Dream weekend in Wales!

This weekend was one of the best here so far! And so completely different from anything I've ever done! Friday afternoon, we met at Paddington station in London to board our train to Wales. The event was set up through Arcadia, my study abroad program. There were about 20 people going on the trip and 5 from Queen Mary. One of my good friends here, Sophie, signed up for the trip a few days before we left! At Paddington station, there was a guy walking around with an owl!! He claimed it was to scare away the pigeons, but when I googled about it, there were all these quotes from Harry Potter about Harry in Paddington station with Hedwig... so cool! The train ride ended up being about 6 hours, with one switch in Swansea. Once we arrived in Fishguard Ferry, we got on a bus that took us to our adventure lodge. The company was called Preseli Venture and it included the lodge, home-cooked (AMAZING) meals, and all our activities. We all arrived starving and exhausted and for dinner, they had some homemade delicious mac n cheese with salad and bread. After dinner, a few of us decided to explore the area. We were out in the middle of nowhere and it was pitch black outside, but they gave us a map and we used flashlights on our phone to make our way to the beach! After the beach, we turned back and found the little village and a cute pub. We went inside, met some of the locals and I tried some local cider. By the time we finally got back to the lodge, we were pretty exhausted. We walked for 3 hours, so definitely a few miles!

The next morning we woke up bright and early, had some nice English breakfast (beans and weird bacon included) and went to our first activity. The way it was set up, everyone did 3 activities and they split us into 3 groups to rotate through them. Sophie and the other girls from Queen Mary were all in my group and our first activity was coasteering! I had never even heard of this before, but it was my favorite thing we did all weekend! Before we left, we had to put on full wetsuits (with multiple layers!) and a helmet and life jacket. We got to the beach and after getting over the amazing view, we headed into the water. It was cold at first, but after a few minutes, the wet suits started doing their job and I really wasn't that cold the rest of the time! We swam a little ways until we reached a cave and went exploring inside of it. There were some eels like the ones from the Little Mermaid! We left the cave and came out on the other side of the island. We climbed our way around until we reached a cliff where we could jump into the water. We steadily jumped from higher and higher points, it was so fun! One of the instructors gave us some seaweed to eat and it was actually not bad... it was kind of just salty and a little peppery. We kept climbing the coast around the island (it was more lateral climbing instead of vertical). We reached a spot the instructor called a washing machine. Basically, the waves were crashing into the cliffs and swirled around like a giant washing machine. We jumped in from there and played in the waves a little bit. We got back out of the water onto the cliffs and kept making our way along the rocks. There were definitely a few times I looked down and thought man if I slip right now... this could be really bad... But according to what everyone said later, I seemed very brave and adventurous :-) (thats a first!). Eventually, we swam back to the beach we started at and changed out of our gear on the beach. They had some steaming hot chocolate ready for us in the vans (best hot chocolate EVERRRR). We headed back to the lodge and had some lunch. It might be the best lunch I've ever had. It was some soup with broccoli, carrots, potatoes, etc and homemade bread and some cheese. It might not sound that good, but after a morning like that it was delicious! In the afternoon, we headed back out to go kayaking. We put on our wetsuits again (different ones this time, not as much covering) and went back to the same beach. I had never been kayaking before, so it was kind of hard to get a handle on at first, but after a while I got the hang of it. We made our way around the coast and a few people went close to the rocks and inside caves where there were some rapids. I kindly opted out of those options, since I had no intention of capsizing. Two people in our group did capsize, but they were fine. The worst that happened was getting cold and wet. It was so cool to just be able to go around the coast... I don't think I've ever been anywhere so beautiful! That night for dinner, we had some chicken curry. We played some Scrabble (which I won) and some cards. They made a campfire for us and we sat around it for about 2 hours!

Our last morning there (sad!), we got up, had our English breakfast, and got ready to go on our 7 mile hike. It was a lot colder outside, but totally worth it. The entire hike was literally on the edge of the cliffs and you could see the coast for miles. It was unbelievably beautiful. There were also lots of sheep up there and of course I loved that :-). Towards the end of the hike, we walked by the beach we had gone coasteering and kayaking from, so it was cool to see all those areas from the top of the cliffs. I was able to get pictures of the cliffs we jumped from and the "washing machine" we played in (they're up on Facebook!). After 3 hours, we made it back to the lodge and had our last delicious meal there... I think I was more sad to leave the food than anything. Its probably the best I've eaten the entire time I've been abroad. The lodge and staff were all amazing too, overall it was just such a good experience. As much as I absolutely adore London, it was a nice weekend away from the city. 

Now back to real life....

P.S. Lots of pictures up on Facebook!