Days 0-2 (Mass Post Because I Didn't Have Internet For Forever)

Day 0-1
Traveling:
The first two lessons I learned so far took place while I was sitting in the airport—before I even got to Wales or the UK at all.

Lesson One:
I noticed a cute little boy wearing this shirt that said “Prince Charming” with a picture of a frog wearing a crown. I thought, how cute. He stuck his finger up his nose. Lesson learned: THINGS ARE NOT ALWAYS AS THEY SEEM.

Lesson Two/Three:
Apparently my plane was too full or something (even though there was an open seat in front of me), so the lady up at the desk made an announcement: they needed two volunteers to wait for a flight tomorrow morning or evening. These two people would be given $800 for hotel, food, etc. to stay in Boston for the night. That is a lot of money. I figure even if you got a hotel that rented rooms for $300 a night, which would be an AMAZING room, you’d have $500 for dinner and breakfast. And even if you spent $100 on each meal (nice meals!), you’d have $300 left over for entertainment. Anyway, one guy nearly pushed over a person trying to get up to the counter. Lessons Learned: IF YOU HOLD THE POWER, PEOPLE WILL GIVE YOU A LOT MORE THAN YOU DESERVE TO GET WHAT THEY WANT. / SOME PEOPLE AREN’T AS EAGER TO GET HOME AS MOVIES THAT TAKE PLACE IN AIRPORTS MAKE THEM SEEM.

The plane ride was fine I guess. I had been spoiled on Delta airlines where you get your very own t.v. screen and you can pick to watch whatever you want. On American Airlines, they show one movie, which obviously has to be kid-appropriate. Our movie was “Shorts” which might have been nice, had I not been asleep for the beginning and then messed up the radio channel and watched about five minutes in Spanish. I gave up after watching a couple minutes in English and being just as lost as when I watched it in Spanish.

I also met a girl named Lana on the plane. She was headed to England to study abroad as well, and we decided to find our way to Paddington station together because we both had no idea where we were going. The plane landed, we got off, I paid more money than expected to get to Paddington Station because I took the fast train instead of the slow one, and then I was finally at Paddington Station. I bought my ticket, hurried to the train, accidentally put my two 50lbs bags in first class, realized where I was, left them there, and asked someone if I could leave them there. He said no, which was expected, and I went back to get them. Unfortunately by this time the train was moving so I couldn’t go outside to get down to economy. Instead I had to push one bag and pull the other down the narrow aisles of three or four cars until I got to the first economy car. I then struggled to get the bags up onto the top luggage shelf until a nice guy waiting for the bathroom finally helped me.

By this time I was feeling awful, presumably from carting around 100lbs, being exhausted, and not eating. I fell asleep. I woke up as we were pulling into Cardiff Central, which was good because I definitely would have missed it had I not woken up. As I was dragging my heavy suitcases off the shelf, people starting boarding. Two nice little old ladies shouted “Someone’s still getting off!” and herded people away. They then tried to help me with my suitcases, but they were a little too heavy for them. One remarked, “As long as you’re not trying to get a body off the train.” The other said, “Can’t say it didn’t cross my mind.” I was only mildly offended.

While trying to get into what looked like an American-style taxi in black and being ignored by the driver, a man popped out of a weird looking car and asked if I needed a taxi. As he drove me to my dorms, gave me a nice little tour of what we were driving past, suggested places I could go, and called me “love” a lot.

Going through getting my key and stuff was pretty boring, so I’ll jump ahead to my room.

The room:
The room is nice. Different though. I thought there would be a couple of flats on each floor, but it turns out each floor is one flat. There is a kitchen and a dining room across from the elevator door and if you go out of the middle section, there is a C-shaped hallway with doors to all of the individual rooms. There are five other girls (that I know of) in my flat. I met four, but the fifth was out. They are all friends, and none of them knew I was coming.

The room itself consists of a desk with three large drawers for clothes, a closet, a shelf bolted into the wall, a nightstand, a big mirror and a bulletin board stuck to the wall, and a bed. The walls are light green, the carpet is dark green, and the doors are like a green-teal color.

I currently don’t have a clock because the man at RadioShack sold me the wrong kind of adapter/ converter thing.

The bathroom:
There was no toilet paper when I got there (or any place to hang toilet paper… is toilet paper not a standard here?). Also, the toilet is nearly impossible to flush. The shower, on the other hand, while small, is actually really nice. I like my shower.

