1/21/16
The next day was a day of adventures.
Thursday was the day that Debra and I explored Bangor, stepped out of our comfort zones by making new friends, journeyed down Bitch Hill at midnight, and went to the campus bar and club for the first time. It was an eventful day, and we met so many amazing people. It was so eventful that I felt the need to summarize the day before I went into detail.
It seemed like Thursday was such a long day that when I think back to it, I remember the events as if it were actually two separate days. The morning started off with Debra and I meeting at her flat and walking down Friddoed hill to the campus to find the foreign exchange student’s office. We walked all around the Main Arts building in search of what we were told was, “a small, red brick building”. This information should have come in handy considering the fact that there is only one red brick building on campus, but it did not. We both made our way to the red brick building, but it turned out that that building was undergoing construction and we weren’t actually allowed to enter it.
So, after getting lost once again, we asked for help. Thank the Lord that everyone on campus is so kind and friendly. Everyone genuinely tries to help to their best abilities. This particular person who helped us was a student who led us in the correct direction back out onto the main street, and pointed us further down the hill that the school resides on and directed us to find a, “red brick building”. So, with that in mind, we took off in the direction that we were told. We found the office easily thanks to a sign in front of the building that stated what it was. If it weren’t for that sign, I don’t think we would have ever found the building, because it is definitely brown, and not red. I honestly should have taken a picture of the building to post here, just to show, and prove that the building is actually brown.
Nonetheless, we went inside of the building and walked down a few corridors, and found the reception area where we turned in our signed class papers, and proceeded to purchase tickets (£15 aka $21) for the school’s Liverpool trip that was happening on Saturday (aka January 23rd, aka my 21st birthday). After we bought our tickets, we sat around for a while pondering whether or not we should buy tickets for the Bangor trip for the next day. Our only hang ups with buying the £10 ticket was that we had already walked around a lot of Bangor, and didn’t want to pay to ride around and see what we had already seen. The man at the reception area told us that the travel itinerary for the trip revolved around the weather, and that if it was nice day we would visit Snowdonia. Debra and I were both excited about that, and decided to fork over the £10 ($14) for the trip. We both hoped that the weather would continue to be nice, and that we could go and see Snowdonia.
After we left the building, we decided to walk around and sight see. We walked in a direction that we had never gone before, and it was gorgeous. We had a good view of Anglesey. The day was a little dreary and there was a fine misting of rain for a short while, but it didn’t last long.
We then walked back to the main building and walked around the inside, just exploring our new school. We saw the inner courtyard and wanted to go have a look, but to our dismay it was locked so we had to take all of our pictures through the windows. Afterwards, we went back to the Belle Vue bar and sat at a table working on setting up our blogs. We split an ordered of chips (french fries) and worked for about two hours. My lovely friend, Sophia Valentine, helped me set up my blog to be exactly how I wanted it!
We left the bar when we started to get hungrier and went back to Debra’s flat to make spaghetti. We had plans to go out with Cammie to an Irish Pub after dinner, but Cammie texted us and asked if we wanted to go to the campus bar, Bar Uno, instead. She had a few friends who were going and wanted us to meet them. Excited to make new friends, we agreed to meet her there after dinner.
Bar Uno is the building right next to Debra’s flat, so we didn’t have to walk far. When we got there we found out that Thursday nights are karaoke nights. Everyone seemed really excited about karaoke, which I found funny since in the US college students pretty much find Karaoke to be lame. We sat at a table for a while just talking until Cammie and Debra went to the bar to order drink. When they came back with these giant vodka slushies, Cammie said that she saw a girl from her university in Brittany who invited us to join her and her friends at their table. We joined them and met so many cool people from all over the UK.
First Cammie and then Debra did karaoke with our new friends, when we weren’t doing karaoke we all just sat around talking. It was fun, and afterwards we were invited to go to Academi, which is the campus club. I was extremely tired, but I didn’t want to pass on the opportunity to make more friends so we decided to go with them. We stayed at Bar Uno until karaoke ended around 23:00 (11:00pm). I even requested a song for Debra and I to sing, that they didn’t have and made sure they would get before the next Thursday!
After we left, we walked down Friddoed hill. The streets were empty, and the town looked like something out of a movie. The people we were with ran down the street to an ATM to get money, while others went to go pet these adorable pit bulls. It was really cold, and Debra and I were bundled up in our winter coats, while everyone else was in crop tops, and showy outfits and didn’t even shiver once! I was amazed.
Then, once everyone was ready, we began our journey down Bitch Hill to Academi. The building wasn’t very far, and was very small. We got our hands stamped after our ID’s were checked, and then we were inside! I took off my hat, and not long after some guy with a camera came over and asked where my hat went, and mentioned how cool it was. He asked if he could take a picture of it and I let him. I felt really excited that he liked the hat, considering that I had it made myself before I left home. (My hat is black and has white lettering that says Bangin’ at Bangor.)
Cammie checked her coat, and then we all went inside. The place smelled like spilt alcohol mixed with a tinge of sweat, and reminded me of college parties when I went to NOVA. Everyone was dancing drunkenly, and screaming along to the music. Debra and I don’t like dancing so we just stood off awkwardly to the side, and then went to order a Red Bull vodka. We hung out for a bit longer, just standing in the crowd of our new, dancing friends. The club made me fee like I had bee transported into an episode of Skins. Everyone was drunk, and the lights were doing patterns with the beat, and two people brought light sabers…
After a while we said our goodbyes and left so that we could get to bed at a decent time since we had to be up, and on the bus in front of the main building at 9am for our trip around Bangor, and we also wanted to get back to FaceTime our boyfriends before bed. The trip back up Bitch Hill was tiresome, but once I finally got back to my dorm, I took a hot shower, laid down, and called Lonnie before bed.
It was a long night, but I had fun, and we met a lot of really nice people that night.