In Wales, Watching Wonders Unfold

My trials, tribulations, and triumphs while spending the Spring of 2014 abroad in Carmarthen, Wales.

[waleswatching-blog]

May 22, 2014

How do you leave?

How do you leave this life that you have built in just a few months? How do you leave the home you've made for yourself? I don't know how to leave this all behind. I think I'm more scared to go home than I was to come here in the first place.

[waleswatching-blog]

May 19, 2014

I lost myself in Wales, but I found myself here too.

I feel lighter than I did four months ago. Not lighter in pounds, because trust me, the welsh cakes and bara brith and doritos (it's a problem, I'm working on it) have taken their toll. But I am lighter in the sense that I am aerated. I have left bits of myself across the UK and Europe and, in their places, have neat little pockets of fresh air. 

I left my control in Amsterdam when every ounce of bad luck found us. I gave up my insecurities in Prague because they didn't fit in my backpack. I abandoned my sense of time and direction in Rome because wandering just made everything more clear. I sprinkled my fear of heights and loneliness across the Alps as I flew back alone to London. I buried my shyness in Scotland and threw my old sense of self into the canal in Dublin. My shame? That's hidden somewhere under the curving trees in Hyde Park in London.

But Wales, Wales is the resting place for every bit of myself I realized I could live without. Every piece of me I realized I no longer needed.

I lost myself here, and what I've found to replace it is something worth being.

From Wales, with love

xo

Cymru am byth

[waleswatching-blog]

May 17, 2014

The weather websites are already forecasting for days in Wales that I'll be back in America for. It doesn't feel real that life continues on here after I've left it. Of course it does. This place is alive and sometimes I wonder if I wasn't truly until I found it.

Allie and I were talking the other day about going home. It's not that we're afraid to go back to a place where everything has changed, but we're afraid to go back to a place where nothing has changed and we have. I'm afraid I won't belong there anymore. I'm afraid that I never really did. 

Maybe it's the independence I've had here, maybe it's the people I've met. Maybe it's that I finally took the time to be selfish, to put myself first, to follow my own dreams without compromising them for someone else. But maybe it's Wales. Maybe it's Carmarthen and Llanelli and maybe it's the rain. I feel as though I am finally washed clean of the years of negativity I put myself through. 

I'm not returning to America a different person. I'm returning to America magnified, multiplied, and open. This is who I have always been inwardly, and my outside is finally shedding the layers in order for the rest of me to match.

xo, From Wales, with love.

Cymru am byth.

[waleswatching-blog]

May 12, 2014 (miss me?)

I haven't written because I have forgotten how. Each time I tried to sit down to write, I realized I was one day closer to ending the journal, the blog, the semester, the experience. I'd like to state it once, very clearly, I am not okay with this.

I have been living in Wales for 4 months now, have traveled to Amsterdam, Prague, Rome, Dublin, Kilkenny, London, Bath, Edinburgh, and various places in Wales itself (such as Cardiff, St. Davids, Whitesands Bay, Llanelli, Kidwelly, Tenby...).

I knew long before high school graduation that I wanted to leave Eden. I also knew that going two hours away to HWS was not far enough. I knew I loved the UK and I knew I loved traveling. I knew I needed to go somewhere people didn't recognize me. These were my truths. 

What are my truths now?

I know that Eden will always feel like home, even from across the globe, even if I don't want it to. I know that anywhere can feel like home, too, if I let it. I know that hostels in Rome aren't just for people under the age of 30 (or 40...). I know that Welsh is not only a vibrant language, but one that is rising back to popularity faster than Disney's "Frozen." I know that traveling is exhausting. I know that people everywhere will recognize me; not by name, but by culture -- by understanding. 

I know that with each sunset, my heart breaks because it means another day has ended here. 

