Welcome To Swansea, Wales!

I finally made it! Trains, planes, and automobiles wouldn't even begin to describe the kind of travel that was required to get here. First of all our hostel in London tried to kick us out at three am We had difficulty from the moment we arrived. They checked us into the wrong room to begin with so our key didn't work. I informed the desk clerk of our difficulties and instead of checking the reservation she just reprogrammed the key, perfect. I had reserved an eight person female dorm and when a German man walked out of our bathroom in a towel we thought, "That ain't right!" We told the desk clerk yet again about our troubles and once more she blew us off. So at three am when more people were trying to check in and couldn't we were the ones interrogated about it, great. A short man flew open our door, turned on the light, and demanded that Alexandria and I leave! Where were we going to go, its three am in London? I told him off, which is something that I rarely do, and fought for an hour to get back to sleep because my body thought that it was nine o'clock at night. Here are some pictures from our unforgiving hostel. Alexandria's expression describes perfectly our exact thoughts, hot, tired, and frustrated.

As the previous post mentions we also, after going to the bus garage, made it to Big Ben, the London Eye, and the River Thames. I'm new to this blogging thing so please be patient as I try to learn how to post pictures. I apologize if they're all over the place but as I said, I'm learning. I trust that you can figure out which one belongs to what title.

London is just like any big city be it, Paris or New York. The people are in a hurry and simply don't have the time that us travelers sometimes require. We did have an interesting experience with a local. Alexandria and I were standing in the, "Tube," station (a subway) and were staring blankly at a map of the lines. The next thing we knew a man, who we believe to be from Scotland, walks up and over the course of five minutes explains to us how to use the tube and the bus system. We had learned how to use the bus system by this point but we didn't know which one to take to the river. We quickly learned that as long as we took the 148 or the 94 we'd end up at the river. The Scotsman and the German that we roomed with were by far the nicest people that we met in London.

We went to Paddington Station (the main train station) the next morning to catch the train to Swansea. Just a thought for anyone else who may undertake such an adventure, is impossible to catch a cab on Bayswater Road in London at 8:00 am on a Wednesday morning. We gave up and began walking. Thirty minutes later and without any, "exploring," (getting lost) we were at Paddington. We already had tickets but we couldn't find any signs to indicate what platform our train would be leaving from. In the process of searching for the information desk we serendipitously ran into Marta and Nicole who are two other girls from the UTK group that were going to Swansea. Our train finally arrived at platform nine and after a fight with the luggage we were on our way.

Finally, after more than 48 hours of travel we arrived in Wales. We caught a cab to Uni. (they're term for college) and when we arrived at the gates our driver, John, told the guard that he had four girls from Texas who were to be dropped off for uni. Texas? I know, we had told him that we were from Tennessee but you know, you can only ask so much from the Welsh. After telling the guard that we had George W. Bush in one suite case and Tony Blaire in another we were allowed entrance. Above somewhere is a picture of me and some of my friends in front of the official University sign. The top jumble of words is Welsh, yes its actually a language, and the bottom, evidently, is English.

There are definitely more posts coming soon. I must take this opportunity though to apologize for the lack of updates. The library doesn't currently have regular hours so I don't have much opportunity to use their computers. They do however check out laptops for a week at a time that I can keep in my room. I tried that the other day and my troubles began. I should admit that I'm not exactly computer savvy and to be entirely honest, if I wasn't required to own a computer for school and in this instance communication, I wouldn't. I gave it a shot anyways and now three computers, two technicians, and a new wireless connection later I'm online again. Please keep visiting, I promise to become more dedicated to your vicarious demands. Thanks again for all of the comments, I am getting them and they're wonderful. More stories coming soon from this, the far side of the world!