Since I was twelve years old, I have wanted to see Wales. I read a book about it once and fell in love. Real love.
When I finally got to go, I was not let down. On the contrary, I am more in love with Wales.
Kyle, Amanda, Laura and I took a bus from London to Cardiff, the capital city. It was a three and a half hour ride through the English countryside, getting more and more beautiful – and foreign. Coming out of London, it looked like we could have been in Indiana, with fields of crops and the horizon stretching out into the distance, but as we went farther west, the ground got hillier and the grass got greener, and soon we could tell we were in Wales. The signs added another language: Welsh Gaelic. I hadn't realized the language was still used in everyday language, but according to one Web site I found, about 20 percent of the Welsh population speaks it regularly, and even more can understand it. It's a beautiful language, and I was really interested to actually hear it spoken. I think we found about three people using it.
We arrived around 11:30 a.m., and the first thing we did when we got off the bus was find a place to eat. I had done a little research, but apparently I didn't think opening times were important enough to include in my notes. We ended up wandering into a pub that advertised "Brains" – how could we resist? Turns out Brains is a local beer – the brewery was right in Cardiff.
Then we went to the castle.
OH MY GOSH
I have never seen anything so beautiful as the Welsh countryside from the top of the castle keep. The keep (the center of the castle) is at the top of a hill surrounded by a moat. The castle was originally built by the Romans (the Romans!) about 2000 years ago, and it was an actual working castle for quite a long time. The eldest son of William the Conquerer was even kept in the dungeon of the keep for the last eight years of his life. History! At the top of the keep, you can see the entire city of Cardiff, as well as the rolling hills and green fields surrounding the capital. My heart exploded. I was speechless.
We spent a while in the castle, taking a tour of the inside, which was renovated in the early 19th century by a genius architect. It was gorgeous.
By the time we finished at the castle, it was about dinner time, so we wandered around a little more and found another restaurant. I got some fish and chips, which were pretty good. Maybe I'm just not a fan of fish... this was the first fish and chips I've had since I've been in England.
Then we took a cab to our hostel. The cab turned out to be about 3 pounds. Supposedly that would take us about a block in London; I've been afraid to find out how expensive London taxis are.
The hostel was nice. It was pretty new, with a common room that had couches and a TV. We played cards for a while, and by the time we went to bed around 11 p.m., the common room was pretty crowded. I've never been in a hostel, so it was really interesting to see the mix of nationalaities and people. We met some girls from Texas who were studying a little ways outside of London. They gave us some good places we could visit around the UK, so hopefully we'll be able to take their suggestions.
The next day, we went to the National History Museum. There, we learned about the evolution of Wales, starting with the creation of the earth. Fascinating! Then, on the next floor, we saw paintings by Welsh painters, and Italian painters, and Dutch painters. We also saw some potter by Picasso. That was neat. And it was all free!
Then we took another cab to a place called Cardiff Bay, where we ate lunch (fish and chips again) and walked around a little. Cardiff is right on the water, so it used to be a big shipping port. It was pretty, but really cold.
We walked back from the Bay, about a 30 minute walk, to a shopping area (of course). We walked around the Queen's Arcade a little before we had to catch our bus back at 5. I thought it was interesting that "arcade" means "mall" here.
There was a really interesting mix of people in Cardiff: the fashionable young kids ranging from preps in skinny jeans and boots, to punks wearing black and piercings, mixed with elderly Welsh locals with long pea jackets. These were the people I heard speaking Welsh; most of the younger kids spoke English, or were from a different part of the world. I think we walked behind some Italian kids for a while.
We left at 5, happy to be able to sit down for a while, but I really think I could have spent a much longer time there. It was a pretty big city, with about 300,000 residents, but it seemed like a small town.
In summary, I loved Wales.
Really loved.
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