Lovely the woods, waters, meadows, combes, vales; all the air things wear that build this world of Wales

In case you haven't heard, it snowed in London. A lot. A Michigan amount. Unfortunately for London, they have no snow ploughs. Apparently, they have no salt, either. We got home Sunday night from Wales (Don't worry, I'll get to that!) and it was snowing in a pretty, soft way. We figured it would stop eventually--it was very wet with big flakes and looked like it would melt rather quickly. When we got back to our flat, there were some kids outside who had never seen snow before. We think they were from South America or something--they were taking pictures of each other standing in the snow and stood out there for several hours. Anyway, woke up the next day and looked out the window, and it was not pretty. I think we must have gotten close to six inches. It was very icy too, and it took me a long time to trudge to work. Around the end of my walk I got sloshed by a truck going through a puddle, and my entire left foot was cold and soaking wet. I was glad it happened when I was almost to work so that I could take off my boots and socks and let my feet warm up. Except, OH WAIT--no one else was there when I got there. Didn't have the key of course, and I called the office and heard the phone ring from inside. I knew the trains would have been delayed, but I told myself I'd wait until 10 (I got there at 9) to see if anyone showed up. Surely we wouldn't have a "snow day" from work?

At 9:45 I called the office again. This time it tripped over to my boss's mobile phone. He told me that "no one could get in." I said, "Oh, so you mean like...everyone's going to be late?" And Kurt said no, they weren't coming in at all. Nothing was running. Trains stopped, buses stopped, businesses closed....basically life shut down in London. I just thought it was really bizarre since it's such a huge and industrious city. How can they shut down LONDON for a day? I walked back home, managing not to fall and somehow managing not to get frostbite on the foot that had been wet for about an hour. My roommates were at home too, since they got the day off as well. Would have been a nice opportunity to do something, except....we couldn't go anywhere. So it was pretty much just a lazy day, and I probably wrote way too much about a snow day, but I just thought it was really weird since I never thought I'd get another one in my life. Wish I hadn't had to get out of bed though. I have now ensured that all employees have my "mo-bile" so I will know not to come to work when this happens!

Okay, so let's rewind to WALES!!


That's Caerphilly Castle, one of the oldest and largest castles in the UK. And it's just a preview for later in the post :)

We got up early Friday morning and took a bus (or "coach," which my roommates discovered did not mean coach seating......) to Cardiff, Wales. Cardiff is a bay city on the Southeastern coast of Wales. Wales itself, however, is in the WESTERN part of the island that is the UK. Here it is on a map, for reference:


The journey there was pretty, once we woke up from our naps (it was a 3.5-hour ride)! It reminded me a bit of Ireland in the sense that there were low fences, grazing animals, and signs in two languages (the Welsh looks a bit like Gaelic). And of course, there were sheep. Lots of sheep. 10 million Welsh sheep compared to 3 million Welsh citizens! Unfortunately, Wales was also incredibly, ridiculously cold. I don't know if London has some kind of smog insulation, but it never felt as cold as Wales did this weekend. It's pretty wimpy of me to say that since I go to MSU, but keep in mind we had on the kind of coats you would wear in October in Michigan. When we got to Cardiff Station we hunted down our hostel first and dumped our stuff off. It's a nice place, but the bathrooms smelled exactly like a certain other hostel's, where I had a bad experience in the past.... Oddly, it had its own licensed bar, a little kitchen where we could prepare food, and a TV area with a bunch of DVDs and couches tucked away from the main area. We definitely made good use of the kitchen (*cough* okay, and the bar).

                                 ^the hostel

                                ^the bar & common area

So after dropping our stuff off, we went on a little journey around town. We walked to Cardiff Castle and took pictures of its exterior as well as the surrounding park. There was a weird Welsh dragon made of mud that we took our picture with, and a circle of stones that are apparently very old but very underwhelming compared to Stonehenge. I probably could have lifted one myself. Maybe.

                                ^the dragon. I conquered him, obviously.
                                 ^Cardiff Castle, in the middle of the city
                                 ^these weird Celtic whale tails (Wales Tails?!)

                                    with Welsh landmarks engraved on them were

                                    all around the place.

                                                          

We explored a bit of the city as well, going into these little "arcades" that were like internal pedestrian malls but still technically outside. It's hard to explain, but I remember seeing similar little sheltered shop mazes in places like Killarney and Galway.



                                           ^walking down one of the arcades


We bought some pasta, some pastry, some garlic bread, and some MORE garlic bread, then took it back to the hostel and ate it all between the three of us. It was one of the most carb-laden meals I've had since I've been here, but we were all starving and cold (and Shannon was really sick), so we pretty much deserved a little indulgence. Here are Shannon & Abby with our meal, which was one of the best things I've eaten in my life:



The next day was Castle Day!! Or so we called it. We took a train about a half hour away to a town called Caerphilly (cahr-FILL-ee). It reminded me of Sligo, kind of nestled into hills but with a small-town-attempting-to-be-a-bigger-town feel. When we got off the train we were able to see the castle in the distance down the hill a ways. It was actually right there in the middle of the city center, since the town had grown up around it. It was very medieval looking, and the crumbly stones were pretty well intact, considering. It was a little off-putting to see construction work on one of the walls, but I tried not to include that in the pictures!


                                ^This is Gnorman, whom I decided to include in

                                   my travels. He's a ROAMing gnome, if you will.

                                   A gnome-away-from-HOME. HA! okay, i'm done.

                                          ^(wo)manning the arrow slits!

When we got back to town we took a bus to the nearby town of Penarth, because Abby wanted to see an ocean and there was a "beach" there. I think the girls enjoyed themselves, but I can safely say it was one of the ugliest beaches I have ever seen. I don't usually see beaches in the winter, and I think there's a reason for that. Give me white sand and turquoise water, please. At least give me sun!!! Only then can you apply that word to a strip of coast. Anyway, you can decide for yourself:


                                 ^I'd really like to cloud-bathe on that gravel.


That night at the hostel we decided to go find a place to hang out with some Brazilian guys we met. One of my coworkers had gone to Cardiff Uni and was familiar with the nightlife, so he recommended Clwb Ifor Bach (known locally as "The Welsh Club")--and yes, that's supposed to be a 'w', because that letter makes the 'u' sound in Welsh. There wasn't much authentic about the place, except for the people dancing inside, but we definitely had a lot of fun.

                                ^Brazilian guys (L to R) Bruno, Will, & John

                                   with Shannon and Abby.


The next day was even colder (man, I miss Texas!) when we went to see Cardiff Bay, which has some cool modern buildings and shops:

                                 ^reflective tower thing a la Millennium Park




OH! And speaking of cool buildings, I forgot that Cardiff is really proud of this "Millennium Centre" they have. It's where international and interleague rugby tournaments and matches are played, I guess.

                                And another Wales Tail!




We all agreed that Wales was beautiful, but we also all agreed that it would be a hell of a lot better in the Summer. I can only imagine how pretty it would be with sunlight in the valleys and on the water. But at least it was still very green!

Next up, Daniel and I really want to plan a trip somewhere, like Bath or Hampshire or some pretty countryside village in England. If I can ever get a hold of him on a weeknight when he's not out dancing!

Anyway, that's it for now, so Nos Da ('goodnight' in Welsh)!