Saturday 5th February: Cardiff

I joined the Travel Society a few days earlier and bought a ticket for this day to travel to Cardiff with them. It was only 16 pounds which I think is a good price. It gets you the bus trip to and from the place and a person with bad english explaining the city's attractions during the trip.

The bus was to pick us up at 7am, so I woke up at 5:30. With the new quiet building I'm living in I've been having great sleep so I woke up at this early time feeling great. I'm really enjoying this new place and being able to sleep again.

I had a little bit to eat including some nice strawberry yoghurt, got ready, and then headed toward the place where the bus was to pick us up. Along the way I saw two girls from my hall that I've been getting to know and have been eating meals with. They were going to Cardiff as well. I walked with them the rest of the way. They were Tania from, I think, Hamburg in Germany, and I'm not sure what the other one is called or where she is from.

The busses arrived. There were four coaches, so it was quite popular. Getting on board was chaos. It took quite a long time for some reason. A big bottle-neck at the entrance of most busses. I got a spot next to a person I didn't know and she slept for most of the way.

Everyone was on the bus, so the drivers went for it. Most people were pretty tired so there was a bit of sleeping happening. But first the "guide" had to tell us about the place we were seeing. Unfortunately she was very bad at pronouncing things and had a voice that couldn't not be heard. But eventually she was done and then most people slept. I looked out the window instead of sleeping because the seats are too low for me to put my head anywhere. But the scenery was interesting so I didn't mind.

On the bus, a form was passed around onto which we were supposed to write our phone number for in case we got lost. I don't have a phone here, so I combined the numbers belonging to other people and made my own.

The trip to Cardiff was going to be a little over 3 hours, so we stopped at a stopping place for people doing road journeys. We had ten minutes. I bought a 'chocolate twist' from Costas. It was really good. Puff pastry twisted around with chocolate in it.

The scenery toward Wales was really interesting I think. The fields were more green. There was a kind of mountain range. I saw the ruins of a castle. There were a few rivers that were gushing quite a lot. There was a bit of rain. It actually has not rained very much here in England. A couple of heavy downpours in London and some short light showers at odd times. So I enjoyed the rain. There seem to be more forest in Wales.

We got to Cardiff a bit before 11am. Tania asked if I wanted to walk around with her. "Sure", I said. That would be fun! We had a little look down an alley, and then decided that the castle would be good to see since it was right there and was probably one of the main attractions. But the line for the castle entrance tickets was huge. I think most of the people from the busses were in this line. So we decided to go check out the waterfront area. I have heard that it's good.

We were both really disoriented. So we didn't really know which direction to head in. I think we just guessed at a direction and headed there. It turned out to be reasonable accurate. We found the big stadium thing. So now we could use those two things and orient ourselves and work out where to go.

This is a little arcade type thing, just as we got off the bus. We had to find some toilets. Long bus trip!

The castle. The busses let us all of here. All the students are freaking out trying to work out what's happening.

Nice towers.

View of the castle from outside the walls. I think this is a newer section.

Maybe Cardiff has a large zombie population. I'm not sure.

We had a little look at the stadium, but we both weren't that interested in it. It looked kind of alright from the outside. But it was just a stadium really. We were both a bit confused by what the waterfront was. There was a river on the other side of the stadium which I assumed would be the waterfront. Eventually it looked not to be the case. I asked a resting bus driver how we get there and he gave us a decent description. We decided to walk there because taking busses isn't that fun. It was 1 or 2km.

Finding the bay involved walking in the general direction, feeling a bit lost, asking a few people who only had a vague idea themselves, and then eventually finding signs which confirmed we were in the general area.

We got to the place. There were some interesting big modern buildings. And a big open space.

I enjoyed seeing this space because I'm fairly sure that in the Dr Who tv show, this is the place where the universe starts breaking apart. Or where there is a gap into some other dimension that the daleks get through. Something like that.

There were some quite nice views across the bay here.

 Tania and I ate some jaffa cakes and other biscuits. The ducks really like the jaffa cakes.

On a wall beside the sea near here, they had a lot of obituary notes for a character in the tv show Torchwood which is a spinoff from Dr Who. I don't know what it was for.

There didn't really seem to be much in this area. It was nice, but nothing notable, and we just had one day. So we headed back to the central city area.

On the windows, more brains...

A shopping area.

Tania is studying theology so she was interested in this church as we walked past it. We decided to go in and have a look. I think it was built in 1100 or so.

 Then we went into the castle. There was no line this time.

As we were allowed in, a lady told us that we have just missed a tour, and so the next one would be at 2pm. It was a little past 1, so we had some time to wander around and look at the stuff.