From Wales, with love

[irrelevanceisbliss]

how you know you've made a place your home

i. one night the sun will set and you won’t be watching anymore, it will just be a sun setting over the horizon you’ve stared at for days or months or maybe years in wonder, but you won’t look up from your desk.

ii. some nights you’ll roll yourself up in blankets so tightly in the hope that you’ll fool your sleeping self into thinking that you’re not sleeping alone, and it will work for a time. but one night you will realize you have no one to go back to, and you will wrap yourself tighter and wait up wide awake all night, just to see if this will suffocate you.

iii. you’ll live through that night.

iv. when homesickness hits you like the hurricanes that stormed against your beach house, the ones that forced you and mom and dad and the dog into the panic room which always made you claustrophobic, and you’ve said every hail mary you have left to be muttered from beneath your breath, it will fade again. receding like the waters always did the morning after.

v.  the moment you forget that you sound or look or act differently than the people who have outnumbered you.

vi. you’ll realize over tea or coffee or vodka one morning that you’re no longer uncomfortable in your skin the way you were in grade school, that you don’t itch to peel it back and free yourself from something you can’t even see.

vii. and then one night you’ll wake up sweating and afraid and understand for the first time why parents sleep so lightly.

viii. this will be the moment you first see that this new place is not your only home, just one of many you can choose from. no choice is permanent. 

ix. someday you will go home, and it won’t matter where that is because it will be what is in your heart in that moment and if, even if, it’s the home you abandoned and swore to foresake, it will still welcome you. 

[waleswatching-blog]

London bound.

[waleswatching-blog]

March 10, 2014

This is a week of sunshine. From the evening run I embarked on yesterday, to the hour of sunning myself in the window I did today, this week's forecast is one of light and warmth. 

I wouldn't say that these skies are any more blue than clear days back home, although many Welsh natives have tried to convince me otherwise, but they do feel much brighter following periods of gray rain. The difference is how these clear warm days are used. Sometimes at home I think I forget about weather altogether. I have to be in class, at work, in the library, at the gym, studying... and so I get about one day a year to sit in the sun (and I still feel guilty when I do it). But here, today, I didn't have to be anywhere, go anywhere, do anything. I was absolutely free to sit in my window and close my eyes, face pointed towards the sun that's been neglecting me, and do nothing. Truth be told, I didn't even have music playing. I spent an hour in silence and sunshine, and I think that's exactly what I needed.

P.S. I watched a few guys throwing an American football around outside my window before I went to lecture and I almost went out and offered to teach them how. At least I can get a spiral.

From Wales, with love

XO

[waleswatching-blog]

March 8th, 2014 - Internship post - Neuro-linguistic Programming

This past week I had the opportunity of attending training with the rest of the workers at the women’s aid office. We met with Bev, who is certified in teaching NLP, or neuro-linguistic programming. NLP is used to help better communicate with people. For example, our language usage varies slightly dependent on our learning style, be it auditory, visual, or kinesthetic. By becoming aware of this, we can change our language patterns to match those of who we are speaking to, which can help to make communication easier and more effective.

            As fascinating as it was to learn about NLP and work on goal setting exercises, it was equally if not more interesting to witness the dynamic between the women who make up the aid office. As they articulated themselves, it is essential for them to have a deep understanding of how each other work and operate, including their strengths and weaknesses, in order to operate at optimum efficiency. Because of the sensitivity of their work, they must have a unique understanding of each other in order to better serve the women that they deal with, especially in such fragile situations as domestic abuse. 

[waleswatching-blog]

A few snapshots of my weekend - We celebrated St. David's day (the patron saint of Wales) at Whitesands Bay and in St. David's, followed by a lazy, rainy Sunday.

[waleswatching-blog]

February 26, 2014

I think eventually we realize that humans are human and national identity doesn't change all that much about them. At the end of the day, we all seem to gravitate towards similar things. So maybe the food is different in one country versus another, we all still have our favorites, right? Here, they call each other "mate" or "mun" but it means nothing different than me calling a "friend" or saying "hey man."

