my parents left a big group of us took a train down to Cardiff, the capital of Wales, on Friday afternoon for the Wales v. Canada rugby match. With every stop on the way to Cardiff more and more people were getting on. By the time we reached Cardiff the train was packed, every seat was filled and the entire isle and doorways were crammed with people standing shoulder the shoulder. Nearly everyone on the train was wearing Welsh rugby apparel. When we finally arrived in Cardiff the town was crazy, I have never seen anything like it. The streets were all blocked off and there were people everywhere and everyone was decked out for the game! There was little vendor shops all along every street selling jerseys, shirts, scarfs, hats, and much more. There were people in the streets selling stencil face paintings. The pubs were overflowing into the streets. We picked up our tickets, 
grabbed a quick bite to eat, and checked out the vendors and then headed into the stadium. We had amazing seats and the stadium slowly filled up, it was neat to look around and everyone was wearing jerseys. Jeff, a boy in our class, is from Canada so it was fun to have him along as a "rival". None of us really knew anything about rugby, lucky we were sitting by really nice people who were more than willing to explain things to us. And they gave us the quote "Rugby is a game played by thugs watched by gentlemen, football (soccer) is a game played by gentlemen watched by thugs." The game ended and Wales beat Canada 34-13!! We rushed back to the train station hoping to catch the train so we could make it back by 2am! We got on the first train but missed the 12:30 connecting train by a 1/2 hour, and the next train did not go out until 6:30am so we had to spend the night in the cold train station, but made it back to Bangor just after 8am! That Sunday Tecwyn took us on a fieldtrip just across the straight to Anglesey.
Our center for OP is in Anglesey so it was nice to actually get to tour it. On this fieldtrip we stopped in the town with the world's longest name, it has 58 letters! Tecwyn tried to have us pronounce it, but I think it just sounds like a bunch of hacking. We then went down to a lighthouse near Puffin Island which had a pretty neat view. From there we went to the Penmon Priory, this was a neat place that had some of the ruins from the actual priory and still had its holy well. 
The church at this sight is still used for services, we had to wait for the service to finish before we could go in and look at it. This was a neat little church with a lot of Celtic symbols inside. Near this priory was a dovecot that was built in 1600, it could hold over 1,000 birds. We then got to go tour another Norman Castle, the Beaumaris Castle. This castle was very large and in ruins, but it was one of my favorite castles because it still has a real moat around it! After the castle we went to the Marquess of Anglesey's Memorial Column. 
We climbed all the way up a dark spiral staircase. Once we were on top we had an amazing view all over Anglesey and Bangor. We then went to one of my favorite places Llanddwyn Island, which really isn't an island. We had amazing weather and the scenery was beautiful. We walked along the beach with the mountains on the other side of the water and foresty trees on the other side of the beach for miles. We then followed a neat little path through ruins of the Llanddwyn Chapel which lead us up to a rocky cliff area with a lighthouse that looked over the straight on one side and the ocean on the other. I got some amazing pictures that seem as if they were previously downloaded on my computer. We spent hours just relaxing and taking in the scenery. On Tuesday for OP we went on a mountain hike and camping trip. We each got big hiking backpacks and loaded them with kit; sleeping bags and mats, lots of layers, food, stoves, logs, and head lights. At first the hike was just an easy walk along a trail in the mountains. We stopped for lunch on the
mountain side and ate in our group shelter which reminded me of making a tent with a parachute in gym class. Then as we were reaching a peak of a mountain the clouds rolled in and we couldn't see more than 10ft around us, the ground was swampy, and the wind was blowing at our sides at nearly 60mph! This went on for what seemed like forever, and if it was not for the fence we were following I could see how peoople would get lost. Once we reached the peak we started to go down the other side, which seemed like it went straight down, and we had to walk making Z's to keep from falling on our bums. We then reached a stream and followed it to our shelter. We stayed at what is called a Bothy, they are stone shelters throughout the mountains for a hiking association. Laura said this is one of the nicest ones she has seen. In one room there were 3 bed frames, a fireplace, and a table, and the other room was just a big open space. 
The Bothy was located near a stream where we got our drinking water and did our dishes. We had about an hour of light left when we got to the Bothy so we quickly set up our sleeping area and got out the stuff we would need to cook. We then had a warm cup of tea and socialized. Later we started the fire, lit candles, and had head lamps and started to cook rainbow stew, which is a meal that one of our group members makes in the summer when he works on trail. We spent the rest of the night just playing games and hanging out. I did not sleep well at all that night, I was really cold and uncomfortable. We woke up before it was light out and packed up and headed out. Since the sun rarely shines here we didn't see the sunrise we got to see it get light out in the mountains though. This was beautiful scenery. We then got picked up by a bus and brought back to the center where we had a breakfast and cleaned up. We ended up hiking 13.5 kilometers.This past weekend Jason,
Andy, Alicia and I went to Liverpool for the football (soccer) game against Fulham. We had an amazing time. We got there early and went to a pub down the street which was "The Birthplace of Liverpool Football Club". This place was like 3 pubs joined together and was packed shoulder to shoulder of people in the middle of the afternoon all in Liverpool jerseys and scarves. We also had time to wonder around on the streets because there were vendors selling game day stuff all over, we also found this vendor selling really good footlong sausages for cheap. We decided to head into the stadium and find our seats. I was pleased with our seats, and the stadium was really neat. It had an open top, but all of the seats were covered
with an overhang so it was warm enough to not wear our coats. The game was amazing! The crowd was literally chanting and singing the entire game! We saw at one of the street vendors a CD of songs and there were over 50 tracks of these songs and chants they sing at all of the games! Unfortunately the game ended 0-0, but it was still an amazing experience! Yesterday in OP we went gorge traversing. This was totally different from what I expected. We put on wetsuits, lots of layers, waterproofs and wellies, helmets and harnesses. Then we basically scaled a waterfall. We were hiking through a rocky gorge that had a waterfall flowing through it. There are many different routes you can take up, and Laura decided to challenge us and take us up a route where we got very wet. We had a lot of fun, but the water was freezing and there were times were we all fell in. There were also difficult moves that required Laura to go ahead and set up a belaying rope system and for us to tie in and climb up through the waterfall. This required us to really work together as a team to make sure everyone was safe. We all had a lot of fun and it was a cold awesome experience! I can't believe that I only have one OP class left! Things are really flying by and I'll be back in the States before I realize it. I hope everyone has an awesome Thanksgiving!
Sorry for the problmes with my pictures on my last post, I have fixed it so you can look at them now.
To look at more pictures from my adventures just go to this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30488030@N04/sets/72157610182764272/detail/
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