Yup, the traditional Amsterdam souvenir. I promised myself that I would NOT buy clogs home, because it's just too cliched, but I almost gave in. They looked so adorable, especially this one, with the tulips growing out of it. They had real clogs too, which you could wear, but wouldn't it be rather painful...? It's not exactly the most comfortable footwear and material.

It caught our attention when we were on the travelator, and we started panicking, taking out our cameras and running backwards in order to get a good shot. We had to run back quite a few times, and it was pretty comical. Giam was the logical one; she calmly got off the travelator, walked to the front and took a pretty nice shot, while me and Brenda were still struggling with the travelator.

They had really pretty bouquets -real ones, not plastic ones- over there, even tulips, which I am not receptive towards. Whole rows and containers of them, in full bloom, sweet and alluring. I wish I could buy one of them!

Shona got a Milka cow pencilcase with chocolate inside, which she loved, and we had the fortune of eating yummy chocolate for a few nights.

They had a Van Gogh Museum!!!!!! And an art exhibition at the top. Lack of good photos, however, because we couldn't use flash.

...and then, we arrived in Wales!

They had beautiful vases of wild flowers in this shop that we stopped for lunch. I liked that. When I grow up and have a house of my own, I would plant enough flowers to put a stalk in every room.

And my house would be something like that - black and zig-zaggy. With a beautiful white horse in the foreground.

Dale Ford Field Center's dorm was warm and toasty. It took some getting used to, because I kept forgetting where the doors were and the toilets too. ^^;

Follow the red girl!

There she goes....

And there she goes again!

...that was Giam, by the way. And these are the stairs that lead to our room. Our room's underground!

Look at Wan Ting, snug as a bug in her covers! We both were the first to finish stuffing our quilts into their covers, so we sat on our beds (top bunk) amusing ourselves with the sight of the others vainly trying to stuff their covers.

Halfway into our waterproofs. :D It made us really warm, and the boots were fun to clomp around in. ..Until they got wet.

There were loads of seagulls overhead at Dale Ford. We could hear them calling all the time.

We begin our trek up the hill.

Outside the Grassholm Lab, still in our wellies. You can't really see it, but it was freezing up there; the wind is that strong. We usually run into the Lab with our hands numb and fingers icy cold.

Mr Cremona, Head of the field center, in the midst of teaching us how to go about our field work. He's a born teacher. I wish we had him in school, he's so funny and patient and natural with us. There's a certain structure to our lessons there, but he steers it so deftly that you can tell that he's not trying too hard to follow the programme, nor too slack to be completely off-topic.

I appreciate that you're having jet lag and you'll go to sleep, okay, but just try not to snore when you go to sleep. - Mr Cremona

And after that, we headed for the beach!

Treachrous, slippery, but oh-so-beautiful mossy stones.

The sky was stormy before, since it rained in the morning, but it lightened up afterwards. The lighthouse looks so alone there, overlooking the mighty sea.

Makes you wonder whether the bountiful clouds overhead were just smoke from the distant factories.

We went all the way there that day, where the lighthouse was. The walk was beautiful.

Foxglove!

That's where Dale Ford is! Right there, on the cliffs. It's built into it, actually. Mr Cremona told us that most of their vehicles don't last beyond two years; they are completely covered in rust.

Jessica and Kyung Tae at dinner.

And back to our absolutely messy but cozy dorm room. It's a kind of tradition for us to group around Wan Ting's laptop to see the photos she took and laugh over them. Not just laugh, but laugh hysterically. That kind of breathless laughter. Joy took videos of us laughing, and we were practically rolling on the floor. It doesn't help with the music that Wan Ting plays while looking at the photos...

Conwyn!

The first of Mr Evans' doodles. In case you can't read it, it says: the story of the tortoise and the hare. (The snail and an RGS girl!) (Evolution of speed)

And then below: And the winner is...RGS girl! Slow and steady wins the race! :D THE END.

Well it started out because we were heading back, and lingered to take many shots along the way. He turned and asked me what was snail in Chinese, and when I told him, shouted at the top of his voice, "WO NIU!" and ran down the slope calling all the way. And the next morning we entered the library to find...that.

Was amused. We had a good time laughing over it.

Shot of the sea from the window of the dorm, I think. It must've been about 9 plus...the sun sets around there.

Some of us had run out onto the carpark to try to watch the sunrise, but it was covered by clouds. It was pretty disappointing! Seeing as that was our second last night. Can't emphasize the wind enough...we tried to hide behind a car but it didn't quite work, so we gave up in the end. To console ourselves, we ventured down to the store to get some chocolate. Back in the dorm room Shona and I started discussing about the merits of Snickers and Mars Bars. :D

We had swallows nesting on top of the main buildings...they come back every year, Mr Cremona says. It's almost as though we were in a fairy tale. Swallows nesting! How amazing is that?

...and that completes the first part. Watch out for the next. :D

Rayne