I have an exciting story to share with everyone. I will start at the beginning…

Because UCL housing was full, I was placed at 21 Pembridge Gardens, IFSA-Butler’s office in London. It is a beautiful white townhouse in Notting Hill. I live with about 30 other Americans studying abroad and have made a lot of new friends. I’m lucky because at the same time that I am meeting people from all over the world, I am also meeting friends who I can visit more easily in America.

Notting Hill is a great area, as you would know if you saw the film of the same name starring Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. It is fun to say that I live 2 doors down from Stella McCartney (yes this is absolutely true and I see her and her family all the time!). It is also nice that so many opportunities are within walking distance. Notting Hill is just a short walk from the famous Portobello Market, Hyde Park and, of course, Kensington Palace.

You may remember that years ago Princess Diana resided in Kensington Palace with her sons William and Harry. Now it is home to Prince William and Kate Middleton. The Palace is just a 10 minute walk from my house. I loved this part of my housing location because I am a real royal fan. I even woke up at 5 a.m. to watch the Royal Wedding last April. Okay here is where the story gets interesting.

Last week as I was walking back to my house from High Street Kensington (a main shopping street with stores like Zara, Whole Foods and H&M), I noticed a woman with the most beautiful hair I had ever seen. It was brown, long, curly at the ends and very bouncy. She was also very impressively dressed in all black with a fancy looking leather handbag. Not to mention the man walking very closely behind her. I had a fleeting thought that the woman looked like Kate Middleton. Then all of a sudden she turned her head and I realized it was her! A real life royal! I didn’t know what to do. I was in shock that I was seeing such a huge celebrity on the streets of London. She was carrying a shopping bag and stopping by a local flower stall to pick up some white lilies for her royal apartments in Kensington Palace.

I knew I would always regret it if I didn’t say anything to her, so I went for it. “Hi, um, are you Kate?” I asked nervously. “Yes,” she replied. I think I might have started shaking right about here. Hopefully Kate didn’t notice. Now I was speechless. “Oh wow, well, um, I just wanted to say, well, um, hi” I muttered. “It’s very nice to meet you,” she replied in her beautiful English accent. I smiled and left her alone to pick out her flowers, but not before taking a few pictures of her first.

This is a memory I will never forget. I have to thank IFSA-Butler for placing me in their Notting Hill office. Otherwise, I never would have talked to a real life princess and future Queen of England!

A few weekends ago, IFSA-Butler organized a trip to the Lake District for Adventure Weekend. The Lake District is in the North of England and is full of, of course, lakes and beautiful hills. We were so lucky to go in the Fall and see all the beautiful leaves. There were a lot of activities planned, like mountain biking, hiking, canoeing or just going on a sightseeing tour (which I did). I got to see so many wonderful sights and meet students who went to other schools in England besides UCL which was really fun because I got to meet new friends!

The first night, IFSA put on a pub quiz. We organized into teams and did a fun trivia game. Questions ranged from identifying a picture of Pippa Middleton to answering questions about the periodic table. Pub quizzes are common in English pubs but I enjoyed getting to play with all my IFSA friends. Unfortunately, our team didn’t win but we did come in 5th place which isn’t too bad I’d say.

The next day was my sightseeing tour! We went all over the Lake District and saw ancient stone circles (quite like Stonehenge), William Wordsworth’s house, a waterfall, many different lakes and different villages. We also went into a church that was over 1000 years old. The US hadn’t even been discovered back when that church was built! I am not much of an adventure/outdoorsy girl so I am glad that IFSA arranged this sightseeing option for those of us who weren’t the most physically capable!

That night, there was a party held for all the students on the trip. We listened to music, danced with all our friends (and even our staff) which was a lot of fun. We had to be up early the next morning though to go into the town of Keswick and explore a nice village of the Lake District. It was delightful to go into such a quaint town after all the hustle and bustle that is London. In fact, I didn’t even get cell phone reception. It was such a relaxing weekend and I am very grateful that IFSA took us away for the weekend!

