First day of classes.

Hi =)

I got back from camp on Thursday night and we were all really excited about taking the first shower since we went to Camp on Monday.
Camp was really nice but I hardly doubt that I'll be going back as camp leader next year hahaha. I was nice there but I think once is enough. While at camp we had our lifeguard induction which was the only one missing. We had the other service inductions from Friday (14/09) until Monday (17/09) morning. The communtiy services offered here are Lifeguards, ILB (Inshore Lifeboat Service), CAVRA (Cardiff and Vale Rescue Association), CEP (Community Education Partnership), Social Centre, Arts Centre, EMC (Extramural Centre), Estate and Visual Rescue. My first choices were Social Service and Lifeguards and in the end I got Lifegurads. Lifeguards seems to be the service containing the largest amount of people, we are 46 firstyears in Lifeguards this year.
In camp we played a bunch of games, did some surfing, cosateering, some environmental work and a 7 hour walk. I enjoyed all of it and it was great to meet more people but I'm glad to be back and sleep in a proper bed and be able to shower.
On Saturday we got to go out to Llantwit Major for the first time. It's about half and hour to 40 minutes walking distance from AC. Saturday night we had the first year show which was organised by our second years. After the Show we went to Sosh to have some fun and dance. I really enjoyed that evening. Last night was the British national evening. The Brits put up a show which was really funny. Next week it's the Latino national evening and I'll probably be part of that.
This morning at 7:15 our German second years made some breakfast for us and we all got Schultüten. Which is something you get when you go to school for the first time in Germany. It was really sweet of them to organise the breakfast and the Schultüten with the sweets in them.
Classes started at 8am and my first class was French Higher Level.
I didn't go to my other two classes because I ended up not feeling well so I stayed at the medical centre until 6pm. I missed Environmental Systems and Europen History (Higher Level). Classes at AC are called codes because every class has it's own code. School goes until Lunch at around 12:30/13:00 and then we have service on certain days until 4pm and at 5pm on a Monday and on a Friday we have evening codes from 17:00 to 18:00. My evening codes are History and Spanish. Tomorrow I'll be going to the beach for my service. I'm not compltely sure what exactly we'll be doing but I'm really excited about it.
Last week Monday I auditioned for the Tour Choir and I was really happy to find out on Friday that I got accepted for it. Sadly because I was sick today I missed my first practise but there's another one on Wednesday evening.

I finally managed to get the pictures working. I hope you all enjoy them =)

This was on the day we arrived. Those are our second years banging pots to welcome us first years.

This picture was taking last Saturday just after the first year show. Lena (dressed up as super rain woman), Kesey (dressed up as a stuardess) and me (dressed up as super school girl). We all had to dress up as a made up super hero.

The girl between me and Kesey in Ellen. She is one of my co-year dorm mates and she was dressed up as autumn woman.

This is the Schultüte I was talking about which our German second years gave us this morning. We had to take them to assembly. It was quite funny having everyone ask what they were =)

This is my corner in my dorm. We all have a corner which we can decorate how we want.

Well I should probably get some sleep now.

Lots of love,

Miriam

Finally here...

Hello everyone...

Last week friday (the 7th) me and my parents travelled to London. We arrived at Heathrow airport sometime in the mornign and took a Taxi to our hotel. Sadly the Hotel turned out not to be what the website said it was. In other words in was quite bad. Luckily we managed to change to another Hotel quite fast.
I found London absolutely amazing! We spend Friday and Saturday in London. I was able to watch the change of guards at Buckingham palace which I found really interesting and we then took one of those Tour buses around London.

Sunday morning we took a train from Paddington station in London to Cardiff, the Capital of Wales. It took us about 2 and a half hours to get there.
I didn't see much of Cardiff on Sunday because we took a Taxi to Llantwit Major not long after we arrived.
On Monday we went to Cardiff by train. It's not too far from Llantwit Major.

On Tuesday at around 11 am a Taxi came to pick us up from the hotel. It didn't really take us very long to get to AC and as we drove through the front gate it finally started clicking in that this is where I'll be spending most of my time for the next two years. Around a week ago everything was still very dreamlike but it suddenly became so real.
Once we got out of the Taxi I felt very lost because I didn't really know where to go. I did know that my house is Whitaker but I didn't know where to find it. Luckily two girls aproached us and they said that I'm in their house. They helped me with my luggage and walked me back towards the front gate which is where Whitaker is. Once I got to the house I met people I had already met through facebook and I met one of my second year dormmates, Yi Hui from China.
In my dorm we are five girls. Most of the time it's four but there are a few exceptions. Two of my dormates are day students. Emily, from Wales one of my second years, is a day studennt and so is Ellen one of my co-years from the UK. My other co-year dormate is Mari from Norway.
The first bus with firstyears from Heathrow arrived around 4pm and was greeted by our secondyears banging pans and pots outside. As the firstyears got off they had to say their names and where they were from. The same thing happened with the other two buses which arrived later on that day.
At night we played games in our houses. One of the games was quite violent and I fell on my thumb which started swelling quite fast. The game was really fun though and I would definitely play it again.
On Wednesday we we shown around the Castle, which is amazing by the way, and the rest of the college. We had to do a little swimming test so they would know if we could swim once we go to camp. Some of the houses are already going to Camp tomorrow but we're not going until Monday. So far what I've heard about camp sounds really interesting and fun... but more about that later. We had our pictures taken so that they could put them in the breakfast room (we don't actually have breakfast there) for everyone to learn the names. The food here at AC hasn't been as bad as I expected it to be. So far it had actually been quite good.
In the evening I met up with the Germans at AC and we got to know each other a little then I went to the Latinos to meet them as well. I haven't been able to remember everyone's names though... but it's slowly getting better. With each day I can remember more names. It's just quite hard to learn all the names and figure out who is a first and who is a secondyear. I've started decorating my corner in our dorm but I haven't gotten very far yet.

Today we were told about the subjects we can choose and that has proven to be really confusing! I though I basically knew which subjects I will be taking but it turned out that so may other subjects were so interesting and I got really tempted to choose those instead. In the end I chose History Europe, Spanish B (foreign language) and French B as my Higher Level subjects and Environmental Systems, Mathematical Studies and English A1 as my Standard level subjects.
Surprisingly the weather here has been really good and sunny and a lot better than it was in Germany while I was there.
Today we were also told about Link families, Services, Activities and Camp. The services and the activities sound really interesting but we didn't speak much about them today.
Right now there are many people playing games in our dayroom and it sound like they're having loads of fun :)
If there's anything you would like to know more about let me know :)
Sadly I can't post any pictures now. I'm not sure why but it's not working so as soon as I figure out what's wrong I'll post some pictures.

That's all for now...

Lot of love

Miriam