aaaah enrollment

holy crap! today was the beginning of the fall term here so it was madness! I had to be at my orientation at 11 today so my friend and i headed down to the bus stop here at ten so that we could get to campus early and avoid any potential issues. or so we thought..... yeah we waited in line or an hour to get on the bus! there was a line soooooo long of little 18 year olds and lots of americans. no worries, though, everything was ok. we got to orientation about 2 minutes late but other people were about an hour late so we were good!
the enrollment here is wicked different than in america so it's a much more complicated process for americans, but it's actually not too bad. i'll be taking two actual classes here now so i enroll for one tomorrow and one on wednesday. i'm taking german 1 and weimar germany, which is scarily similar to what my schedule back home would've been anyway but whatever haha.
I definitely think that being on campus today with about 15,000 people crammed into a few buildings made me realize just how well we have it at RSU. I was LONGING for that place today when no one could move because so many people were trying to get to the same place at the same time.
anyway I'm off to work on a paper for my presessional class!

aaah the student village

so we arrived at the student village a couple of days ago. the americans were the first to arrive so we had the place to ourselves the first night. we're all separated now, which is bittersweet. it's nice to be around the british students but i miss living with a lot of my friends! we're all very near each other, though, so that's good. i'm the only one of our group in my building but the buildings around me have a bunch of my friends in them. the other american students from london or the ones who didn't do a presessional have started arriving, too, so I've met a lot of them. most of the people who live here are wicked young. all the girls in my flat are like 18 so that's strange. it's ok, though, because a lot of the younger kids here are cool. I feel so isolated out here because it's off campus and away from city centre and the mumbles and the beach, but the place is really nice and there is a mini grocery store here and a launderette (haha I like their word or laundry mat).

before we came out here, we all took a trip to the city of bath in england and we saw the roman baths, which were awesome. the city was really neat. I liked it so much and we saw the royal crescent. people live there now, which would be like absolutely amazing to say. a few of us also went to the jane austen museum, which was really neat and drank tea (yuck!) and ate little snackish tea food (YUM!). I also bought an amazing coat...I HAD TO! my other coat ripped so I had to get a new one....hehe. it was a really fun day and one of my favorite trips that we've taken so far.

next month, I'm going to endinburgh! I'm so excited because I have always wanted to go to scotland and I'm going with some of my wonderful friends so it'll be an absolute blast!

enrollment starts tomorrow and I'm so confused as to how it all works but I have an orientation in the morning (well 11...haha) so I'm sure it'll be fine and I'm just ready for school to finally start! our presessional class is over, and I'm kind of sad about that because I really liked that class and our professors were so cool! now we all have to write a paper for that class and I'm definitely doing mine over the british music of the 1960s because yeah I love the beatles!

abertawe!

haha the title just means swansea in wales, but it's part of the welsh i've been picking up. very little welsh but still, i'm trying!

so recently we've toured a coal mine near here and two castles and an abbey. the first castle we toured was st. fagan's and it was pretty neat, but i loved the one we toured today. it was the chepstow castle. the town was super neat and the castle was huge! it was super neat and then we toured an old abbey today, as well. it's just crazy how old these things are compared to american buildings.

last night my friend and i went to the last of the proms in the park. it was amazing. they had the welsh national symphony there and some opera singers and it was so fun. everyone was waving their welsh flags around and stuff. they are so proud of their country! it was a really neat experience.
my other friend and i went to the beach the other day and i did not bring my camera and hers had just died when we saw a huge, gorgeous rainbow...so we totally missed the chance to take that picture.

the presessional class we have is amazing, and our professor is so awesome, as well. the class is really fun but we learn so much and it's right up my alley as far as how it connects the social world with the politcal world.

the weather has been gorgeous for a couple of days but i think that that is over and we're going to be back to lots of rain and cold and wind soon...yay...
oh and i'm totally craving a coney or some like tuna helper or something...i'm sick of fried, british food!

dwi intrigued!

so yesterday was our first day of the swansea presessional class. finally on somewhat of a schedule! our professor for that class is wicked cool. he's absolutely hilarious. i love it! the class is very interesting, as well. it's all about british society and politics in the post-world war II era. in other words, we discuss movies and music and how it has related to the politics of britain after the 1940s. that's pretty freakin cool haha. yesterday we watched a funny movie about scotland and whiskey. twas fun indeed!

all of us (the americans) are getting along really well so far. there are about 40 of us and yesterday we made tacos! i'm already sick of nasty british food haha. it's as bad as everyone always said it was.

we really can not wait to move into the student village but i'm actually enoying this dorm life for a little while. i've never really experienced this kind of thing before, except maybe at camp or something.

so pretty much every day we go into city centre or the mumbles, both of which are awesome. the mumbles is an absolutely adorable part of town near us where michael douglas and catherine zeta-jones have a house. there are various little delis and pubs and ice cream shops with little clothing and shoe stores everywhere. you can do some serious window shopping there. it's very fun in that area of town and it's so pretty because it's near gower peninsula so you can see the cliffs and the bay very well. (but really you can see that from our windows right now so...) but then there is city centre, which has the market place and the quandrant centre. the quandrant centre is a big mall. we do all of our grocery shopping at city centre because there is a tesco's there, which is like a big target or something but with not nearly as much stuff.

so the pictures at the top are of the area around mumbles and the gower peninsula. the other pictures were taken in city centre. one of is of some hare krishnas that were walking around and handing out fliers the whole time we were there one day last week.

another day in paradise!

so today was very fun. a goup of us went to the mumbles near campus (where michal douglas and catherine zeta-jones live) and looked around and ate very good ice cream. afterwards, a few of us went to city centre and looked for various things that we all needed. i didnt get anything because i couldnt find what i need anywhere but i'm sure i'll get my things soon enough!

a few of us decided today that we prefer the american system in restaurants where you get seated and a waitress takes care of you because over here, you seat yourself and you order at the bar and various people bring you food. the problem is that it's not efficient in the least!

oh and picture time!

one of these is of me in front of the thames river in london and the other pictures are the view from my window

here!

well i have finally arrived! the travel was awful! such a long flight and i didnt even get to sleep really.
I spent a day in london with kristen, an RSU alum who lives in london now! we had lots of fun! i stayed in her flat with her like nine roommates. it was quite the european experience! so now i am in swansea and it's gorgeous! the ocean is right by campus, which is lovely.
I have pretty much no access to an outet, though because the ones in my room are not working and probably won't work for over a week and there are no outlets in the bathroom so i've been wearing a hat instead of doing my hair! it's crazy.
today is the first day i've had acccess to the internet, too. i've been so out of touch with technology lately!
anyway pictures will be coming soon but i should get off of here for now since i can't charge my computer yet!