CARDIFF: Ble mae'r ty bach?

When I came in from Croatia, I landed so late that I couldn’t get an overnight train or bus back to Bristol. Thankfully, I let my friend, Jeremy, know in advance that I might be in a bit of a pickle, so I was prepared. I caught a late tube train over to his and crashed. He was in Turkey at the time, so his flatmate let me in, and I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

The next day saw a trip back to dear old Brizzle (aptly named for being arguably the wettest part of England) to dump out week-old Croatia traveling clothes and pack in some fresh clothes for Cardiff, and finally boarding a train for the Welsh capital.

This trip was actually quite cool, since I hadn’t seen my friend I stayed with in near three years. We met on a Global Young Leaders’ Conference (GYLC), one of those cheesy things you do in high school to try to seem cool. I guess they actually do make you pretty cool if you manage to finally see the people you meet on them. Siwan picked me up from the train station with her little sister, and in I jumped into the “Deathmobile.”

I hadn’t really been in a proper house until then, unless you count Bristol house parties and student flats, but Siwan’s house was a really quaint home. Well lived-in, and very cosy. I was given her little sister’s room, all the way up stairs with a great view of the Millennium Stadium silhouetted against the grey Cardiff sky. From that moment on, I wanted really badly to be Welsh. I was treated to Welsh beef for dinner, accompanied by Welsh beer and for dessert, Welsh cheeses and biscuits. If only I could have that every night, although that would make for much more of Kyle than you would see today.

The next day, Siwan took me to the famous Cardiff Castle in the middle of Cardiff, which was built on the foundations of already ruined Roman walls. In the middle of the castle yard was the still-standing shell of a Norman keep from the twelfth century. Cardiff Castle itself was built by a guy called the Marquess of Bute, which basically translates into a member of the gentry so rich, he decided to build himself a castle in the nineteenth century to use rarely as a holiday home. The inside of the Marquess’ house was amazing. It was kept really well, and the walls were intricately painted, the mantles and arches were all worthy of being put in an art museum, but when you keep a house that well, the entire thing is an art museum of sorts.

Following Cardiff Castle came lunch, which, for me, was cawl, a hearty Welsh soup with chunks of lamb, potato, parsnips, carrots and, of course, leeks, the national vegetable of Wales. Siwan’s friend Kate insisted that I get Welsh cakes for dessert, which I did without hesitation, and it was a great life decision.

That night, I had loads of salmon. In Siwan’s house, her dad chases her youngest sister around the house with a whole salmon. Unfortunately, we were too involved in watching Madagascar 2 at the time, so the chase was cut short, but it was still good fun to see a salmon head poked through the door.

Of course, no visit to Cardiff would have been complete without a trip to Cardiff Bay. Thankfully, I brought the Croatian sunshine with me, and combined with the Bahamian sunshine I keep in a small pouch for special occasions, it turned out to be a great day. We started out with an ice cream cone from Cadwallader’s, then a jaunt over to the pier, then to a funky thing called the Light-ship, where I had my first taste of bara brith, or “marbled bread,” which is kind of like a fruit cake, but only with raisins, and buttered. According to Siwan, it wasn’t good, and she promised to take me to St. Fagans, a Welsh outdoor cultural museum (this is coming, do not fear). After the Light-ship, we continued over to The Cylinder, which is a cylindrical UFO-looking visitors’ centre, which gives a great view of the bay and the science behind its maintenance.

In the afternoon, Siwan took me to Roath Park, where she and her friends Penry and Ben came along for an outing in a rowboat. It was really nice to go around and get harassed by seagulls for bread that we soon ran out of, and give Penry no less than six heart attacks. I managed to teach three people how to move a rowboat decently, and there was one point at which Siwan, the lone girl, was rowing around three boys. I think the people who passed us in all the other boats had a pretty good laugh.

So, my trip to St. Fagans Welsh museum. In a word, it was awesome. There were mock-ups of an old Welsh village, an old bakery where I finally got some great bara brith, along with Jelly Babies, an amazing gummy snack. On a related, but still totally random note, as my time in the UK winds down, I’m realizing more and more that I’m going to miss the junk food the most. We walked around to a mock-up of a castle with fishponds in the gardens, a little field with sheep and lambs, and loads of other Welsh things, too many to count, including an exhibit of a house through the ages, which was a typical Welsh house as seen in the Victorian era, the turn of the century, the 1930s, the 1950s and finally the 1980s. It was quite cool to see the progression culturally and historically, and to see that in one space, so much could change over a few years. Also, another highlight of the visit was an old store that was used in one episode of Dr. Who, an awesome British TV show, in front of which a piano was dropped. I thought that was pretty cool, too.

