Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Greetings from ORANGE COUNTY!

Hello, blog followers!

I'm not sure who will still check this out, but I did have a few people say that they want me to put up some photos of Swansea, which is exactly what I'm going to do.

Before I do that, let me tell you about my most recent Saturday!

So 12:30pm comes along, and it's finally time for me to leave Swansea (by train), as I then make my way to London Heathrow Airport for my flight to Prague that night.  About an hour into the journey, the train stops in Cardiff, the capital of Wales.  We waited there for about 20 min. before being told that due to signaling problems between Cardiff and Newport, the next stop, the train was being canceled and we had to get off it asap.  Well, that left me in a pickle.  Luckily, I ran into this girl named Rachel, an American from the Swansea program.  I actually didn't really know her at all, but we became friends quickly because she also had to get to Heathrow.  We then made our way to the Cardiff bus station, which was luckily right next to the train station, and hopped on the next bus to Newport.  This bus took a while, but we eventually got on another train at Newport, where trains had started going again.  I eventually made it to Heathrow Airport, but only 20 min. before my flight was supposed to leave.  Sigh.  So I missed my flight.  After emotional instability on my part hahaha and not being able to confidently buy the next ticket to Prague the following morning and having to call my parents on Cristen's phone (who much to my luck, was also at Heathrow & was staying in a hotel that night because she had to be at the airport early the next morning), I EVENTUALLY decided - actually, it was my parents' decision - to head to Prague the next morning.  Given the inconvenience of the situation, I actually totally lucked out with Cristen already having a hotel booked at the Holiday Inn right next to Heathrow.  So all in all, I eventually ended up in Prague (pictures to come!) the following morning and had an awesome time -- but it was so stressful on Saturday.  I forgot to mention that I was also lugging around my 2 heavy suitcases, which, of course, at one point went tumbling down a flight of stairs and nearly hit someone!  Luckily, the guy that was nearly taken out helped me carry them the rest of the way down!

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Sooo - here are some final pictures of Swansea.  Cristen and I took them on our Friday expedition.


Last time eating Welsh cakes from Swansea's market!


Swansea's Christmas market


Downtown


Swansea Castle


Wind Street (where the nightlife is)


Swansea -- totally looks a lot like New England!


Cristen & I at our delicious dinner Friday night!




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