Cardiff

Just a quick update from today. We went to Cardiff, Wales today for a field trip as a group. I had briefly seen Cardiff on the way to Swansea a few weeks ago but that was just through my train window. We started the day by going into the National Assembly of Wales where they vote on various issues. The main thing I found interesting from that experience was that it only takes ten signatures on a petition to get discussed in court, while in England it take 100,000. We then went to Cardiff Castle which in my opinion was the best castle I have seen yet, granted I haven't seen many. We walked around the grounds and walked up to the top of the small castle. After that we went to an old amphitheater where the Romans used to hold fights back in early A.D. (Pictures below.) Overall, Cardiff was entertaining for a day trip but I am not sure I could spend a weekend there. This blog was shorter than normal but I will let the pictures make up for it. Also, as you will see below I got a haircut, and no I don't want to be in One Direction.

London Part 3

This past weekend I also did other things besides go to the Tottenham match. I got there early enough on Saturday so that I would have time to do a tour of Westminster before the match. My main goal was to find William Pitt's statue who was the youngest prime minster in the history of England because of his connection to my family on my dads side (great grandfather, don't know how many greats.) I found it once I walked in but unfortunately they don't allow pictures inside so you can just google the statue if you would like. The rest of my experience inside was surreal because i'm literally looking at the graves of people I just talked about in class the previous week (in a way its sort of an eerie feeling because it is literally filled with dead english men and women.) I then left very pleased I took time out of my day to visit the beautiful abbey, and would love to go back inside. On Saturday night Alex, myself, and Andrew visited the olympic area seeing the main stadium as well as the other venues used during the 2012 London olympics. Sunday was another football field day for me as I had plans to tour Tottenham and Chelsea's stadium both in one day. First was Tottenham and I had an awesome time. I could go into great detail and bore you with things I loved the most but I'm sure it wouldn't be that interesting to those who don't care about soccer so I will summarize it real quick.  I saw the home and away locker rooms, the directors box, the expensive suites, trophy room, and most importantly got to sit on the team bench and see the field (but not touch it unfortunately.) I then met with Alex and went and toured Chelsea's stadium. We did all the same things for the most part as I did on the Tottenham tour, except there was one thing that was obviously different than my tour of Tottenham and tour of Chelsea, and that is money. Chelsea is a richer club, in fact their owner has invested around 1 billion pounds into the club over the last thirteen years if you were wondering.  Everything at Chelsea was just nicer or more updated. But me being biased I loved White Hart Lane more for the memories I had connected with it even though I was very impressed with Stamford Bridge (Chelsea's stadium.) Overall, I had a very eventful weekend full of history and football. If you can't tell, I just want to tell everyone I'm extremely happy here and I'm enjoying having many dreams fulfilled over time. That being said I still miss all of you back home and hope all is well.

 

Chelsea

At Tottenham

White Hart Lane

First, I had a very eventful and packed weekend, so I'm going to make two separate post from this weekend just because I think this one deserves its own post. Well, I finally made it to a Tottenham game. Friday night I stayed in Bath and honestly it was just a blur because it felt like Christmas eve on steroids. I couldn't sleep all night because I just wanted to get to the game already. The next morning I hopped on a train and eventually got to White Hart Lane (Tottenham's stadium) at about 11:30. Kickoff against Norwich City was set for 3:00 but I wanted to get there early because one

