My First Blog!

This is my first blog and I'm stoked!!! Thanks HSR for this idea! 

First and foremost, all my letters that my friends wrote me certainly made me cry a river. Well, more like an ocean. I waited until my flight from Chicago to London to read it all. Once I was on the plane reading them, I came to the realization that I will be staying in a completely different country for over 5 months. Insane! I'm truly thankful for everyone in my life. I am very blessed to have such supportive & caring family and friends. : ) 

My arrival to Swansea, Wales (home of Catherine Zeta Jones) was approximately a week and a half ago. It definitely feels as if I have been here for at least a month already. Traveling by myself was very lonely and difficult. Although I must admit, I have never felt more independent until this point of my journey. I honestly don't think the level of difficulty would have been like this had I had another companion with me from UCO. Not even a friend, just ANYBODY would have helped. There was no one at the airport to guide me which train lines I needed to go on. However, I was fortunate enough to have ran into another student traveling abroad that was lost as well. We both were definitely a 'hot mess' together. Hauling our heavy luggage from train to train and stairs/elevators was quite hilarious now that I think about it. I am truly thankful that I randomly met her. : ) My institution is, give or take 3 hours away from Heathrow Airport. Once I got here, I was pretty shocked. Lets just say that the brochure they sent me was photogenic. LOL. On my flat (floor), I have another American from Iowa State, 1 British female, & 3 British males. It's pretty interesting. We are all very diverse and unique in our own way. I believe a big part of studying abroad is living with at least another British student. This enables us to learn more about their culture, language, and style of living by experiencing it first hand.

Once I settled in, I had no means of communication of the outside world. My internet wasn't working since I have yet to enroll as a student at this point in time & my phone wasn't working either. AH! It was a nightmare. I decided to take out the trash and ran into a girl coming up to my building named Ashley-student from Colorado State University. I helped her bring her luggage up to her room. She invited me to go out to dinner with her and a group of CSU students that are also studying aboard. Of course, I went. :) I love people! Ever since then, I have been hanging out with students from Colorado state. They are a lot of fun and very friendly. Their advisor from home also flew out here to teach history @ Swansea for this semester. How awesome is that?! She decided to adopt me as an honorary CSU student. Yay! 

Lifestyle: Absolutely insane here. Words cannot describe it. There is a bar on campus in the student union. There is also another one in the Student Village, where majority of the 

students reside including myself. Since the age limit is 18 to legally drink, there are a lot of students out at pubs and clubs here. I feel as if that is all they do here, get shwasted. It's definitely a lifestyle that I would not recommend to anyone. I'm assuming they go by the saying" work hard, play harder". For the most part, it definitely has been such a blast since I've arrived. I know I will miss all of this once I leave after finals. Through all of this, I have made several friends. It's crazy to think we're all from different universities around the states! AH! 

Education: We all have to attend a pre-sessional course over British history and politics from 2 weeks and write a paper over here.  I find it pretty intriguing for the most part. Apparently over here, since the students are to choose 3 specific areas of classes to take in high school, they are able to specialized in those areas. Whereas over in America, we have to take like Science, Math, English, History, etc- all these basic courses. So when these British/Welsh students attend college, they can just jump right into their area they specialize in and do extremely well. They don't take general eds/basic courses the first two years, unlike us. So in other words, their education level is a bit higher than ours when it comes to college classes. In addition, they speak very proper English over here. It's neat. I love it! This gives me the opportunity to 

enhanced my vocabulary level! I'm excited! I start enrolling in my classes tomorrow. Which by the way, we have to go from building to building to get approval to enroll in that class. They aren't as high-tech as us. Registration doesn't exist online. No UCONNECT!! The picture on the right is a portion of the University I'm currently attending. Swansea University. 

We went to see the Swansea bay, Gower Coast, Rhossila Bay, and Mumbles lighthouse for Orientation. It was so pretty! I wish the weather here was a lot warmer so I can

lay out and get a tan. It constantly rains through

out the day! It can be sunny for a couple hours then rain would just pour the next second. It's unpredictable.  * To the right is a picture in front of Mumbles. It's with students from the University of Iowa & Iowa State University.

 I went to Bath yesterday. I'll post more pictures and blog about it soon! : ) Lets just say, I plan on being a resident in Bath in the far future!!