Okay people I am going to try and make this quick. Next week is the last week of classes so all the profs are laying on the homework. Needless to say, I will probably be hiding in the computer lab all day tomorrow in an attempt to get my stuff done ASAP so I can still have some semblance of a fun weekend.

The craziness started about a week ago. As I mentioned in my last post, all the rest of my weekends are booked to the max with hardly any free time added in. I am super excited that all of the traveling is so quickly approaching… but I am also worried about my survival—I am pretty sure little to no sleeping is going to happen! This is my last free weekend, so I am going to try to take advantage of it and sleep as much as I can in between writing/studying and trying to do all of the last London-y things that we can fit in.

So, you all are probably wondering how Wales was. AWESOME! It was really cool to get out of London for the weekend and experience the extreme rural/country area that is around the coast of Wales. We drove up (by coach (bus) ) on Friday and got to Preseli Venture Lodge at about seven PM. The lodge is right next to the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park—we could see the sea from the dining room window. It was beautiful! The weather was not exactly the kind that made you want to go jumping into the ocean… but that is what we did! Saturday morning was coasteering. We geared up in wetsuits, lifejackets, helmets, tennis shoes and gloves and headed out to the coast to rock climb, swim, and cliff jump. The water was sooooo cold; the kind of cold where you get in and you feel like you cannot breath because your body is instantly freezing the second you hit the water. Regardless, we swam right out from the beach towards the rocky/cliffy areas. It was actually pretty cool. There was one point however, that got a teensy bit scary…I was only praying for my life for a few seconds though, so it may not have been thaaat bad...only a minor near drowing incident. We had reached a cove area that had little islands of rocks scattered around. Our intent was to climb up onto the biggest rock and rest for a few minutes (swimming through the icy water with all of the wetsuit paraphernalia on is extremely tiring...). Unfortunately, right as the last few people in our group were climbing up (myself, Melissa, and Jenna included) a massive wave came and knocked us all down. When these waves come there is nothing you can do but let it take you wherever it wants you to go—if you try to fight it you will a. become way too tired to continue swimming and b. your sense of self preservation and hysteria can kick in when you realize that there is nothing you can do to get away from the wave. So we all just tried not to breath in too much water and attempted to steer away from the cliffs. It was a tiny bit terrifying. Right after the giant wave crashed on top of your head, and as soon as you came up to gulp in air, it would re-crash onto you after it had bounced off of the cliff walls. It was unfortunate that we all got caught in the rough waves because it kind of put a damper on the rest of the trek. I think we scared the instructor a little bit too! He kept coming over to us saying “You’re okay right? That wasn’t too bad? You’re alright!”. Haha he even commented that I looked extremely pale…I guess that’s what almost DROWNING will do to you! Anyways, after that minor incident things were smooth sailing for the rest of the swim. We climbed our way to a lagoon/calm cove area where you could climb up the various cliffs and slide, run, or jump off of them. It was actually really really cool. There were three jumps: a ten-foot, twenty foot, and a thirty-foot. I did the ten and twenty footers… but couldn’t quite bring myself to jump off the thirty foot one as by that point I was practically hypothermic from the cold. All in all, it was quite an experience. I am not sure if I’d do it again…but I can always say that Valentines Day 2009 I was jumping off cliffs in Wales!

After we de-wetsuited (which let me tell you, is not an easy task when all of your extremities are completely numb and useless and you are standing on a freezing foggy beach in only a swimsuit) we ate lunch and then went on a hike. Melissa and I opted for the 4 mile hike vs the seven mile one as we were both so exhausted from the coasteering. The hike was interesting. I have to say that I was not really in the mindset to do anything besides sleep and nurse my wounds from the morning (yes their were wounds…we all came out quite battered from our coasteering experience. Bruises and scrapes a plenty!) so a long and winding hike was not on the top of my to-do list. It was really pretty though. I got some great pics of the coast and surrounding hills and fields. We were slightly worried about making it through the hike without getting lost as the only instructions we received were fairly ambiguous. Basically they dropped us off and told us to find our way home. Right. Oh and the best part was when they said turn right through the gate when you pass a beach a reach a large green field. The ENTIRE hike was made up of beaches and green fields!!!! Those Welsh people…they crazy! We did end up getting slightly lost towards the end…but we eventually found our way home through an extremely muddy muddy path. It was an adventure =)

Sunday morning Melissa and I went sea kayaking. It was awesome!!! Amazingly, the sun was actually out for like a whole hour so we totally lucked out. We did the wetsuit thing all over again, minus the tennis shoes and gloves. The kayaking was so much fun. We paddled around the craggy cliffy areas, went through a few rough patches, but pretty much just drifted around for a few hours. Each of us had our own kayak so there was no worry of someone else tipping your boat over. One girl capsized within the first three minutes. I really don’t know how she did it so fast….it was pretty funny!

After kayaking we went back to the lodge, ate an amazing meal, showered, packed, and headed home. It was a really great weekend. Not only was it nice to do something different and mix things up a bit ( you know how I find near death experiences invigorating…) but it was amaaazing to have home cooked meals and dining room table to eat at. We all came back exhausted and slightly beat up… but very happy.

Anyways, this site is being stupid and the internet here is ridiculously slow…so I unfortunately cannot post pictures. However, I did manage to get them onto facebook, so if you would like to check them out, follow the links! The more exciting photos have yet to be developed… we brought a water proof camera along with us while we were jumping swimming and paddling… so hopefully a few of those turned out. I will post them as soon as I get them!

Here are the links:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2079393&id=7102721&l=77ef4

Melissa also posted an album… she is not here at the moment so I can’t get the link, but I will post that too probably later tonight.

Here is the link to another album, but not from Wales… it’s just random stuff that I never got a chance to post.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2079392&id=7102721&l=9bc1e