Wales: Day 36 Last Sabbath

Sunday, August 8, I woke up exhausted, again. Relieved to be home with good internet access again, I had stayed up far too late on Saturday night. If it wasn't our last Sunday in Cardiff I don't know if I would have been able to get up and endure 3 hours of bizarre church, not to mention the 25 minute walk in the rain. This Sunday we only repeated 1 hymn, which was a record low. Despite the craziness of the Coleg Glan Hafren ward, I had grown to love it. It was eccentric, loud, unorthodox and just random, but it was still the Church. Those members had more dedication and stronger testimonies than I do, and it was really poignant for me to realize that. How often do I cop out of Church and more especially Relief Society simply because I don't feel like it? Or I'm tired, have homework, don't like it, a million other reasons. It's so easy to find reasons NOT to do the right things. The only reason you really need to do the right things is that the Gospel is real and was restored, right? And it's high time for my life to reflect that.

After church I crashed. I slept for over 4 hours. Just passed out. I woke up, made dinner with the girls, updated my blog and hung out for a while before heading over to 57 for the evening. We played Mafia, which I had never played before. Everyone draws a card, and your draw indicates your role in the game.

• Kings/Queens - Mafia. You decide who to kill.
• Jacks/Jokers - Detectives. You find out who is the Mafia and kill them off.
• Aces - Angels. You can intervene and keep Mafia from killing others.
• Numbers - Townspeople. You are basically innocent and just hang out and enjoy the game.

The narrator controls the pace of the game and makes everyone close their eyes and then activate to decide who to accuse, kill, save, etc. We played like 6 rounds (several hours) and it was AWESOME. I loved it. Its very mental and analytical, and plenty of opportunity for argument and trash-talking. Clearly the game for me.

Anders took us home around 1 am and I chatted online with friends until about 2 and then headed to bed. Such a great last Sunday for us.

Wales: Day 35 Pres(ton) Forward Saints

Saturday, August 7 might have been the worst day on record for the Welsh 2010 study abroad. But it was still pretty good. Possibly the most ridiculous day we had, so naturally tons of great jokes came out of the day's journey.

First of all, we woke up exhausted. Probably the most tired I'd been on the trip. We'd been sleeping in hostels for a week, walking and running around like crazy, and even though we didn't have Tom's hyperactive structure, we really ended up walking, running and dealing with more stress in general because we didn't have him. Peeling myself out of that uncomfortable little bunk was a challenge, but I told myself "Ok. I just have to get through my tour of Preston and soon we'll be 'home' and I can finally get some rest."

Now, I'll admit. I was not in the best of spirits and attitudes this morning. I am usually very positive, regardless of my situation. I was extremely tired, injured, sick of driving around in a cramped van (even more cramped because we had to pile everyone's luggage in around us, see?), sick of being with people 24/7 (I need to have my private room. Really.), and feeling sick from eating nothing but Tesco food.



And embarrassing confession. I actually have human feelings. This whole time I hadn't really MISSED people. I was having a great time, the time of my life even. I was making great friends, laughing and loving every day. I missed my friends and family in the sense that I'd get excited thinking about seeing them again, but I never really got an aching, MISSING feeling before. Well. I woke up MISSING. The travel and hostel situation had made it difficult for me to stay as current as I had been on internet communication, and there were developing situations that were unduly concerning me. My baby sister was moving out soon and I started to feel weird about that. I was only going to have a couple weeks with one of my best friends when I got home. But the strangest was that someone I thought I wouldn't see until September was actually in Provo at the time. To stay, I hoped, but I wasn't sure. I had been totally solid, prepared for September, but here I was, tired, nothing left but a free week in Cardiff, realizing this person was home and soon I would be too. A lot of my patience and resolve crumbled to leave me once again excited, but now also anxious to get home.

We were supposed to leave at 8, but half of the van thought we were leaving at 9, so we started off on a good note. Irritated and running late, we finally hit the road. Sick of the front seat, I transferred to the back of the van so I could listen to my ipod and brood in privacy. Turns out. There's more than one "Preston" on our Gypsy. Translation: We spent over an hour driving around the Yorkshire countryside aimlessly. Now that is some beautiful countryside, and if I have a windowseat and my ipod I actually really love long drives. But not when all any of us wanted was to get "home."

