Aber week 7 and Bath

Well my time in Aberystwyth is about done. Only 5 weeks left over here. It was a pretty standard week again, including shooting clay pigeons on Wednesday. On Friday, I hopped onto a train and headed down to Bath. It was a pretty neat little place in the southern part of England. I didn't get in until late on Friday night because it was a 5 hour train ride for me to get there. Sarah and I stayed in a hostel, which is pretty much just a room that has a bunch of beds. We were put in a room that had 6 sets of bunk beds. On Saturday, it was raining in the morning. After breakfast, we walked to the Bath Abby, which was a very elaborate church, kind of like the ones we saw back in Italy. We were trying to find things to do that were inside because of the rain. We ended up at the Holburne Museum, which was a collection of different paintings and art. It was all collected by one person who horded these pieces for himself. It was quite a collection, expanding over three floors. After that, we stopped into a few shops along this bridge, and then headed for the part of town called the Circus. The Circus is an actual circle. It is like a large round-about that has buildings that follow the road in the circle. It was pretty neat to see. We then walked back toward the city center for lunch and to just walk around the town. After walking around, we realized that we had missed a place called the Royal Crescent. It is where a residential building was built in a semicircle overlooking a park. It was really big and pretty cool to see. When we got back to the room, it was about time to eat. We saw a few places that looked decent to eat at, but we just decided to walk around and try to find something we liked. I am glad we did this because we ended up at a place called GrillStock BBQ. It was a smaller place that had a lot of character. The walls were curved like a small quanza hut and the inside was lined with corrugated metal. The food was great. I got a brisket sandwich and Sarah got pulled pork. Both sandwiches were great. The on Sunday, we toured the Roman Bath. It was where the Romans used the hot springs to heat the water that was used for bathing. It was very neat. That Sunday was like their veterans day. There was a moment of silence at 11 a.m. in remembrance of all of the soldiers in wars. It was mainly for the involvement in WWI and WWII. We then grabbed some lunch at an Italian restaurant and then headed on a walk along the river, as we had a few hours to kill before our trains came. It was a pretty fun weekend all around.

This weekend we are heading over to Dublin! I am pretty excited for this trip!
Until next week!
Matt

The Bath Abby

A weir on the river

The Holburne Museum

The Circus

The Royal Crescent 

The Roman Bath

Aberystwyth Week 6

11/5/15

Another pretty normal week here at school. However, on the weekend, Sarah came out to Aberystwyth to visit. On Friday after I finished my class, we went down to the town. We walked through what was left of the castle, got some ice cream, walked along the water, and then walked up Constitution Hill. Sarah really liked this town. On Saturday, we took a short train ride over to Borth, where we got some lunch and then walked along the shoreline which was all rocks. We were there for about three hours which was enough time to see the town because it was so small. On Sunday, we took this old steam train out to Devil's Bridge. This is a place where three different bridges were built on top of each other at different times. It was really neat to see how the water carved away the rocks into the path it takes now.

That is about all for now!
Matt

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