12/11/15
Today is my last day of classes. As I am writing this post, I just finished my last class at Aberystwyth University. All that is left is exams which I will take back at Purdue after the first of the year. It has been a really fun expierence. The classes were a little different but very fun. I enjoyed my time with the shooting club. It was a group of really fun people! The shoots were so much fun. The best part about my time here was definately the travel. I got to see some amazing places while I was over here. I do have to say that I am ready to get back to the states. I miss being out in the middle of nowhere, and I miss everyone back home.
In a few hours, I am going to get on a train headed for London where Sarah and I will spend 3 days before we get on our plane back to the United States.On Monday, we are going to a Case tractor plant near London for a tour. I am pretty excited about this!
Probably one more post after I get back stateside.
Matt
Friday, December 11, 2015
Friday, December 4, 2015
Aber Week 10 and Shooting
12/4/15
Only one more week here in Aberystwyth. In a weeks time I will be on a train headed for London, where I will be until Tuesday the 15th when Sarah and I fly back home! I am excited for London! My manager from this past summer at CNH, Michael Kinnard, set us up with a tour of the Basildon, England tractor plant, so I am very excited for that!
Well the past few weeks, not much has happened. Just classes during the week, which are starting the wrap up here. I wont take finals until the the week of January 11th, which is really odd. This past Sunday, I went with the shooting club to a shoot in Monmouth, Wales. It was a lot of fun! The weather could have been better, but it also could have been a lot worse! We did 50 sporting clays and a 100 bird flush. It was a lot of fun! If you don't know, sporting clays is when you go into a shooting stand and when you call pull, the bird comes from a set position. There is two different throwers on each stand. The clays can fly in any direction depending on how the throwers are set up. In some stands they fly across, or they can fly at you or away, it just depends on how they are set up. I got 25 out of 50 which was good for me, but pretty bad compared to the rest of the shooters. The flush was so much fun! We were on 4 person teams and we all went into shooting stands in a line. So all four of us had our guns loaded at the same time. Only one person yells pull, and the clay pigeons start flying! You just pretty much shoot as much as you can to hit as many of the 100 clays as possible. There really wasn't an order for who shoots what, except we tried to shoot the clays in our quarter. I was on the end, so I shot at the clays that were on the outside quarter. As a team, I think we did pretty good, especially becuase 3 of us on the 4 person team had never shot this flush before! We ended up hitting 72 out of 100 as a team! Overall it was a really fun day!
Like I said, I will be back on American soil in 11 days!
That's all for now!
Matt
Only one more week here in Aberystwyth. In a weeks time I will be on a train headed for London, where I will be until Tuesday the 15th when Sarah and I fly back home! I am excited for London! My manager from this past summer at CNH, Michael Kinnard, set us up with a tour of the Basildon, England tractor plant, so I am very excited for that!
Well the past few weeks, not much has happened. Just classes during the week, which are starting the wrap up here. I wont take finals until the the week of January 11th, which is really odd. This past Sunday, I went with the shooting club to a shoot in Monmouth, Wales. It was a lot of fun! The weather could have been better, but it also could have been a lot worse! We did 50 sporting clays and a 100 bird flush. It was a lot of fun! If you don't know, sporting clays is when you go into a shooting stand and when you call pull, the bird comes from a set position. There is two different throwers on each stand. The clays can fly in any direction depending on how the throwers are set up. In some stands they fly across, or they can fly at you or away, it just depends on how they are set up. I got 25 out of 50 which was good for me, but pretty bad compared to the rest of the shooters. The flush was so much fun! We were on 4 person teams and we all went into shooting stands in a line. So all four of us had our guns loaded at the same time. Only one person yells pull, and the clay pigeons start flying! You just pretty much shoot as much as you can to hit as many of the 100 clays as possible. There really wasn't an order for who shoots what, except we tried to shoot the clays in our quarter. I was on the end, so I shot at the clays that were on the outside quarter. As a team, I think we did pretty good, especially becuase 3 of us on the 4 person team had never shot this flush before! We ended up hitting 72 out of 100 as a team! Overall it was a really fun day!
Like I said, I will be back on American soil in 11 days!
That's all for now!
Matt
The Aberystwyth University Clay Pigeon Shooting Club
The Team I was on
The flush set up
Monday, November 23, 2015
Aber week 9 and Edinburgh
11/23/15
Well my time is winding down here in Aber. Only 3 weeks left!
