Hi From Wales!

On the sage advice of my dear friend Meredith, I am attempting to keep a mini-blog in case anyone from home wants to check up on what I'm currently doing in my home base until June, Aberystwyth, Wales, UK. After nearly three weeks here, I feel as settled as one can be with only one suitcase worth of belongings. ;) (joking, really. I've gotten loads of things here.)

Aberystwyth is located on the west coast of the United Kingdom; my apartment, or "flat," is behind a row of buildings that faces the sea. Very cold every day (between 30 and 32 degrees F usually, I think) and quite rainy when I first arrived. It hasn't rained properly in about a week, I would say. Even when it doesn't rain though, everything is still very damp. Our flat's car park (i.e. parking lot) has moss growing up between the cracks instead of the requisite weeds we see at home. Even a potted plant in our windowsill bought for Valentine's Day has sprouted moss in its soil.

I belong to a small group of close-knit friends here. In the short time I've been here, I already know they are "keepers"-not just until June-and am very blessed to have them way over here across the pond. We eat dinner together in my kitchen daily and will be purchasing a t.v. together tomorrow. They are all from the States, but very different regions. Leslie and Kelli are from Indiana and attend Purdue, Matt is from Montana, and Bonnie is from Pennsylvania. All of the international students at Aber had a meet-and-greet/informational session the first week here. I would say that there are about 60 of us; maybe half are from the U.S. and Canada. I'm the only southerner. Literally. No one else is even near the Mason-Dixon line. My friends tease my about my accent and Leslie and Bonnie have both accidentally said "y'all" once in conversation so far. We all laugh and say that I'm rubbing off on them. There is a good number of students here from Finland. Aber is reputed to have the best international politics department in all the U.K., so that's why a good number of students study abroad here.

The local people here (professors, clerks, bus men, etc.) are extremely friendly. In all of my travels, I cannot say I have visited so generally friendly a population outside of the South. In the few interactions I've had with my professors so far, many have gone out of their way to help me to a classroom or answer my questions. I have a friend from Japan who studied at Alabama and has also been to Wales. I was IMing with her on Skype and she also noted the friendliness of the Welsh. She did say, though, that there were not quite as friendly as Alabamians ;)

Right-o then! That's about as much as I can manage right now. Hopefully more to come!