Exams have ended

(The only picture that Anna is remotely looking at the camera)

Well it has been a long week so far however it is finally over. It is nice warm sunny day today and also everyone finished up exams. Anna had her last one this afternoon and my last one was on Wednesday. They both went very well and as expected so that was good. We haven't been doing much this week except preparing for the tests and trying to get everything sorted before we head home and for the trip home. We just have a short paper to turn in for Tecwyn and then we are done. We did however take a break from all the excitement yesterday to go white water rafting. This was separate event from Outdoor Pursuits because we didn't go during it and there were a fair amount of us that wanted to go. We went to a place called Bala. It was about an hour and half away from Bangor. We left at 11:30 and then we got time on the river from 2-4 in the afternoon. This gave us time enough for four runs. There were a total of 14 of us and so we split up into two rafts. We got all suited up with wet suits and helmets and about a 15 minute intro to the rafts and to what we would be doing and then we were off. It was my first time rafting however Anna has gone before. It wasn't a real difficult or challenging run. They use a 1-5 scale for rating the level of rafting runs and this was a 2. We had a great day though. The weather even cooperated and it was sunny and relatively warm. My raft had some pretty good runs and we had a good time splashing the other raft. Anna's raft had a good day as well, they had a trainee leading their raft however he did a fine job. We only lost one person the whole day and he fell out of my boat during one of the big spills. Our leader quickly snatched him up and got him back in the boat. All in all a good relaxing afternoon.
We have the weekend to finish packing up and then we head for Poland on Monday for a day on Tuesday and then we return on Wednesday night. Have two days and then we will be headed for home.

Snowdon Ascent

Yesterday there were ten of us who climbed Snowdon. Seven of us took the toughest route while three others took a walking path up to the summit. Snowdon is the highest mountain in Wales and the tallest minus the Scottish Highlands. So it just so happens to be the busiest mountain in Britain according to some. The weather was near perfect so the paths were packed with people. It was a bit windy during some parts depending on the shelter of the mountains. There were steady streams up and down the mountain all day. We took the bus to LLanberis and then took another bus to the Pen Y Pass where we started out journey.
It began on a foot path that was pretty rocky but when the trail split into two different trails you could either continue on the foot path or go up and over a few other peaks. These peaks were more for people who had been "mountain walking" (according to outdoor pursuits standards) before. Of course we decided to do the tougher one! It was quite a bit of scrambling up to the peaks of the mountains where then it was climbing/walking along the top ridge of the mountains. When we say top, we mean it was about a couple feet wide with drop offs on both sides. Just to let you know how bad it was, in looking at different routes up Snowdon online, this is the one to have the most fatal accidents each year... (don't worry mothers, we all survived!) We kept moving pretty quickly as one of the Central students with us had to be back for a train to Manchester that night since he had to head back to the states the next day. We never really stopped for lunch but kept our stops short and snacked throughout the day.
After about 3 hours of walking/climbing/scrambling, we finally made it to the top of Snowdon. When I mentioned that it had been a bit windy in certain spots during the climb, it was a completely different story on the top of Snowdon. Since it is the highest point in Wales, there is nothing else protecting it from the wind so it was extremely windy! If you weren't careful, you could have been easily blown over with a big gust. You could really see for miles on the top though. It was a bit hazy though so we couldn't see Ireland. Knowing that we had to keep moving, we headed down the mountain on the foot path that goes back to Llanberis. It only took about 2 hours to go down but it was the windiest on this foot path! One student that was with us lost his glasses during one gust. They were taken right off his face. We looked for awhile to they could have flown anywhere, so it is a good thing we only have a few weeks left. We ended up meeting up with the three people that took the foot path originally and finished walking down with them. After a full 5 hours, we had completely climbed Snowdon.
We took the bus back to Bangor, got cleaned up, and helped Swaff get his things packed up and ready to leave. We walked down with him to the train station to see him off and in doing so, I found 40 pounds!! It was sitting right on the platform where the trains come. So between Derek and I, we have found 60 pounds and lots of odd change. :) Off course, being tired from a big day, nobody did much last night. I watched a movie with some girls and Derek puttered around and went to bed pretty early. All in all it was a great day. Climbing Snowdon was on our list of things to do before we left and now it is checked off. Still a few things left to do but we are thinking we will get most of them done! ~Anna

