My room

Hello Everyone!

Here a couple shots of my room at school. I live in a double (so I have a roommate) with an attached bathroom. Pretty nice, if you ask me! My townhouse has a common area and tiny kitchen. There are four other girls who live here (aside from myself and my roommate), but the other girls in single bedrooms on the top floor.

Closet 

More closet

Desk

Desk and wall decorations 

Bed (and my food before we got some shelves in the common room)

I gave my Dalek "To Victory" poster to my brother, but I also had this blue one...

My corner of dragons. Call me "Khaleesi" 

Still autographed! Four Lions, but only three Blues since Jamie moved to Paris!!

I just got back from a girls' rugby match between my school (SMC) and UMass Lowell. SMC won! I was able to understand what was going on and, best of all, explain it to some of the spectators. Today's going to be a homework day though...

Cheers!

Weird little differences

Hello Everyone! I'm slowly but surely readjusting to the Home of the Free and the Brave. I will be doing just fine for a couple days, then I'll see something like a photo and just get hit by a wave of Cardiff-sickness (like homesickness but not quite). Here are some oddities that I've noticed.

1. Price Chopper has a British Food section in their International Aisle. These include: Heinz Beans, McVities digestives, Marmite, Branston Pickle, Wine Gums, Cadbury drinking chocolate, Bounty Bars and some Worcestershire-flavoured crisps.
2. Floor numbers start at 1 again. Not ground-floor.
3. Professors here measure paper length in pages. British lecturers went by word-count.
4. I must sound a little schizo when I talk sometimes. I'll lapse into British slang and have to correct myself so that I can talk 'Merican.
5. I still write my dates like 28/8 instead of 8/28 and still manage to hang onto all those extra letters in spelling words.
6. I have to tell the temperature, volume and weight in Imperial measurements, not metric. For example, I'm used to mince being in 250g or 500g amounts. Here, it's called ground beef and it's measured in ounces and I am helpless to figure out how much to buy.
7. One of my housemates brought an electric kettle to school. So yes, they do exist in America. And yes, I do use it to cut down on pasta-boiling time. It is labeled in litres so I had to convert to cups for my macaroni recipe. Fun Fact # 40: 1.5 L is around 6 1/3 cups.
8. I can still bond with people over the rugby, like one of my Religious Studies professors.
9. I am back on a Liberal Studies curriculum. This means that I have some required courses to complete outside of my Biology major (such as history, English, fine arts, a foreign language, philosophy, religious studies and social sciences). British students specialise and do so early on. I won't be doing so until graduate school! 
10. There is no Peri-Peri anything in the stores I've checked.
11. I still default to the left when I walk to class and up the stairs.

I am in four classes this semester. They are: Religion: Theory and Method, Hinduism, Biochemistry and Traditional East Asia. I am very excited. I will be finishing up two minors this semester (Chemistry and Religious Studies. Quite the combo!). 

Theory and Method is interesting. It's about how we study religion. Rather meta. I am one of eight people in the lecture. There's another hard-science major in the class (she's majoring Physics and minoring in Religious Studies). Only one boy in this course!

Hinduism will be one of my more challenging courses. I'm climbing out of my little Abrahamic religions box that I've been in since forever and am starting to see what else there is. 

Biochemistry is my lone science-y course. It has an online component to it (in the form of homework). Organic Chemistry was tough for me. I don't really do well thinking about reactions in the abstract, so I hope that this will provide some context! The course is huge this year. The professor had to open up another lab section to accommodate all the students!  

Traditional East Asia marks my last Liberal Studies requirement. It is a history course focusing on China and Japan up until the West arrives onshore (1800's or so). The professor is from Taiwan. I got the opportunity to use my, admittedly rusty, knowledge of the region.

On top of all this, I will be taking the DAT later in the fall. It's going to be a year for the books, that's for sure!

Cheers!

Moving back to SMC

Hello everyone!

I'm a little unsure of the future of this blog. It might be time to retire it and transition to something different. But that's talk for another day.

I am getting ready to move back to my uni back in America, Saint Michael's College (as an aside: I know that college is a different level of schooling than university in Britain, but they are used interchangeably in America). I will be living in a set-up slightly similar to my conditions in Talybont North. I will have five other roommates (all girls) and our own kitchen (no longer a slave to meal plan!). On the other hand, my place of residence is a townhouse, not a flat. We have a common area, something I felt that my flat lacked (kitchen notwithstanding). I also have a double room with a roommate (the other girls have single rooms upstairs with a shared bathroom). Our shared room is gigantic and has a bathroom. I feel like I've hit the jackpot. My roomie studied abroad in Dublin this past spring. She is also a rugby fan (supporting Ireland), so we're looking forward to watching a couple matches. Six Nations could get a little crazy though...