The rest of the day was an equal mess. By the time we reached Preston, everyone was stir crazy and we all had to use the bathroom, so we pulled into Tesco. After using the bathrooms, we reluctantly stuffed ourselves back into the vans and ended up driving around the city, looking for who knows what. We finally park on this crowded, winding street and walk a ways to a park. We split into our cohorts and that's where we gave our tour presentations. That took approximately 3 minutes and then one of our adult leaders, Susan, jumped in with her plethora of British Church history knowledge, which was great because I was completely underprepared. Whatever, I was just trying to get it over with, and it was fairly painless. It went like this "Wilford Woodruff and Dan Jones were both AWESOME and the Church is true."

A couple people expressed interest in seeing the River Ribble, where Heber C. Kimball baptized the early converts in Great Britain. Of course most of us were hoping to skip this step and just get food and go home, but the adults felt bad that we hadn't actually seen anything in Preston, so we went. After driving around for half an hour or so, we found a random dead end to park in (I could write a blog post dedicated solely to our parking practices) and walked a mile or so to the River. There was all this construction, so we couldn't even get to the bridge that the Church built. We walked through mud clear down to this park where some clowns were putting on a puppet show for kids (which was the best part of the day, incidentally), and then turned around and walked back. At this point we were starving. But we were so sick of eating the pre-packaged sandwiches, crackers and sodas from convenience stores, so we were begging to go somewhere with a food court or restaurants. Unfortunately Preston has no such thing, so we found ourselves once again at Tesco.

Anders was very cautious parking the van because it is HUGE, so he'd always park away from cars to have more room. The parking lot wasn't very full, but Anders parked really far away from the nearest car, and as a result we were almost in the parking lot for the building next door. Everyone was tired, irritated, hungry and sick of meaningless transportation. We pull in, stop and no one even moves. Then suddenly, from the back of the van, a deadpan voice blurts out -

"Let's park further awayyyyyyyyy....." - Jessica Sloan

I laughed harder, longer, and more intensely than I have in a long, LONG time. Tears streaming down my face, I struggled to catch my breath. When we all finally composed ourselves, we clambered out of the van and walked the 2 miles of parking lot into Tesco. I went with my standard baguette, hummus, Dairy Milk chocolate and crappy Diet Coke. Feeling a little better we hung out and ate raspberries off the bushes in the parking lot (Our best idea? Probably not. We can't be held accountable for the decisions we made that day.) and tried to flush the bad experiences and irritation of the day.

Once again we were taunted with the prospect of finally heading home. We were only 15 minutes away from the Preston Chorley Temple, never mind it was 15 minutes out of the way. I really didn't mind though, because I love temples and it's a good opportunity to see one. Unfortunately the grounds were closed, but we got to see pretty close anyways.



Finally we hit the road. This ended up being one of my favorite van rides ever. Everyone was bugged and tired, so we all crashed. I almost never slept in the van (well, at all, really. I was known for being the one who was perpetually awake), but I just passed out for half the drive. Once everyone had napped, we were all up and going. We took off the headrests and all of the fun people in the back with us congregated and talked. We played the A-Z movie game where you have to name as many movies that start with the letter A and then move on through the alphabet. We swapped our favorite sound bites and catchphrases from the trip and lamented that this would be our last real day of touring and van-riding.

I never thought I'd be happy to see Penny Lane. But I was. Instead of going to bed, I stayed up super late talking with everyone online. In one week I'd be in transit to Salt Lake City! I was mildly sad about my study abroad experience basically being over, but I finally felt ready to come home.

