little windy at times but it was a good day all in all. Next week we will do smaller boats and sail by ourselves. Yeah we will definitely need some prayers for that one. Today Anna and I showed Jenifer Stewart, a Central Study Abroad rep, around Bangor. Tomorrow we are heading to Conwy Castle and a few other places. Hopefully it warms up a little and the weather cooperates.

First week back

Well we are over half way through our first week back. I am done with one of my classes and the other we have started reviewing for the final exam. Anna's classes have been going well and she still has reading to do for most of them. There hasn't been a whole lot going on really. We have been reading a lot and have been enjoying the amazing weather we have been having. It has been really warm and it hasn't rained hardly at all since we got back and we have been able to just wear light jackets all day. Spring is on its way because all the trees and bushes are budding and some of them are blooming even. I believe that Anna and I are going sailing tomorrow for outdoor pursuits which should definitely be a great time. It is supposed to be a little colder which won't matter too much as long as we don't end up in the water. There is a college rep. coming this weekend so we all have to be on our best behavior.... no not reallly we know her so we will have a good time. Anna and I are introducing her to Bangor on Friday and then having some coffee with some of the other students. On Saturday we are headed over to Conwy and Llandudno which is just up the coast, she will also be attending the trip with us. Anna just got back from playing some volleyball and I was out tonight for awhile with some of the frisbee players. That's all we have for now.

Berlin to Bangor

Well we have finally arrived safe and sound in Bangor. We got back late wedneday afternoon. It was a long day of traveling as we ended up in Berlin. We had a good time in Berlin. We visited the museums and checked out the remains of the Berlin Wall and WWII things. I wasn't a big fan of Berlin after we had been to Prague, Rome and Venice. We did only spend one day there too. The thing that got us we occasionally you would be walking and there would just be a big stench of rotten water and sewage. It wasn't appealing at all and it seemed really random. We will have have some pictures up sometime here in the near future, I hope. We have been busy since we got back unpacking, washing clothes and writing papers. We got both of our papers down yesterday afternoon and turned them in on time. It wouldn't have been so bad but my computer crashed the last day in Berlin and so I lost my entire paper and notes and Anna lost her notes. Luckily there were enough people that had extra notes we could use. We also had plenty of time so it worked out. It was just rather stressful. Spring break was good. It was the first spring break for both of us that we weren't out doing a mission project of somekind. It was a change. We both missed not being able to go anywhere, but we still had a great time with what we did. We are both sick of traveling for awhile. Sick of airports, airport security, and all the scheduling.
We had great days in Outdoor Pursuits yesterday. Anna went sea Kayaking and I went sea level traversing. Sea level traversing is just like rock climbing only doing it several feet above the water. We also were able to suspend and pull ourselves across to rock cliffs. It was really fun. The sun was out and it was a warm day so even though the water was cold we stayed relatively warm. Anna says that she had a fun day even with with a little bit of motion sickness. She said the hardest part was sitting in the kayak all day and dealing with shoulder pain. I would have to agree with her on the sitting in the kayak thing.
Today has been cloudy and rainy. We finally slept in and caught up on some much needed sleep. Tonight we are going to make Lamb tacos and probably relax.

Athens to Vienna to Prague

We had a good day at the Acropolis and seeing the Original Olympic Stadium. Just about the time we got that all done is started raining. During the afternoon we went geocaching in the National Gardens. We only found two microcaches of the four we were looking for. The weather played a little bit of havoc with the GPS and just walking around in the rain in general. We had a good day though a little more relaxed than a few of the other days but not quite as relaxing as the day at the beach. The rain was alright though it was cooler so it helped out the sunburns a little bit. And it continued to rain the rest of the night. We had a brief night out to eat. I had roast lamb and Anna had Mousakkas. I still am not a big fan of lamb but I thought the mousakkas wasn't bad, Anna didn't like the texture. Today we flew out of Athens after a three hour delay to Vienna. We spent an hour there and then headed right off to Prague. After a four hour train ride we arrived in Prague. It was a bit cooler and it had been raining off and on but it was still nice. We have settled in for the night at a really nice hostel, probably the best one of the whole trip. Which is nice because it is towards the end and we appreciate it more now. Tomorrow we will be seeing Prague and then heading for Berlin tomorrow night and then "home" to Bangor on Wednesday. Enjoy the new pictures that are up!!

