Wales, March 3-5th, 2006

So, i’m finally getting up to date with these entries! my goodness!

Last weekend i went on a trip organised by the school (for 50 people or so) to Wales. More specifically, to Snowdonia National Park. The purpose of the trip: to climb a mountain, and do other crazy outdoor activities.

Now, a little more background on this weekend: on wednesday before (2 days before we left)i woke up with the most painful sore throat i’ve ever had. i went to the doctor and got a prescription and that night i was all fevery and icky. So i started to panic about going. i decided to go anyway, and hope the medicine kicked in in time!

It was also Simon’s last trip. Simon’s our student activities coordinator, he planned the wales weekend, and the Cornwall one in November. He’s awesome and is super enthusiastic, but he decided to move to Canada, he left yesterday, just the day after the wales trip ended. So the weekend was really fun because we all knew that it was simon’s last hurrah at the ISC. (so i didn’t want to miss it, even with the crazy throat pain)

ANYWAYS, we left at 5 am on friday, luckily my fever had gone away, and i was trusting in the power of sugary tea to help the meds kick in.

We stopped at Windsor (because in the UK the bus drivers can only drive for 4 hours and then they need a 45 minute break) Windsor was cool, we saw the castle, but it was closed because it was only 9 am at this point. and we walked to the river to see the rowing boats for Emily, and continued walking to Eton College, i admit it, i wanted to see where the princes went to school! haha.

Windsor:

Emily, Megan and Me in front of Windsor Castle

Part of Eton College

following the tradition of the Cornwall trip – Cornish Pasties!

We drove for another 4 hours, got rerouted and slightly lost and finally made it to Chester, our dinner stop. It was really beautiful.

Bridge, Tom, Megan, Me and Emily

The littlest snowman

street in Chester

Now, the thing about the bus ride was that Simon got to choose all the movies. and since he likes climbing, and we were going to climb a mountain, they were ALL climbing movies. We watched ‘touching the void’ then ‘verticle limit’ then ‘K-2’. it was intense. and as a result we were a little more freaked out about the whole mountain thing than we had been before!!

We got into our Hostel at about 10:30 that night, and had to scramble out again for a fire drill, and there was much snow on the ground. MUCH SNOW!!! We went to bed and got up early to get ready to CLIMB A MOUNTAIN!!!!

Eva was still a little freaked out by the movies

Megan and i saw the Pick Axes and got excited

Our Group Climbed ‘Moel Eilio’ aka: My Mountain (which is what i’ve named it now :D)

It was tough going but super duper fun And GORGEOUS, did i mention GORGEOUS

I have a lot of really great shots of everyone else, as i was at the back…

Megan halfway up at our lunch break

Me halfway up

Eva takes a little pent up fake rage out on andrea, who is oblivious

Angela is super happy

Here’s a view of Snowdon, which we were going to climb, but a massive amount of fresh snow meant that we might not make it to the top, hence Moel Eilio

Megan was a little tired at one point.

We finally got to the top, and it was AMAZING!

Here’s Eva, Andrea and me

Megan, Allison and ME

As a result of the BEAUTIFUL day, i now have my summer face back – look at the freckles!!!!!!!!!

my ice pick at the top

View from the top

Allison watching the view

neighboring mountain

the lake we had to hike around when we got to the bottom of the mountain

The next day we got up even earlier and i did ‘sea level traversing’ which is basically clambering around rocks that are partly in the ocean. aka the IRISH SEA. that was fun, but since we were so close to the water i didn’t bring my camera

here’s after the traversing, waiting for the bus to be ready to go

Andrea, Pui Wing, Megan, Me and Emily

My freckles and a mountain

On the way back we definitely watched ‘conquest of everest’ and then jaws. simon is silly.

Wales = So. Much. Fun.