Things are the same, but there's just something missing...

It is sooo good to be back in Bangor after our adventures in Europe. I like having my own bed, clean clothes and not having to live out of a suitcase. I had such an amazing time in Austria, Germany and the Netherlands, and it was good to have Erik in Bangor. Now I feel like my stories and everything will make more sense when we talk, and I love showing this place and my life here to friends from home!

After Erik set off for Dublin and his plane back to the states, I had to get ready to greet the 20 new Americans. They got in Thursday, and my first introduction was that afternoon during one of their welcome meetings. Tecwyn had told me I could stop by at 4 to meet everyone, but sometimes timing is difficult. I got to the Greek Room in Main Arts at 3:57 and he was already talking to them about the important information they need to know. I couldn't walk in during his instructions on what to do in the event of a terrorist attack, he would just get distracted and they would never actually know what to do... so I just stood in the hallway for a good long time. Once he started handing out their info packets, I thought that would be a good time to make my entrance. Super awkward. I open the door and am greeted by 18 tired and jet lagged students and Tecwyn stopped what he was doing to introduce me. Needless to say, I didn't have anything profound to say to them at that point, so I just found a seat and listened to the same info I heard several months ago. It was good to walk back to campus with them though, and I got to meet several of the non Central students, and catch up with some of the Central kids. When we got back to Ffridd, I got to get rid of most of the boxes I had been storing in the kitchen (which will hopefully make our cleaner a happier lady), and my flatmates got to help several people set up their internet.

That evening, we had the welcome meeting in Bar Uno, and that was tons of fun. I don't say no to a free meal and it was a good opportunity to chat with everyone and answer some of their questions about life in Bangor and things at the university. After dinner I headed back to the flat to get rid of the final few boxes and then headed over to Uno to play pool with my flat. Jo, Jake, Grant, Ben and Lewis ended up joining us, so it turned into quite the party. After a few rounds of drinks and pool, we were asked if we would be interested in joining the Pub Quiz. For 3 quid, we decided we could give it a go. Pub Quiz is hard though! Grant and I kept saying how stupid we felt, like American school taught us basically nothing. With our seven minds working on it, we managed to answer all of the questions with some confidence and sent our sheet away for marking. When the "host" announced that Gay Mark (our really creative team name) had won, we laughed at first... and then we realized what she had actually said! So we were 15 pounds richer. Instead of splitting the money between seven of us, we turned around and bought alcohol with it. We got a relatively nice Top Shelf and a few Cokes for our money. It was a good night out with the flat, and it was good to have everyone else there as well! After Uno, we came back to the flat and Grant joined us for some Russell Brand. We ended up drinking a bottle of vodka rather quickly between three of us (which lead to an interesting end to the evening... one broken mug, some vomit and me trying to get Jack not to sleep on my bed. Typical night in the flat though. ha ha).

The next day the new students had another meeting which I was invited to, but the vodka was not treating me well in the morning, so I just stayed in bed and revelled in the fact that I am not obligated to attend any orientation meetings. That evening Tecwyn had asked me to pick up one of the new students who was coming into town late at the train station. He said her train should have been in at 5:30 and that I should just bring her back to campus and make sure she was settled and such. Sounds easy enough... So I head down to the station around 5:15 and wait at the platform. The problem with this task though was that this student is not from Central, so I have no idea who she is. I did a little Facebook stalking before going to the station, so at least I had an idea of what she looked like, but it's difficult to look through crowds of people piling off the train for someone you have only seen in tiny Facebook photos. Well, she wasn't on the 5:30 train, so I decided to wait around for the 6:45 one, just in case. I didn't see her on that one, or the five or so that came in after that point. I was at the station until about 8:30 when Tecwyn called me and asked if I had found her yet. Nope. So I walked back up to campus, hoping that she was alright and would find her own way back to Ffridd. I then get yet another call from Papa T, asking if I would get her building code and go check and see if she maybe was already here. Things are hard when they don't have phones yet... So I went to security, got the code and headed over to Y Borth to check for her. Low and behold, there she was! All settled in and chatting with flatmates. It's a good thing I like train stations, because three hours sitting there and then missing her was just ridiculous! But I'm glad she is safe and sound! I answered some of her questions and then introduced her to a few of the other new people who were going to show her the way to their Saturday meeting. Then I headed back to the flat to watch some Star Wars.