Siwan and I then headed back home for a great Easter roast, with chicken, swede mash, roasted parsnips, boiled cabbage and carrots. I do love a good Sunday roast. Of course, Easter Sunday brought all the wonderfulness that usually comes with it, including my first Cadbury’s Easter egg. For the Americans out there, Cadbury’s is a British chocolatier who puts Hershey’s to shame any day, except for maybe the Special Dark blend. Anyway, Cadbury’s makes these gigantic chocolate eggs (not solid, just a creamy milk chocolate shell) for Easter, and they are ridiculously dangerous. See, they just taste so good that they’re gone before you know it, and there’s also a massive Dairy Milk bar in there, as if they were expecting you to enjoy the egg so much that you’d need more (they guessed correctly) and then you start digging into that. Amazing.

Siwan and her sisters and I spent a pretty decent chunk of the afternoon outside, mainly with me trying to stoke her dad’s outdoor fireplace that would not hold a flame for longer than fifteen minutes, even with Welsh coal thrown in the mix. Easy come and easy go, I guess. After I finally gave up, I retired inside to the Dr. Who Easter special, smoked salmon blinis and a nighttime movie marathon of Borat and Trainspotting.

With Monday came my train back to Bristol, but before that, Siwan’s dad took us out for a spin to some of the local castles. Our first stop was Caerphilly Castle, a fortress built by the Normans to suppress the local Welshmen that later that held gunpowder for the Parliamentarians in the English Civil War. The tower that held the gunpowder had been blown up, taking a chunk out of the side of the tower and causing it to lean precariously but stably for the past 350 years. Next on the tour was Castle Coch, a castle also restored by the Marquess of Bute, just for kicks, or something. Then, home again, home again, jiggedy jig, in more than one way. The train back to Bristol was nice, not only because I sat the right way facing toward where we were going, but because I had time to take in everything that happened on such an awesome weekend. Although it’s a week since I’ve been back, I still think it’d be nice to relive that weekend every now and again, and not only for the good home-cooked food. If there’s one thing that needs to be said, it would be a hearty “Dioch!” to the Lloyd family for putting up with me for a whole four days. Oh, and go to Wales. It’s a happy country.

The Croatian Adventure, Part II

Sorry for the radio silence, I've been without wireless (and still am without wireless) so I'm just chilling in my registration building pumping out another post for you, my loyal readers. Let's go back to where I last left off, somewhere in Croatia, I believe:

So scratch the Dubrovnik plan. My friends and I got to Korčula (pr. Kor-chula) from Vela Luka, on the other side of Korčula Island at around 11AM yesterday only to find out that we had missed all forms of transport from Korčula to Dubrovnik.

Our options were to either pay loads to get to Dubrovnik, or cancel our Dubrovnik hostel and spend the day in Korčula town. We decided to stay, and it was a really good decision. The old town was absolutely beautiful, with its stone cathedral spire rising high above the towers and walls, and the shaded and inviting alleyways that zig-zagged their way from one side to the other. After the other guys went back to the hostel that we found after stumbling across a tourist office, I decided to go for a run around the main town centre. It was quite small, and I cleared it pretty quickly, and thought it would be nice to check out some of the residential area. I got some really odd looks as I was going round, probably because there usually aren't many tourists this time of year, along with the fact that probably very few of the few tourists actually bother to exercise while on holiday. Oh well.

Later that night, after a shower and a fluffy warm towel, we made our way over to a restaurant in the old town where it was time for me to get something that used to be alive. I decided to go for the fish, as it was much more affordable than a steak. It was definitely a great decision, as it came with a steaming polenta made of local Croatian spinach that had a great zing to it, along with lots of garlic. The fish wasn't like anything I had eaten before, it was kind of circular with the spine going straight through the middle, but it was delicious, so I wasn't going to complain. Afterwards, the waiter stopped by to ask if I enjoyed the fish. Of course, I said I had, and then he told me to guess what kind of fish it was. Just to mess with him, I guessed shark, and I was right. Shark is delicious.

The next morning, one of the girls travelling with me, Arikka, and I needed to get back to Split in order to get back to Zadar the next day for our flight back to London, so we got an early night, and set off from Korčula harbour at 0600 hours. We got into Split nice and early at 0830 and hung about with a loaf of bread, biscuits and yogurt drink: the perfect Croatian breakfast. I was really grateful it was the slow season, otherwise we never would have made it into a hostel, and we dropped our bags and went off to meet Andrija, a friend of Yasmin (one of the other girls I travelled with), whose party we went to when we were in Split the first time. We spent the rest of the afternoon looking around the shadowed alleys of the old city, and for dinner, found a student canteen where I ate to capacity for only 4 kuna (about 1 USD). It was amazing.

