Mount Snowdon, Wales, Flowers, and Variety Shows

Hmmmm, what haven't you heard about my trip since we last talked? Well let's see...I climbed a mountain, stayed in an amazing library, had two variety show parties, went to the Beatles Story in Liverpool, saw amazing flowers and streams in Botnant Garndens in Wales, went to an antique shop in Wales and bought some sweet old keys, went to the Brontë sister's home, and did a whole lot in London...I think I might make London another entry altogether.

Okay so to start out let me tell you about our stay at St. Deiniol's Library. It's actually a study center that is focused around an amazing library that this guy named Gladstone who was this guy who evangelized to prostitutes. Don't worry, nothing happened. His wife actually came along with him when he did this and together they tried to get these women of the night to change their ways. In this study center there are numerous painting and pictures and cartoons of Gladstone hanging EVERYWHERE on the walls, in the library, in every single hall, in the dining room, in the lounge, in the front hallway, in the stairwells...and the best thing is that in every picture of him, he's got those type of eyes that follow you wherever you go so he is always staring at you. It was rather creepy at times.

While at St. Deiniol's our schedule was rather hobit-like:

8-9 am- Breakfast

9:30 am- Class

10:45ish am- Morning Tea/Coffee and Cake

11:15 am- Class

Noon- Lunch

4 pm- Afternoon Tea/Coffee and Cake

6:45 pm- Dinner

7:45 pm- After-dinner refreshments (Tea/Coffee)

So as you can see, our schedule was something to the extent of eat, sleep, eat, class, eat, lunch, eat, dinner, eat, sleep, eat. But that was totally acceptable because we climbed a mountain that week and in that day alone we burned something like 3,107 calories or more. Needless to say whenever we ate a lot we justified it with, "But we climbed a mountain yesterday...two days ago...three days ago...in the last week."

A few things we came to notice about food in the UK was that they put sweet cream on a LOT of stuff, mostly desserts. Sweet cream is like thick cream that you would put in your coffee but a lot sweeter. Something else was that fish and chips is pretty much equivalent to the hamburger in the US...there are fish and chips places everywhere and they always have it on the menu.

And now to the mountain I mentioned. When we were in Wales we took a bus ride to the location of this mountain in Snowdonia. Sweet name, I know. The hike up took about 3 1/2 hours and 2 hours back down. Now, I do have something to confess. I did not make it all the way to the top. I was within about 25 minutes of reaching the summit. But in my defense, I was pretty much climbing alone for the most part, I hadn't had a lot to eat, and I got stuck in a cloud very close to the top. In that cloud the rain was pelting my hood of my jacket almost horizontal to the ground, it was so cold that the rain was really tiny, sharp, shards of ice. There were also ice crystals on my pants and my glasses were useless because of the weather. Due to the very nature of a cloud it was also very foggy and I couldn't see more than about ten feet in front of me with or without my glasses. If I would have been a few minute fast and had more energy I could have avoided the worst of the weather and gotten above the clouds, but alas. I'm still amazed that I made it all the way up that far though.

Climbing up, the scenery was beautiful and it kept increasing. There was a trolly line that took people up to the top so they could just to the climb down. We like to refer to those people as "cheaters". I met some interesting people during the climb. There was a couple that I stopped and had a snack with at the last resting point before the summit and there was an Irishman I met on the way down smoking a cigarette that had encountered the same thing in the cloud that I had and likewise had to turn back.

My knees and ankles were so sore the next two days, it hurt to climb up to my room and go down to tea. It felt like I had started skating again and went straight for the Senior long program-no warm up.

Towards the end of our stay at St. Deiniol's Library we had our first ET party consisting of everyone doing a talent, or reading something they wrote, or dancing. I had previously collected from people "Literary confessions/ET confessions" in which people wrote down things they wanted to anonymously share with the group. For instance, I got submissions like "I haven't started my paper that's due in two days or read the reading yet", "I hate Pride and Prejudice", and "I'm not going to lie, I applied for ET because I think British accents are hot." So I read those off and they were pretty funny. I also read off a couple haikus I had written. One was:

One, two, three, four, five.

One, two, three, four, five, six, sev'.

One, two, three, four, five.

Other students sang Beatles' songs with musical accompaniments by other members of the group including the professor. Two girls lip-synced to Aaron Carter's "Aaron's Party" song from the middle school era. It was great. A couple people played the piano and all the guys on the trip made a band which they named something like the Spectacular Six and played and sang a bunch of Beatles' songs. St. Deiniol's was fabulous and I wish we could go back.

Thanks for reading!

Pictures to come later, due to the fact that my camera is full and I have to load them on my laptop first.