I've Arrived!

Hello home! I have finally arrived in Cardiff and have settled myself in enough to get some writing in for you. I'm quite certain that I'll be able to keep up with this a bit better now that I know one of my neighbors has an unsecured wireless connection (aka, I'm stealing someone's Internet right now).

My flat is absolutely beautiful. Coming here, I didn't think we'd be living in something as nice as this. It's so homey and warm and comfortable and the views from our windows are very British. Since we live in the Bay, we can hear seagulls squaking outside for most of the day. It's wonderful.

The trip over was long and annoying. I haven't had much luck with air travel for the past several trips I've taken, so I expected nothing more for this trip. I started my journey at 8:30am EST leaving my parent's house for the Cleveland airport. I had coffee with mom and dad before bidding an utterly tearful goodbye and skipping down to my gate. I boarded the plane a few moments later and watched as Ohio vanished beneath me. I sat next to a delightful woman who was originally from India and we chatted the entire half hour it took to get to Detroit. She told me about her husband, who is a neurologist in Cleveland, and her two children who are 16 and 11. Probably the most interesting thing about her was that she, her husband and her children were all born on different continents - she was born in India, her husband in Africa, her daughter in London and her son in the US. She was heading to London to surprise an old friend at her wedding and we each had a long layover so we decided to grab some lunch together and chat a bit longer. After eating, we parted ways to go to our respective gates and I started freaking out - I mean, I was about to leave on a 7 hour flight across the ocean and when I landed next, I'd be in a completely different country on a completely different continent that I had never been to before. I called friends, texted friends, called my parents and waited patiently to board this massive plane that was parked just outside the large windows I sat beside. I watched coverage over Hurricane Ike and started to worry about my friends in Louisiana and Texas.

Finally, I boarded the plane and found my seat. The man sitting next to me creeped me out immediately and I frantically searched for an open seat far away from him. I later found out that he was from Nigeria and I realized that his lack of respect for personal space was simply a cultural trait, so I quickly became friends with him and we chatted about his family, his life in the US and his trip. He was going to visit his mother in Nigeria - she's 98 years old! Soon after I had gotten to know my new Nigerian friend, the dinner cart started coming through the aisles. My luck - they ran out of Chicken and I had to eat curry for dinner. Thankfully, there was a really good salad, cheese and a box of Oreo's or else I would have died. My seat was directly across the aisle from the bathroom and instead of being able to sleep, I had to listen to the toilet flushing and the door opening and closing for the entire 7 hour flight to Amsterdam.

When we started to near Amsterdam, I looked out the window and saw a sea of lights. The city looked so beautiful and I was so excited to get to this airport that I'd heard so many things about. We landed in Amsterdam at 5:00am - which would make it 11:00pm in Ohio. I was so excited to be able to call home, because I had this international phone card. So after using the restroom and finding my gate, I found some payphones and tried to use my card. Apparently, the only phones I could use my card on was a "red phone", which there were literally 2 of in the entire airport. I hated this airport so much because it was so big and dirty and only one person was able to properly direct me to where I needed to go. I finally found this phone just after 6:00 and called mom and dad. What a relief. My flight wasn't scheduled to leave Amsterdam until 10, so I walked around to attempt to find a wi-fi connection. I ended up paying $6 for a half hour's internet access. Annoying. I used up my half hour and ventured back to my gate only to wait for another two hours. Luckily, a good-looking young man sat near me and noticed that I had an American accent. We got to talking a bit and I found that he is, in fact, the goalie for Cardiff's professional football team. We chatted quite a bit and made plans to split a cab back to Cardiff Bay upon arrival to the airport. I fell asleep on our flight out of Amsterdam, only to awake to us landing in Amsterdam once again due to a maintainence issue. We sat on the plane a bit longer and then switched over to another plane, which I again, fell asleep on. We finally made it to Cardiff and I went through customs, exchanged my US $ for some British pounds and headed to the pay phones to call mom and dad. I caught a cab out to the Bay and had the most delightful cab driver who told me what was what and also found time to ask about my life back in the States.

I met the rest of the Ohio interns at 2:30 at the Assembly building and was so relieved to be around fellow Americans. We explored the area and then were taken to our flats. My flat is absolutely beautiful. It's got 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a living room - all painted in bright pastels with very nice furniture. Everything is so cozy and comfortable and cute. We went out for a drink that night but ended up coming home early because we were so tired.

The next morning, we woke up and met for breakfast at a pub in Mermaid Quay where they have a wonderful breakfast for 1.99 pounds. I had my first taste of English Breakfast tea and we ate and ate until we couldn't any longer. Then we walked to ASDA, Wales' version of Wal-Mart and did some grocery shopping. It ended up taking so long because we didn't recognize brands and foods and had to examine ingredients. But we found some really amazing foods and I'm so excited about eating for the next few days. We went out for some "clubbing" that night which is basically the same bar scene as Athens - bars with music. The pubs close early - around 10:30 or 11 and then everyone goes to the "clubs". We went to a club in Mermaid Quay and spent way too much on way too little. But we met a few nice people who treated us to a few rounds and called it a night around 2am.

This morning, we woke up to meet Angela and Nish, our program directors from Swansea Uni, for breakfast and coffee. We went to the same pub as the day before and had another delightful breakfast. They invited us to join them on an excursion tomorrow morning just a bit north of here where we'll get to see some castles and stuff. I'm really excited to get some good pictures in. Then we ventured to the city center to check out a market that we'd heard much about. We ended up finding a really cheap and wonderful pub called the Prince of Wales and had a drink before we went on our market excursion. We found a few shops but couldn't bring ourselves to spend the money on anything they had to offer. We made it to the market and picked up some produce and meat to make for dinner. Then we went back to our flats and relaxed a bit before starting the nightly activities. Two students from Oklahoma got in tonight and will be doing the same internship we are, so we cooked dinner and went down to the city center to the pubs and clubs. We had a really great time and I think we're all going to have a great time together over the next couple of months.

So that has been the past couple of days. I'm going to attempt posting some videos of the flat and of course of the excursion tomorrow over the next couple days. I'm experiencing some technical difficulties with my camera as of right now, but hope to get them figured out soon.

I hope everyone is doing well! Feel free to shoot me an email if you feel like it! kadimcdonald@gmail.com.

Cheers!