Dictionary methods

[jajjaja]

I have no clue what val is or what .get is. Please explain.

val is merely the variable name the example chose to use here.
.get is a method provided by dictionaries

dictionaries provide the get method to do this:

val = d.get(key, 'default')

dict.get = get(...)
D.get(k[,d]) -> D[k] if k in D, else d. d defaults to None.

So calling d.get(key, 'default') returns the value of the key (if the key exists in the dictionary), or 'default' (if the key does not exist). After running your example which I quoted, val will contain what is returned.