I dropped some dishes, bedding, towels and more off at my room yesterday. It was nice to get some stuff all set up before my official move-in this Saturday (tomorrow!!).

I'm not using the Welsh flag as a blanket, I just needed a place to keep it for the time being!

I walked around on campus yesterday. Our new student center is almost finished. I watched it being built last fall, so I am curious about how it's turned out (There is no equivalent to the Taf there. Gutted). I liked being able to cross campus in about 10 minutes with only one crosswalk (my trek to class in Cardiff was around 20 minutes with 2 or 3 crosswalks, depending on the route and traffic). I also liked how the pavement wouldn't shoot water at you if you stepped on a certain corner (Oh, Talybont North). I enjoyed seeing old friends. I soaked up the atmosphere, since my last official day on campus was back in December! I am returning a more confident girl. I have a career goal, a new academic advisor in-the-works, and I'm a senior!! How did that happen?? 

 Overall, I am very excited for this upcoming year.

If anyone wants to send me some mail while I'm at school (my birthday is next month, hint hint), here's my address:

Saint Michael's College

Box 3257

1Winooski Park

Colchester, Vermont 05439

United States

Alright! I have to get back to getting ready/freaking out.

Cheers!

SMC and Fourth of July

Hello! Here's a quick update on some summer stuff...
On June 29th, I went up to Burlington to spend some time with my friend Katie. I hadn't seen her since Paris, so it was lovely to see her again. I also was able to see my uni, Saint Michael's College. They were busy building the new student center/connecting buildings/project that ate our quad when I left for Christmas. Now, the exterior is finished. They're still working on it from the inside. I am eager to see how this turns out... It was strange to be back on campus. I hadn't set foot there since December of last year. The place is mostly blocked off due to the aforementioned construction. I hope that they have everything straightened out before the freshmen move in around the end of August.

I also met up with my friends Amanda (who studied abroad last autumn) and Tori (who graduated this year). We visited a local farmers' market.

Street performer in downtown Burlington. He proceeded to do a handstand on top of all those chairs!

Katie surveys Burlington Bay

The boats

Lake Champlain

The oncoming storm

Duck family!

We got rained on! The thunderstorm rolled right in and soaked everything. We hid out in a mall (along with half the people off the street).

When we got back to SMC, Katie and I went to the academic buildings (since they're open 24/7). We watched Pitch Perfect and had a dance party. Naturally, I decided to bring a nice selection of electronica/dance/house/whatnot that you'd hear in Cardiff on a night out. We had so much fun.

I watched the Fourth of July parade that my hometown puts on every year. For those who don't know (I've encountered some people whilst abroad who didn't know why July 4th was such a huge deal to Americans), this is when the USA celebrates their independence from Great Britain. My family usually sets up right where the parade turns the corner. Prime viewing territory! Would you also believe that I've been in the parade a couple times? Well, without further ado, here is how a small town in Vermont commemorates this event.

Colorguard to start off.

Detail on a Jeep being driven by servicemen

Tractors!

Bands are always a feature 

You could only get away with this in Vermont!

Classic Cars

My old High-School won the State Championship in Baseball

More Cars

There are usually a couple more horses! 

Tractor! 

End of the Parade

And to close this out, here's a nice shot of my brother and two of his friends. I love their outfits. Very patriotic.

My brother is on the far left, in the American Flag shorts.

What else have I been doing? I have finally had an epiphany on what I want to do when I graduate (Which is this year. Where has time gone?). This is a really big deal for me. For the longest time, I had no idea what I wanted to do once I graduated. I decided on a major before my first year at SMC because I am passionate about Biology. Honestly, I felt like I had a list of careers I didn't want and not a whole lot of ones I would pursue. However, I have something (and strangely enough, my time in Cardiff did not have an impact on my decision). I am looking into dental school! I have been reviewing and studying up for the dental admissions test (known as the DAT). 