The next day found Arikka and I eating pizza on a roof terrace right before we caught our bus up to Zadar. The 3.5 hour journey went by pretty quickly, and was punctuated by mainly Western pop music from this decade and the last four inbetween Croatian songs, one of which was about drinking, which I guessed from the gradual slurring of words and giggling on the track.

The Ryanair flight back to London was like any other: always on time (despite the apparent messiness at the gate and in the cabin right up to taxiing), extremely well-lit throughout and then the trumpet proclaiming "Another on time flight." I mean, it's what you pay 70 quid for, so I'm not compaining. They got me there and back, and now I'm back in the Kingdom. Stay tuned for my coverage of my Easter weekend in Cardiff, coming soon!

CONGRATULATIONS CHRISTIE!!!!

Also, before I forget, I just want to make it public that my little sister, Christie, was accepted to Vassar. I am more proud of her than she knows, and I am looking forward to her joining me in the States in the fall, if not on campus. Fingers crossed!

The Croatian Adventure, Part I

So at the moment, I´m chilling in the sweet seaside town of Split on the Adriatic Sea. Its (pardon my punctuation at the moment, Croatian keyboards are funky) my third day in this great country and boy, has it been a whirlwind three days so far.

After getting into Zadar late Wednesday evening, my companions and I caught a three hour bus to Grabovac, a small town near the Plitvice Lakes National Park, which are absolutely breathtaking. When we got in, the weather was horrible: it was rainy, foggy and all around miserable. My friends and I sat inside all afternoon, napping and eating baguettes from a nearby shop with local cheese. Mind you, it was a sweet way to pass the afternoon, but when there's a whole national park to be seen, its not very satisfying. From the forecasts, I only brought a water resistant shell, and it didnt stand up to the Croatian rain at all.

The next day, we got up early and our host (who spoke no English, only Croatian and German) excitedly drove us to the lakes. There really are no words to describe how beautiful the lakes were from the lookout. As we came to the edge of the gorge cliffs overlooking one of the lower lakes, the morning mist moved slowly across the water issued from a small waterfall from a slightly higher lake. The humidity added a chill to the air, which only added more to the excitement of being the first people in the park for the day. The first lake was like a mirror, and it was almost as though the waterfalls feeding it added seamlessly to it and didnt affect its tranquility at all. After discovering that a normal passageway to a ferry on a higher lake was impassable due to flooding, we found another way around through a path next to a massive waterfall. The whole thing was very Lord of the Rings, but with more Japanese tourists.

We climbed higher and higher, until we were on top of the opposite gorge cliff and, after about an hour, made it to the boat landing. The boat dropped us off next to some peaceful falls, and we began to climb the boardwalk. An hour and a half later, we found the bus stop, but then realized that due to flooding, that bus stop was excluded from the route. We walked back down, covering an hours distance in near half an hour. The ferry carried us over toward the shuttle stop, and we made our way back to the place where our host dropped us off. We headed back to our hostel, picked up our bags and then headed to the bus stop to catch our bus to Split.

One of the more harrowing sights along the way back home from the lakes was a house, not more than 300 metres away from our hostel. It was absolutely gutted: no roof, no windows, the walls were exposed down to the brick below the cement that covered them. Our host explained in broken English that it had been destroyed in a war (which war, I do not know), but it brought the realities of war much closer to home. Its easy to see it on CNN with the voices of a reporter barely masking the gunfire and grenade explosions, but seeing the remnants of a war is more shocking and sobering that one can really imagine or describe. When I saw the Adriatic across from our hostel in Zadar early Thursday morning, it was not at all what I thought of when the word ˝Croatia˝was mentioned to me. However, its one of the great parts of this country that show that where there is life there is hope, and in the midst of war and destruction, there is peace and beauty.

Flash back to our busride through the mountains into Split of slight discomfort and very wet shoes, and I am fast asleep from trekking through lakes and sloshing through wet undergrowth. We got in yesterday evening around seven, and made our way directly to our hostel, which is right outside of the old walled city. We spent most of this morning exploring it, meandering along the harbour embankment and headed to an old cemetery (which had since been demolished) to look out across the Adriatic.

And, perhaps the highlight of the day, was this amazing sky blue yacht that was calling at Split for the Croatia Boat Show. On the way back from the cemetery at sunset, I happened to see the thing at the gas station fuelling up for it's journey back to whatever ridiculously creative utopia wherever, where money grows on trees and the fruits have golden seeds, or something. I even got to touch it. It made me really happy. I think I'm gonna get one someday, and sail it on Sunset Lake for no reason, and that is one of the wonderful things one can do with a Vassar degree, or so I hope.

And, as most good things, this account has come to an end, mainly due to my being in a hostel and having other people waiting to use the net. Part II to come soon, if not in Dubrovnik, then definitely back in Bristol.