Wales: Day 34 Men in Kilts

Friday, August 6 was an early, early morning. We caught the 7:27 am train from York to Edinburgh, but not without some difficulty. My room woke up late, so we had to sprint to catch up with the group as they walked to the train station about a mile away. Still injured from theatrics at Beaumaris, it was almost too much for my leg to handle, but I made it. The train ride was about 2.5 hours, and I should have used the time to prepare my Preston tour (everyone was assigned a cohort and a city within the cohort for them to be the expert on) or to read my "Princesses of Wales" book (we were required to read 2 books while in the UK that were either topically or historically relevant to our program. I read Jane Eyre and Princesses of Wales.), but instead I just listened to my ipod and enjoyed the ride. Riding trains is the best. It's super smooth and relaxing for me. Normally I just pass out and sleep great on our train rides, but this one was far too beautiful. We rode along the coast almost the entire way, and the sun coming up over the water, the lush green countryside and the excitement were too intoxicating.

If I had to pick one word to describe the north..... FRESH.

Edinburgh Castle is built on an extinct volcano, overlooking the city and the coast. Oh, and it's still functional. There are offices, the Crown Jewels and even a pet cemetery. Doesn't get much better than that.





A true Scot gave us a tour, but I was far too distracted by the awesome (sexy) accent to pay much attention to the information. Plus it was a madhouse there. The Scottish Military Tattoo was in town - I heard it described as the Superbowl of Bagpipes and Scottish culture. It was hard to tear myself from the castle wall and its spectacular view.





After the castle, we were off to the hipster side of town. Edinburgh is really into the rockabilly-vintage-indie-eclectic vibe. Street after street was full of vintage stores, and they were COOL. I've never been a huge thrift or vintage store shopper, but the cool vibes were undeniable. I resisted the urge to buy handfuls of cool sunglasses, and was instead intrigued for hours by masks and vintage jewelery. I ended up buying this cropped long sleeve jacket with huge pointy shoulders - true Lady Gaga style, thinking it'd make a great Halloween costume addition. Also it was only a pound. I couldn't turn that down!


The Royal Mile is the main shopping district. Tons of souvenir shops and plenty of kilted men. It was a total party. Comedy troupes and musical groups were performing and promoting EVERYWHERE, so the possibilities for entertainment were endless. It reminded me of Vegas the way everyone was trying to give us fliers, stickers and stuff. We found this a capella group of college boys that performed Backstreet Boys "in honor of the beautiful American girls," true Glee style. We LOVED them and they LOVED us.



Other performing acts included naked comedians (yikes), acrobats, fire-eating axe-jugglers (he was from America and we talked to him for half an hour or so until he started hitting on us), and some awful rock groups. Clearly we had plenty of material for humor and entertainment all day long.



Ok I know you've been dying to ask. And yes. I did have haggis (sheep heart, lungs and stuff...) It was gross. But I tried it. At a little pastry shop in downtown Edinburgh. That's pretty legit. Kayla, Jessica and I stopped along the main street performer line and got a caricature. I had never had one done before and I was really nervous that it would just crush me. That I'd look awful. That it would haunt me forever. But I actually loved the way it turned out! Quite the experience. {I'm in the middle, if you couldn't tell....} We also encouraged the foul-mouthed artist next to us to reconsider his life choices and look into the Church after he spilled a long, sad story about his recent unfortunate history. Haha guess we should have taken some pass-along cards, eh?

There were some tents with cool jewelery on our way out of the city and near the train station, so I spent half an hour and several pounds there. You guys know I'm a sucker for jewelery. We grabbed some food and boarded the train for the 2.5 hour trip back, crashing into bed really late and very tired. But ultimately pleased with our trip to Scotland. :)

Wales: Day 33 The Time of York Life

Thursday, August 5 I woke up especially thrashed. I mean, we were tired ALL the time, but the Thursday, August 5 I woke up more thrashed than usual. I think the extra traveling and the length of the trip was starting to get to me. Plus I tend to value time joking around with the girls, returning emails and chatting with everyone back home over my sleep. Anyway, I was tired and running late, but I was able to run down and grab some yogurt just as breakfast was closing and hopped into the van for the 5(ish) hour drive to The North!

We arrived in York in the afternoon, moved into the York Youth Hostel, or as I affectionately referred to it, The Labyrinth. Seriously finding your way in and out of this place was insane. There were multiple levels, wings, and hallways. We had to climb up and down several flights of stairs just to get to our room. But it didn't smell like a bathroom, so that was good. We met in our small groups to get information from our tour leaders and then walked into the city.

