Please admire the cheesy title that makes it sound like I'm a knight of the round table headed off to fight dragons and find the holy grail, except I won't return a year and a day from now but in about fifteen weeks.
So I'm in Wales, I've met most everyone, heard everyone's name, can list most of the names but I can't put too many faces to names other than the three people I knew already. And I wanted to write a little something yesterday (initial reactions, similarities, funny words, etc) but I didn't have a converter yet and didn't want to waste what precious power I had left over from America. This meant my phone was off most of the day and was on airplane mode when I was using it as a clock and alarm.
And this post won't cover any of those ideas either.
After Tecwyn dismissed us in his funny accent, most kids followed him for a tour of the academic buildings scattered around town. There is no campus, but there are groups of buildings here and there with bagel shops next to them. But I didn't follow. I went to my room to map out where the nearest electronics store I&H Griffiths was. It was on High St. (the Welsh equivalent of Main St.), and I knew where that was. I memorized a few landmarks like before Cob's Records, after Deinol Centre and after KFC then I was out the door in the rain.
At first it drizzled but even with my hood down it wasn't bad. My shoes were broken in and my pants were hiked up so the legs didn't drag on the wet pavement. I headed down towards Morrisons. I'm not going to use street names other than High St. since I can't pronounce them or remember if there's one f or four, and most aren't marked clearly like ours. I pressed the button for the cross walk and it beep-beep-beeped telling me to cross (that's how they do it here). Then I went down a road that was marked for cars but that I haven't seen a car driving on since arriving.
Then I made it to the hill Alt Glanrafon. I looked up the name on google and still misspelled it three times. It's only about two hundred meters but it's steep. You have to lean back and stomp your heel into the pavement to resist gravity's insistence that you run down it. And it has two types of pavement. Cement bricks where I've been walking and this red rock on which cars have parked, but I haven't seen them drive on it. So it's all very confusing.
At the bottom, I wasn't sure which way was High street. Tecwyn led us there yesterday and someone else led us back and I missed the landmarks, so I headed down the sidewalk next to a busy street. I passed a cross walk signal by about 100 meters before I saw the sign pointing to Deinol Centre on High St. I didn't want to turn around because I figured there'd be another cross walk.
There wasn't for a long while and while looking for it, a man in a car pulled up next to me and in his funny accent asked "You know where the stadium's at?" I told him I didn't. Then he thanked me for being unhelpful and drove off without splashing me. It was very polite of him to do both. And I realized after that he meant the station and not the stadium, but I couldn't give him any directions that way either.
Ahead of me was an Asian woman in the middle of the road. There was concrete medium and a sign that I assume meant it was a cross walk without signals, so you should only run across when it's clear. It was a T-intersection with the new drivers yielding to those continuing straight. One lane was clear and I ran to the median. Then a man stopped and I thought he meant for me to go so I started but the car turning was too busy thanking the other driver for the wave forward, that she didn't see me and nearly smashed me against her headlights.
After taking twenty steps down that road, I felt lost. The end of the street didn't look like High street so I turned around and went looking for that sign pointing towards Deinol Centre. I went that way, then turned left and I was looking at all the stores and all the people and down every intersection and couldn't find my other landmarks. So I kept forward and saw Cob's Records so I turned at the street before it, like I thought I was supposed to. And what I saw was that the street I felt lost was this street and that I had backtracked for nothing.
I went looking for I&H Griffiths. I turned down one street and thought it might be on the street behind it and Google's maps had just been unclear. But I kept turning until I was back on High St and at the corner of the street I felt lost on and the High St. was the small shop I was looking for. Through the windows were plasma TVs and stereos, like their sign advertised. It also advertised Hi-Fis, but I don't know what those are.
I stepped in and no one was manning the counter. The door didn't close on its own, I had to shut it and I tried to do so quietly. I didn't want to be rude on my first visit in a Welsh store. It was small inside and crowded with merchandise that if I kneed or kicked by mistake would cost me as much as the plane ticket here. A man stepped out of the back room and I said "Hi" and walked towards him. Though I was drenched, he didn't look at me accusingly as if I was ruining his carpets or a real sore to look at.
