Across the Pond!

After months of preparing I am finally in Wales. On September 4 my parents and Nate brought me to the Des Moines Airport. Our flight got moved up to 1:30 so we had a rush our good-byes. But because of weather we ended up getting delayed until 5:15 and just an hour later we landed in Chicago and our next flight was taking off 15 minutes after we landed. So we missed our flight to Manchester where we were going to meet up with all of the students in the program and get picked up by our program director. There were 6 of us that all missed our flight so we went and got re-booked to go to London then to Manchester. After our 7 1/2 hour flight to London we exchanged money and made a phone call to Tecwyn (our program director) to let him know why we weren't in Manchester. He told us that once we got to Manchester to get on a train to Bangor and he would meet us there to bring us to the University. We arrived safely to the University of Bangor 12 hours later than scheduled, but without our luggage. We then walked around downtown Bangor and got some food. Then called it a night after being awake for 36 hours! The next day we met as a program and walked down to one of our classrooms and had a mini orientation. We then got familiar with the town of Bangor and did some shopping.
The next day we still did not have our luggage and left for our 5 day trip to Ireland. We took a bus and then a ferry to Dublin, which only took 2 hours. We stayed in a hostel. Tecwyn took us on a walking tour of the town and then just left us in the heart of Dublin, which is the 5th largest city in the world! The traffic is way different here, not only do they drive extremely fast on very narrow roads, but they are also driving on the wrong side of the road and car! Thankfully the nice people in Dublin like to warn the people like me by having signs on the road at every crosswalk telling you which direction to look! We had a lot of fun for the few days we were in Dublin. We got to visit some cool parks, St Stephen's Green, the National History Museum, Trinity College, the Guinness Brewery, and St Patricks' Cathedral. We got to listen to some traditional Irish music being played. Although we had a lot of fun in Dublin we were excited to travel to the other coast of Ireland. We took a bus in only 4 hours we had crossed the entire Country of Ireland! We arrived in Galway and stayed in a hostel there for 2 days. Our program director took us on a walking tour here also where we visited a small river and a Cathedral, he then left us on our own again. We walked down to the ocean and walked out to a lighthouse. The next day we took a bus tour to the Dunguaire Castle, the Aillwee Caves, Poulnabrone Dolnen in the heart of the Burren. The next day we took a ferry to the Aran Islands, it was a really rough ride and many passenger got sea sick. This island is about 10 miles long and 3 miles wide. Once we got there we rented bikes and split up and had ours to tour the island. There are an easy, medium, and hard trails. My group took the hard trail. We went to the highest point on the island to a light house and a castle. We had a lot of fun and you could see both coasts from the castle. We then biked to this rocky area and climbed down to the coast where the waves were huge and we were getting splashed by the ocean. We then continued to bike and met the group at the cliffs, where we layed on the edge and got some pretty cool pictures. Although none of the pictures can describe what we have seen. We then took the easy path by the coast back to the ferry. In Galway we learned that by getting groceries and doing family style cooking we get better meals and save a lot of money. The girls cook and the boys are more than willing to do the dishes. We have bonded a lot throughout this trip. The next day we took a bus back to Dublin then the ferry back to Wales.
Although Ireland was a blast it feels good to be back on campus. We got back and I still have no luggage it has been nearly a week and a half of living out of my carry on. They say that I should have my luggage within the next day or so. We are going on a few day field trips around Wales to some castles throughout the next few days. It rains nearly every day and is in the 50's. I am now adjusted to the 6 hour time difference, getting used to the rain and cold, and having fun picking up on some of the local slang terms. Talk to you soon.

To check out some pictures from my trip so far just go to this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30488030@N04/page7/