The hostel is about a half mile away from the city center, and there is this lovely path alongside the river that we take. It was fantastic. Rowers paddled along, kids played in the grass and trees, and then you come around a bend and get the most breathtaking view of York.

I LOVE York. It was one of my favorite cities. This was more of what I expected England to be like. Its probably the cleanest city we've visited, and the buildings are awesome. Our first order of business was Jorvik. Jorvik is the Viking name for York, a Viking settlement in the 10th Century. Jorvik is this museum/attraction/ride, and Tom had talked it up, so we all agreed to go despite the admission fee. Thank goodness we did. I don't know where we would have gotten material to make fun of for the rest of the trip. We dressed as Vikings, looked at ancient excrement (No. Really.), and rode the dangerous, exhilarating ride through the Viking Village. Seriously the ride went 3 mph, IF THAT, and was full of creepy puppets and mannequins. There were even village-appropriate smells. You know. To get the full effect. We just laughed and laughed at how ridiculous it was. Then after the ride I typed in an official complaint on the Customer Comment computer. "The museum was cool. The ride was a little fast, though. It made me a little motion sick." Ever the flippant smart alec.

After Jorvik, we got to explore the city. York is seriously awesome. We got some ice cream (clearly), and then checked out "The Shambles." This part of town is preserved to look exactly like the Medieval street it once was. A little creepy, but fun. I even saw a cool reference to a movie I love, V for Vendetta!

We met up at Yorkminster for Evensaid. Evensaid is weird, not as good as Evensong, but Yorkminster is my favorite Cathedral. It is incredible. It's huge, the biggest in the North. Fantastic.



After Evensaid, everyone dispersed to attend various Ghost Tours around York. London had Jack the Ripper tours, but no other city had anything to compare to this. There were upwards of 10 different Ghost Tours across the city, ranging from 2-10 pounds. Not really sure why. This prompted me to utter a phrase which henceforth became a sort of inside joke for our group.

"What, does York have a rich ghost heritage?"

We didn't want to pay, but we were ALMOST sneaky enough to tag along with a random tour. Too risky. Instead Jessica, Sam, Megan and I went to Pizza Hut. It was the best idea we had all day. It was just as good as American Pizza Hut, and exactly what we needed. Our ginger waiter entertained us with some flirting and sharing his opinions and perceptions of the United States. We had a much needed girl talk, plenty of sharing and bonding. Then we walked up to Clifford's Tower. This was scarier than a ghost tour, I thought. In 1190, over 100 Jews piled into the tower and burned themselves alive rather than concede their beliefs or be killed and mutilated by the surrounding mob. Yikes.

We walked back along the river and went to bed, preparing for an early morning (6:30 am) to catch the train to Edinburgh!

Wales: Day 32 Better Slate than Never

I was recently called out for not posting on this Wales blog. I know. It's been forever. Wales is becoming a distant memory, so this journal I kept was definitely a blessing. So here you go, Anisa. I'm going to make a conscious effort to catch this thing up before December.

So back to Conwy Hostel. Wednesday, August 4, I woke up to another fantastic hostel breakfast. then we headed off to the Trefiw Wool Mill & Museum. Does that just sound like the most boring morning of all time? I certainly thought so. I've never been a wool fanatic (maybe that has to do with my Silence of the Lambs obsession?) and the cold misty rain was doing nothing to allay my annoyance.

Turns out, actually really cool. I mean, I knew there were sheep EVERYWHERE in the UK. But I'd never seen the intricate processes behind a wool mill where the fluff ends up. The big spinners and spools were pretty cool, and the big wool gift shop was worth over an hour of entertainment. Nothing like a pile of wool and fur blankets, Anna Karenina costume role play, and some wonderfully hideous wool sweater vests.

On to the Llanberis Slate Museum. Now this was a great experience. Again, I thought "Really? A Slate Museum? REALLLLLLY?" We'd seen tons and tons of castles, but as much as we joke-complained about it, I'd have much rather seen more castles than go to a wool mill or a slate museum, for crying out loud. Slate mining is a huge part of the industry of North Wales and Tom had told us this place was awesome, so we bit the bullet. After trying our best to waste our limited free time, we had to meet the group for the slate-splitting demonstration.