of my favorite players who recently retired was having a book signing outside their store. So I waited in line for about an hour and a half and finally got to meet him (His name is Ledley King for anyone who cares) and got a picture with him.  While I was waiting in line I had the pleasure of standing next to an elderly woman whose knowledge amazed me.  We talked about the current team, teams of the past, and teams of the way back past that I had no knowledge of.  It for sure made the time go by faster talking to such an interesting woman who was clearly a huge supporter. Next order of business was to find Matt, Zach, Andrew, and Alex who were coming to the match with me. We met up at about 2:15 and headed into the stadium. The amount of chill bumps I received when I first saw the field with my own eyes was unbelievable, and naturally I teared up from just awe of finally being at the place I have watched on TV the last 6 years of my life wondering if I would ever get to see it myself. I was finally there. I was in a daze the whole pre-game. I feel like if someone would have yelled my name beside me I wouldn't of even heard it. One of the best feelings was to join in the chants I have learned by heart over the years. Singing "Oh when the Spurs" with 36,000 other people was an unforgettable and surreal moment that I will never forget. Once the match started everything just seemed to fly by.  However, I do remember after the first goal running back and forth down the aisle (In my opinion there are few things in sports comparable to seeing the team you love score a goal in soccer) in celebration.  Before I knew it the game was over and Tottenham had won 2-0 in dominant fashion. It wasn't even close and I loved every second of it.  I'm in the beginning stages of making a short video of the day, and whenever I finish it I'll put it on here, but for now pictures will do. To sum it up, I had my love for the beautiful game reaffirmed even more yesterday, and I can not wait to get back to The Lane on the 28th to see Tottenham vs. Chelsea (huge rivalry.) Until next time.

Wells/Glastonbury

Just wanted to update everyone on what I have been up to since Sunday. School has really picked up this week and I have actually spent a lot of time in the library reading and studying for future test. It's sort of a challenge figuring out how I'm going to balance my study time since I won't have the weekends do to work, but it's a good problem to have. We took a field trip to Glastonbury and Wells today. I made the logical decision (not sarcastic) to stay up late last night to watch the USA soccer game, so I was running off of four hours of sleep all day. But honestly nothing will ever be worse than last weekend in Swansea sleep wise, so I felt great today. But back to my day trip, if you are unfamiliar with these places (as I was originally) they are two small genuine English towns close to Bath. Glastonbury is famous for their music festival they have each year comparable to Bonnaroo back in the states. It also had a small castle at the top of a hill in which legend says Joseph of Arimathia once came and visited, and potentially buried the Holy Grail in the area.  Wells had an old Cathedral which was comparable to the one I saw last week in Salisbury. However what separated Wells from the other cities I've been to is it's market scene and small town feel. I bought a cornish pastry with BBQ chicken and potatoes along with some fudge in the market for lunch (which by the way, I have never missed sweat tea and mexican food so much.) Before we headed back to Bath, we stopped in a small area called Cheddar which in my opinion was the Gatlinburg of England. It was situated in an elevated area and had candy shops everywhere.  Overall today was a good day, but the weekend can come quick enough. I'm heading back to London, so get ready for the updates on Sunday. I hope all is well back home. Miss and love you all!

Our tour guide

Swansea, Wales

  
Welcome.  I just got back from my first weekend adventure, and we decided to head to Swansea, Wales.  When it came time to choose where we wanted to go we just looked for interesting cities along the coast line of either Wales or England, and after a little research on Thursday night, Swansea won. We got there Friday at dinner time with not really any plans for that night.  We explored the city and ate a quick dinner at the pub.  After walking around for a few hours we decided it might be a good time to find somewhere to stay.  The girls who came with me (Hannah, Michaela, Savannah, and Rachel) got a room in a cheap hotel. Us guys decided that the rooms were too expensive, mainly because they were trying to charge us for three rooms because supposedly they only allow two people to a room even though there were two queen size beds in each (the girls got lucky because the worker didn't see all four people go into their room that was supposed to be for two.)   So we continued on to another travel lodge which held three to a room. Andrew, Matt, and Zach all got in, but it was their last room available. So Alex, myself, and Luke had to improvise which ended in finding a cozy spot on the street. Don't worry though, we all had pocket knives just in case. I slept for about an hour or so, but honestly that night is up there for one the most miserable nights of my life, but hey, I'm alive (Lesson learned, try to book a place to stay before you go to another country.) Also, I know my mom and dad who are reading this will not be happy finding out their son slept on the street for a bit, but I just want to personally tell y'all it won't happen again and I now have more motivation than ever to make a living one day to avoid that lifestyle. It ended up turning out to be a nice start to the next day since we were basically awake the whole night we got to start exploring at seven o'clock.  We scaled a big hill in Swansea and got a great view (pic above.) Later that day, we met up with the whole group and went to a bay in Swansea called, Rhossili, which is considered one of the nicest beaches in the entire UK.  Zach and I decided to be a bit more adventurous and walked all the way out to the very end of this rock/cliff off in the distance. I felt like I was in a movie because the scenery was so beautiful (also pictured a sheep.)

