End of the Weekend [Revised]

[Revised for errors!]

My first day over, I got up early to get ready for the day and spent a long time in the kitchen sorting out my inventory papers and reading books and leaflets (none of my flatmates had awoken after almost two hours of this) and checking that everything in the kitchen, hall and my bedroom was ok. Turns out that the window latch, shelf unit above my bed and the shelves above my desk all had screws very loose or missing! So later, I reported it to the Accommodation Office who sorted it out later that day, but I have now figured out that I cannot move the shelf unit once the wooden shelf is secured to the bracket (I wanted to move them a bit lower as they are too high for my little arms!) so will need to get a screwdriver anyway to adjust them.

Sunday morning, Alex, Dale and I walked into Caerleon to look around and I bought some kitchen supplies from Spar. Dale was then determined to check out the city center of Newport so our initial plan was to catch the free shuttle into Newport but it doesn't run on the weekends (d'oh!) thus, we walked through Caerleon and most of the way to Newport before getting lost on a roundabout (Newport was signposted to go onto a motorway). So we had to get the public bus anyway! The conclusion: the distance IS walkable but you need to know the way by going on the bus first AND you must wear comfortable footwear! (I now sport a blister on my right foot).

The city itself is very nice (Dale described it as a cleaner and bigger version of Wrexham) with plenty of shops, a bus and train station, cool bridges, the Riverfront theatre, cool fountains statues and odd structures (one of which looked like the Triforce from Zelda) and of course, the new site for another Newport University campus (a £40 million project due in 2010).

We had lunch at Subway and explored before taking the bus back for a health & safety lecture at 5pm. The lecture was pretty rubbish in all honesty and the lecturers sounded like they had no sympathy or empathy towards us students and basically said you're responsible for everything. You kind of are, but it wasn't said very kindly. Oh, and there was a terrible fire awareness video students had made which was abysmal. The new Film & Video students were very ashamed...

After this, Alex and I met with some more of our former college students (Anwar and Laura) and met a really cool guy named Glen who was funny and very talkative. We queued at the BBQ that evening and had burgers for tea, though we had to wait half an hour for them! (It was still light when we joined the line, it was dark when we got the burgers). We joined Dale at Anwar and Glen's flat, where we ate, messed about with balloons and then left to go to the Pub Quiz. On the balcony outside, a guy named Tom below us was looking for a drunk girl whom he feared was in danger of walking into roads. And so ensued Romeo and Juliet-themed dialogue, it was quite odd. He did find the girl moments later as we were walking up to the main building. She was very drunk.

The pub quiz itself wasn't really worth it, the themed questions were Cocktails, Sport, Music, General and some Family Fortunes thing. I only got a few of the general ones and the music questions just seemed random! I don't think it was aimed at a student's level of knowledge!

After this, Dale had already gone back to his flat with a bad stomach, Anwar, Laura and Glen had vanished, so Alex and I went back to mine to watch the Secret of NIMH, which is still an amazing classic of a film!

Today, every student has the first Newport induction at 11am, so I had better pack my bag for it! I shall post again with details of my course later today if there's time! :)

In a nutshell: having a good time but missing family and friends! Looking forward to seeing you all on my birthday. :)

Love Gemma xx