In the meantime, I have also been busy with my summer job. I work as a lifeguard at a neighboring town's pool. It is such a blessing to be out in the sun with a not-too-strenuous job. I have lost my ghastly pallor and gained a few more freckles in the process. Not to shabby! Oh, and did I mention that I performed a save towards the end of July! I had to go in after a kid who swam out too far and panicked when she couldn't touch the bottom of the pool. It always gives me a rush performing my job like that.

I will be heading back to SMC at the end of this month. And my birthday is in less than a month! This is a very exciting time.

P.S. If anyone is up in Colwyn Bay on the 14th, go say hello to the Cardiff Blues. They'll be training there around 4pm.

Cheers!

Hiraeth

Hello Everyone!

It's been a bit since I've posted, so I have used this time to reflect a bit on my experiences at home and abroad.

Here are some interesting things I learned about America through the eyes of the British.

1. Guns. Well, with Sandy Hook still fresh in the minds of everyone, the topic of guns did come up on occasion. And since I was the resident American for most of this, I got asked a lot of questions. As fate would have it, I learned the basics of pistol shooting from a family friend (who's also a WWII veteran). I also wrote a paper about the historical and legal context of the Second Amendment when I was a senior in high-school. This lead to some very spirited debates.
2. Accents. I started learning to place people based on accents. I'm pretty good at picking out whether someone has a Northern vs Southern Welsh accent. I also have gotten better about picking out Northern and Southern English accents. Beyond that, unless your region is very obvious to my ear like Essex or Scouse, that's the extent of my knowledge. So please don't ask me if you sound "posh" to my ear. Ask my friend Olivia, she's much better at that sort of thing! I discovered that the British people I talked to seemed to be about as knowledgeable about American accents as I am about British ones (maybe even less so on their part!). It was always fun asking people where they thought I was from. I think the best answer was "Miami" (yes, he narrowed it down to a specific city). Hahaha, sometimes I wish that, buddy! Is this because of "Newscaster English" leading to the die-off of native accents? Is is because America is an younger country and therefore hasn't had enough time for the differences in regional accents to become more dramatic?  I am not one to speculate on this. I did have some fun listening to my generic-y North-Eastern US accent ebb and flow during my time abroad. I normally soften my T's so that the words "Vermont", "Water" and "Twenty" sound like "Vermon", "Wah-der" and "Twenny" (An Essex accent would say "Wa'er" and have a small stop in between the syllables). As I lived in Cardiff and interacted with the British, I started picking up those T's that I dropped.
3. History. I had some Welsh friends who didn't know what Americans celebrated on July 4th. I had the feeling that the American Revolution was not as important topic to them as it was to us (I learned about it in three separate years, 6th grade, 8th grade and 11th grade). Not only that, but all the World History I'd learned in school seemed to culminate with the rise of the United States. First was Classical Greece, birthplace of democracy and Western Civ. Then came Rome, another cornerstone of Western Civ. Next were the Middle Ages, a rather brutal and backwards time of inquisitions, crusades, divine right and Christendom (This view wasn't rectified until I was in University. Also, notice a common theme here? Little bit of Catholic bashing going on). Next was the glorious Renaissance, which sprung forth from the minds of Italians fully-formed like Athena from Zeus' skull. Then, America. That's history, folks! *Eagle Screech*
4. Britain ≠ America. As a globally-conscious American individual, I have gotten used to not being able to have all the products/food items/brands I've grown up with at home (although globalisation seems keen on changing that). I'm not sure if the British at large have had the same experience. I continually astounded them with tales of a land where an electric kettle was not a household fixture, Ribena is unheard of, Tex-Mex food abounds while Indian takeaway is slim-to-none, and the closest Nando's is in Washington DC. I remember seeing the shock on a girl's face when I told her that there are no such thing are cheddar and onion crisps in America. Cheddar and Onion crisps are the most British-y of British crisp tastes. On a different note, what is with the meat-flavoured crisps, UK? I know the USA gets a lot of stick for our questionable choice in food (to which I say, we learned from the best). If I wanted a steak or a prawn cocktail, I'd eat a real one.
5. Heritage. Genealogy is trendy in America. Everyone wants to know where they came from. This is because we are a country of immigrants. Probably also because everyone wants to be related to royalty in some way (Good news! If you're of Western European heritage, you're probably descended from Charlemagne. Tell someone that the next time they disrespect you!). Personally, I am a mish-mash of Irish, English and Welsh, with a possible touch of Scots thrown in for good measure. My name, however, is probably one of the most aggressively Irish names you could encounter. It was entertaining to hear people speculate about where I was from. Quite a few people said "Irish", I'm guessing just based on the name. One guy attempted to convince me that I was the posterchild of an "American" face. What does that even mean?? Did my straight nose tell him that I have Mayflower-colonist blood? My lips that another ancestor fought in the American Revolution? I don't think that knowing where your ancestors came from is as important a topic to the average Brit. I talked to a boy whose mother's family had pretty much remained in one village in Yorkshire. 

