7/13-7/15

Sorry I haven't updated all weekend! I guess I got a bit lazy on my time off. On Friday, we went to an enormous castle and then another smaller one that was more of ruins. It's amazing to me that these castle were built so long ago yet still stand so strong. The first castle we saw on Friday was only 150 years old, much different from the rest that we've seen. It was built off of the wealth a family accumulated from the slate mines. It was rather modern for a castle and was so extravagant, so it was fun to look at. The weather Friday was absolutely dreadful, so we called it an early day. Saturday, we got to sleep in which was amazing! Then we went shopping all day on High Street. I love the stores here! We'd been dying to have a shopping day so luckily we got it in on Saturday. Then that evening we went to the cinema. We had to ride a train to get there, which felt a bit silly. It was quite fun though. The train is an interesting place after 10pm on a Saturday night. Yesterday we also got to sleep in! I was thrilled about this if you can't tell. Then we met up with our Welsh friends again. We went to the pier to go crabbing which was a blast! We caught a bunch of tiny little crabs and a few medium-sized ones. After that we went to a traditional Sunday roast at a pub. It's a Welsh thing they do and it was really good. The roast consisted of chicken, potatoes, veggies, and a few other things I can't remember the names of. Most of the conversation around dinner consisted of Peter (one of our friends here) teaching us Americans how to properly use our silverware. Supposedly Americans don't use it right, so he was teaching us how while having a blast laughing at how silly we looked. After the roast we had a bonfire at their house in their backyard. It was a hill that overlooked the water and it was so pretty. We even introduced them to s'mores! (We had to compromise with digestive biscuits for graham crackers because they don't have graham crackers here, so they weren't quite as tasty.) All in all, the weekend was amazing and so relaxing which all of us needed! I cannot believe I only have 20 days left here. I feel like I've known these people for my entire life. It's going to be so sad to leave them!

 The girls at the bon fire

 Yes...we played baseball with rotten vegetables

 Gary trying to scare me with the crab

 Macey, Chrissy, and I at the bon fire

 There was a chapel in the castle

The elaborate dining hall