"I'm American and we have different electrical plugs from you guys. Do you have a converter?"
He grunted some thi
So I'm in Wales, I've met most everyone, heard everyone's name, can list most of the names but I can't put too many faces to names other than the three people I knew already. And I wanted to write a little something yesterday (initial reactions, similarities, funny words, etc) but I didn't have a converter yet and didn't want to waste what precious power I had left over from America. This meant my phone was off most of the day and was on airplane mode when I was using it as a clock and alarm.
And this post won't cover any of those ideas either.
After Tecwyn dismissed us in his funny accent, most kids followed him for a tour of the academic buildings scattered around town. There is no campus, but there are groups of buildings here and there with bagel shops next to them. But I didn't follow. I went to my room to map out where the nearest electronics store I&H Griffiths was. It was on High St. (the Welsh equivalent of Main St.), and I knew where that was. I memorized a few landmarks like before Cob's Records, after Deinol Centre and after KFC then I was out the door in the rain.
At first it drizzled but even with my hood down it wasn't bad. My shoes were broken in and my pants were hiked up so the legs didn't drag on the wet pavement. I headed down towards Morrisons. I'm not going to use street names other than High St. since I can't pronounce them or remember if there's one f or four, and most aren't marked clearly like ours. I pressed the button for the cross walk and it beep-beep-beeped telling me to cross (that's how they do it here). Then I went down a road that was marked for cars but that I haven't seen a car driving on since arriving.
Then I made it to the hill Alt Glanrafon. I looked up the name on google and still misspelled it three times. It's only about two hundred meters but it's steep. You have to lean back and stomp your heel into the pavement to resist gravity's insistence that you run down it. And it has two types of pavement. Cement bricks where I've been walking and this red rock on which cars have parked, but I haven't seen them drive on it. So it's all very confusing.
At the bottom, I wasn't sure which way was High street. Tecwyn led us there yesterday and someone else led us back and I missed the landmarks, so I headed down the sidewalk next to a busy street. I passed a cross walk signal by about 100 meters before I saw the sign pointing to Deinol Centre on High St. I didn't want to turn around because I figured there'd be another cross walk.
There wasn't for a long while and while looking for it, a man in a car pulled up next to me and in his funny accent asked "You know where the stadium's at?" I told him I didn't. Then he thanked me for being unhelpful and drove off without splashing me. It was very polite of him to do both. And I realized after that he meant the station and not the stadium, but I couldn't give him any directions that way either.
Ahead of me was an Asian woman in the middle of the road. There was concrete medium and a sign that I assume meant it was a cross walk without signals, so you should only run across when it's clear. It was a T-intersection with the new drivers yielding to those continuing straight. One lane was clear and I ran to the median. Then a man stopped and I thought he meant for me to go so I started but the car turning was too busy thanking the other driver for the wave forward, that she didn't see me and nearly smashed me against her headlights.
After taking twenty steps down that road, I felt lost. The end of the street didn't look like High street so I turned around and went looking for that sign pointing towards Deinol Centre. I went that way, then turned left and I was looking at all the stores and all the people and down every intersection and couldn't find my other landmarks. So I kept forward and saw Cob's Records so I turned at the street before it, like I thought I was supposed to. And what I saw was that the street I felt lost was this street and that I had backtracked for nothing.
I went looking for I&H Griffiths. I turned down one street and thought it might be on the street behind it and Google's maps had just been unclear. But I kept turning until I was back on High St and at the corner of the street I felt lost on and the High St. was the small shop I was looking for. Through the windows were plasma TVs and stereos, like their sign advertised. It also advertised Hi-Fis, but I don't know what those are.
I stepped in and no one was manning the counter. The door didn't close on its own, I had to shut it and I tried to do so quietly. I didn't want to be rude on my first visit in a Welsh store. It was small inside and crowded with merchandise that if I kneed or kicked by mistake would cost me as much as the plane ticket here. A man stepped out of the back room and I said "Hi" and walked towards him. Though I was drenched, he didn't look at me accusingly as if I was ruining his carpets or a real sore to look at.
"I'm American and we have different electrical plugs from you guys. Do you have a converter?"
He grunted some thi
