(For the record this was written and ready to post on Tuesday, but OffExploring was down for maintenance…)

I am definitely a week behind on my blogging, which I blame on my Paris and Prague trip, followed by a trip to Wales…

The week after my Paris and Prague trip was very quiet and relaxed as everyone around here (myself included) had multiple deadlines. I had a presentation that week for Virginia Woolf, and a second one for Great Wat early in the next week, with an assignment for Gender Studies as well and a few novels for both classes to read. So the week was spent catching up on school work being introduced to a multiplicity of English tv shows to reward myself.

English TV shows I have been introduced to in my time here:

Dr.Who- Widely popular show about a man who travels through time. Not a 'good' show, but mighty fun to watch (Hannah says it's the best show ever)

The Mighty Boosh- Very bizarre comedy show, funny in a sort of Flight of the Conchords way

Have I Got News For You- A panel/game show-esque, celebrity, comedy news-show. Yeah, all those things.

Never Mind the Buzzcocks- Similar to Have I Got News For You, not as much news though. More like mini-games that produce comedic results.

Merlin- Ridiculous… no other word for it

Top Gear- Amazing show; it is so good! I'm going to have to find out when this shows at home and watch it

Strictly Come Ballroom- English version of Dancing with the Stars

We also took a break to experiment with making muffins, my favorite was the nutella muffin. We also had marmalade, marshmallow, cookie, nutella/peanut butter/banana, coco crispies, and other crazy combos that I can't remember.

I had been planning on going to the capital of Wales (Cardiff) with the society that I'm in called Raising and Giving (RAG) to do a huge charity event. On Wednesday I started stressing out, I hadn't left my room all day because I was working on my presentation and had just picked up the massive novel I had to do presentation on the next Monday, so I emailed the girl in charge and told her I wasn't coming. My friend Athena came over on Thursday and was like "ok, when are we leaving tomorrow?" and was so sad that I had decided I wasn't going because she didn't want to go with this group because neither of us really knew any of them. After a quick assessment of what I needed to get done (and a promise from Athena that we would have sufficient time for homework) I decided that I probably would never make the opportunity to travel to Wales, so I should take the opportunity while it was in front of me and left for Wales the next morning. We caught the 9:01 train and were in Wales at 1:30 after an hour between trains from London to Cardiff (which we spent navigating the Underground because of crazy construction).

After we got to Cardiff we found the visitor's center where we left our luggage (we had sleeping bags and pillows in addition to all our clothes and homework). After that we walked through this really cool market and then down to where the Castle was. The Castle was so cool! It was right in the middle of the city and had been built over a thousand years ago (well, the original part had been). The newer part of the castle was built in the 1400's and 1500's and the renovations were done in the 1800's. It was so beautiful on the inside!!! It was all redone on the inside with all the fanciest and most modern technology, and the most beautiful interior design. We also watched the most terrible historical film I've ever seen… so so bad. It was way overdone, but so terrible at the same time.

We shopped and then ate, and then by that time we had to go back and get our stuff from the visitor's center before it closed. Since we had all our stuff we decided that while we waited for the rest of our group to get there to make it homework time, so we went to Starbucks and I read tons of my novel for my Great War class while I enjoyed a delicious peppermint mocha (I forgot how good those are!).

At almost 10 we walked back to the train station and met up with the rest of our group. From there we caught a taxi to our wonderful (free) accommodations… the office building for the charity we were doing the event for! That's right, I spent Friday night sleeping under a receptions desk! This was a pretty big event, there were about 80 people staying in the office, only 15 who had come from Sussex Uni.

Haha, it was really fun until we decided to go to sleep… Before that Athena and I and two other girls from RAG were having a lovely time chatting, and then we ordered the most delicious pizza (cheese, chicken, garlic and half green peppers) at like 1 in the morning and then laid down to go to sleep. Unfortunately, all the people who had decided to go out came back about half an hour later after we tried to go to sleep and had absolutely no respect for the fact that we were trying to sleep or that it was like 3:30 in the morning. Then we were woken up at 7:30 to get ready for our day o'charity.

The point of us being in Cardiff for the weekend is what is called a raid, or in this case, a mega-raid. A raid is where people (in this case, us) walk around a city with buckets and sing out/call out/ask for money. I just kind of sang out "Spare some change for Barnardo's?" (Barnardo's is the children's charity that was sponsoring the whole weekend and who we were raising money for). The whole day was cold and, at times, rainy and there were thousands of people entering the city for the rugby game of Wales vs New Zealand. It wasn't the most fun day I've ever had, but I know that the money we raised will be much appreciated by Barnado's. As this was the first raid they've ever hosted, they were hoping that we would raise around ₤3000. It turns out that between all the RAGs, we ended up raising around ₤7500!!

We all celebrated and had dinner at the pub across the street before heading to the University of Cardiff's student union club where I got to hang out with all the Sussex RAG people. I think we all had a really fun night. Then we came back and found a different place to sleep (a hallway with lights that turned off and a door to close off all sounds from the outside world!).

The next day we all just hung out, and got breakfast and coffees while we waited for our train. It was a long trip home, made longer by the fact that there was work on the railway systems. And that I had injured my foot somehow the day before… But we made the best of it- at one point we had RAG people lining the aisle of the train when there weren't enough seats shouting things from Cosmo and passing gummi candy around.

I almost didn't go, but I'm so glad that I did. I got to see Wales and I got to meet a whole new group of people that I probably would never have the chance to meet otherwise. It was a fantastic experience.