What do I miss from Cardiff?

1. My awesome friends. This is a given. All of you are lovely and wonderful people who made my time away from America so memorable. I can't thank you enough.
2. Certain food/drink items. Black currants are my faves. This all started with my trip to Burgundy last summer, where they are the regional fruit. Sadly, they are next to unknown back in America (for some more info on this, click here). I have also fallen in love with toffee waffles. My flatmate Adeline introduced me to them. They are perfectly sized to sit on top of a cup of tea. This gently warms them and gets the toffee in the middle all gooey. Yum. I also grew to love chorizo (Spanish Sausage) and Peri-peri (an Afro-Portuguese spice blend). I have brought back a taste for making curries though (Thai-style ones). Yummy, spicy and easy to make with what's on hand? Don't mind if I do! And I know that the UK is known for tea, but I couldn't get enough of flat whites. I think of coffee as a necessary evil (when you need something stronger than tea), but flat whites are absolutely lovely and sadly have not reached America en masse. 
3. An appreciation for Accents. I don't think the Southern/Midland English can quite understand how charming, cultured and sophisticated they sound to the American ear. I soon learned that not everything sounds awesome (try listening to them say fillet as "fill-it", mocha as 'mock-ah", or pasta as "paast-ah"). Also, not all English accents sound awesome to American ears either (I hate to keep harping on Scousers...). Well, what about Welsh accents? I think they are adorable. Whether you're a Gog or a Hwntw, I will give you accent-compliments. I love how the Welsh say "work". It sounds like "wehrk" to my ears. Also, Welsh accents are criminally underrepresented in North American media. I think the only time I'd heard a Welsh accent before Cardiff was in a video game (Eve Myles voiced a character).  
4. Public Transportation. America is largely a car culture. I feel incredibly independent when I hop in my car and drive myself somewhere. However, it's also nice to have options. I embraced the long trainrides through the Welsh countryside. I had some insightful conversations with cab drivers. I rode a bus right to my terminal at Heathrow. No parking worries, no need to stress about driving on the opposite side of the road.
5. Tea culture. I'd gotten used to doing everything one-handed in Cardiff, because the other hand was holding either an umbrella or a cup of tea (why, how did you think that was going to end?). I was a devo-tea long before my arrival in the UK, but there's just something comforting about filling the electric kettle and getting a cup of Earl Grey. Also, nothing chases away the damp chill of Welsh rain better than tea. Nothing.
6. Welsh Language. Don't ask me to sight-read any Welsh. You'll get a mangled pronunciation (and possibly a shower. Those LL's are killer!). It was kinda cool to try and decipher it though. I saw that Welsh had 'welsh-ified" some Latin words. I also saw some "welsh-ified" English words too! I think I picked up some meanings just from being exposed to them on all the signs like "Ffordd Allan" under all the Exit signs. I also enjoyed seeing the Welsh appear above the English when I was in North Wales. I didn't hear Welsh spoken that often though (the only times I heard it were when I was in the Welsh Studies department of Cardiff Uni, announcements at the Millennium Centre and the National Anthem).

That's only a little bit of what's been kicking around in my mind. It's nice to have a place to let it see the light!

I miss my time in Cardiff so much. It was an awesome experience for me to go abroad and be welcomed so openly.

Cheers!

PS. And in case anyone was wondering, I watched the Lions. I woke up around 5:30am VT time to see them play. Now that's dedication!

5:25am in Vermont, 10:25am in Cardiff, 7:25pm in Sydney.

Leigh Halfpenny, ready to kick a penalty.

My Hiraeth mug (with Prince of Wales tea for extra points!) and I watch the Third Test. In case you're curious, that's Mike Phillips on the screen.

So you're thinking about Study Abroad in Cardiff...

As the title says, here is some of my advice for anyone who wants to follow in my footsteps and stay in Cardiff, whether it be for a semester or longer. I imagine that this will be a multi-part series on what I've learned. Starting things off, here are some essentials of what to bring or buy.