They're not foreign and neither am I, we are people and we are looking for the same things out of life. Maybe we'll find that satisfaction in different areas and we'll realize our loves from behind a heaping plate of something very different (for instance, I will not realize my true potential while mulling over a piece of lamb), but at the end of the day there is something that makes us all so innately similar, it's almost impossible to see myself as an outsider here. 

So we don't have everything in common, we come from different backgrounds where different quirks are considered "normal," but put me in a room with anyone I've met here so far, and I can promise that neither of us will feel too out of place with the other.

I'm not quite sure why we go to war with anyone, if we're all really so similar at the end of the night.

From Wales, with love

XO

[waleswatching-blog]

Just a few pictures from Bath today, more can be found on Facebook. 

[waleswatching-blog]

February 22, 2014

I got lost in a city today. Not lost in the traditional sense of the word, as I knew which direction to head in if I wanted to meet back at the coach bus on time. I had a map that I didn't need to use, thanks to the ever-true compass inside of me instilled by my father, and I had friends to wander with. I wasn't alone, and I wasn't frightened, but I was irrevocably lost. 

The city of Bath was soothing and serene, I suppose just as the hot springs had once been to the Romans that established the place. As I walked where Romans walked and saw what Romans had seen and tasted (yes, tasted. It was purified, I promise) the bath water straight from the hot spring I felt myself tumbling through time and letting go of my ties to the present. I was not here or now, I was somewhere else completely as I walked between the buildings and through the Abbey and down the alleyways. I was lost to the present; lost to its urgency.

There is a reason that time moves more slowly across the pond, a reason that people here aren't quite as hurried as we always seem to be back home. A little piece of me today found that reason and clung to it, and I can only hope that more of my soul follows suit.

From Wales and England, with love,

XO

[waleswatching-blog]

February 17, 2014 - Internship Blog Entry #1

“Llanelli Women’s Aid Ltd. Provides direct support services to women and children experiencing violence and abuse. This work underpins and informs all other goals and actions of the organization.”

            After reading the mission statement provided by my volunteer handbook, I am confident that my placement in Llanelli will be a life-altering experience. Driving into Llanelli was daunting. Not because the streets were run down and the buildings dilapidated, but because that wasn’t what I witnessed at all. It was daunting because the area looked so completely normal. The shops were well maintained, traffic was steady, and people were out walking in the sunshine. To me, it looked like any regular community. And then I remembered that I was in Llanelli to work in a women’s refuge, one that wouldn’t exist at all if it wasn’t needed. At that point I think I began to realize the commonality of domestic violence. Although I am sure to have a better and more insightful understanding of such violence at the end of the next several months, the first drive into Llanelli caught me off-guard. Llanelli does look like a normal community, just as my hometown does, and where I go to school. But even in these normal communities, everyday tragedies are taking place. That realization was my first hit with culture shock.

            It wasn’t culture shock in the way one might think, though. It wasn’t a “holy cow I’m in another country” type of culture shock, or an “I can’t understand what anyone is saying” culture shock. Instead, it was a culture shock that I could have just as easily come across in my own country. It was the shock of glimpsing from my own culture, one of safety and security, into a culture in which that safety and security is not guaranteed from the one’s I always thought provided it: family. This cultural difference is seen across and throughout Wales as well as the United States, and is one that alienates and segregates in a way that I have never experienced.

            I am lucky to have a family so loving and supportive to allow me to travel to Wales for the semester. However, I anticipate I will feel equally as blessed to be able to contribute to bettering the lives of these women who are not so fortunate. I hope in my time at Llanelli, I can make a difference, and I know that when I leave here, I will be taking valuable knowledge and skills home with me. I am apprehensive and eager to find out just what knowledge that will entail.