Home Stretch

We made it back safely from Barcelona which was a great time to just relax and not have to think about school for a bit. Last Sunday night we fly to Barcelona but the flight was late enough that we had to catch a taxi to our hostel. The name of the hostel was Barcelona Dream Hostel but of course since we had a two bed room it was basically a closet sized room. You had to move out of the way to close the door because the bed was right in front of you when you walked in. It worked out though because breakfast was included and it was super close to a metro stop so we got everywhere very easily. It was about a 10 minute walk to the beach from there but we went to a different one to lay out because the other one was nicer. Monday it was a bit rainy and cloudy so we just explored Barcelona and went to the market. It was amazing to have fairly cheap fresh fruit and vegetables! We did walk down to the beach that was close to our hostel both nights and just played around in the sand and the waves. Of course the water was freezing but we did get in the second day. Tuesday was gorgeous and sunny so we went to another beach and just hung out. It was pretty full with people with quite a few topless women. There were also tons of people walking around offering massages but they were like 5euros so we passed on those... We did take our sun screen so neither of us are lobsters! After laying out for the afternoon we stopped and got paella at a restaurant. The paella wasn't too bad, it had a bunch of mussels and shrimp in it. Then we also got a second plate to go with it but of course neither of us could remember enough Spanish to know what our choices were. Derek got fried fish, literally little fried fish on a plate with a small side salad. Then I got rabbit and snail... :( Derek ate my snails but the rabbit wasn't too bad. Of course I didn't know it was rabbit until we got back and looked it up. O well, that is all part of the experience I guess. Wednesday morning we made an early lunch and headed back to Bangor. We finally made it in late last night about 12:30.
Today has been a day of catching up on things. I turned in my Psychology of Sports Performance paper this morning and both Derek and I are working on our two papers that are due tomorrow. Derek has his macro economics test tomorrow afternoon. Then he has a test next Wednesday and I have one next Friday. A couple of people from the Central group are leaving this weekend so we are heading out tonight and tomorrow with them. Other than that, we are starting to get things packed up and ready to go home. There are plans to climb Snowdon on Saturday with a group of people as long as the weather holds out. The last thing we will be doing is going to Poland with 3 other Central students on June 2-4 to visit Krakow and Auschwitz. It will be a depressing last trip but is when people could go and when the tickets were cheap. We will get back on Wednesday the 4th and then head to the Manchester airport late Friday night, the 6th. So we are down to our last few weeks. As long as the tests go well, it should be a good end to our study abroad experience. But of course until we are home, we will continue to keep you updated on how things are going so keep on checking in!

We have arrived in Barcelona!

Well as you can tell it is early in the morning. We just got into our hostel a short time ago. We had some flight delays but we made it to Barcelona. We got everything figured out so far. We spent Saturday morning through mid afternoon exploring Camden, literally. We were both surprised at how big and maze like it was. We were not expecting that. We had a good time checking out all the shops. There were some pretty eccentric places. We checked out No. 10 Downing Street as well. That was pretty much our day. We just chilled for the evening and tried to get some rest. This morning (technically yesterday morning) we left the court house...... yes we spent two nights in a court house. It was a court house that they turned into a hostel. It was pretty sweet actually because they most of the court rooms intact and they also left the cells intact. We weren't adventurous enough (nor did we have the money) to stay in the cells for a night. It was cool nonetheless. Well we left around 10 ish and made our way towards the train station that would take us to the airport and along the way we attended the Mattins service at St. Paul's Cathedral. The cathedral was one of the most ornate ones we have been to yet I think. It was a really good service and the murals, statues, and decorations we just amazing. After that we ended up catching some lunch at the station and hanging out there before we left for the airport were we hung out for the remainder of the afternoon before our flight. The Ryanair tickets counters experienced computer failure so we spent around a hour waiting around to check-in. Other flights almost didn't make there departure times. We had plenty of time however but our flight was still a little later than expected so it is rather late now. We will keep you up to date on how the rest of our Barcelona experience goes.