What to pack:

1. Get raincoat and some sturdy rainboots, preferably the brightest-coloured ones you can find. You'll be getting a lot of use out of them (insert jokes about British Weather here). The rain is grey and rather dreary, so having some bright colours will be a nice remedy. Cardiff is also very windy, so if you can't get a lined raincoat, get one that you can layer under. I brought a black raincoat with a furry lining and UGG Adirondack boots in Obsidian (they transitioned nicely from slush to puddles, plus they kept my feet toasty warm). Would I have preferred some jewel-tones or cute little prints? Well... yeah, probably. Most importantly, make sure your boots are water-proof up to a certain height on the boot. The puddles can get deep.
2. Walking Shoes! In my time as a student, a 20 minute walk was the minimum. That was about how long it took to get to my lectures, depending on the traffic. I ended up wearing out some shoes that I brought over. And all that travel advice that people give you about how you can pick out the Americans because they wear trainers/sneakers all the time? Nonsense. They'll pick you out by the accent long before they can look at your feet. So wear whatever makes you feel comfortable, just maybe steer clear of mesh shoes. The weather changes quickly.
3. Outlet converters/surge protector. Pretty self-explanatory, but if you pack a little surge protector, you can still use your American electronics without the outlet converters. Mine also had a USB charging port.
4. School supplies. I brought a large backpack (it could easily hold a textbook) and a 5-subject notebook. This is what I used at my Uni at home, but it didn't work so well for lectures here. Firstly, giant backpacks are a very American thing. Everyone else had messenger bags or little backpacks. Second, the lecturers usually give handouts of their Powerpoints. If I were to redo this, I'd get five separate folders with some spare paper in them. I'd keep the backpack though, it has a laptop sleeve! 
5. Clothing you can layer. I've heard a saying, "There's no such thing as bad weather, you just dressed for it incorrectly" (of course, it was probably a lot snappier). If you live in Talybont North (like me), you will have quite the walk to get to lectures. As mentioned before, the weather can turn on a dime (or... a 5 pence piece? That would be similar, right?). The lecture venues also tend towards the colder side, so prepare for that too. I also got used to bringing an umbrella and hairbrush in my bag because of the weather variation.
6. Trenchcoat. They're stylish, first of all. As for practicality, I'd recommend getting one that has a removable liner in it. My black trench was my constant companion for the first few weeks.

Here are some things you should pick up while you're there:

1. Spices! Yes, there is the stereotype of British cuisine, "We take our ingredients, throw them in the largest pot we can find, and cook for as long as possible until everything is a uniform grey colour". While it might not be that bad, there is a sort of blandness endemic to the food here (at least to my palate). I ended up stocking part of my kitchen cabinet with a bunch of spices. I let my flatmates experiment with them too. 
2. Doorstop. If you're in student flats like me, propping the door open is a nice way to let your flatmates know that you're available.
3. Extra kitchen supplies. I was provided with a mug, a bowl, a dinner plate and two pots. I bought another mug, a glass (for water and such), and a pan for oven use. If I needed anything else, I could borrow it from my flatmates.
4. Bedding and towels. Again, I was provided with some stuff, but I was a little sketched out by it. I bought myself a light comforter/duvet, bath towels, fitted sheet, pillowcases and a fleecy blanket (My room got really cold during the night). One interesting thing to note is that the Brits don't have top-sheets. It's just fitted sheet then duvet.
5. Hairdryer/miscellaneous hair electronics. The voltage as well as the outlets in the UK differ from the ones in the US. Spare yourself the trouble of having it short out and just pick up a cheapy one when you get there.
6. Cleaning/laundry supplies. If the place you're staying has an ensuite, like mine, then you'll need to keep it clean. Laundry supplies are self-explanatory. You'll need a laundry card in order to access the machines, but those can be picked up at a couple different sites.

Well, that pretty much covers it. Any other pieces of advice will be added in at some point.

Cheers!

One week after Cardiff...

I finally got a picture of a grey squirrel!

I can't believe it. It's already been a week since I left Cardiff (well, with the 5 hour difference between Wales and Vermont... Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey). I had a very subdued final night, just some laughs and goodbyes with my flatmates. They were gearing up to go out clubbing, but I opted to stay in. I'd be needing all the sleep I could get!
Here are a couple shots of my room in various stages of packing:

View out my window

Here are a couple pictures of my ensuite:

My bathroom is a pod. Everything is within arms-reach and we'll just leave it at that.