After about three hours of sleep, I was up again and on a train heading for the Manchester airport. One of the other favors I was doing for Tecwyn was picking up the final student from the airport. She had to get in late because of a class trip to Costa Rica. So I had a nice early train from Bangor to Manchester. When I got to the airport, Shireen  (who was flying in this same day) had found her and they were buying their train tickets. This made my life so much easier, not having to search the terminal, so after reuniting with Shireen, we hopped back on the train and started our adventure back to Bangor. This was made much more difficult with three huge suitcases, but it was all good. After getting back to Bangor, I spent a good long time chatting with Jake and Ben as Ben ate soup in their hallway. The Deanna, Shireen and I headed to Morrisons for some groceries and things to get us through a few days.

After shopping, I had like 20 mins to eat a quick dinner and get ready to go out. I had made plans with my flat and some of the new Americans to have a night out. It was super windy and gross outside though, so we made it a relatively tame night. Uno, Paddy's and Rascals were our calling points, and it was actually a really good night! We had a lot of fun, and it was a good opportunity to get to know some of the new students better. The night ended with cheesy chips, a run to Late Stop and Russell Brand in our kitchen. A good night if I do say so! It's interesting though to see the new Americans out on the town. It makes me wonder if we were that timid about drinking and partying when we got here (which I assume we were), and it is interesting to see them coming into this sort of culture as someone who has lived in it for a semester already. I think it's going to be a good semester with all of them though, and I'm excited to get to know them more! We are planning a big night out at the end of this week when everyone's exams are finished, so that should be fun.

Today was pretty chill. I actually slept for most of the day while the new students went on their first fieldtrip. After some entertaining conversation with the flatmates over dinner, we went to Uno to meet   up with Nathan, who just got back into town today. Now it feels like everyone is back in Bangor, and I'm excited for when exams are over and things are back to how they were. More going out and waaaay less studying! ha ha! After a few episodes of Adventure Time, we called it a night and I decided to watch Up before heading to bed. I forgot what a good movie it was, but I ended up crying, of course. I'm a sap when it comes to movies sometimes, and this one gets me everytime.

I don't know... things here are so good! I love being here, and I'm pumped for another semester in this place I have come to consider my home. It's great to have everyone back on campus, and I'm excited to be done with exams and get into my second semester classes. My crying during Up turned into crying about last semester though, as the movie ended. Things here are so normal and everything is just the same as it was before Christmas, but there are nine important people missing from my life. Knowing that I can't just pop down to Lucy's for a chat or meet up with Jessika for coffee is difficult. It's going to be an awesome semester with my Bangor friends, flatmates and 20 new American friends, but it will never be the exact same as last semester. I cherish the memories I have with them, and I'm looking forward to Hannah's wedding when we will hopefully be reunited! But for now, I will just remember all the good times, crazy parties and awesome memories that we had last semester!

How Many Countries Can We Cross on a Train?

Well, the adventure continued at full speed after we left Vienna! We spent the New Year at the Rathausplatz in the middle of the city, celebrating and dancing with tons of people under the background of a beautiful building. There was a live blues concert and fireworks. This is the way to welcome in the New Year for sure! We even danced the traditional waltz at midnight. After the year changed over, we headed down to the subway to find a train that would lead us to food. We ended up getting noodles and pizza and then just wandering around amidst the thousands of partyers. I can say that I will honestly not have another New Year's Eve like this one, and it was so fantastic! We crashed in the office after getting home from our evening out and we spend the next day recovering and saying goodbye to all of the friends we had seen over our time in Vienna. Our train was leaving around midnight, so we spent the day packing, cleaning the office and doing our final adventures in Vienna.

Then we were on the night train and off to Munich! Night trains are an adventure, that's for sure! It is exactly like you would imagine in Harry Potter or something. A cabin with 6 seats and not a ton of room to relax. Our train to Munich we got lucky though, it only ended up being Erik, myself and this other girl for most of the journey. We got a little bit of sleep and tried to pass the hours as best we could. We ran into a little bit of trouble though as we approached Germany. Our train started it's journey in Hungary and crossed into Austria with no problem. When we got to Germany though, the insurance or something didn't work out and we couldn't go any futrher. Lame. Not what you want to hear at 4 in the morning when you are tired and stuck on a train. So we had to wait almost 2 hours for them to sort something out. We ended up switching to a way less comfortable train and continuing our way to Munich in that. But we finally made it and ditched our luggage at the hostel as soon as we possibly could. Then we bought a ticket and hopped a train to see some castles in the mountains!

