the movement of a train and a month abroad: week five

the great affair is to move. [robert louis stevenson]

nine weeks left...

daily updates:

20 october: my making of britain class was canceled again. we haven't had a full class all term, i must wonder what is going on in my professor's life that he can't teach us. but with that extra time, miranda, a girl from class, and myself went to hyde park to see the peter pan statue. hyde park is so pretty! i cannot wait to see it once all the leaves have changed. because i was bored, miranda and i started pregaming around nido at five. john, craig, max and dylan came over and we all played kings in the cafe. it was fun, and it reminded me of home. afterwards, max, miranda, dylan and myself all went to find the gay clubs. it didn't work, we couldn't find many, and those we did find we're closed. we ended up just barely making it back on the tube. we were on the last train!

21 october: it's officially been one month since i left america! i can't believe it, the time has gone by so quickly. i am utterly shocked by the fact that i'm not home sick at all. it's a little weird actually, but after the first day here, i haven't had any regrets or even the tiniest pang or wish to return home. in fact, the only time i get sad is when i think of how fast the time is going and how little of it i have left. i really need to make the most of my remaining time here.

i finally got my debit card working! so, megan and i went grocery shopping. i bought a basket's worth of food, probably enough for two weeks. my total was only thirteen pounds! grocery shopping is so cheap here. i need to stop eating out, and start eating in.

i went to watch the united v moscow match that night. we won, of course, one to nil. we went to the drum and monkey again. we met the owner this time, he came up to us and asked if we were the americans he'd been told about. we spoke to him for a while. well, john spoke to him. i just smiled and nodded along. at the end of the match, when it was time to settle the tab, we realized my card wouldn't work cause there is no chip in it. so he told us to just settle it sunday, when we come for the united v liverpool match. i couldn't believe it! talk about trust. i might still be in wales, but john says he's definitely going. after the match, we met craig at the hobgoblin to watch the chelsea match. i ate so much, i ate a pizza and indian food. both things are delicious here. kat and miranda met us there. i was so excited to see kat, after her weekend in spain. so, we just went back to nido and swapped stories.

when i got back, i bought tickets to the fright nights at thorpe park! soon, megan and i will buy our rail tickets. we're going the day before halloween, and it's going to be amazing. i'm hoping to get there right when the park opens, and spend all day riding the roller coasters. then at night, we'll go on the saw ride and explore the terrifying mazes and haunted houses. i literally cannot wait. halloween is my favorite holiday and i was afraid i wouldn't be able to get scared this year. however, i still need a csostume...

i also bought train tickets to manchester yesterday. 21 november, john and i are going to watch the united match. i'll actually be able to see them play in person! i'm definitely going to have to learn more about them before i go.

22 october: i missed french class in the morning. i was going to switch into a lower level, but i messed up the times and ended up not going to either levels. so, i met kat, max and linsdey at oxford street and went shopping. i bought a leather jacket, which i've been wanting for years. i have the confidence to pull it off here! and i bought some trainers for the wales trip. thursday night is student nightat seOne, london's largest nightclub. so megan and i decided to check it out. boy did that night have problems! my debit card still wont work at atms, but it will work in stores. so megan said she'd pay my cover and id just buy the first few rounds of drinks. great idea yeah? no. turns out they only take cards with a minimum order of 17 pounds 50! not willing to pay that much, we bought re-entry so we could get to an atm. yes, you have to buy re-entry there! we got to the atm, and my card still wouldn't work. so we went back in, rechecked our coats, and realized that megan was now out of cash. so i sucked it up and bought five double vodka shots+mixers. five! we ended up getting really drunk and having a great night. we met a couple of people there, specifically a boy named matz. and we took the night buses home. i'm always so proud of myself whenever i do that.


23 october: the first day of my trip to wales! my roommate and i met two strangers at the train station. turns out their names are geri and ally and they were going to the same preseli venture tour as we were. so we bought our train tickets and a reduced group rate. we got into haverfordwest, wales about three hours before the bus that would take us to preseli was scheduled to come. so we went to a local pub and kicked back a few beers, and played darts. after a while, the bus came and picked us up. we got to preseli, ate and hung out at their bar for the night. the drinks were cheap, but i swear to god they were watered down. i didn't get drunk the entire weekend, regardless of how much i drank. until i started drinking the prebottled ciders.

there was a huge group of americans on the adventure, and one british couple. there was devin and myself, geri and ally, then about thirty other american students who were all from the same program and knew each other before.

24 october: we woke up early and went on a coastal hike. it was absolutely amazing, and quite easy. but it was seven miles! they dropped us off on one end, gave us a map, and said be back to preseli by one. it worked out though, and i really enjoyed it! when we got back, we ate lunch and went surfing! i had to wear a full body wetsuit, boots and gloves. but once in the water, i couldn't feel it at all. for the first couple hours, i could only get to balance on my knees. but, by the end, i had stood up fully twice! on a real board, not a long board!! it was my first time surfing and i absoultely loved it. i will be going again. after surfing, we went back to preseli for dinner and drinks. the canadian bartender, max, lit a bonfire so we all huddled outside around it. then we went for a moonlit wal to the beach. it was absolutley gorgeous, it was a pebble beach, not a sand beach. the waves were so loud, and the sky was full of shooting stars. it inspired much introspection, which will be written about in another post. i went back and fell asleep in my comfy top bunk.

