Nicole's History in the Making: O Gymru, O Gymru

Well, this past week has been crazy long, stressful, and without as much sleep or food as my mother would like. Now my brain still seems to be in recovery mode and doesn’t want to do much. I started writing this Friday when I woke up from a nap in the WILK after my physics review that morning. What better time than to write about Wales than finals week?! I even went to the Welsh choir concern Thursday night in preparation! Okay, that’s not true because I planned on getting a lot more done Friday and today in the form of studying for finals and not writing my blog...

WALES

My flight was to Bristol from Iceland, and after the lady questioned me a bunch about why I was studying at Cambridge, what I was studying there and back in the states, why I was in Bristol at all, what I was doing in Iceland, and so on until I was the last person there, she finally let me ‘cross the border’. I had a short wait and then took a bus to the train station and a train to Cardiff, Wales.

I considered getting a taxi as it was raining and I didn’t know where I was going, but then opted not to cause I’m me and cheap. But it was a good thing I didn’t as my hostel was only like two blocks away if that. I got all checked into this cute hostel right on a main street in Cardiff and then went in search of food as I hadn’t really had much all day. I found a nice pub down the street and around the corner where I experienced my first Welsh portion size; a huge burger, good helping of fries, and a salad! It was delicious though and I watched the US play in the World Cup while I ate.

I’m usually fairly observant and have good peripherals but, as most of you know, I’m also good at ignoring people… While I was eating there was a drunk guy, probably in his 40s, that was acting really strange. I couldn’t tell at first if he was trying to get my attention or if he knew someone behind me. So, I ignored him completely, never looking straight at him. He turned at one point towards the bar so I glanced behind me and it was obvious that the few people behind me weren’t connected with him. He walked back and forth past me, close-ish… and I ignored him. After a while of this, he came up to me and made some comment about me being hard to impress. Then, he reached to take a drink from my drink (probably didn’t know it was coke haha) but because it was across the table from him I stopped him before he could. Lucky for me (the person who always finds the most secluded place in the back of wherever I am) there was really only an empty clean table right in front of the bar when I got there. So, bartenders saw all of this go down and so pretty much as soon as this guy actually approached my table, one of the bigger bartender guys got him and threw him out. Several times, this guy tried to come back in, but every time one, or sometimes multiple, bartenders yelled at him to leave and/or forced him out. New appreciation for bartenders!! I was afraid he would still be waiting outside for me, so I waited a while to leave after I was done eating and kept an eye out for him to make sure he didn’t see where I was staying, but I didn’t see him again.

The next morning I used my hop-on-hop-off pass that I bought online to take the bus tour around the city. It gave me a discount on the Castle in Cardiff, so I spent a few hours inside there which was really cool. There were other parts of the city I was going to see from the bus tour, but they stopped running fairly early and I didn’t want to walk back from too far away. I rode the bus tour a couple of times. Once to hear all of the recorded audio about everything and then again later when there was a really funny tour guide doing it instead of the recording. That’s when I was going to get off and see further away, but he just was too interesting to leave!

I also went in a few of the little shops and drooled over all the love spoons and of course designed my own in my head that was way better. But they were expensive and the custom ones were even more, so I got a key-chain version instead. I just wandered around for a while exploring Cardiff. I went to my hostel fairly early that night as it was Friday and all the clubs and bars were on my street. Which I thought it was interesting how there were two bouncers outside of the McDonald's, but one outside of the gentleman's club next to it....? There was music and partying until super late, almost immediately followed by the street cleaners for the rest of the night. So sleeping wasn’t great.

I had to meet for my bus tour fairly early and there was only one other person in my hostel up. Turns out, she was going on the same tour. But, we didn’t know this though until we both got to the museum where it was picking us up. There were just a few of us on one of those van/bus things and it was a lot of fun. We drove all the way to Tenby and stopped quite a few places along the way. They also altered the tour so that we would hit some of the places at the better times of day. It was beautiful! I think I made some comment to my mom wondering what our ancestors thought going to Utah after growing up in Wales. Tenby is such a cool little town. Little streets everywhere at all angles and directions, colorful houses, and all the views of the beach were beautiful! And looking at the town from the beach was just as amazing! The whole day was a lot of fun and I was glad that I got to see more of wales. Including gorgeous land that the prince owns and lets people rent some cottage that neighbor his Welsh home. I made a mental note to remember that and look into it later!

I was pretty tired from the little sleep I got the night before, so I went to bed again fairly early. There was still quite a bit of partying that night as well outside my window. I got up early the next morning to catch a bus that took to me London where I got on another one to Cambridge!

Fun facts: All castles face east... interestingly similar to mormon 'castles'
                 Lawrence of Arabia was filmed in Wales and we drove past the area on our tour
                 Anthony Hopkins was born across the road from where it was filmed
                 A little bit of Batman 3 was filmed in Brecon Beacons National Park
                And so are a lot of car commercials because of the long windy roads

This is inside of my Iceland Hostel. See, it was nice inside, Mom:)

Wales

Part of the Castle

The library inside the Castle!

The castle was full of spiral staircases. Some not as decorative as this one...

There is a whole in the center of this table so that a plant can grow through the middle. Specifically fruit tress so you can pick them off during dinner.

View of Cardiff and the Castle grounds from the one tower

This would be a toilet. In the tower/older part of the castle grounds

Playing dress up cause that's what I do if they leave out clothes to do so;)

The prison... just for Angela and Jeff

Where Roald Dahl (author of Willy Wonka) was born in Cardiff.

Welsh Countryside
Brecon Beacons National Park

In the ocean in Tenby

Tenby

Our tour guide made sure we hit Tenby at low-tide. She said it was better.

This is from 1035 and it is said that it has healing powers if you touch it. It was amazing enough to me that you could touch it at all!

Carew Castle. This one was more in ruins, but still beautiful.
It is also where the last knight's tournament was during Henry the 7th's reign (if I'm remembering that right...)