Aber Week 5 and Shrewsbury

10/26/15

Not much has happened in the past week other than my trip to Shrewsbury. I did take a walk down the hill on Wednesday to pick up some groceries and went down by the water. The water was very high. On the picture below, I walked out to the end of that dock, which is where the tall post is, only 2 weeks ago. The waves were coming in pretty hard too. I'm not sure if there was a storm coming or what, but it was pretty impressive.

In Shrewsbury, I met Sarah there on Friday night. We went to find some food which proved to be difficult because most of the restaurants close down around 7. On Saturday, we decided to just walk around and explore the town. We walked along the river and through a pretty neat park. We then found some lunch at a little cafe and then went through some little shops around the town. For supper, we ate at an Italian restaurant. It was very good. Sarah got a pizza with pesto as the sauce, and it also had chicken on it. I know it seems strange but it was very good. I ordered a calzone that had many different meats and other vegetables in it. It was probably the best calzone I have ever had. On Sunday, we did some more walking around because it was a very nice day outside. We wondered upon a thing called a weir. It is kind of like a dam in the river. There was a lot of people around so we went to see what they were all looking at. It turns out that there was fish, which I believe were trout, jumping out of the water onto this weir and trying to swim against the flow of water up the weir. It was really cool to see. There was fish jumping all over the place. It was so cool to see. We then did some more walking around the town. We then got on our trains in the afternoon and I went back to Aberystwyth and Sarah went back to Nottingham.

Well that is about all for now! Until next week.

Matt

Aber week 4 and Liverpool

It is the end of another week. Only 7 more weeks of classes then heading back to the States! This past week I did quite a bit of traveling. On Tuesday after class, I got on a train to head to Nottingham where Sarah is to visit for her birthday on Wednesday. On Wednesday, she took me around Nottingham to some of her campus buildings and other buildings and shops around her town. It is a lot different than Aberystwyth. Her campus is kind of infused with the town while Aber has kind of a college part (at the top of the hill) and a town at the bottom. And her town is massive. I cannot even begin to think about how many people are in that town. She took me to a castle and this part where Bruce Wayne's house in the movie The Dark Knight was filmed. The movie makes it look a lot bigger than it is but it was still impressive. We also saw a deer in the park with massive antlers. They looked like elk antlers on the top of a deer. They were really wide. Sarah said she saw a heard of them the last time she was there, but we could not find them this time. We went to eat at this Canal House, which was on a canal in case you could not deduce that, for lunch. It was a really neat place and had some good food! On Thursday, we watched a movie and then went to grab some ice cream before I had to get on the train to head back to Aber.

After my class on Friday, I got on another train and made my way up to Liverpool.When I got there, Sarah and I made our way to the apartment we rented a room from. That night we decided to head into the main part of Liverpool to see what it was like. There was a lot of people out and about pretty late! (Late for me is past 10 or definitely past 11 at night.) On Saturday morning, we got on a bus to go to the city center again and walked around. We went around Albert Dock, which had a bunch of little shops. Then we went to the Liverpool Museum which had a lot of history on Liverpool. My favorite section was the war section where they had all the guns from WWI, WWII, and the Korean War. I liked seeing how different countries portrayed the wars and the different weapons used compared to the United States. We then made our way through the town where there was many different shops in what seemed like a very touristy area. We found Cavern Club, which is where the Beatles started playing when they were not world know. It was packed so we did not get the chance to go inside. There was a lot of Beatles gear and references all around the town. We just kind of wondered around the rest of the day. On Sunday, we went back into Liverpool to see the Liverpool Cathedral and try to find different parts of town we had not seen yet before our train left. The Cathedral was massive. We did not get to go inside because they were having service inside, but the outside was just amazing to see. We did some more wondering around, found some food and then went into a few shops before parting ways on the train platform. Hopefully soon we will have another trip planned.

I stopped into a KFC in Aber when waiting on a train! See if you can spot the differences on the menu! (Hint: there is more than one)

Well that is all for now!
Matt

Aber Week 3

10/11/15

It is the end of the second week of school here at Aberystwyth and here is a little bit of what has been happening.

Last Sunday, I went shooting again. Got to shoot 50 shots this time. I think I did better but I still have a long way to go to catch up with some of the other members. Classes still seem to be going well. I finally got my first assignment on Friday, however it is not due until the end of November! I have a couple of field trips next week. One is to a farm and the other I am not really sure. Yesterday (Saturday) myself and a few other people from my room went down to Cardiff. Cardiff is the capital of Wales. We started out the morning at 6:40 at the bust station. After a three and a half hour bus ride, we finally made it to Cardiff. We walked around the Cardiff Castle, Cardiff Bay, and Millennium Stadium, which is where part of the rugby world cup is being played. The castle was really neat. It was part of a bunker to help protect people during WWII when they were getting bombed. There was also an elaborate house in the middle of the castle. The bay was really neat to see. To get there, we had to walk through a really shady part of town, but once we got near the bay it got a lot better. There was a few boats around, along with a tall ship. We went to the Dr. Who experience. I believe this was more geared toward little kids. We ate at an American diner while at the bay. We also got to walk around Millennium Stadium. This place was huge. There was a game going on that night which was Wales against Australia. As we were walking around the town looking for a place to watch the game, every pub was packed with people watch the game. There was just so many people around! After the game was over, everyone was out wondering the street, going in and out of pubs. We ate at a Pizza Hut and then headed back to Aber. It was a long, but very nice day!

That's all for now!
Matt