Swansea, Wales

One part of our study abroad program requirements is to spend a weekend with a family in a more rural setting of the United Kingdom. Some people went to Mambles, some went to Petersborough, but I went on the real extravaganza to Swansea, Wales.

When a fellow parliamentary intern told his MP he would be going to Swansea for the weekend, apparently the MP responded, "Why?" As it turns out, Swansea seems to be the Newark, New Jersey of the UK. (I was told expressly several times that 'Newark' had to be included in this analogy by a few New Jersey residents.)

It took seven hours by coach bus to get to Swansea, including the nearly two hours we spent getting through London because our bus driver got lost and had to stop to ask for directions. When we finally got to Swansea, a cab driver took us from the bus stop to our host family's houses.

And I can't complain at all about the host family. They were so nice and welcoming to us three Americans invading their home for a weekend. The parents were probably in their thirties. He was a musician and she was a french teacher. And they had one four-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl who were equally sweet to us.

Except when we got to their house it was nearly 1 a.m. and we basically went straight to sleep. Plus we had to be out pretty early in the morning to catch the bus to a town called Rhossili.

So after another half an hour in the coach bus, we arrived in this coastal town in Wales.

Normally, trekking through mud and sheep excrement on hills that I would totally slip down in the cold and wind without the proper boots would not be my thing. But screw it. I'm only here once. So I did trek all the way out from that town through the grass to explore the cliffs and take some amazing photos with some people despite the crazy wind. So worth it too.

So despite how ridiculous the weather was, I think we could still appreciate how pretty the coastline is. I would love to see it in the summer. Or, you know, just when the sky is blue.

I don't think they have cliffs like that in the states. If they do, someone needs to inform me, because I will move there.

Also, the Welsh language is crazy cool. It really does look like someone slammed their hand on a keyboard and called it a word, doesn't it?

But really they just consider y, w and x as vowels. Weird.



After wandering the coastline for about an hour or two, we still had an hour before we could catch the bus back to Swansea. So we all crashed in a bistro overlooking the Channel for an hour before making our way back to the bus.

When we were back in Swansea, we were basically kicked off the bus and told to explore "downtown" Swansea for two hours before our host families picked us up.



Ok?

Can you say maddeningly unhelpful?




So we all ducked into the closest pub we could find to chill for awhile without being asked to buy anything.

Then we spent some lovely time with our host family for the night. It was amazing to have a home-cooked meal. It was nice to be able to actually watch TV, although we did just watch Friends. And it was nice to sleep in without being woken up by traffic.

We also watched Peter Pan in french, The Land Before Time and played with Legos with their kids.

So overall, it was a productive weekend.