25 october: this was the day i was dreading. i had woke up every few hours, from nightmares of drowning and losing my teeth. not many people know this about me, but i am not a strong swimmer. i'm barely a swimmer, even in the loose sense of the word. before surfing, i had never been further in the ocean than past my belly button. i have doggy paddled in lakes when i went cliff diving before, but that is very different than being in an ocean.

so imagine my trepidation at going coasteering. i signed up for it before i knew what it was. just for clarification, i have included the definition:


Coasteering is a physical activity that encompasses movement along the intertidal zone of a rocky coastline on foot or by swimming, without the aid of boats, surf boards or other craft. It is difficult to define the precise boundaries between, for example, rockpooling and ocean swimming. Coasteering may include all or some of the following:

• Swimming or Adventure Swimming: in rough or white water; and/ or tidal currents. A route, or activity, where the group start out with the intention of staying dry is not coasteering.
• Climbing, scrambling, sea level traversing: the very nature of the coastline that is needed for coasteering demands aspects of these activities. Ropes, as security on rock, are not used. Any climbing activity usually takes place above deep water. Coasteering is never a dry, climbing activity.
• Jumping and Diving: are often seen as an appealing and exciting part of coasteering. These activities actually make up minimal content of a coasteering session.

A defining factor of coasteering is the opportunity provided by the marine geology for moving in the “impact zone” where water, waves, rocks, gullies, caves etc, come together to provide a very high energy environment.

hmmm... now does that sound like something a poor swimmer should do? i had asked steve-not-simon, who is a lifeguard, about coasteering and he had suggested i just not go. but i was determined.

so i lied, signed my waiver, and told the preseli venture tour administration i was a strong, ocean-confident swimmer. i didn't mention my fears to anyone, i bottled them up. i got up in the morning, pulled on my wetsuit, and sat shaking in the van on the ride to the beach. i walked down the steep path to the shore, lagging behind the rest of the group. the path ended at a deep, turquoise lake with still waves and high steep cliff walls. i walked calmly into the ocean, as if i had done this millions of times before. i could feel the water level rising againt the armour of my wetsuit, and every inch it rose, the more worried i became. i refused to show it, and when my feet could no longer touch the floor, i floated up and began to awkwardly attempt a butterfly stroke. then as we swam farther and farther out, towards the rocky cliffs and crashing waves, i realized exactly what coasteering is. we climbed up the cliffs, through a cave, and emerged into a tiny alcove, with rolling water, white with movement.  we then jumped in to it. yep. that's right. i jumped into it.

and i had the time of my life. the feeling of a wave crashing down on you, carrying you away, is one of the most meaningful i have ever experienced. there was one place where three separate waves merged to crash on one single rock. i swam over and held on to a hole, and waited for the waves to come. i can't describe how it felt to have three waves break on me at once. you just have to try it. we also went cliff diving. that was amazing as well, i loved the feeling of falling. i didn't care for hitting the water, but i loved falling.

but it was an amazing weekend, my roommate has the pictures on her camera though. i'll post them as soon as she gives them to me.

26 october: i came home from wales, exhausted, sweaty and dirty. i spent the day doing laundry and sleeping. it was a monday, so i went to the rocket bar, with john, craig and rikky. since every monday night is pound beer night, it's turning into a routine. we played table games, since the video games were taken the whole time. the games of choice were quarters (only with a ten p piece) american finger football and english finger football. the english finger football was much harder and way more intense, i barely even attempted it. i met a girl there, named debbie. megan came late, after her dance rehearsal was over. apparently she's going to dance in the rememberance day parade! it was fun, as usual. but john pranked me. quite horribly actually. my friend rob, whom i met a couple weeks ago, had been texting me asking if i wanted to hang out. i was getting a little annoyed, and i guess john was fed up with me complaining about rob's persistence. john asked if he could see my phone, and i naively let him have it. he started texting rob dirty messages. now upon recieiving completely vulgar messages, did rob question it? no. he proceeded to send them back. needless to say, i can never ever see rob again. but, had it not happened to me and had rob not yelled at me for "playing mind games", it would have been quite funny.

  

weekly highlights: 

dates: 20 october- 26 october (days thirty through thirty-six)

sights seen: hyde park and wales

somewhere new: wales!!

someone new: countless again :) notably, mat with a z.

something new: surfing!!

what i miss: sunny days. my dogs. my parents.

what i love: the ocean. the accents. vodka with brambleberry juice. the food is growing on me as well :)

what i'm not so sure of: nothing!