For the start of week four in England, we thought that we would take a sporadic trip to Wales with a group of 7 other girls. It was quite the group, and it was quite the trip. We left Saturday morning fairly early and took the train from Cheltenham to Cardiff Wales. I felt bad because I didn’t plan any of this trip, I merely tagged along but it worked out well! We went to Cardiff, and went to Lallandaff Cathedral which is the second oldest cathedral is the whole of London, so pretty sweet. It was built in 1120, which is so old, it is amazing how old things are here, because in America old is about 1800’s but here old is about 1300’s so it is quite different. Anyways, sorry for that bit, but yeah, we went to Lallandaff Cathedral and went in this little garden-ish tree area, and took some AWESOME pictures! Also, it was really sunny that day, which made everything 10 times better! Then I had a jacked potato in this really quaint Tea Room, it was adorable. Then we headed off to Cardiff Bay which was beautiful!!! The sun was shining, and the water was glistening and it was fantastic! The bay had some sailboats in the water, and while Greg thought it resembled a Boardwalk, I disagree; it was much prettier than a boardwalk and not as commercialized. So yeah, Cardiff bay = must go. Oh yeah, it had this really pretty RED building, which was Greg’s favorite, he was obsessed with taking photos of it. Oh yeah, it also has this mirror/tower/cold water fountain. Next we went to the hostel, now this was our first hostel experience, so we were a bit nervous about it, but it was very nice. Nomad was the name of the hostel, and it was very accommodating. Since we had a group of 10 of us, we split up in two different rooms, and the rooms just consisted of bunk beds with no decoration what so ever. It was fine for sleeping; I am developing this wonderful habit of being able to sleep anywhere, it is great, most of the time. So yeah, we chilled out that night in the hostel and whatnot, and then got up bright and early the next morning.
We headed off to Carphilly Castle, which was awesome. The castle was somewhat of a fixer-upper, but if I was built in 1270, then I would be falling down too. Some parts were eroded and such, but it was huge. With a moat and catapults and everything, the castle was most impressive. The castle was kind of difficult to get to, and we spent a good couple of hours walking around the castle, so that was out Day Two of Wales. We ate lunch/dinner in a Free House Pub, which had some of the worse service in the world, but oh well, it happens. So Wales was a great weekend!!
So the week went by, and I went to my classes, had fun, and played field hockey. At field hockey I had an American moment. All during practice all the girls kept saying “I am so Knackered, and Wankered” now, me being an American I didn’t know what either of these terms meant, I naturally assumed that it meant they were drunk, because well, the English tend to drink quite a lot, it is truly a part of the culture. So since all the girls kept saying how Knackered and Wankered they were, I was getting really worried that all these girls came to practice drunk. Later, I asked a girl what Knackered means, and it just means that you’re tired or exhausted. I was relieved to realize that, but felt pretty dumb.
On Saturday we had a BCA trip to Windsor Castle, this is where the Royal Family resides. I was pretty pumped to go visit Queenie and hopefully catch a glimpse of her. The Castle was really nice, The Queen is definitely living it up here in England. We saw Changing of the Guards in the morning, and that was cool, a bit confusing because all the guards were yelling and chanting at each other, but they had the big funny hats on, and didn’t smile, so that was a good tourist moment. After touring much of the Castle, I realized that the Queen has a lot of stuff that she doesn’t need but is impressive. There were hundreds of paintings of every member of the Royal Family ever on the walls, and some were really big. There were a lot of trap doors too, and one time some elderly woman came through a trapped door in a wheelchair with a security guard and I thought it was the Queen, yeah, it wasn’t. So Windsor Castle was cool, it was a nice day trip. Coming up next in the month of February, is doing assignments, ugh, and a trip to LONDON to see WICKED!!! Which I am beyond ecstatic for!!! Everything is going great here across the pond! Thanks for reading! Best of luck to everyone in other countries and with their lives, I love you and miss you all!! :)
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