Croeso i Abertawe – The Arrival

Welcome to Swansea (Welsh: Croesi i Abertawe)! This semester I’m studying at Swansea University. So I thought I’ll share what might already be overdue. In this post you’ll find some pictures from my first days here and the trip.

Since I couldn’t move in to my new home right away, I decided to stay in Llanelli, a small town nearby. For non-Welsh-speakers: Don’t get tricked by the spelling, it’s pronounced “Klenethly” (or something like this). I learned it the hard way when the bus driver said it and I thought it is a completely different place…

Let’s start at the beginning.

All I wanted to have with me for the following months is packed and ready to go.

The next morning I took the first bus of the day to the SFX airport for a flight to London from where I took a coach to Swansea. It was a bit of trouble with my laptop in the large bag. So I had to take it out. Fortunately the nice lady at airport security where I had to bring my luggage than thought that this is stupid and I could skip the security check and could put my Laptop back in.

After my arrival in London Gatwick I had a lot of time to spare before the shuttle took me to the city center. Time to enjoy the sun and read the “Berliner Zeitung” I picked up at the airport. About two hours later I was in London and planned to take a walk around the main tourist spots to get from the shuttle drop-off at Waterloo to Victoria. Luckily the weather stayed that nice all the time.

With the 19kg luggage plus the small rucksack it wasn’t the most enjoyable sightseeing trip.

Here some of the most well known spots. All in all it was about a 4km walk with a few breaks.

The coach to Swansea took about 5 hours. So by the time I arrived in Swansea at approximately 9pm it was already dark. Unfortunately I didn’t bother to take pictures anymore. It was more important to catch the last  bus to Llanelli which was surprisingly hard to find. Spoiled by the very organised public transport guidance in Berlin I wasn’t expecting it to be so hard to find the right bus. After some walking around I finally found it and took the final ride for the day – yet another hour or so. I stayed in a nice little B&B called The Southmead Guesthouse. An awesome place lead by an Australian.

I scheduled a meeting with the letting agency which is based in Llanelli the next day.

Before that I had the chance to walk around a bit and see the sea. Coming from a big city with neither mountains nor any large water that’s quite exciting.

Here an image from the city center with a lot of shops.

On the way back to the hostel I almost thought I got lost. But no, it’s the same spot… When getting the time right, the difference can be even larger.

I let the day fade away at the beach. The next day I’d go to in Swansea…

This is the first part of a series of posts coming up on this blog.
Feedback question: Following posts in English or German? And no, there won’t be Welsh even though I’m in Wales 😉