[waleswatching-blog]

February 13, 2014

Yesterday was spent in the kitchen making it feel, smell, and taste like home. Allie and I made enchiladas, banana bread, and egg salad (although the first two definitely smelled much better) and spent the majority of the day in the kitchen cooking and laughing and singing. So maybe the enchiladas weren't perfect, and the banana bread burned a little bit, but the catharsis of bringing familiarity into our little flat kitchen made the process all the more worth its while. There is something about a home cooked meal that can take the edge off of the rain and the clouds and the gloominess, something about being together that can ward off the high winds ripping across the campus.

Today I visited Llanelli for the first time. Llanelli, which I have been told I WILL be able to pronounce by the end of my stay here, is about a 40 minute drive from Carmarthen and is home to the Women's Refuge in which I will be working this term. Although I will typically be taking the train from Carmarthen to Llanelli, driving through the countryside with the lovely woman delivering me to the shelter for the first time was soothing. Open fields gave way to swamps which gave way to beaches and back to fields again, all within a span of several miles. 

The woman in Llanelli whom I will be dealing with primarily is extraordinary. From the moment I walked into her office I knew that she works with the Women's Aid center because she cares, thoroughly and without reserve. She told me I will primarily be stationed in the refuge, a house which holds 6 families in need. I cannot wait to start shadowing and making the most of my time there. 

A taste of home and the feeling that I'm about to start working for an organization that will become another family. If home is where the heart is, my home is already so spread across continents and people that I cannot possibly be homesick. Home is everywhere. 

O Gymru, with love

XO

[waleswatching-blog]

February 9, 2014 part II

Nationalism is a funny thing. As an American, I was born into the idea that the United States was the biggest, the bravest, and the best. We were strong, smart, and sophisticated in ways other countries would somehow never understand. We had the toughest military, the best education system, and the most unique and effective government. We are Americans. And being an "American" always meant more than just being from the land of the free. There is and was a certain elite-ness to it. There is the notion that immigrants want to be us, that the rest of the world envies us.

I have a deep pride for my country. I sang the national anthem in a pub full of Welsh who had no idea what was happening during the Super Bowl. I keep my New York State driver's license with me in my wallet, just as a little reminder of where I come from. But being in Wales and living in Wales, I can't say that the United States are any better. America is home, but ask any young person, and the majority of them will tell you that they want to leave home eventually. Maybe they'll leave the country or maybe they'll just leave their hometown, but when they do that, they will realize that more exists outside of the borders of their city or the frontier of their mind, and it will change them.

Leaving Eden for college solidified the idea that not everyone was a farmer, and leaving the United States allowed me to understand that not everyone believes that America is the best. Do a good majority of people I've met wish to travel there? Yes, absolutely. But we Americans want to travel all sorts of places, while still believing America is the finest we'll ever know.

I'm not convinced that Wales is better, but I'm also never going to claim that it is worse. Maybe we approach nationalism and ethnocentrism incorrectly. Maybe, instead, we love our country the most because it is our home and occupies a place in our hearts that can never be replaced. But as far as proclaiming that it is the best home we will ever have, I don't think I can make that assertion.

From Wales, with love

XO

[waleswatching-blog]

Land of Opportunity by A Great Big World. A very appropriate song.

[waleswatching-blog]

February 9, 2014

Yesterday we went to St. Fagans, an outdoor Welsh history museum, and Cardiff. St. Fagans was beautifully maintained. From the castle and its gardens to the small village and its sheep (of course), walking around St. Fagans felt like walking back through time. 

Cardiff was wet, windy, and cold. The city is beautiful, with a skyline looking nothing like New York City or even Buffalo. Tall buildings are few and far between here, and the buildings that do exist are all varied in height and style. Even with the ever-gray backdrop of the sky, the city is anything but monotone. 

But the best part of my weekend was putting on a pair of sneakers, or tennis shoes, or trainers, or whatever they're called, and going for a run. The hills here are way more than I'm used to, and the air is damp and thick, but while I was running I felt (along with exhaustion) content. I felt like I belong.

Caerfyrddin. Carmarthen. (Home.)

From Wales, with love

XO