7/18 and 7/19

The past two days have been amazing! Yesterday we had another outdoor pursuits session. The two of these here in Bangor have probably been one of my favorite parts of our trip. Yesterday we did gorge scrambling. It sounds intense because it is! It's a combination of rock climbing, swimming, hiking, a little bit of everything. The jist of it is that we were climbing up waterfalls. There were a lot of really challenging climbs, but we all always managed to complete them (with only a few falls). We climbed up this pretty steep heavy-flowing waterfall which was so difficult! We also did a lot of rope-climbing, where Sally (our leader) would attach a rope to rocks and we'd use that to help get up a steep part of the gorge. It was a lot of fun and I'm only a little bit bruised :) Then last night we went to a barbecue at the vice-chancellor's house. The vice chancellor is the Welsh equivalent of the university's president. Their house was very beautiful and it was the fanciest barbecue I've ever been to, that's for sure! There was wine, chicken, sirloin, sausage, salmon, a ton of salads, and a couple of yummy desserts. We also met a lot of really great people from Bangor University. Today we went to Conwy Castle, and got a tour which was really interesting. Of course, it was raining again (although yesterday was clear!) so it was cold. We also got to walk along the walls built around the city of Conwy hundreds of years ago to protect it from outsiders. The highlight of my day was getting a Welsh dragon TY Beanie Baby. I didn't even know they made Beanie Babies anymore and since I collected them when I was younger, it was practically the perfect souvenir! We also went to Llandudno, which is a Victorian seaside resort town. It was so cute, nestled right on the water with beautiful views and tons of little shops, hotels, and restaurants. Tecwyn bought us afternoon tea and cake, which was so nice of him. He is by far one of the sweetest and funniest people I've ever met. We're really lucky to have him as our professor and it's going to be so sad to leave him. Tonight we are headed to the theater to see a play. I cannot believe today was our last field trip day in Bangor. Time is flying by! I'm trying to enjoy every last second of this experience here. I don't even want to think about leaving!

 We attempted lots of jumping photos (not too successful)

 View over Llandundo 

Chrissy and I with the goat statue