Okay so we didn't go to Australia

April Fools! We did not have a flight canceled and we did not end going to Australia, unfortunately. Sorry if there was too much confusion but we couldn't pass up an opportunity like that. Someone has to keep you on your toes and we wouldn't want you to be too comfortable knowing our exact schedule.

Well we started off in Venice for a day and half. Venice was really nice and so were the people there. The weather has been amazing ever since then. We defnitely got lost in the streets of Venice on more than one occasion. I got to play with pigeons as well. We stayed at a really nice camping area about 10 minute walk from a bus ride to Venice.

We next traveled to Rome. We got in late in the evening and met this really nice guy in the train station who helped us get our bearings. He also offered to set us up in a hostel and bed and breakfast for a decent price. Then he walked us to the place....starting to sound too good to be true isn't it well it was. It worked out but half the group had to stay in a sketchy hostel while the rest of us stayed in someones spare bedrooms in there house. He gave us a lot of good information but needless to stay we found a better hostel the next night. The one we found down the street was just a little more but was definitely worth the amenities, i.e. free internet and breakfast. We saw most of the main attractions in Rome after two full days of walking. We ran into part of the other Central group there as well which we all thought was cool and crazy. There were a lot of Americans in Venice and Rome. We had a really nice chat with someone that lives in California that was on leave for a week from Iraq that spent his summers in Iowa when he was a kid. He recognized the Central College attire.

Anna and I left a night early and headed for Athens. When we got here it was pouring down rain and about 11.30. The first hostel we checked on had rooms for 45 euro which is about 67 dollars so we checked out the second one on our list. They had rooms and we got in a little after 12.30 and then a couple from Germany who were originally from Wisconsin arrived and they were booked into our with us. They arrived a little after 12 and had to get a taxi from their ferry that was from one of the Greek Islands. They are in Germany teaching English. The next day was beautiful and sunny. We climbed a short mountain and saw the layout of athens. We also toured all the shops. The rest of the group arrived mid afternoon and we met up with them in the hostel around 7. One of them was leaving today to head back and the rest of them are headed out to the Greek Isles. Anna and I are heading up to Vienna tomorrow and then to Prague for a day and then up to Berlin for a day where we will fly back to Bangor from. We spent yesterday afternoon laying out on a near by beach mainly because the water is freezing. It is rather deceptive because its really warm out and the water is clear and sparkly but not warm at all. I had a chat with an older Greek man who was stationed on a WWII base in Athens and asked where we were from. He commented on how expensive it is for Americans to travel because of the exchange rate and also wanted to know who I thought was going to be the next president. We had a good day but we may have gotten a little too much sun....

Today we are heading out to see the Parthenon and the Acropolis and check some other stuff out before we leave tomorrow. We will keep you posted and I promise no more tricks... ;)

Howdy from Down Under

Well as it turns out our flight from Venice to Rome got canceled. The airline said that they would refund the flight. Since we didn't have any definite plans we just decided to get a flight to Australia. So we are spending the rest of the time in Sydney. It has been amazing so far. The flight was long but we found a direct flight which worked out. The weather has been really breezy but much warmer. Good thing I packed lots of t-shirts and a pair of shorts. We are planning on definitely heading inland to meet up with some aboriginis and maybe check out the wildlife. Tomorrow we will be snorkeling out amongst the reefs. We are both looking forward to that the most of all. Don't worry we haven't adopted a kangaroo or koala yet.... Well time and money is short so I must be off. Catch ya later.