Well, I just turned in an extremely difficult essay I spent all of last night editing for one of my modules…I don’t feel particularly confident about the score I will get, but I tried and that’s about all one can do. My head is spinning a little and I need to take a break, which means it’s time for a blog post. Therefore, I would very briefly like to comment on my experience abroad in general now that I am 2/3rds of the way through–more than, actually, since I’m writing this about 10 days later than I meant to!

In any case, I want to be completely honest about my experience and what it has been like, and a part of that is me admitting that for all the fun I’ve had and things I’ve learned, there were moments (well, okay, longer than mere ‘moments’; more like days) when I desperately missed my home university and felt completely beyond my comfort zone.

The first month was really hard for me; when my parents visited a month into my stay, I was so happy to see them, because at the time, all I could think was “I don’t really have friends”, “I miss Gettysburg”, “Why did I decide to do this again?” and other such thoughts. I haven’t written about this yet, really, because at the time, I felt just awful for even thinking those things–objectively, I knew I should be so grateful for having this experience at all, and I felt very guilty for not enjoying it more. The fact that I never really felt homesick after moving to a college 6.5 hours away from my home three years ago and was so incredibly excited to visit Wales allowed me to skim over the idea that I might had adjustment problems here . I (naively) expected to just love being abroad instantly, but it was much more challenging than I’d realized. Being in a different country (even one where you speak the language) with a different academic system in a city threw me much further out of my comfort zone than Gettysburg College ever did.

The most important point I would like to press, though, is that you just have to give it time, and furthermore that nothing helps one adjust more than completely throwing one’s self into something. I chose to become involved in some societies, and furthermore vowed that if I learned anything at all here, I would learn the Welsh language. It sounds simple, but setting that one simple goal of really doing well in my Welsh class (not just skating along to get by, as many do in language courses) changed everything for me.

I can say completely confidently that now, two months (and a week, now) into my program, my attitude and feelings towards this experience have gone completely the opposite way and I am absolutely in love with Cardiff; I no longer see the charm in the idea of returning to my home university, and the only thing I am thinking is “Don’t make me leave!”

Funny old world, isn’t it? One month you want nothing more than to go home, the next month you want nothing more than to stay and in spare moments somehow find yourself pondering ways in which you might soon secure a return visit to your adoptive country.

This, I think, is a pretty normal thing for Study Abroad students to feel, the initial excitement, the homesickness, and then finally settling in. I was just a bit arrogant and didn’t think I would experience all three.

I just wanted to make it clear that contrary to what my blog thus far may have suggested, it hasn’t been all butterflies and roses and frolics in the countryside since I arrived in Wales. But I adjusted and settled in and I feel more at home in this city than I ever have anywhere in the US …the unfortunate side of this change is, of course, that I am struck with despair at the idea that I will not be returning to Cardiff after being home for Christmas and the New Year.

So for the moment I’m just going to go on my merry way, doing my assessments in denial until it all comes crashing down about my ears two and a half weeks from now.

Good morning! GOOD MORNING! Look alive! You don’t know how lucky you are. You, who has two more years to sit in the Magdalene deer park with a steaming mug of coffee and idly reflect on whether you should eat dinner from the silver platters of Hall or the damp wooden slabs of the Turf; you who has two more years to wonder if you should take your work to the ostentatious green dome of the Radcliffe Camera or the cozy leather armchairs in the Foreign Languages Library beside the Ashmolean. You. You! I wouldn’t kill for those years, it’s not in my style, but I’d give a lot for them; I’d give up television, perhaps, or soda. I actually don’t drink soda, so that’s not too much of a sacrifice, but I would give it up, damn you, I’d give it up forever in exchange for a little more time. I know it won’t work. That’s not the way the world works. Instead we walk until we start to jog, and jog until we start to run, cause we’re late! We’re late! For a very important date! But there’s only one important date—ask Lewis Carroll, he’ll tell you—and I got to say, brother man, I’m not sure you can ever be too late for that one. But you’re right, in a way. We are too late, too late to slow down, too late to stop the motion; come here, William, faster! Come on, faster! Wait, what? Oh, I… my God, you had it right. You had it right all along! Slow down! Slow do… ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

