A Trip to the Old College

Another great day at Aber! The two photos above are of the view from a foot bridge that spans the road connecting the student living quarters with the campus. So basically I get to see the beautiful view of the Irish Sea and the quaint little town every day as I head to and from class!!

Today I took a tour of the old college. It's the building that shows up on a lot of the Aber pictures: the castle looking building on the edge of the sea. Sadly I will not have any classes there. It is mostly empty and is actually getting ready to go through some renovations to make it more of a place for the public (museum, planetarium, etc). It was still really pretty:

One of the main rooms right when you walk in.
It is meant for meetings but when the building
used to be a hotel in the 1800s it was the common
area for people to come in a relax while enjoying
the view.

This is the common area for the classes that do take place in the
building. The tapestries were really cool. It looked to be student
art work.

A statue with some more of the tapestries.

This... This is heartbreaking. The tour guide said we were to see the library and I got really excited!
But this was it. All of the books have been moved to the new campus leaving these shelves bare. It's supposed to be turned into an art gallery but until then it is one of the saddest sights I have ever seen...

There is beautiful stained glass in almost
all of the windows.

Gargoyles on the outside of the building.

A random lady's head instead of a gargoyle.

Outside the entrance.

View of the front of the old college with the small town in the background.

Behind the old college there was a beautiful old church that people still attended to this day. The stain glass was also really beautiful. There were scenes of Jesus from the bible.
Then on the hill next to the college were remnants of what looked like a castle:




This is a view of one of the streets in the small town. There are little shops all around selling about anything you could imagine. They have a store called Poundland which is the equivalent of our Dollar Tree. Everything is only a pound.


And here is a Domino's Pizza in the middle of a bunch of apartments/houses.


I got to meet a lot of other international girls during the tour and walking around the ruins. They all seemed excited to see different places so at least I know I have plenty of people to go places with :)

Thought of the day: I can really empathize with international students back at Purdue now. I really didn't fully comprehend what they went through by coming to a different country. Everything is so different and sometimes you feel so out of place and dumb but you just have to laugh and walk on and ask others lots of questions. At least I speak the local language. I couldn't imagine not speaking the language well and try to live/study in a different country by myself. Good job to all you international students out there that have struggled but have made a place for yourself!!