Tour Guides for a Day

We had a great last day for our outdoor pursuits. The weather was amazing however it was a little windy. My OP group was going to go kayaking however we ended up going together with Anna's OP group for the day. We ended up just sea level traversing, swimming, absailing (repelling), playing games, and barbecuing. We played butt wrestling, WAA!, nose jousting, and many other crazy games. It was a good day to just lay out, hang out and chill together. It was a bitter sweet moment because we all really enjoyed it however I suppose it must come to an end sometime. We were running out of things to do as well but who says you can't do something twice. It will be nice not having to wash and rinse all the salt water out of all your clothing every Thursday though.
We got into London last night after a few delays. Mostly because we missed a connecting train because our train was late due to sheep on the tracks.... imagine that. We got into our hostel at about 2 but we did get to finally ride on a double decker bus however.
Today we spent the day with the Central Group that is going to Malawi Africa for two weeks on a mission trip. They got into the airport around 12:30 and then their flight took off around 7 tonight. Anna and I went with half of them because we waited for awhile longer for someone to come in on a later flight. We had a chance to show them Big Ben, the London Eye, Westminster, and the parliament building. They were tired after being up for almost 24 hours and they had another 6 hourish flight tonight to make it to Africa. We were able to show off our big city navigation skills and also what we have learned since being here so many times.
We have all day tomorrow and the morning on Sunday to chill in London before we head to Barcelona Sunday night. We will probably make to a few parts that we haven't seen yet. Them being Camden Market and No. 10 Downing St. Nothing real big or taxing. We have gotten into the habit of hitting up the fast food joints, i.e. Burger King and McDonalds, for their free internet, of course you then have to get ice cream.
We are all set up for our trip to Barcelona. We will just show up eat the cheap fruit, nuts, and fish. The rest of the time we should just be hanging out on the beach taking in the rays, maybe this time with some precautions.

Hoping to Relax...

Just letting you all know that tomorrow right after we get done with OP, we will be heading to London and eventually to Barcelona. We aren't heading to Spain until Sunday evening but we going to be meeting up with the Africa mission trip people from Central that are going through London. They have an 8 hour layover so we will be going to connect up with them and hear all their plans for the next 10 days or so. We are pretty excited to see our Central friends!!! Then we are hoping to have a couple of days just relaxing in Barcelona by laying around and enjoying some sun. But don't worry, we do have the sun screen packed this time! We will be back in Bangor next Wednesday evening.
Tomorrow is our last day for outdoor pursuits though. Both of our groups are having a fun day in which we choose what we would be doing. Derek's group is doing some sea kayaking and climbing. My group will be going to the beach and surfing but also taking some kayaks if people want to do that instead. Both of our groups have gotten makings for a BBQ/picnic lunches. So we will be grilling out for lunch on the shores of the Menai Strait and on the beach. I think most people are pretty sad about not having OP anymore because we are all having such a great time. But we have had one person already head home for her graduation and people are slowly starting to leave as it gets closer to the end of the semester. So things are wrapping up.
I had my first final on Monday and let me tell ya, the UK testing system is intense! Tests are in the biggest lecture halls with like 6 or 7 other classes and you have admission forms and people standing around you watching the huge clock in the front of the room. Then you can't leave in the first 30 minutes or the last 15 minutes of the test to keep from distracting people. If you feel sick, they have a special little room you go to. All in all, the tests are the same but how you take them is just pretty serious. Other than my other test on the 30th, I just have 3 papers and some journals to do in the mean time. Derek has a test on the 28th and 2 papers as well. So we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Breathe....

Well we have made it back to Bangor for a few short days. After all of our recent travels and experiences we have a little time in order to catch up on things and catch our breath before we head back out for a couple more trips. Exams start today. Anna has one this afternoon at 2 and one on the 30th of May. I have mine on the 23rd and the 28th of May. We have our last outdoor pursuits this week as well. After not having a computer in our rooms we are finally getting caught up on Blogs and pictures so there a quite a few new picture albums up. My mom brought us over a another laptop that will get us through the semester so we are able to stay in touch with people and also do our studies. We have been blessed with amazing weather the past few weeks and it looks like it should continue for awhile as well. Enjoy all the new pictures and blogs.

Cardiff

This past weekend we were in Cardiff, the capital city of Wales. It was the first time we have been to south Wales. It is a beautiful down here. On the way down we stopped at several places including Hereford and Tintern. Bulmer's cider is brewed in Hereford and there is an old Abbey in Tintern. Saturday morning we had a tour of Cardiff Castle and then a tour of the Millenium Stadium. The Cardiff Castle was pretty impressive because it was fully furnished victorian style mansion and had themes from many places from across the world. The Millenium Stadium was cool. It it the largest stadium in the UK and holds most of their important events. The FA Cup, and Rugby games. They also hold huge concerts, sporting events and conferences there. They don't quite stand up to stadiums in the US but it was cool to just go there anyway. We ate lunch down in Cardiff bay where I managed to complete the Harry Ramsden's Challenging fish and chips. That afternoon we visited the Welsh National history Museum. I would compare it to living history farms in Iowa. They have villages and buildings going back through history explaining and showing how life was lived. They have a working farm, bakery, and grinding mill. There is also an area with gardens and a large mansion. Tecwyn lived and worked here for about 16 years. Last night we spend the night out with everyone hanging out and having a good time before we had to leave today. Several people are leaving early and so this is their last weekend. Today we are just going to a museum for about and hour and then going back to Bangor. We really hate to see the weekend end because it was a last big group event and we have a good time together. On the way home we stopped at Hay-on-Wye (Hay on Why) home to one of the largest collection of second hand books in the world. The have over thirty shops full of books. The town is also known for its self proclaimed king, Richard Booth and one of the largest festivals in the UK, Hay Festival of Literature and Arts. We had a good long afternoon here because after lunch we returned to the bus and it wouldn't start. We had to wait around for about 2 and half hours until they were finally able to get it started. So we made it home at about 8.30 Sunday night several hours later than anticipated.