I was quite happy seeing this castle. It had a proper castle look to it, with the way it is designed etc. The structure in this photo is the oldest part of this castle. It was built around 1180 I think. There are a few different structures in this general castle area (within the walls). Various people added things at different times.

One of the windows to shoot arrows out of, etc.

Looking back across the bridge that goes across the moat. Behind me is the stairway going up the side of the big mound, and then up into the castle.

Reached the top. This castle has always had an open roof. I think it's more a purely defensive structure rather than a nice place to live.

Still at the top of the mound. You can climb up this thing via the wooden stairs and then a very narrow stone spiral staircase, and then you're quite high up at the highest point of the castle.

At the top. Views across the castle grounds at the bottom left, the newer castle to the right, and Cardiff city.

Looking down to the flat bit at the top of the dirt mound.

Taken by Tania. The first shot where more than my head and shoulders make it into the shot.

Trebuchet. Awesome.

We walked along the top of the outer walls. Then we found that there were tunnels going underneath the walls as well. I think this wall was actually built more recently, and was maybe some preparation for possible invasion in world war two. It was a bit damp in here, and awesome too.

We checked out a little museum they had. It was about world war two stuff and I didn't really feel like looking at it all. Also, Tania said that she finds them a bit exhausting to read since English isn't her natural language. So we just had a bit of time and then it would be time to go on the tour.

We headed over there and started waiting. We ate a few more biscuits and talked about stuff. Then the tour guide arrived. We didn't realise that everyone had gone in so we were last to approach. The lady asked us for our entry ticket. I had no idea where my ticket was. It was very strange. I didn't think it would be a big deal if I didn't have the ticket. I'd already paid. But the lady was being very proper about it all and saying that she'd get in trouble if I didn't have the ticket. It didn't look like she'd let me in. It wouldn't be nice for Tania to miss out due to me losing it, so I didn't feel good about it. After a little while of pulling apart my bag trying to find it she conceded and said that we could come in. Hooray.

This tour was covering the newer castle built some time I've forgotten. We were going to be shown the living quarters etc.

The interiors of this house were designed by William Burges, a famous victorian era architect. It was really good! There was a middle-eastern theme going on.

The dining room. It's currently set up for a wedding that was happening very soon. Apparently Prince Charles really likes the place and is hosting dinners here quite often.

Walls and roof of the dining room.

The roof in the bedroom.

Next to the bedroom they have a bath with plumbing and everything. This was made in the victorian times apparently, when they didn't like baths. The lady said this was very "avant-garde".

Library.

The first few rooms I didn't photograph because I was feeling a bit flustered after the problems before the tour. So there was also a nursery room (and a few other rooms) where they had painted on the walls scenes from fairy tales. A great one was "the invisible man" with a lone tree and no people. But it is an optical illusion where the person appears if you look in a different way.

The lady was quite snappy and had lots of awkward exchanges with the other tour people as they weren't following her orders exactly. As we were going up some spiral stairs, two girls behind me were saying "she's really mean!". I looked back and smiled a bit. They said "he agrees with us. But he's too afraid to say anything for fear that he'll be punished". It was funny and maybe a little accurate.

Outside the castle. The section of wall at the bottom that looks different was built in Roman times.

After the tour finished Tania said that she was very hungry. I was hungry too, so we went out of the castle to find a place to get food. We found pizza hut close by so we chose that place. English people love pizza. There are lots of pizza restaurants. I think Pizza Hut is on the lower end of the scale with regards to quality, but it's okay. I got the spicy vegetarian which is a typical vegetarian pizza but with lots of chilli. I thought it was mild, but then I found that all the chilli was in one place. Hot. Tania had pineapple and mushroom. It was nice to sit down for a little while. I had some nice talks with Tania. She is a very good-hearted person. We got some ice cream afterwards with chocolate sauce.

After finishing pizza we realised that we only had about an hour left. We headed for a place that had a museum. The museum was quite good. I think it dealt mostly with the natural history of the local area. So, the animals, plants, geology, climate, etc. The displays are in Welsh and English. The audio is only in Welsh! I liked hearing the language. Everywhere in Wales, the official signs are in Welsh and English.

A building near the museum that I think looked nice.

Looking down upon the main entrance for the museum.

When we were in the museum we thought that we could have spent a few hours here if we had the time. But we had to get to the bus. We walked there and got on. I was sure we'd be waiting a long time for people who hadn't arrived back yet. But we left 6 minutes after the 5pm time which is when we were supposed to leave. Tania had guessed something like 13 minutes. I guessed 14.

I didn't feel very tired. But the sun was down so there was no view, and it was going to be a long trip. So I had a bit of a sleep.

We got home at about 8:45. I had a really fun day walking around with Tania.