Most of our group sat on the front row of the little auditorium area, but me, Kayla and Kelsey came in late (we found a chocolate vending machine...), so we had to go sit in the top of the bleachers. Kelsey and Kayla are both super tall, hence the nickname "Amazons" or "Zons," and of course I'm a shrimp so I was standing to be able to see. The older gentleman came in to run the demonstration, and he was hilarious. He instantly had us laughing. Finally he called for volunteers. Tom had encouraged us all to volunteer, so we all had our hands up. I saw him look up and make eye contact with me, but then he walked up to this woman sitting in the front row, about 5 rows in front of me, so I figured I was not gonna get picked.

Old man to old lady - "Would you help me pick? There's a little blonde up at the top. She's gorgeous."

Everyone in my group breaks into peals of laughter and everyone in the bleachers turns to look at me.

Old Lady turns and picks a little girl in the center section that had her hand raised.

Old man - "What? A little girl? Little girl, how old are you? You're 9? That's too young!" Turns to me. "How old are you ma'am?"

Danica - ".... How old do you think I am?"

He raises his eyebrows, lets out a whistle-exhale and runs his hand over his balding head. My group is laughing like crazy and shaking their heads at me.

Old man - "Ok ok. Well do you have a boyfriend?"

Danica - I smile and bite my lip. "Nope."

Old man - Straightens his collar and stands up. "Well, alright then! Get down here!"

It was hilarious. He sits down by the slate splitting machine and pats his knee, like I'm supposed to sit on it. My mouth drops open and fresh laughter rebounds off the metal walls. He gets up and allows me to sit on the chair and hold the slate. He shows me how to place my hand on the large piece of slate and then holds his hand on top of mine and turns to wink at the crowd, which goes wild, naturally.

So guess who is AWESOME at splitting slate? And at charming old men? This girl.

Afterwards, he had me stand up in front of everyone and acted like he was going to slash my wrist with this metal tool. I was TRIPPIN BALLS. I was squirming like crazy and my group was loving it. I wasn't. Turns out, it's not sharp at all, and the guy cut a heart out of the slate that I split and gave it to me! :)

The main event of the day was the majestic Mount Snowdon. It's the highest mountain in the UK at 1085 m, 3553 ft. It's only like 1/3 of the height of Mount Timpanogos, allegedly, but it's a pretty intense hike. It takes 2.5 hours up, 2 hours down, and it's cold, misty and wet (Wales. Duh.), so that takes it up a few notches. It was an optional hike, and I was still nursing my idiotic injury sustained at Beaumaris, so I opted out. And yeah, I hate nature and hiking, so that wasn't too heartbreaking. It was really nice though. I ended up spending the entire afternoon with Jennifer. We went shopping in the little boutiques, got some great fish and chips, walked up to Snowdon Castle and had copious amounts of girl talk.

Lovely.

Wales: Day 31 The Iron(woman) Ring

Well. This was almost two months ago. Tuesday, August 3, 2010. I'm lame. Sorry.

We enjoyed another awesome English breakfast, then returned to our room for some eavesdropping. When the girls next to us chat and gossip while both windows are open, the acoustics are FANTASTIC. We could literally hear everything. Our moths swam in the gossip pouring through the windows, as we sat hunched over on our beds, trying desperately not to laugh out loud (LOL) and give ourselves away.

After massaging our aching ribs, we headed down to Conwy Castle, the main feature of the town.

It's one of the biggest of Edward Longshanks castles, and the huge city wall is largely intact.

I loved this one because it was right on the coast, therefore reminding me of Prince Eric's castle in "The Little Mermaid."

After the misty castle, we walked down to Plas Mawr, a Tudor Age manor home. It's huge and crazy expensive. Really cool for us to see the type of living situation that existed then.

Coming back to the vans, we were dismayed to find that some Nazi had ticketed us! Apparently Anders did not park "responsibly." Does he ever?