To top it off, here are some pictures of the building my flat is in:

My window is on the British Second/American Third floor

Door leading out to the walkway we share with the neighbouring flat

On the 15th, I woke up promptly at 5am. I finished packing all my stuff, made some cheese-on-toast (British term for grilled cheese sandwich) plus a cup of tea and dropped off my room key. What a sad process! I gained another rolling suitcase (since I had some new stuff to fit in back at home), so it was a struggle going down those stairs one last time. My taxi almost left without me! I took the taxi to the Cardiff Bus Station and waited to be taken away. On the advice of a friend, I took the National Express, which dropped me off right by my terminal at Heathrow. No struggling with the Tube for this girl! The bus ride was really nice. The seats were roomy, it was air-conditioned and there was even an outlet for charging my gadgets.

My parting shot of Cardiff from a moving bus. It's of Cardiff Arms Park and that Alex Cuthbert sign advertising ticket prices. I'd have loved to get some silly pictures of myself and that sign, but I guess I'll save that for my return!

Even though we had to take an alternate route due to construction (some things remain constant, no matter which side of the Atlantic you're on!), I got to Heathrow with time to spare! I hydrated up, got some lunch and poked around the high-end shops. For fun, I walked into the Hermès Store because the jewel-tones caught my eye. The silk scarves didn't even have price-tags on them. I knew that this was a troubling sign, "If you have to ask, you can't afford". I did get some little things at the duty-free shop though (My bags were super full at this point). I also messaged my relatives and friends in the UK, letting them know that I was on my way back.

Asking the relatives for the best way to watch the rugby back at home. But would they approve of a hwntw like Leigh marrying into the family? That's what I should've been asking! Haha.

As soon as I got into Heathrow proper, I was surrounded by American accents. My ears cried out in protest, "Noooo! This is terrible! Why are you here, making us listen to these noises!?" I had to reacclimatise to my own accent, even though I was exposed to it in great quantities in Cardiff (maybe American friends you meet within the first month don't count? Further study is needed. If anyone wishes to fund my research into this phenomenon, the donations box is right next to the exit).

I settled in for the (seemingly) longest plane-ride ever.
Fun Fact #36: The plane-ride back from Beijing that I took three years ago (the one where I saw two sunsets and flew over the North Pole), felt shorter than this. Maybe it was because I was sitting next to friends and not two random ladies.
Fun Fact # 37: Virgin Airways, being the quintessential British company, observed Tea Time.

Heh-heh. Mile High Tea.

I watched Django and some TV shows that were available. I also slipped in and out of wakefulness.

Some light reading for the ride back. I traveled over the Atlantic whilst reading probably the only H P Lovecraft story where the Elder Evil is defeated and ends on a slightly up-beat note.

Finally, I touched down at JFK Airport. I waited in the queue for customs and immigration, American accents and slang grating on my eardrums. I had five hours to kill between my touching down in the USA until my flight into Burlington. Happily, there was free wifi, so this wasn't as much of a problem as it initially seemed. I got some dinner and set about letting everyone know that I was back in 'Merica.

Fun Fact #38: The signs in JFK were bilingual, which I was used to. However, they were English and Spanish, not English and Welsh. Come on, JFK! Don't make me go all Anglesey-extremist in order to get my beloved Brythonic language represented on the signage!

I looked really out of place in JFK. My black pleather jacket (which is trendy in Cardiff) made me stand out amidst the sundresses and short-sleeves of New York. I felt bold and a little dangerous.

Fun Fact #39: At the next table up from me was a young-looking sister in her habit. She and I caught ourselves looking at the other over dinner and we waved.

At 10:14 pm EST, I boarded the plane from JFK to Burlington. Here are some shots of Long Island that I took from the air.

The actual view was more spectacular 

So many lights!

At long last, I landed in Burlington. I gave little half-sobs of joy as I stepped off the plane. And it was wonderful beyond words to see my parents again. That should go without saying!

It's been a busy week for me with not much time to mourn the loss of my second home. I have had some little things that need adjusting to (like getting to drive again, woohoo!). I have also been trying to find some stuff that reminds me of Cardiff. A couple days ago, I was in a larger Shaws and discovered that they had digestives in their "British and Irish" section in the International Aisle.

Dark Chocolate McVitie's! Yum yum yum.

So, expect a post from me about my adjustment, Cardiff travel advice and more!

Cheers!