Week one: check!

I can now say I've made it through my first week in Wales!  This week was mostly filled with introductory/orientation activities and just getting a sense of the area.  It's been quite a whirlwind but it's great to finally start feeling settled in.

I start classes tomorrow and I'm hoping they go well!  My schedule is not very conducive with weekend trips, unfortunately--mandatory weekly physics lab from 2-5 pm Fridays and 10 am class with our Colgate professor on Mondays.  The courses I will be taking are "The Art of Problem Solving" (a math course with our Colgate professor, which meets twice a week), Physics 2: Electricity Magnetism and Light (lecture for 1 or 2 hours each week, plus the weekly 3 hour lab on Fridays), Welsh Cultures, Literature, and Language (each a separate "module" that meet 1 time a week each), Kinetics from Enzymes to Polymers (chemistry), and Atomic Structure and Molecular Spectroscopy (also chemistry).  The chemistry class schedules are very confusing.  They are not the same day or time each week and each course has a 2 week period of intense labs that meet 3 days a week for 3 hours each day.  So those two courses worry me the most!  We had our first 2 Welsh language classes this week and Welsh is a very weird and difficult language!

Although my weekends won't give me much time to travel far, I hope to explore Wales and the UK a lot during my free weekends!  Lauren and I have found many great places we would like to go! But I do have plans to go to DUBLIN in March with Lauren, Megan, Allie and possibly others!  It's really difficult finding flights and booking but I am so excited for this trip!  The majority of my traveling will be over my 3 week spring break in April and May and throughout my month long period of my 3 final exams in May and June.

Some highlights from my week since my last post are...

Saturday trip to 3 castles in southern Wales with the Colgate group.  We visited Caerphilly Castle, Raglan Castle, and Tintern Abbey.  They were really cool and we had a lot of fun exploring the ruins.  Wales has over 500 castles so I doubt these will be the last castles I visit this semester.  And we had an incredible Bangladeshi FEAST for lunch.

Lauren and I in Raglan Castle.

Tintern Abbey was enormous and beautiful!

 Sunny Sunday exploration around Cardiff.  Today we finally had a sunny day, a UK winter rarity!  Lauren and I walked downtown to the city center (about a 30 minute walk) and got to know the area a little better.  So many people were out walking their dogs in Bute Park so it was very fun!

SUN! in Bute Park

In Bute Park, about 2 minutes from my flat.

Pretty Cardiff.

The shopping "arcades" in city center.

Potluck breakfast-for-dinner with the Colgate group.  Eggs, pancakes, sweets--YUM!

In store for this week: first full week of classes, "refreshers week" activities and parties at the university, flatmate's birthday, and Wales vs. England rugby match insanity!