Sometimes known as "faux seafront," often referred to as "the promised land," I live essentially in an apartment building owned by the university. My building contains 5 flats and is on the back side of the buildings that *actually* face the sea, even though my building is referred to in official university literature as "seafront." Ah, well. It's still a very good living situation, and could definitely be worse. Each flat contains 5 individual bedrooms, 1 1/2 bathrooms (I know, I know-but it's not as bad as you would imagine), and a kitchen. Oh, and the window of my room looks out at a lovely, old Catholic Church.
When I first arrived, severely jetlagged (because this was the first time I didn't have someone to make me stay up at the appropriate times for the first few days....Mom & Daddy......), I want to say I literally slept for the better part of 3-4 days. Occasionally I would hear other people moving around the flat but was too tired to make an effort to meet them (terrible, I know, but when I want to sleep, nothing else seems to matter to my brain). Fast forward past orientation. I have now made friends. One (Leslie) lives in the other flat on the same floor as me (3 steps from my front door), so this is really exciting because we can easily make grocery store jaunts together. At this point, all of my other friends (Matt, Kelli, Bonnie) live up on campus, a good 20-min. hike up a rather steep hill. So, a bit inconvenient in terms of hanging out just whenever-actual planning has to be involved. Their dorm happened to be the Welsh-speaking dorm, Pantycelyn (sp?) (affectionately nicknamed "Pantyghetto" or simply "Panty" by us) and featured community bathrooms, rather old construction, and a myriad of mysterious smells. The dorms on campus are great to live in if you want to be near campus and nothing else, as the town is again, a 20-min. walk to all of the shopping/restaurants/sea. So, long story short, Bonnie, then Matt, put in residence change requests and by chance happened to be placed in my flat! So now, Bonnie, Matt, Leslie, and myself all practically live together and enjoy daily dinners together in Bonnie, Matt, and my kitchen. A wonderful living situation, indeed!
Drawbacks:
~Wales apparently has this weird obsession with "divided" faucets. I cannot recall ever seeing these before in any of my travels. All sinks here, from bathroom to kitchen, have two faucets: one is very very cold, and the other is very, very hot. No in-between. When washing my face, I have developed a method of partially filling my hands with a cold water for a buffer for the scalding hot water so I don't have to splash my face with freezing cold water daily.
~Radiators. If you have ever experienced living without central heating and air, I need say no more.
~No common area. We hang out at the kitchen table. It would be nice to have a sofa.
~No fire hydrants in Aber. Apparently when a fire breaks out, an old-school bucket line forms. I'm not kidding. This has caused the entire town to become obsessed with fire. Everywhere you turn inside of any given building, there will be a fire hydrant. Our kitchen comes stocked with one as well as a fire blanket. Also, almost every door you see is a fire door. Our kitchen door is one, which means we cannot for any reason or at any time prop it open. Also, we have WEEKLY fire safety checks.
That's all I can think of for now. Tootles!
No comments:
Post a Comment