This past weekend Sarah and I ventured up to Edinburgh, Scotland! It was a 6 and a half hour train ride for me, but it was definitely worth it! On Friday after I finally arrived, we stopped to eat at this great Italian restaurant. The food was really good! We ended with these desert shots, which were like chocolate pudding and gram crackers, another was like a strawberry cheesecake, and the third was banana flavored! So good! We then made our way to our hostel that we would be staying at. I wasn't that impressed with it, but it could have been a lot worse. It was just kind of dirty and small. But after the first night, we went out on a walking tour of the city. We saw many of the big parts of the city which included:
Edinburgh Castle
St Giles’ Cathedral
The Royal Mile
Old & New Towns
Mercat Cross
Greyfriars Kirkyard (cemetery) and Greyfriars Bobby
Scott Monument
Princes Street Gardens
Grassmarket
Site of Witch Burnings
The original ‘Hogwarts’
William Wallace and the Stone of Destiny
National Museum
Covenanters’ Prison
Martyrs’ Memorial
The Mound
Tron Kirk
The real Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
The Scottish Enlightenment
We got to see where J. K. Rowling wrote her first couple of books, the cemetery where she got some of the names, and the school where the original idea for Hogwarts came from. It was a great tour! After the tour we got some lunch at this BBQ place that was really good! We then ventured up to the castle. This place was amazing. It was so big and had a bunch of different displays of things that happened at the castle. The views from the castle was awesome as well. After the castle, we walked down part of the royal mile, going in and out of different shops. After that, we grabbed some food at a pub and then headed over to the Christmas market. There was a lot of different shops that were selling many different things. It was really neat to see! On Sunday, we grabbed a muffin at Starbucks then just headed out wondering around the town. We then grabbed some lunch at the Christmas market. After that, we walked down the street that they would be doing their Christmas lighting on. There was a lot of different stages where different groups would preform for people to watch. Around then, it was time for us to get back on the trains and head back.
This next weekend, I have a shooting club competition, so I am looking forward to that!
Matt
The Royal Mile
Where we at the first night
St Giles’ Cathedral
Where Diagon Alley is based on in Harry Potter
Edinburgh Castel
J. K. Rowling on Edinburgh's walk of fame
Edinburgh Christmas Village
Well my time is winding down here in Aber. Only 3 weeks left!
This past weekend Sarah and I ventured up to Edinburgh, Scotland! It was a 6 and a half hour train ride for me, but it was definitely worth it! On Friday after I finally arrived, we stopped to eat at this great Italian restaurant. The food was really good! We ended with these desert shots, which were like chocolate pudding and gram crackers, another was like a strawberry cheesecake, and the third was banana flavored! So good! We then made our way to our hostel that we would be staying at. I wasn't that impressed with it, but it could have been a lot worse. It was just kind of dirty and small. But after the first night, we went out on a walking tour of the city. We saw many of the big parts of the city which included:
Edinburgh Castle
St Giles’ Cathedral
The Royal Mile
Old & New Towns
Mercat Cross
Greyfriars Kirkyard (cemetery) and Greyfriars Bobby
Scott Monument
Princes Street Gardens
Grassmarket
Site of Witch Burnings
The original ‘Hogwarts’
William Wallace and the Stone of Destiny
National Museum
Covenanters’ Prison
Martyrs’ Memorial
The Mound
Tron Kirk
The real Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
The Scottish Enlightenment
We got to see where J. K. Rowling wrote her first couple of books, the cemetery where she got some of the names, and the school where the original idea for Hogwarts came from. It was a great tour! After the tour we got some lunch at this BBQ place that was really good! We then ventured up to the castle. This place was amazing. It was so big and had a bunch of different displays of things that happened at the castle. The views from the castle was awesome as well. After the castle, we walked down part of the royal mile, going in and out of different shops. After that, we grabbed some food at a pub and then headed over to the Christmas market. There was a lot of different shops that were selling many different things. It was really neat to see! On Sunday, we grabbed a muffin at Starbucks then just headed out wondering around the town. We then grabbed some lunch at the Christmas market. After that, we walked down the street that they would be doing their Christmas lighting on. There was a lot of different stages where different groups would preform for people to watch. Around then, it was time for us to get back on the trains and head back.
This next weekend, I have a shooting club competition, so I am looking forward to that!
Matt
The Royal Mile
Where we at the first night
St Giles’ Cathedral
Where Diagon Alley is based on in Harry Potter
Edinburgh Castel
J. K. Rowling on Edinburgh's walk of fame
Edinburgh Christmas Village
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Aber Week 8 and Dublin
11/17/15
I just got back from Dublin, Ireland, yesterday. It was so much fun. This is one of the places I have always wanted to go to. I took the train out of Aber on Friday right after class to head to Birmingham where I would hop on a plane to head over to Dublin. After a three hour train ride and an hour plane ride, I was finally in Dublin! I waited for an hour for Sarah's plane to arrive then we took a bus and a tram to get to the room we rented from Airbnb. On Saturday, Sarah booked a walking tour around a small portion of Dublin. I am so glad she found it because the tour guide was full of information. He took us around to the castle, viking remains, Christ Church Cathedral, The National Library, Temple Bar, Trinity College, and where U2 began. Even though it rained throughout the entire tour, it was still very informative and interesting to see all of the sites. We then grabbed some lunch at a bar that does this thing called a carvery. Carvery's are very popular in many pubs all through the UK and Ireland. A carvery is where there is about 5 different types of meat that is cut to order right in front of you. They also have many sides that go along with the meat. They give you a lot of food, which was amazing because we hadn't eaten all day and it was nearly 2 in the afternoon. After lunch we decided to just walk around Dublin for a while. We went back to the National Library and the National Museum to walk around the exhibits. Outside of the library and museum, there was a bunch of people gathered on the street because of the Paris attacks. It was a very scary deal when we learned that we had been in Paris only two months before. Later we grabbed some dinner from a little Italian restaurant where we had some really amazing pizza.
