Welcome to Wales, or is it Cymru?

All right, here we go. Bear with me all as I navigate this new stage in my reluctant emergence into modern technology. Also, I'm offering my disclaimer here that I am loqaucious, long-winded and verbose, and I generally have a lot to say. So all ye faint-hearted, be warned.

Since this is my first post I think a quick intro to my trip is warranted, before I launch in and tell you what's happened so far. I took the fall semester off from Brown University so that I could spend the next three months travelling willfully around Europe. I know it's an awful stereotype for the young adventurous liberal American to end up lost amidst the limitless possibilities of a liberal arts education and to decide to jet off to Europe to find oneself. Generally, I try to avoid fulfilling stereotypes if I can help it, but as things panned out, I've always wanted to travel and see whatever bits of the world I can manage/afford, just going straight on to college after high school seemed a bit too traditional and dull, I wasn't really sure what I was doing there or what I was hoping to get out of it, and it seemed reasonable to seize my opportunity to go off and wander around with no rules and no particular destinations before someone manages to convince me to settle down, get a real job and learn to be practical and unhappy (heaven forfend!)

Before I left I had a list of countries I hoped to get to, in more or less the chronological order I foresaw/sketched out. Here it is: England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, Bosnia, Croatia, Italy, Spain, Morocco, France, Belgium, the Netherlands. I think that might be it, but I'm really not sure. Obviously I'd love to make it to Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Finland, Sweden and the rest, but really, let's be reasonable, shall we?

As it turns out, I am pretty confident I won't make it to all the countries on the list. I am traveling on a very tight budget (about $4000 for the 3 months--wish me luck!), and I think where I stay and for how long will be more determined by who will have me than by how many countries I'd like to have on my resume by the time I get back. I guess really it comes down to priorities, would I rather spend time with people I know and like and see more of a country, or dash around seeing as much as humanly possible. It'll most likely go to the former, though no one's really gotten a satisfactory answer out of me yet as to what my goal or objective for this trip actually is, which might be influencing the vagary about everything else.

All right, 4 paragraphs down and I haven't told you what I've been doing yet. You can't say I didn't warn you.

After about a week of frantically getting organized and packed, and then doing a whirlwind visit to friends at Brown, I took off from Newark airport Tuesday September 8. I had a relatively uneventful (and sleepless) overnight flight, sitting next to an Irish nun who has been on mission in Saudi Arabia.

The adventures began in earnest when I got to London, Heathrow airport and needed to find a way to Cardiff, Wales. I had to wait in a really long "queue", and when I finally got my bus ticket, I had about 3 minutes to board it before it left, meaning I didn't have time to call my friend Richenda (who was to pick me up from Cardiff and take me to her house) from a pay phone before I left. "All right," I said to myself, "I'll just make a friend on the bus and borrow their cell phone." Like ya do. (Don't worry, I have experience with these scenarios. I was in much worse trouble on the bus from the Colombian-Venezuelan border to Caracas 2 years ago. But that's a story for another day).

The gentleman who sat next to me was a likely enough suspect. Over the course of the trip I learned that he was Russian, from St. Petersburg, that he was going to Cardiff for the Wales v. Russia soccer match (leading up to the World Cup in some way), that he had two children aged 3.5 and 5.5, that his name was Evgeny, some great Russian jokes about their cultural obsession with drinking, that he and the Russian man sitting next to him on the right were drinking whiskey out of apple juice bottles, and that Russian men are among the most virile, and he would give me the best night of my life, if I was interested. (These last items, to be fair, came from the man on the right, after a considerable dose of whiskey).

In the end, I got the phone use I needed, an extra phone number and some free whiskey before 11 am (which was 5 am to me). I also had an entertaining, if embarrassing, three hours. I did not, however, get "the best night of my life," for better or worse.

That's probably the most outrageous of my experiences in Europe so far, and an amusing welcome it was. Some highlights since then include:

-Exploring Cardiff and Cardiff Bay. (and learning that Cymru is Welsh for "Wales", and is pronounced not "sim-roo" as you might think, but "kum-ree") Also, Welsh is everywhere. It often makes looking at signs a bit disorienting.

-Exploring some lovely bits of the landscape. Cliffs, mountains, valleys, the sea. Everything's rugged and vibrantly green. There are animals EVERYWHERE. Like, every other house is a farm. It's pretty nuts. I've seen sheep, horses, cows, donkeys, rabbits, a shrew, pheasants, swans, and more. I've lucked out on weather so far. It hasn't rained yet, and it's been pretty sunny and warm. Hoping that sticks around, though the odds aren't good.

-Seeing a "lifeboat" get launched. These are kind of like coastguard boats, they go out and rescue people from the sea, but the government doesn't fund them, so they're all run by volunteers. The ceremony included 2 national anthems, the Archbishop of Wales, and a bunch of kids singing a sea shanty of their own invention. That certainly warmed my cold pirately heart.

-Visiting UWC- Atlantic College. That was quite an incredible experience. It's an unbelievably beautiful campus, complete with a REAL castle they just get to use and hang out in (I totally couldn't get over that- it had a working portcullis and all kinds of turrets and stone spiral staircases and gargoyles and fabulous ceilings. Sigh) It made me a bit nostalgic, talking to all these young kids who have only some idea of the life-changing experience they're in for. Also, their system of service is so much better and more intense than my campus's. Which was interesting.

-Lots of long walks, a bit of pubbing, and a Welsh culture museum (I know that sounds like a contradiction in terms.)

I think those are the highlights. It's also been great catching up with Richenda, whom I haven't seen in about 2 years. I've had it very cushy at her house, and I'm staying over a week, but I am looking forward to plenty of interesting and varied challenges and adventures in the weeks to come. Next stops: 3 days in London, then a Scottish tour. :)