We hiked up a snow covered mountain and saw the castle which was the inspiration for the Disney Castle. So beautiful! It was a cold and miserable walk up the mountain, but it was worth it to see the breath-taking mountains and castles. Then we took the horse drawn carriage down the icy path and did some souvenir shopping before catching our train back to the hostel. We were so tired by this point that it was all we could do to enjoy our free drink at the hostel bar and head back to our room to pass out. I think we literally went to bed at 8:00. We are so old! ha ha. The next morning though, we felt so much better when we woke up, if it was rather suddenly. Out of anyone we could have been staying with in our hostel, we got the world's six loudest Asians on the face of the planet. Wow, they can make soooo much noise when they are getting ready! But it's alright, we were well rested, and just hid out in our beds until they left, and then we had the place to ourselves to get ready for our adventures.

So we packed up our luggage and made plans for our second day in Munich. We tried to go to Dachau first, but then found out that everything was closed that day, so we decided to head to Olympic Stadium instead. So cool to walk around the snowy grounds and see where the Olympics were held! After that, we shopped around for a little bit before spending our lunch time in the Hofbrauhaus. Such good German beer! We had a super funny waiter, and had a really good few hours drinking beer and just relaxing a bit. We explored the city a bit more for the rest of the afternoon, and eventually made our way to our train. Another night train would take us from Munich to Berlin. This one was there on time, and it had actually had technical problems, meaning that we got a more comfortable car to sleep in than we had actually paid for. Thank you technical problems. We were so tired at this point though, that we would have slept anywhere. Our cabin mate this time was a Polish boy who talked a lot. Wow. So we just slept and then he couldn't talk to us. ha ha.

We only had a day in Berlin, so we ditched our luggage in lockers and set out to explore the city. My days of German Cultural History were definitely coming back to me as we followed the path of the wall, and saw the historic places associated with that time in German history. Such cool stuff to see! At one point, we were standing near Checkpoint Charlie, reading on the history of the wall, and we saw some American students getting a tour. We asked one of the girls where she was from and she said America. She went to Luther College! What a small world. We got to talking and found out that they were on J term in Germany, and that she actually worked last summer with one of the second semester Wales students! So crazy!

After seeing the wall, we had a picnic lunch in a park outside a huge cathedral in the snow. Such a good and cheap way to enjoy the city! We did so much more walking and exploring after lunch and when we finally got tired and cold, we ended up in a coffee shop at the internet cafe. We were trying to think of what we could do until our next train took off, and we decided to see a movie. So we found a theatre, and saw Little Fockers. The movie itself was not the funniest thing I have ever seen, but I enjoyed seeing how the Germans reacted to the humor. They were the best part! After the movie, we headed back to the main train station to wait for our train.

Now we have not had the best luck with trains up to this point, and our luck would not change in Berlin. Our train first said it was delayed by 45 minutes, which sucked, but we could get over it. We sat in the ticket office on the floor, trying to keep warm and watch all our luggage. I fell asleep for a bit and then we headed back to the platform to see how our train was doing. Delayed even more, 60 minutes. So we headed back down so we didn't have to stand in the cold for that long. We got to experience a crazy drunken guy yelling at the door in German and kicking things, which was interesting to say the least. He was our entertainment for a bit before we headed to the platform once again. We ended up standing there for ages... but finally over and hour and something late, our train showed up. Our compartment this time was full. All six seats were taken, so it was not very relaxing at all. As we made stops through the night though, we slowly lost our cabin mates, until it was just Erik and I. Then we were able to pass out until Amsterdam.

We woke up to the beautiful Dutch contryside as we wound our way towards Amsterdam. So we got ready and we were definitely glad to be off the train and in Amsterdam! We took the tram without buying tickets, and just hopped off at a stop near our hostel. I was so nervous at this point, but that was the sleep deprivation talking. We were able to check right into our hostel, and it was awesome to know we had a home for a few nights! We had a good time exploring Amsterdam and seeing everything it has to offer. Definitely a different culture here, but I'm loving it! We are going to see the Red Light District tonight, and Anne Frank's house tomorrow; other than that, we are just enjoying our few days here and relaxing a lot. We fly out of Amsterdam and into Liverpool on Saturday morning, and then we will catch the train from Liverpool up to Bangor.

I'm excited to sleep in my own bed again, and to not have to live out of a suitcase, but this has been such a fantastic adventure! I got to see so many cool things, and I'm glad Erik and I could have this European adventure together!