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Splat! and before we know it we’ve gone past the point of no return and we’ve fallen out of the rabbit hole. If there’s one thing I don’t understand, it’s why everyone is so eager to be born. Hang out a little bit; you’ll look younger in fifty years. We weren’t born to run; otherwise, running wouldn’t make us tired. Which reminds me of a joke: why couldn’t the bicycle stand up? Because it was two tired! Ha! Now that’s what I’m talking about. Contra Mundum, Ryder? No way, the mundum had your back all along. It’s big ol’ Time that’s got your number, baby; he’s the one you should be worried about. Because when he catches up to you, there won’t be any revisits. What? What did you say? What do you expect? Brrring! Brrring! They’re calling for you. Wee woop, wee woop, wee woop. Pneumatic hissssss. Welcome back! How was the journey? And you think they’re going to follow orders when you say, “put me back, I like space?” Unlikely. Once you’re here, you’re here for good. So you better enjoy your time out there while you have the chance. I tried. I tried so hard. But I’m no golden bird, no dark tower, so the light’s gonna hit me in three days no matter what I do. I have three days in which to take my final pictures and condense my best memories, three days to crystallize my thoughts and emotions and feelings through words and images so that they don’t slip through the cracks of time like leaves down a gutter. It’s a daunting task. I won’t be able to do it. There are some things that will be lost, and it’s for the lost things I despair. Good thing I realized time was linear in one day instead of wasting the week looking for evidence that it’s not. That’s some consolation. And it’s not over yet. That’s another. WAKE UP! I set your alarm early because there’s so much to do. Even now my body is looking more like a shade. Why did I insist on getting nine and a quarter hours of sleep each night? Surely I could have gotten by on eight, and used the extra hour to walk around, to look at stuff, to touch things, to record another track of JWA’s Oxford Sessions. Did I say goodbye to the deer? Yes, that was yesterday, but I should like to do it again. Will there be time tomorrow? I’m not sure. I have to pack, and buy another bottle of Ben Riach, because I can’t get that at home, and I still haven’t been to the top of St. Mary the Virgin, which I’m pretty keen to do; I’ve heard the view is beautiful up there, even better than it is from the Sheldonian, and even though it’s more expensive I think it might be worth the price. I’ll have to compare it to the view I got from the Tower of the Five Orders—oh man, remember that? I thought that spiral staircase would never stop. I’d like to go back there, but I can’t, because it’s illegal, and I can’t go punting again, because they pulled the boats up for the winter, but that’s alright, because it will leave me time to do other things, like eat one more meal at Georgina’s or Pie Minister or Ben’s Cookies, that would be nice, an entire meal of cookies, one of every flavor, I’d eat one of every flavor that I haven’t yet tried. I want to try every flavor. I want to get it all in. I want to… ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

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See? My fall is just as long as yours. But you! Yours hasn’t come yet. That’s why I’m jealous. It’s petty, I know. You have all the hearts, stars, and clovers, don’t you, because you don’t need to despair just yet. You’re still deep in the dream. Bleh. It’s hard to be upset with you, because you’re so cute when you sleep. Enjoy the dreams. Enjoy them by waking up. WAKE UP! Wait, sorry, that doesn’t make much sense. No, sorry again (those are British manners), it does. Lucid dream. And learn to do it now, because there’s no use finding the fountain of youth when you’re one hundred and ten. Learn how to do it now, because one day you’ll wake up for real, and when that happens nothing can help you, nothing can help you, NOTHING, not unless you can make like T.S. Eliot and try to hold still in the flux. You know, stop time. But even he failed, and although I’m sure you’re smart, you’re probably not on the same level as T.S. Eliot—who was? Yeats maybe—but you’re not Yeats, either, probably not, at least; I mean, you might be, I’m not saying that you’re definitely not, but you’re most likely not, so what hope do you really have? Even if you are, what hope do you really have? Oh. I’ll offer you hope. Realize that you’re running, you fiery chariot, and slow your ass down. Goodnight, Oxford. Well, not goodnight. I’m waking up. Waking up for good. So goodbye. Oh! But to dream once again in a city of dreams!

