After several weeks of searching and jumping through all the hoops, we finally moved into our own flat! It's about a 20 minute walk to the hospital, but we are also buying bikes today. We had no idea when we started this process how complicated everything here is. It is much harder to get a flat here than it was on the island or in the states. Being an international student is far more complicated here. However, we are finally all set up with a flat, bank account, and phones (with internet!) so things are settling in now. We're even taking our first little trip this weekend to Wales. It's just going to be a short get away, but we're renting a car, planning to hike in Snowdonia National Park, stay on the coast in Llandundo, and explore a bit on the way. Hopefully it's not too cold or rainy so we can get some great pictures! We're also trying to plan a trip to Switzerland in March, apparently Owen wants to ski the Alps, who knew ;)
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| Overview of Layout |
Otherwise not too much exciting news to share. It's really just been a lot of getting situated. Our flat is pretty cozy (aka small) but it's more homey than our St Maarten apartment was and has a way better kitchen! We've already had our first dinner party here (just 1 week after moving in) with 10 guests, a mix of Owen's fellow students and some friends from church. I made a full crockpot (6.5liters) of chili, 2 homemade cornbreads, and we bought some brownies (no baking supplies yet, still working on stocking the kitchen). Some of our friends brought drinks and a few bottles of wine. By then end of the night, everything was gone, and it was a pretty fun time. We're thinking of having a monthly crockpot night and inviting everyone over. So if you have a favorite crockpot recipe, feel free to email it to me :)
Owen just finished his first 2 weeks of Internal Medicine within the Gastroenterology Department. He was allowed to perform an OGD (oesophageal gastroduodenoscopy) and a colonoscopy with assistance. The consultant told Owen that he was the most dedicated student that he had ever had. Owen was invited to return to GI to do more procedures whenever he has free time. So it's definitely all been worth it for him to get this type of experience.
For now, I'll leave you with a few pictures of our place. It's pretty small as I said, but I tried to get the different angles so you can see how it's set up. We hope everyone is well and all our New England family and friends fared well in the blizzard.
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| Working on getting more pictures on the walls, just have to get frames |
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| Awesome kitchen (in the middle of cooking for chili night). This is what sold me on this flat (and having a washer!) |
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| The hallway into our place, with the bathroom on the right (the other open door) |
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| Chili night! (there was another cornbread too, just in the oven at this picture) |
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| Our version of a blizzard :) This is our private patio, we will definitely enjoy this in a few months |
Now that we've finally settled in, we are starting our UK travel adventures! Our first trip was a short weekend getaway to Wales, the weekend after Valentines Day (our Valentines here included...tulips- my favorite flower, reeses- difficult to find in Europe, and red velvet cake balls which were excellent!). On Saturday we rented a car and drove through the beautiful English and Welsh countrysides. It took a bit over 5 hours to reach Llandudno, on the northern coast of Wales. It was a very cute little Welsh coastal town, we even heard some people speaking Welsh! We walked all around town, out to the pier, shopped, had dinner at a cute little pub, and enjoyed a relaxing afternoon and being by the water. The tides were pretty dramatic and by that evening we could walk out to the end of one dock, which was completely underwater that afternoon. We also had a hotel overlooking the water. 