After unpacking all of my stuff, showering, and taking a two-hour nap, I headed down to the “grocery” store five minutes away from my building (which by the way is in the middle of a huge residential district and “nowhere blinking near the rest of the uni” as my kind taxi driver said). The grocery store is tiny and a bit more like a CVS, except with less things like shampoo and medicine, and more random food things like “steak and cheese” potato chips, weird assorted spreads (but no bread), and cans of sardines. I got toilet paper (to remedy the toilet paper issue), sticky tac (because I forgot the pack I bought at home in my living room), a box of tissues, and an apple.

Needless to say, I was pretty excited about my trip to the store. I had gotten there and back all by myself, given the guy the right change, and procured toilet paper. Success!

For dinner I had an apple and four girl scout thin mint cookies. While trying to get my internet to work, I met two of my flatmates. (The other two, minus the one who is a med student, came by later.) I put up all of my pictures, watched an episode of Psych, and went to bed at 9pm or 21:00 (they use military time here, and so I am constantly having to convert stuff… I bet everyone can tell I’m not from here when they see me squinting at the bus schedules and counting on my fingers).

At 11:00, or 23:00, I woke up. Then I fell back asleep until 3:30, at which point I watched another episode of Psych, an episode of Everybody Hates Chris, and an episode of Glee (the latter two mysteriously appeared in my iTunes. It was very exciting). Finally, I fell asleep, only to wake up at 11:30am, which was a total of 3 and a half hours after I had been hoping to wake up.
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Day 2
Today only one person made fun of my accent. He did a really terrible job mocking me, so I feel worse for him than I do for myself.

As I said, I woke up late. I had been planning on getting up early and going into Cardiff Centre to get a phone and use the internet at a Starbucks I had seen on my way to the Hall the day before. Unfortunately, I also had been planning to meet up with some other students at some mysterious address at noon (this was coordinated by the study abroad coordinator and, luckily, was optional). The group I was supposed to meet was also planning on coming to my building later, so I used the pay phone to call the woman (called twice, actually, because I didn’t put in enough money…).

At one, I met up with the group: three students from the States, this nice woman from the study abroad office, and our driver/guide, who might be staff or could be a student (also, I am pretty sure I pronounced his name wrong several times). We drove to this gigantic store called Tescos, and I bought important things, like an adapter for my clock, a light for next to my bed, food, and other things. It was very exciting, especially because everything was pretty cheap.

After that, I ate lunch and put away all of my stuff. Then I decided to try again to get to the Centre. I got there (with only a little trouble—the fare collector machine said exact change, which I didn’t have, so I kept asking the man what to do, and he kept saying something about change, which eventually turned out to be, “it’s fine, but I can’t give you change”). I found the Starbucks, bought a drink and a sandwich for later, and sat down. The internet cost me £5.99, but it was worth it. I talked to my dad, figured out how to put international minutes on my phone, and located a church I can go to on Sunday (if I can find my way there). After that, I went into a random store and asked for a “top up” card (which is Welsh for a “put more minutes on my phone” card). He told me something about having one and filling it up at the ‘till’. I pulled out what I thought was the card (it was) and then asked him again where I could fill it up. He said, “At any till”. I said, “Like that one?” and pointed to the cashier (because I had no idea what a till was). He looked at me like I was a little strange, and said, “Sure, or over there” and pointed to another corner of the store. Turns out that a till IS a cashier, but the ones I had pointed to were self-service. I chose the ones with people.

I then could not find a bus stop that ran along the route back to my building, so I creepily waited in front of a hotel for a taxi. When I got back, I ate my sandwich and called my parents.

Successes:
- Buying stuff I can eat besides an apple.
- Getting to Cardiff Centre on the bus all by myself.
- Getting on the internet and contacting my family to assure them I was still alive.
- Using my phone to call home.
- Waking up late: This one needs a little explanation. My devotional last night was about not counting failures as failures because God can work through anything. When I woke up late and couldn’t get a phone this morning, I was pretty upset. HOWEVER, I ended up getting one at Tescos for really cheap, and if I had gone to the Centre, I probably would have paid way more for it at an actual phone store.
- Hooking up my clock so I can wake up on time.
- Locating the pound sign (£) on my computer.