Posted April 21.

I made it to Wales! But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Saturday night Katerina (the couchsufer who showed me around Bath during the day) gave me a call and invited me over to her house for dinner. I went over there are was introduced to her 7(!) other roommates.

It's a little ridiculous if you're a student in the UK. Housing costs are so high that even with a huge number of roommates it's expensive living. And you wouldn't be able to afford to just have a couple roommates, you'd need at least 4 or 5 to get a house.

We ended up getting a call from another couchsurfer (from the Czech Republic but studying in Bath as well) and went out for a drink and dinner with her. It was really interesting to here about the Czech Republic, as I don't really know much about it at all.

I was complaining about the hostel and as we were leaving, Katerina offered to let me sleep in the spare room at their flat so I decided to do that instead of spend another uncomfortable night in the hostel.

The next morning I got a text message from yet another Bathian couchsurfer, this one from Estonia, (I had asked her a couple days prior if she was available to suggest some sites in Bath or get a coffee but she didn't get back to me until Sunday) so Katerina and I set off to meet her. Veronika (the Czech couchsurfer) joined us and we had a great lunch. I also learned a lot about Estonia, you don't realize how ignorant you are and how many countries there are in Europe until you meet people from them and realize how different they really are.

I went back to Bristol Sunday afternoon and spent the afternoon with Emily and her flatmates. We went out to a pub in the evening for a pub quiz (like music trivia but just general trivia. A british thing? Maybe I just don't frequent the right pubs in Canada). We ended up coming back reasonably early though (after placing 3rd to last) because they all had class in the morning.

I took the train in the rain to Cardiff today and wandered around until I found the library. They are currently building a HUGE new library (opening 2009) so the library is set up in a temporary location with murals of books to hide the fact that it's a temp building. It's kinda neat though.

I'm meeting a couchsurfer this afternoon named James. Tomorrow I'm seeing Jackie for lunch or something then I'm meeting a different couchsurfer for a place to stay tomorrow night.

Hopefully the rain stops so I can take up some pictures.

Posted on April 19.

So I got up nice and early (well for me) and caught the train to Bristol Friday morning. The train takes about 2 and a half hours and you pass a lot of sheep. If you enjoy sheep I would suggest taking the train from Portsmouth to Bristol. Or heading to New Zealand.

Anyways I arrived in Bristol around 1PM and was met by a couchsurfer (Emily) at the train station. Emily is in her first year in Animal Conservation at Bristol University and lives in a mixed student dorm (shared kitchen and common room with 4 roommates). She took me back to her room so I could drop off my bags but was heading out to the Bristol zoo where she volunteers.

She didn't want to leave me adrift though so she introduced me to a friend of her's who decided that showing me around was more fun than revising for exams. I headed out with Jaleh (Emily's friend) and she showed me around Bristol city centre. You'll be happy to note that Jaleh also prompted me to take plenty of pictures so I'll have more to post once I have a computer that I can hook my camera into.

I'll be honest though, Bristol was pretty gray. Some points of interest though:
- Part of the University used to be a fort. Part of England surrendered to another part of England in the Civil war there.
- There is a place called Cabot tower that has fences all around it and signs that say it's about to fall over. Nice View though. Actually it would probably be cooler if it had fallen over.
- There's a bridge with horns that look like Shrek. Or possibly fallopian tubes. Depends who you ask.
- There is a giant disco ball that apparently has a planeterium inside.
- There are steps with a fountain running down them (make a lazy looking waterfall). It makes them less useful.
- Like any large city there is construction EVERYWHERE.
- There are lots of hills and when it rains a lot some roads are inaccessible because they also become waterfalls. But not on purpose this time.

Jaleh decided after an hour or so that she should probably do some studying after all (either that or I scared her off, both are possibilities) so I decided to do some more exploring on my own. I went to the museum which was free but fairly boring. It had an Egyptian exhibit and a bunch of old paintings. To be honest though, I was actually more interested in the dehumidifiers they used to keep the rooms with the paintings climately-controlled than the paintings themselves. Ah well.

The central University building was really tall and looked castle-ish so I decided to see if I could get high enough to take some pictures or get on the roof. It's amazing how far you can get just by looking confident and pretending you know where you're going. Eventually I ran into a campus security guard who told me that my Malaspina student card wasn't valid and kicked me out. It was fun while it lasted though.

When Emily made it back from the zoo, she was embarassed to tell me that she had actually gotten the week wrong and her friends were going to Bath the following weekend. I debated but decided that since I already had a reservation at the hostel and wanted to see Bath anyways that I would go myself.

I got into Bath late last night, checked in, met a guy from Victoria who was doing his own 3 month Europe trip, had a beer with him and then had a restless night on a squeaky cot.

Today I got up much too early, had some toast (free!) and set off to find a computer. It's cold and raining here which I suppose is England showing it's true colours. I'm supposed to meet a couchsurfer later today who said she'd take me around to see some places in Bath. Hopefully there will be an actual bath because I didn't shower this morning.

Wish me luck.

Edit: New photos are up on facebook and here.