Here is a long-awaited post about my spectacular 1,500 mile journey from Sydney, NSW, to Cairns, Queensland.  This trip began with some poses in front of our Jucy Campa van, which we had reserved for the next 10 days to serve as not only our beds, but also as our kitchen and living spaces!  Only the two boys in the group accepted the driving duty, which would amount to 30 hours, while the two girls relaxed in the back seat and kept keen watch over the goings-on in the front of the van.  From September 21st until October 2nd, everything I cared about was riding down Australian highways with me.

 

 

The first visit on our agenda was to drive over the Sydney Harbor bridge ourselves- it was the first time the four of us in our campervan realized we would be crossing this and many more bridges to a collection of foreign places during our roadtrip.

After ten hours, we arrived at our Hostel in Byron Bay which was a beautiful 5$ per night backpackers resort located right next to the beach.  After sleeping overnight here, we took a tour of Nimbin, which is considered a “hangover from an arts festival” which occurred a few decades ago.  Nevertheless, we boarded a bus which transported us through dazzling mountain and farm scenes while enjoying an eclectic mix tape.  Nimbin is the perfect hippie town of Australia, and although we could only stay for 2 hours we managed to a few good pictures.

In addition, our bus-guide barbecued for us and gave us a tour of a beautiful and secluded waterfall in the woods, complete with lilypads and other natural beauty.

 

All in all our first day was a complete success and we learned a lot about the landscape of Byron Bay.  Besides our sidetrip away from Byron, we were able to climb to the eastern-most point of Australia on the beach in Byron Bay.  From here we could see whales and also one of the most powerful lighthouses in Australia (since Australia is geographically further from just about all other landmasses, it requires strong light houses to help those who are able to find Australia’s shores reach land) and was an absolutely gorgeous place from where we were able to watch whales lazily flailing in the ocean water down below.  While we received many offers for hanggliding, we saved our small fortunes for the next 9 days of our trip.

After exploring Byron Bay, we felt that we were ready to leave by September 24rd.  At this point we realized that we would finally enter Queensland, our second state we planned to  visit outside of NSW (New South Wales). During the journey my friend and I chopped up salads in the back of the van and prepared lunch for everyone in this way, topped with our favorite sriracha hot sauce.  Our first stop in this journey was Gold Coast, where we entered a wildlife sanctuary to watch a bird show, observe a man stand on a diving board and provoke the crocodile below him to snatch the meat off of his hand, and, of course, the four of us got to hold koalas as a group!  The crocodile act was terrifying, and definitely an act that any tourist should witness in order to grasp the horror behind the method through which Australia’s crocodiles, known to be the largest in the world, get their food.  And as far as koalas go, I was happy to be able to touch its soft pelt, but the animal was going to the bathroom while our picture was being taken.  Thankfully, I will not include that picture in this post.

After our experience at the nature center, we searched for a backpacker lodge but it was a challenge because it was already late afternoon on a saturday.  However, we were able to find the perfect living accommodation walking distance from the center of town, and after we unpacked the four of us ate a delicious chinese meal with red wine while we prepared to explore Gold Coast on a Saturday night.

The town reminded me of a state college town, because people were out on the streets at 4 in the morning and they seemed to have no intention of going home any time relatively soon.  Despite witnessing a few fights in bars (in which none of us took part), we felt quite safe and had a great time experiencing Gold Coast’s downtown.  We were able to run right onto the beach, located across from all the main bars, and back onto the pavement barefoot to continue exploring the beachfront bars.  This made the atmosphere relaxed yet high-energy/thrilling all at once, especially being surrounded by so many Australians who were under the influence.

It was not until the following day that we saw the town in daylight, and it was even more beautiful.  My friends and I went shopping for souvenirs and each bought matching sun hats!