Caernarvon is one of the most popular and busiest castles in the UK. It's really big, and beautiful. It was Longshank's main Welsh castle. It probably ranks #3 behind Harlech and Raglan as my favorite castle.



Prince Charles was crowned Prince of Wales here by the Queen in 1958. He and Princess Diana received a lot of publicity and attention because they were more warm and friendly, and the Welsh people accepted them as their own. And really, who didn't love Princess Diana?
The courtyard is really cool. The big slate circle is where the coronation took place. The view from the towers is awesome, and I'd say if I were to play Kings and Queens, or Knights and what-have-you, I'd choose Caernarfon. Tons of towers, spiral staircases, long stone corridors, hidden dark tunnels, and a huge open courtyard for fencing, jousting, fun things.




There was an awesome British Military History Museum in the south end of the castle. No one wanted to check it so I went through it alone, and it was incredible. I usually don't love military history stuff, but they had some of the nicest exhibits I've ever seen. Alas, no flash photography. Trust me that it was cool. We hung out in the courtyard and got some ice cream (Yeah they were selling ice cream in a castle. Can you say best of both worlds?) and purchased beautiful postcards. Good castle experience.

Off to Beaumaris, "Beautiful Marsh," allegedly the Longshank's favorite castle.


This castle is pretty small, but has an awesome central courtyard. It's basically a huge, well-groomed soccer field. Naturally we did all kinds of fun, athletic activities for an hour or so.

Unfortunately, I'm an IDIOT, and decided to do a front handspring. I had successfully executed some cartwheels, roundoffs, backbends, etc., and I was certain that my background as a gymnast would allow me to continue this trend with a front handspring, even if I hadn't done one in quite a while.

Wrong.

I landed fine, but I hadn't thrown my momentum forward enough on the plant, so my hamstrings kicked in to stabilize me. Had I stretched prior to these antics? No. Did this pull my hamstring and send an intense burn through the back of my leg that didn't go away for 2 days? Yes. Yes it did.

Whatever. Anyways. Anders and I had been playing this game where we stuck this yellow sticker on people's backs, hoods and bags to see how long they'd stay before they found it. Wanting to take it to the next level, I enlisted Zoe's sneakiness and sisterly status (alliteration much?) to beat Anders at his own game. Victory.


Then we were off to the isle of Anglesey and the little town of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. Yep. It's the longest name of a place anywhere in the UK and one of the longest in the world. 58 letters. I couldn't even get them all in the photo and still be able to read it. Yikes. We got our passports and journals stamped there, and hung out taking pictures at the train station for a bit. Very touristy.


Bryn Celli Ddu is a a barrow/burial tomb very close to LLanfairpwll (short name for the crazy long name), so we detoured there quickly.

Umbeth graced us with sheep impressions/communications (sheep are EVERYWHERE), and we had a great time singing songs and sliding down the hill.


Of course we did a Tesco run. Tonight it was blueberries, pita bread and hummus, and chocolate cheesecake cups. These Welsh folk know their desserts. We all eat our meals down in the cafeteria and always get weird looks from the other residents. Me, Jessica, Gillian and Sam then did the Coke/Pepsi Challenge.

I nailed it 3/3. No big deal. Are you surprised? You shouldn't be. Not with all the diet soda I drink. Danica's addiction to Diet Coke is an ongoing joke, so everyone was LOVING this.

After dinner we went up into the Observatory to write in our journals and study. This weird college kid in short shorts came up and started talking to us and the minute he sat down we were punched in the face by his BO. It was soooooooo groooooooooosssssss. Soon after, Mr. Clown arrived. Mr. Clown was a smiley, gap-toothed man in a plum corduroy blazer and a plaid bowtie. He had what I like to call "Mad Scientist Hair," and a video camera. He looked like he wanted to talk to us, but was too timid. He went out on the balcony and proceeded to videotape the countryside while reading poetry aloud.

This is the Wales 2010 Study Abroad. This is a fairly representative day. Tons of castles, a Tesco run, pyramid-building, Danica doing something stupid and hurting herself, and interactions with some of the weirdest people on earth. I love it.