A Trip to Amsterdam

First off, last week we had a home basketball game, which we won. It was a lot of fun and we qualified for the cup. (Not exactly sure what that means equivalent to the states collegiate basketball). I say qualified because today we had another game in Glamorgan. We lost by two points and I believe we no longer qualify for the cup. I fouled out this game, and the refs were ridiculous. I guess there are bad refs everywhere!

Secondly, a large group signed up for a trip to Amsterdam this past weekend! I’ve come to realize that it is just assumed that you partake in a particular activity just because you’ve gone to Amsterdam, but in my case I went to visit the city and I just enjoyed seeing the Netherlands. A few people made quite a few trips to the “coffeeshops” which is what they call places where one can get weed. They can’t openly advertise that they sell it there so they call them coffeeshops.

We left Thursday night on a coach which took us to Dover docks on the East side of England. There we got on a Ferry which took us across the channel to a port in France. We coached the rest of the way through Belgium and the Netherlands and got to Amsterdam at about 10am. When we first got there we walked through Vondelpark on our way to our hostel. I shared a hostel with 7 other people and it was pretty nice compared to what I’ve heard about some hostels, though our ceiling did start to leak the second day. :/

Nicole and me at Dover docks. Nicole is in my house at the student village. She is also from Iowa State, but we had never met before.

A pretty blurry picture of our hostel room - just to give an idea

We couldn’t check in until 2pm so we put our stuff in a luggage closet and roamed the city for some food. We stopped at the first sign of an open restaurant that served breakfast. After eating a few of us went to the Van Gogh Museum. After that Alex and I went to the House of Bols, where we got a little tour and a taste of Bols liqueur which was first distilled in 1575. A little tour showed us how they use the senses to improve their liqueurs.
Later that day we went to the Heineken factory and had another little tour. This was also a pretty fun place to see.

Brittany and me at a canal, Brittany is also an Industrial Engineer at Iowa State

The group before the Heineken Experience

Inside the Heineken Experience

That night a large group of us got a canal tour which was so pretty at night with all the lights on the water. It took us by important buildings that we got to hear more about and out around the bay north of Amsterdam and back into more canals.

This is the type of boat we took on the canal tour.

Canals at night

That night we got off near the Red Light District so we found our way back using our handy maps. I didn’t feel very comfortable in the Red Light District at night, just felt kind of out of place, but we were with a large group so it was a fun adventure.
The next day Alex and I got up pretty early to beat the lines at Rijksmuseum (sounds like “bikes”museum). That had some interesting stuff about The Netherlands past with a lot of portraits in it.

Front of Rijksmuseum, whatdya know.. more construction!

After that we headed to a neighborhood called De Pijp where there was a market the length of four or five blocks. We tried a few different fruits (Dragon Fruit and Lychees, which are really common over here). The market had many tulip stands, which were easy to find anywhere in the city actually.

Street lined with bikes on the way to the market. Nearly every street was lined with bikes like this.

We took many pictures by canals because we thought they kept getting prettier!

Next, we made our way to the North end of Amsterdam where we visitied some more typical sites. Then we headed to the bay near Central Station. There was a bike garage, which was pretty cool. On our canal tour they told us that there are 3 million bikes in the city.. there are only 1 million people living in Amsterdam. It is just their way of transportation. The guide said many times people will own 3 so that if one is stolen and one is damaged, they still have one.

Bike Garage

As we walked back that night, we walked through a park-like square called Museumplein which is surrounded by the museum and the Concertgebouw, a classical music hall. I twisted my ankle walking through the square in the dark; luckily it didn’t slow me down today in our game!

Coucertgebouw

Looking back at Rijksmuseum

I stayed awake for most of the bus ride home since it was during the day. So I got to see a bit more of the Netherlands, Belgium, and France.

Holland’s Windmills

I head to Paris tomorrow, so I'll have even more to talk about next week!

Gower Peninsula

So far, I have just been busy with class and basketball. I joined the Swansea Women’s Basketball Team. We had our first game Wednesday and we lost, but it was a fun game! The two other Americans and I actually started and played the whole game, which is kind of funny (Nicole about died when I told her this), but basketball isn’t as big here so there are few players for the team. They look forward to the American's who join every semester. We rode a bus to Gloucestershire, England with the men’s lacrosse team and we each played our games at 2pm and then headed home. We have a home game this Wednesday so hopefully I’ll get some pictures of the team then!

Some of the basketball girls went out after our game Wednesday (they’re all about the social aspect of sports). Vanessa is the captain, Shannon is one of the other Americans on the team, Tino, and me!

Just yesterday, a pretty good sized group of us took a bus to Three Cliffs Bay and then hiked a bit from there to Oxwich Bay where we also saw a castle. It was a pretty exciting day since I haven’t seen much of Wales yet!

Three Cliffs Bay

Climbing some rocks

Alex and I attempted to get a picture right along the water and then the tide came in and got our shoes all wet right at the beginning of our day :(

Some locals live right near the bay

There’s Oxwich Bay, right around the cliff

Looking back at Three Cliffs Bay while we walked the length of the beach to Oxwich

coming up to Oxwich Castle

The castle

A view from inside the castle

There are castles everywhere around here. I asked one of my housemates, which was her favorite she's seen. She told me a few and said, "you Americans love the castles." They're just so common around here! I'm excited to keep seeing them, and walking to the bays will just keep getting nicer with the weather!

UK Accommodations

I never showed you where I lived in London so this is going to include both my London and Swansea housing. In London we lived at Manson Place in South Kensington.

Our street was a dead end

13 Manson Place!

This is where the girls lived

Living area, Jake.. probably not being studious

Bonus: Picture of our class with Professor John Makey!

Last day of class

Now, Nicole.. on to WALES, WALES, WALES.
I haven’t been too adventurous yet because I’ve been getting settled in and getting classes started.

Hendrefoelan Student Village – Bus stop, Spar (convenience store), and Idol’s diner for some great fried food at a minute’s walk, if ever necessary

Including Alex’s, Shannon’s, Mine, and Dylan’s houses

House 7!

My room at HSV

Not the most exciting of pictures, but informative all the same.
Swansea University campus has been pretty cool to explore. I have four classes while I’m here. I’m taking Thermodynamics, Basic Soil Mechanics (not my top choice of Engineering Electives, but fairly interesting and I had troubles getting into what I planned on taking), Managerial Economics, and Work Psychology. Some of the classes meet for 3 hours a week and there will be multiple meeting places so that requires me to constantly have my timetable out, looking like a "fresher." Shannon has a class for two hours, but after the first hour they all get up and follow the professor to the next class room and resume the days lecture. So strange. Only one week into the classes, they’ve been pretty good so far. They should be fairly easy to study for as well, seeing as about 9 or 10 of the 25 students here from Iowa State are all Industrial Engineers and are taking a lot of the same classes! We know how to use the study buddy system. I don’t have class Mondays or Fridays so this will allow for some pretty fun weekend trips! I took some pictures of campus today for you guys, but mainly myself. :)

Faraday, Engineering buildings

Fulton House (The MU of Swansea Uni)

Central campus, I have some classes in the buildings you can see there

The campus seems so much smaller than Iowa State, I think the buildings here are just much closer together making things seem scrunched and smaller. I’ve walked along the beach, which is just south of campus, a couple of times already, but keep forgetting my camera! Next time! So be looking out for those photos.