Gold Coast’s outdoor mall consists of designer outlets like Coach and also many other expensive clothing brands which I could have purchased cheaper in the United States.  There were also a few Australian brands being sold at this mall and many delicious smoothies to enjoy in the heat for discounted prices!  It is important to note that the culture encourages shoeless tourists to explore this outdoor mall and all the restaurants around it, and it is quite normal to observe children and adults alike shedding their shoes to feel the warm cobblestones next to the beach.  Without shoes on it is easy to hear the “squeaking” of the sand, a noise characteristic of Gold Coast and most beautiful beaches that stretch along Australia’s Northern East Coasts.  Some say that this is because the sand is so clean, and others insist that this happens to sand that is made of glass or crystal particles rather than those of decomposing shells.  Regardless, the squeaking provided a wonderful background music track while we ran to and from the ocean!

After a full day of body-surfing through the waves, we were tanned and exhausted from our time in Gold Coast and ready to move on to Brisbane, our next destination.

This video is a mix of things I did when my cousin was here around Belfast and when the IFSA students were here for the Northern Ireland trip.

This video is about my weekend trip to London. Hope you enjoy!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  AKA Acción de Gracias.

I think my host mom was a little confused that I was gone for nearly an hour at the supermarket, stocking up on the basics (butter, sweet potato, butter, flour, mangoes, butter, eggs, butter).  I was talking about “tomorrow,” blah, blah, blah, “cooking all day,” blah, blah….and she goes, “What, what holiday is tomorrow?”  WHAT?!?!?!?!?!

But I suppose that her lack of observance of the most important holiday of the year can be forgiven.  Perú doesn’t quite celebrate the contact of the Spanish empire with their indigenous cultures, so sadly, they do not have this holiday.  (Why do they have a name for something they don’t celebrate?  Good question.)

So what’s on the menu?  Our program director has ordered a turkey to be prepared “gringo style,” and it comes with gravy.  We (the students) -ahem, the students who feel they can cook -are making the rest.  Stuffing, pies, mashed potatoes.  I’m making 2 sweet potato pies.  Sweet potato is one thing that this country does not lack.  Success.

On that topic, however, cranberries are one thing that this country does, in fact, lack.  Our director was in New York last month and a few students asked her to bring back cranberries, but apparently they weren’t out in the stores yet.  So, we have come up with our own Peruvian alternative to cranberry sauce….

MANGO CHUTNEY!!

(Quite representative of Perú’s rainforest region.)

The funny thing is that a boy on my program actually found the recipe.  Simplyrecipes.com!  Haha.  So I’m making that one too.

Finding everything in the store was a bit of a challenge.  For example, flour.  There are two types here.  Prepared flour and unprepared flour.  What??  I thought about asking someone, but then I didn’t know what I would ask…”I want the normal American kind….”  So I settled on the unprepared.  The only difference I could tell is that it didn’t have yeast, and I figured you don’t need that for a pie crust.  So hopefully that will work out for me

Agenda for tomorrow:  Wake up, go to my History of Perú class.  The professor loves me and loves making references to the United States, so I am willing to bet that there is going to be some mention of Thanksgiving.  During which I will enlighten the class about this wonderful day.  (Too bad y’all didn’t get along with the Indians…just kidding).  Then, I will accompany my friend Liz to the Kosher market (she’s an Orthodox Jew…if you didn’t deduce that from “kosher,”) to buy Kosher desserts for the dinner.  Then cook, cook, cook, and dinner at 5!!

An Apology:

Now to start off this entry, I must admit that I am a DISGRACE to Classics majors everywhere–my last post should have said “Veni, vidi, vici” in the title, but I made some terrible mistakes there! I have been away from Latin too long…in any case, to every Latin professor I have ever had and the Ancient Gods above, I must say a huge “mea maxima culpa.”

 

Moving on: A Tea Party

 

I believe I left off my last post talking about a tea party, and indeed, last weekend I attended the Tea Party Society’s Mad Hatter’s Tea Party at a lovely cafe/tea room in nearby Roath, just a little bit of a walk outside of the main center of Cardiff. As usual with the Tea Party Society, it was a very relaxing and enjoyable afternoon of tea drinking &  cake consuming.

