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Trip Start Sep 04, 2006

Trip End Dec 2006

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Flag of United Kingdom Cardiff, United Kingdom
Saturday, October 21, 2006

So, this weekend, myself and a few comrades (Eva, Colleen, Lizzie) decided to take advantage of our free Mondays and take a weekend trip. Our destination--Cardiff, Wales. Why, you ask? The long answer is to explore. The short answer is that Eva wanted to chase down Welsh love spoons. It is an interesting tradition that the tourist market has capitalized upon. We arrived in Cardiff by bus about 24 hours ago and staggered through the damp streets to our hostel. Upon entry, we were immediately greeted by the social director of the hostel (I didn't know such things existed) and informed that a group of people were leaving in a few minutes to get Turkish food. Ok, cool. We dumped our stuff and headed out in a party of Australians, Kiwis, French, and more Americans. It was an interesting bunch.
Today, we headed out with no particular goal to wander the streets and see what was to be seen. We found their national museum (free, like all other museums in Britain) and their city hall after a pleasant stroll down Queen street, an entirely pedestrian shopping district

Cardiff Blues vs. Glamorgan Wanderers

. We didn't have a whole lot of time to explore that area because (dad, are you listening)...
at 1:30 the Heineken cup rugby match between the Cardiff Blues and the Glamorgan Wanderers kicked off on a field right next to Millineum Stadium. I got to play cruise director and explain the game to all of my comrades, but they all said that they had a good time and it was a fun match. During the second half, the unpredictable Welsh weather struck and the rain began to pour in sheets. We were under the cover of a tin roof, and schadenfreude kicked in as we watched 30 poor sods muck around on a field that was quickly becoming a marsh. Final score: Cardiff 26 to Glamorgan 11.
Lucky for us, the rain had stopped by the end of the match, so we had only a damp stroll to Cardiff Castle. We were expecting from the architecture that the castle would be another Norman/Roman kind of thing like we saw in Ireland. We were suprized, then, when all of what we saw had been redone late in the 19th century by a Victorian Marquess and more closely resembled the Biltmore Estate. To give you a better idea, it was like the Biltmore with more medieval themes and a more adventurous interior decorator.
That is Cardiff so far. We have a tip that there is a 'Vintage Market' near the city hall tomorrow, so we thought we would check that out.
Diolch!
A

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