Nos Da Cymru.

(Good night Wales)

Hi all. Long time no chat. I've missed you!

I am back in London and recovering from what I think is some sort of virus/cold thing. It got me the last 2 days in Wales - sore throat, body aches, chills, etc... I think it was body telling me I need to slow down for a few days (but who really has time to slow down - there are things to see, people to meet!) I decided to listen to my body though and forego the trip up to Scotland and just come back to London and chill for a few days. Since there was no internet in Wales, I have a lot of catching up to do!

There is so much to talk about from the Wales trip that I thought the best/most fun way to go about it was through a picography (is that a word? If not, I just invented it.)

So, here you go....

This is home: The Camarthan Youth Center in Glanaman, Wales.

This was the main room where we spent most of our time: eating and preparing meals, playing cards, watching movies, and playing pool and ping pong.

This would be the city center (and only street) of Ammanford, Wales, the closest "town" to Glanaman and where we would go to use the internet and shop for groceries.


We laid about 5,768,4957,485,047,000 acres of turf. Okay, that might be an exaggeration. This was pretty typical work that we did. We were working with the rangers at the Camarthenshire County Council helping to keep Wales green, like these hills:

The rolling hills of Wales.


Cutting and slashing over grown path ways. This was the only day that it rained, but everyone kept their spirits high. Its hard to complain when you look out over the view of where you are working.


Europe Day at the Botanical Gardens of Wales. There were 170 students, representing 22 schools in Wales that attended. We helped in the cultural tent, letting students ask us questions about our countries and where we were from.


I built this bridge. Pretty impressive huh?

School visit. We lead a Q&A session about our respective countries with 3,4, and 5 year students in the local school in Glanaman. Everytime I would say that I was from the US all the kids would go "ohhh!" and get so excited. It was adorable.
Clockwise from the bottom right: Lina (Quebec, Canada), Bo Yeon (South Korea), Medea (Georgia), me (USA), Slavi (Slovenia), Danie (Austria), Yae Jing (South Korea).

Global Day at the youth center. This was the big event that we were working on over the two weeks. About 200 kids attended with activities such as origami making, face painting, writing in Georgian and Korean, Williow Wish Flags, Paper Laterns, Belly Dancing, Slovenian Folk Dancing, African Drum Workshops, and food from all over the globe.

It wasn't all work though.... There was plenty of play too!

Picnics.

Walking on the beach.

Much of the coastal areas of Wales are located on deep inlets from the ocean. During high tide the water receeds out of the bays and leaves the beach extending on for miles and miles. It is absolutely gorgeous, and unlike the picture of the youth center above, this picture doesn't do the view justice.

Visiting castles. This was my favorite castle.

It was quite windy on the beach....

Playing Cricket on the beach. I was a natural. :)

Friday night karaoke, what else? You should hear Last Christmas sung with 6 different accents.

Slovenian Folk Dancing!! We loved it!

France had kittens, Wales had puppies. This is a 2 week old yellow lab puppy.

Free time usually consisted of Musical Chairs at some point. It was a group favorite.

We did A LOT of hiking - and often got lost, but usually ended up seeing some of the best sites that way.

SHEEP! Need I say more.

That concludes the picography. There were a few things that I wasn't able to capture in photos that were true highlights of the trip. Such as, you ask? Well.... teaching American Baseball to a group of International students was probably the highlight of last week. Who knew baseball was so complicated! When they started running around the bases for a second time (passing through home and going back to first) I pretty much had to just let them. I mean, why not? It makes sense right? In the end I made them all lovers of baseball and that is all that really matters.

So, that completes my time in Wales and part 2 of my trip. Part three begins on Friday when I head to Greece and start the backpacking portion of my trip. I only have a little over three weeks left in Europe.

Now is for resting. Or maybe eating. I'm pretty hungry.

"Patrick, what do you have in the fridge..."