Bath Spa

I am going to back track a little because I just got around to putting up some pictures from my mothers trip over here. She was here two weeks ago. The first day we went to Caenarfon Castle and then headed to London for several days. While in London we met up with Anna's roommate from the fall and she took us to a lot of places. We visited Westminster, Big Ben and the Parliment building. We then went on up to trefalger square and leisaster square. We saw some of the major cinemas where they have film premieres in London. We also saw the Globe and the original sight of the Globe Theatre. We walked across the Millenium Bridge as well. That night we went to the musical Wicked. It was a really good performance. It was quite a different atmosphere than in America but it was really good show. That Sunday morning we attended a service in the Westminster Abbey and that afternoon we just relaxed. Sunday evening my mom and I left for Bath. We had a good time there. We were there for two days. The first day the weather was really good. Monday morning we took a canal tour after checking out some gardens and the Royal Crescent. We toured the Roman Baths and we tasted the water from the spring. That night we ate at a local pub. One thing we had to do before we left was go and experience the real spa. On Tuesday we spent two hours in the morning enjoying the natrually warm and mineral filled waters of the spring in the Thermea Spa. We got to sit in a roof top pool overlooking Bath and there was also a ground floor pool as well. The thing that was probably the most different was a room with four large scented steam chambers; lavander, frankincense, and two other scents that I can't remember. I wasn't the only guy in there either. There were quite a few of them other being more willingly then some it seemed. It was quite relaxing and we didn't want to do much after that but we went to several museums anyway. We visited Sally Lunns, the fashion museum and also a museum on the history of Bath itself. We stayed in a really nice B&B and had a full english breakfast both days. The beds were really nice and I'm definitely not used to be staying in places that nice. We spent Wednesday in Liverpool with Anna. We stayed in a really nice old hotel in Liverpool as well and it wasn't expensive at all. We basically just took the Magical Mystery Tour of the Beatles and visited all the places that were significant to them throughout their lives. Thursday morning my mom flew home and Anna and I had outdoor pursuits.

Kilts, Hairy Coo, and Nessy - What do they have in common?

Well if you guess Scotland you would be correct. We were in Scotland this past weekend. We had Monday off because it was the Bank Holiday. It was a really busy weekend. We had great weather and it was in the high 60s. We left Friday morning for Glasgow at 8 and then we when on to Edinburgh and got there around 2:30 or so. That night we just wondered around and sat a small pub and caught up on some email and stuff. On Saturday we went to St. Andrews. It was a very small town but it was cool to make it there. We did visit the golf course and even got to play it. Well sort of, we played the miniputt course, called the Himilayas. It was cool though. We walked on the beach. We also did some geocaching but were really unsuccessful because most of the ones we were close to were multi caches and we didn't have time for them. After lunch we went to a small botantical garden and then came back to Edinburgh. Saturday and Sunday night we stayed with a friend of mine from Pella, Ashley Pavlat. We had a good time hanging out with her. We had a chance to catch up and then share with her what is going on at Central, she graduated from Central as well. Sunday we walked up the Royal Mile, and also around the outside of Edinburgh castle. We had lunch in a nice park just below the castle. On the way back to Ashley's place we ran into her and her roommate who were headed to a movie. So Anna and I tagged along and we ended up seeing Made of Honor, it was good considering, but hey part of it took place in Scotland so how fitting is that. Anna and I were going to leave Sunday night for Glasgow and then go on a tour to the Highlands on Monday but being the Bank Holiday weekend all the hostels were booked full. So we stayed in Edinburgh and we went on a tour from there. The tour lasted from 8:30 in the morning until 8:30 at night. It was a good tour. Most of it was a driving tour however we did make stops for pictures and also for food. We had an hour and half break at Loch Ness. There were some really awesome views and we were pumped full of history as well. It got up above 70 degrees during the middle of the day so that made it a really nice day for us to be out. We got back today a little after noon. Anna had class tonight and she is doing laundry. The rest of the week shouldn't be too bad. The weather is supposed to stay really nice and so we will probably be in t-shirts most of the time. Friday we leave for Cardiff with all the Central people for the weekend.