A Wale of a Time

Wellllll hellloooooo everyone

So I know to all five of you who read this, I have not blogged since Stonehenge. But FEAR NOT for I am catching up on this chilly evening with a many a blogs. I will start off with Wales. We left on Friday, January 20th and it was an adventure from the very beginning. There were 10 of us going, Lia, Erin, Dana, Allie, Julianna, Lizzie, Erica, Emily, Val, and myself, and most of us had class until 4 on Friday. So we decided to catch a 6 o clock bus, leaving our flat at 5. When we left, we took a bus as the tube station is quite a walk. However, we underestimated the amount of rush hour traffic we would hit, so we started freaking out around Nightsbridge. Realistically, the coach station is not far from where we live, but it was a trek during rush hour. When we got to Hyde Park Corner, the bus said "this bus is terminating" and kicked us all off. We didn't know how to get to the bus station, but we knew it had to be close. Luckily, I was chatting it up with the lady next to me and she was so helpful. She not only directed us and asked others to help us, but she ran with us to the Bus station to make sure we made it on time. We got there with 15 minutes to spare.

The bus ride was about 3 hours, and I slept for most of it. When we got to Cardiff, the capital, we weren't dropped off at a station or anything. It was literally a stop. So when we got off, we looked around, saw a Hilton, a castle wall, and two museum type buildings. Julianna asked someone for directions to the bridge, as our hostel was around it somewhere. As we trekked through Cardiff, we noticed that for a Friday night it was very quiet. We walked and walked and eventually asked someone for the street our hostel was on, and eventually we found it. The road was along the river, and very quiet. It was somewhat sketchy, so naturally, my paranoia was kicked into high gear. When we got to the hostel, we checked into our rooms and noticed the cleanliness of it. It really was very nice. We put our stuff down and went to wander around and find a pub or something. We asked the front desk for directions and such and the lady said as long as we stay in front of where we were(the city center) and didn't wander behind our hostel(which was where we just came from trying to find the place) then we shouldn't have any problems. She gave us maps and we were off. We wandered in and out of a few pubs, but walked around the squares. We eventually found a pub to grab a drink in called, Brains something. We went there because there was enough seating for all of us(traveling in a pack can be difficult) and we all just wanted to chill. We were sitting there and a lady started talking to us. She asked if we were Americans, and was shocked that so many girls had come to Cardiff.  

We were talking to this lady for a while, and she was explaining the Welsh culture apart from the English. She told us that the Welsh want to be their own country, they do not want to be speaking English, and they do not want to be represented through the United Kingdom. She also told us that calling any Scottish, Welsh or Northern Ireland person English is the greatest insult you could possibly say to them. She explained the great relationships the three nations have apart from England. In the pubs, each country's flag us hung except the English flag. She expressed to us their disdain for the Royals, how they are not theirs and what they stand for is solely English. She explained that the National Anthem is all about the Queen, but they do not feel the sense of pride about it because the Queen Elizabeth the Second is not "their Queen." She also began explaining to us the biases that go on in sports against Welsh, Scottish, and Irish players. If the United Kingdom team is doing well, the commentators refer to it as an "English player" however if they are doing poorly, they make the distinction between Welsh, Scottish, and Irish. As we were sitting there listening to this woman talk about Wales, we realized how much pride she has for her nation. Though it is small, she spoke about it like it was paradise. She loved telling us about its history, how it became associated with the United Kingdom, all the Welsh origins, and she spoke about all of it with a huge grin on her face. She just loved talking about her country, an aspect I found truly invigorating. As fascinated as we were by her and her life, we learned she was just as interested about our lives in America. She asked us questions about our homes, about our cities and towns. She wanted to know about American culture just like we were eager to learn about her Welsh culture. At the end of the night, we thanked her for welcoming us to her country in such a cultural way and she thanked us for coming, a first we had experienced on this trip. 

On Saturday, we all got up around 9 and went downstairs for breakfast. The hostel had a lovely sun room to eat the breakfast they provided in, with an outdoor patio which, had it not been raining, we would have eaten on. We set out and began wandering through the town squares. The squares were really cute, they were very clean and each square had "arcades" in them. Arcades are little shopping plazas that are kind of like outdoor malls, but with little boutiques and restaurants. Around 11, we realized we pretty much explored the squares and wanted to go into the castle. We went through the castle, walked through the Air Raid shelter(which actually did an air raid when you walked in, much to our surprise) went into the house, which was turned over in the 1940's so pictures of it in its original decor were available, and saw the actual castle. It was small, and the majority of it was the house and the outer wall. Other than that, there wasn't much in the courtyard.

After the castle, we wandered around the same area we had been in all day and learned that that was pretty much all there was to Cardiff. We looked on our map, and realized we had seen all there was to see except the museum. So, we went to the museum, which was cool, and walked back to our hostel around 5. We got ready to go out for the night and around 7, went to a place called the Live Lounge. Erica had a friend that studied in Cardiff last semester and said that we absolutely had to go to the Live Lounge. On our way, we saw people in costumes. We realized that we had seen people in costumes the previous night also and wondered if it was a theme party or something. There were costumes of all sorts, golfers, nerds, gypsies, Hooters girls, etc. It was weird, but when we go into the Live Lounge, Erin Dana and I found a booth to sit in with some English people, who happened to be boys. We started talking to them and again grilled the locals with questions about their lives. We found out they were from the country side of England and Cardiff was the closest city to go out in(we felt bad for them). We asked them about their school systems, how trade school worked here, how they felt about the Welsh and how they thought the Welsh felt about them. They understood there was a rivalry, but I don't think they understood why. I got into a debate with one of them as he decided to tell me that Americans do not have a culture, at which time, my nationalism and ethnocentrism came out, loudly. The English are just as much dis-liked by the Kingdom like the  Americans are dis-liked by the English. It's weird, but they really are completely different cultures and should be separated as such. We asked them about the costumes, to which we were told that there is an indirect meaning between women wearing costumes and sex. Apparently wearing a costume at any given time sends the message that you are willing to get freaky that night. Weird.

After the Live Lounge, Julianna, Lia and I walked around the squares some more. We met back up with Erica and Val and started walking back to our hostel, but found a pub on the way and decided to stop in it. It was around 1 and said "Whatever, when in Wales. We're only here once" and went on in. So we stayed there until around 3:30. I talked to some random people, asked them again about their culture(I really do like talking to locals) and tried gaining a deeper understanding of the Welsh/English conflict. It was weird because the Welsh have their very own accent. It sounds foreign, not English, but only for the ones that speak Welsh on a regular basis. You can tell whether or not they speak mainly English or mainly Welsh based on their accent. One of them asked me whether or not I liked New York City better or Cardiff, to which I said you cannot compare the two. I liked Cardiff, I really did, but it is in no way a city.

On Sunday, we packed up and checked out. We had a few hours to kill before our bus at 2, so we went down to the Bay. It was pretty, but more industrialized then I would have guessed. We walked around, and found an American 50's themed diner. KC would have LOVED it, so I took lots of pictures of it for the rugrat. 

On our bus ride home, we were all so anxious to get back to London. We realized that this trip solidified London as our home. We weren't saying I want to get to my bed in London it was 'I just want to get home.' It reinforced the fact that this really is our home, and how truly lucky we are to have the privilege of calling London home for the next few months.

Blog ya later