 

Evidence of a successful tea party:

 

 

You can’t tell from this picture, but the Society’s Cake Officer made a cake shaped and amazingly decorated like the Mad Hatter’s hat!

 

 

There were also a number of games played for prizes (tea pots!), including the very exciting “How many hats can you stack on your head?” game–the record ended up being 15, I think! Here’s a photo of one of the contestants in the midst of the hat-stacking progress:

 

 

I also received my official membership card at the party, pictured here in front of the hat I wore to the party.

 

 

The rest of the weekend was spent mainly doing homework, though on Sunday a flatmate and I did walk into the City Centre to have (the most delicious) pies and cider at a pub on the High Street called The Goat Major; I believe I mentioned it in one of my very first blog posts, but if you ever visit Cardiff, you really must go! The pies can’t be beat, especially on a chilly, misty Sunday afternoon!

 

I also snapped this picture of the castle as we passed by:

 

 

AND NOW: A Day in the Life of a Cardiff University student in a series of (somewhat boring) photos.

 

I’ve devoted a lot of this blog to talking about the more adventuresome days I’ve spent in Wales, but almost none to the more mundane, day-to-day things. So one day I stuck my camera in my pocket and snapped a few pictures here and there, thinking I would give a bit of an overview of what an average WEEKDAY is like here at the University!

 

So, here we go:

 

Now, in the tradition of the “A Day In My Life” project on LiveJournal, I started off my “ADIML” series by taking a picture of my phone/alarm clock when I finally got out of bed.

 

 

9:07am! A little late, that day. I meant to get up and go to the gym at 8, but when my alarm went off I was just too tired and hit snooze…more than once. You can also see part of a Welsh vocab review sheet beneath my phone. I tend to keep a constantly-changing list beside my bed so that before I go to sleep and whenever I wake up I can surprise drill myself on new vocabulary.

 

And then I peeked out the window to check up on the weather before deciding what to wear for the day:

 

 

Hmm, overcast. Bit misty? We DO have lovely days here in Cardiff, but a lot of them tend to look like this. While this would drive me crazy in Gettysburg, here I tend to just say “Ah, Wales” and cheerily go on my way despite the leaden sky.

 

I thought I’d snap a picture of my little space here in University accommodation; it’s small, but perfect!

 

 

It doesn’t tend to look that neat later in the day. Anyway, then it was off to walk to class:

 

 

And then I went to the library to pick up and article I’d reserved for class:

 

 

 

And by that point it was nearing lunchtime, so I headed to the Union to grab some food.

 

 

 

After scarfing down my wrap, I dashed off to pick up groceries before my next class; it made my day a little crazy with the running to-and-fro, but I had somehow let myself run out of food to the point where the only thing I had was two apples and half a cup of oats.

 

 

You can only buy what you can carry back! This is probably a good thing, in some ways…The sky started clearing, so I decided to take the scenic route…

 

 

I did some reading for class–

 

 

And got really excited when there was some Welsh in it…

 

 

The sun finally managed to peek out!

 

 

And then it was time to go to class again; I thought I’d be late, so I walked there super fast, but when I got there nobody had arrived yet! This is what a typical seminar room looks like, at least for those taking humanities courses.

 

 

Unfortunately, the sun was already setting by the time I got out of seminar–the one bad thing about this time of year! It just gets dark too early…

 

The rest of the day was pretty standard and not particularly interesting–I did reading and research for my Life in Ancient Rome module. No interesting pictures there, but here’s me and one of my textbooks:

 

 

I took notes and read for the rest of the night.

 

So there you have it, a typical academics-centered day in the life of a student at Cardiff Uni. Nothing too exciting, objectively speaking, but I find that every day is pretty exciting when you’re living in a new country.

 

Upcoming Posts: The 2/3rds Review; Thanksgiving in the UK; Day trip to London