On Sunday, we started out by doing some more walking around. We started at the Samuel Beckett Bridge that was a very amazing architectural feat. We walked up and down a few streets looking in the occasional shop here and there. We grabbed some lunch at a burger kitchen that was pretty good. We did some more walking around and visited a park as we made our way to the Guinness Storehouse. The Guinness Storehouse was so neat to see. It was a self guided tour that took us through the entire brewing process. We then ended up at the top of the building where we overlooked the entire city. We got there when the sun was going down, so we got to see it all lit up. It was so cool. After the tour we grabbed some supper at a pub and that was about it for the day.
On Monday, I did not have much time before I had to head to the airport. Sarah and I grabbed some breakfast and then I headed to the airport. Sarah had a few more hours to spend in Dublin, but I needed to head to the airport around 10:30. After my hour long flight back to Birmingham, I got on the train heading back to Aberystwyth. When the train was about halfway back, which was an hour and a half, we were informed that the tracks in front of us were under "essential" repairs. Because of this, everyone heading on had to get on a bus. Long story short, after 3 and a half more hours on the bus, I finally arrived in Aber. It was a very long day for me.
Well, that is about all for this week. Edinburgh this next weekend!
Matt
I just got back from Dublin, Ireland, yesterday. It was so much fun. This is one of the places I have always wanted to go to. I took the train out of Aber on Friday right after class to head to Birmingham where I would hop on a plane to head over to Dublin. After a three hour train ride and an hour plane ride, I was finally in Dublin! I waited for an hour for Sarah's plane to arrive then we took a bus and a tram to get to the room we rented from Airbnb. On Saturday, Sarah booked a walking tour around a small portion of Dublin. I am so glad she found it because the tour guide was full of information. He took us around to the castle, viking remains, Christ Church Cathedral, The National Library, Temple Bar, Trinity College, and where U2 began. Even though it rained throughout the entire tour, it was still very informative and interesting to see all of the sites. We then grabbed some lunch at a bar that does this thing called a carvery. Carvery's are very popular in many pubs all through the UK and Ireland. A carvery is where there is about 5 different types of meat that is cut to order right in front of you. They also have many sides that go along with the meat. They give you a lot of food, which was amazing because we hadn't eaten all day and it was nearly 2 in the afternoon. After lunch we decided to just walk around Dublin for a while. We went back to the National Library and the National Museum to walk around the exhibits. Outside of the library and museum, there was a bunch of people gathered on the street because of the Paris attacks. It was a very scary deal when we learned that we had been in Paris only two months before. Later we grabbed some dinner from a little Italian restaurant where we had some really amazing pizza.
On Sunday, we started out by doing some more walking around. We started at the Samuel Beckett Bridge that was a very amazing architectural feat. We walked up and down a few streets looking in the occasional shop here and there. We grabbed some lunch at a burger kitchen that was pretty good. We did some more walking around and visited a park as we made our way to the Guinness Storehouse. The Guinness Storehouse was so neat to see. It was a self guided tour that took us through the entire brewing process. We then ended up at the top of the building where we overlooked the entire city. We got there when the sun was going down, so we got to see it all lit up. It was so cool. After the tour we grabbed some supper at a pub and that was about it for the day.
On Monday, I did not have much time before I had to head to the airport. Sarah and I grabbed some breakfast and then I headed to the airport. Sarah had a few more hours to spend in Dublin, but I needed to head to the airport around 10:30. After my hour long flight back to Birmingham, I got on the train heading back to Aberystwyth. When the train was about halfway back, which was an hour and a half, we were informed that the tracks in front of us were under "essential" repairs. Because of this, everyone heading on had to get on a bus. Long story short, after 3 and a half more hours on the bus, I finally arrived in Aber. It was a very long day for me.
Well, that is about all for this week. Edinburgh this next weekend!
Matt
Dublin Castle
Christ Church Cathedral
The Carvery
Samuel Beckett Bridge
O'Connel Street
Temple Bar
Guinness Storehouse
Rooftop Bar in Guinness Storehouse
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