Wishing a little better on Wales

Wales may not have been the best trip I’ve had over here (due to not feeling too well), but it was still a pretty and green one nonetheless. Oh and ps I’ve given up complaining for lent so just trying to keep looking on the bright side of things (no matter what). Note the smile below-still trying to make the most out of it!

Well this being a BYU Study Abroad the Religion Department requires we do 2 church history site tours. We did one in Preston already and then we did one on Thursday (on our way up to Wales) in Herefordshire. It was kind of a long day being on and off the bus looking at churches, ponds, houses, etc. But the highlight of the day for me was walking up this big hill to reach the top of this mountain where Brigham Young and Wilford Woodruff would have meetings and just contemplate church matters in England. It was seriously probably the windiest place I have ever been in my life. I’m glad I didn’t blow off that mountain (as the pic below shows my hair wasn’t handling it so well), but I just love spots like that one looking over the countryside and you could just feel and see why those church leaders felt such a spirit up there.

Friday we made our drive over into Wales to check out Tintern Abbey. It was the first Cistercian foundation in Wales and William Wordsworth has a poem all about it, “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey.” It was a pretty neat place and I accomplished my goal of finally getting a picture with the Crowes. Sister Crowe is my Fine Arts teacher and Brother Crowe is my English Writing teacher over here and they are just the sweetest couple who we all absolutely adore.

Next up we went "mining" at the Big Pit! I must first confess I was a little worried, inheriting some of my Mom’s claustrophobia, but after getting all our mining gear on and getting down there-I realized there was much more space than I had imagined. We had the funniest Welsh tour guide and it turned out to be a really fun little adventure (made me have a lot more sympathy for those Chilean miners stuck down there for 69 days too!)

Friday night and Saturday we explored Cardiff, which is the largest city and most populous in all of Wales. Cardiff is right along a bay where we found a fun little “merry go round” to take a ride on at night (funny that us college students still get excited when we see a merry go round). And then Saturday we were able to just explore love spoon shops and check out the city on our own. It was also really cool to be there the weekend Wales was playing Ireland in Rugby as there was a bunch of hard core fans out, making it a fun way to see Welsh sports pride. So that concludes our Wales trip…and the adventure continues with Ireland for St Patricks Day week leaving on Tuesday!