After about an hour or so of walking on rocks, cliffs, and in high grass we made it. It was well worth it; however, I did rip my jeans in the process so there is one down side. After hanging out there for a few hours we headed back into downtown Swansea to catch our train back. I had to go see Swansea City's stadium before I left (The local football team) so I made a quick hour walk there and back to see it. Overall, this was a great weekend. I loved Wales and the beauty it possesses. I made memories but also learned somethings the hard way.  Hope all is well back home.

Our home for the night.

Until next time.

Stonehenge/Salisbury/Ashton Gate

  

Well, classes have officially started and its starting to become real that I actually have to do work over here not just explore the whole time. I've enjoyed the few classes so far though, and look forward to learning more and more about the place I'm calling home for the next few months. We went to Stonehenge yesterday along with Salisbury. Stonehenge was a surreal experience. Was it a little overrated? Maybe. But I honestly think it's all about ones prospective and mindset.  I enjoyed it and enjoyed hearing what our tour guide was telling us about the countless theories about the original purpose of the stone structure.  We then made our way to a small town called Salisbury where we visited a huge cathedral.  The two things unique about this cathedral is one, it has the tallest spike in the UK with the height of 404 feet. Secondly, one of the four original copies left in the world of the Magna Carta is housed there, which I thought was  interesting considering the influence that document had on our very own Declaration of Independence. It was beautiful inside and outside of the cathedral, and I enjoyed the tour more than I thought I originally would. Last night, I took a quick fifteen minute train ride to Bristol from Bath when we got back because the night before I decided to buy match tickets to Bristol City vs. Bristol Rovers for fifteen pounds. This match was an unique match because first off it was the Bristol Derby (derby is their word they use for rivalry) and it was the first one in seven years due to them being in different leagues. I was excited all day thinking about heading to my first ever genuine English football match, even though it wasn't the team I like. It was an electric atmosphere and an eye opening experience ending with a late Bristol City winning goal which was then followed by the fans storming the pitch.  I somehow fell more in love with soccer last night after that experience, and I'm very excited to continue to go to more and more matches (and yes I know I have a serious addiction or obsession.) Overall, yesterday was a great day and I got a wide variety of the English culture (From Stonehenge to football.) Hope all is well back home.

Cheers. 

Bath

Hello everyone.  I have been in Bath a few days now and I'm finally start to settle in to my new home.  I'm still up in the air on whether or not I would rather be in London or not, but only time will tell. However, over the last few days me and my friends have had some adventures which I know I couldn't have in London due to the beauty of Bath's countryside.  On Friday, we toured the famous Roman baths. It was interesting hearing the long elaborate method of how they used to go through the bathing process as well as seeing the old structure with our own eyes. Also on Friday, we met a local named Andrew who owned a boat shop. He could obviously tell we were American but he was extra kind to us and took us on a ride for free to get to a better picture spot on the river (I asked him if he liked football and who, he said United so I immediately discredited him being a fan in my mind).  Saturday, me and Andrew looked up to the top of the hill and saw a castle looking structure, and we made it our goal for the day to get to the top of that hill to find the castle. After about two hours of walking straight up hill we ran into a nice golf course, a hiking trail, Bath university, but no castle.  We were about to give up and walk back down hill when suddenly we literally look up and we see it within a hundred feet.  I guess you could say we were lucky, but I just think it was a reward for us dragging around eight people all day trying to find this mythical castle.  It ended up being a wall that looked like a castle, oh well. We got some cool pictures which I'll post below and made some memories (big andy getting stuck for a bit in the window when we were climbing the wall). I was supposed to go play football with some locals Sunday but it fell through because we couldn't find the field we were supposed to meet at but we did find a field so I got to kick a bit which was nice. Other than that Bath has been a relaxing place with a slower pace which is nice most of the time.  I'm in the process of planning my first weekend trip which is exciting, but at times stressful trying to line up all the travel arrangements. My next post should be later in the week after we go to Stonehenge on Wednesday. Love everyone who is reading this and miss you all.

Until next time, God Bless.