Cardiff

30 June 2012

Apparently, this is the wettest June that Wales has seen since 1860. How convenient that it just happens to be the summer that I come! Haha. The rain’s not too terrible, but sometimes I miss the sun.

Anyway, we left Bala in the morning and went to the coal mine, but on our way, we stopped for lunch. While we were stopped, Kylee, Palmer, and I decided to talk to two guys who were hanging out there. Their names were Matt and Tom, and we went through our survey with them. Tom wasn’t talkative at all, but Matt was helpful. These are a couple of the slang terms he gave us:

• On the lash: out drinking
• Tidy: cool

Two interviews down and two more to go!

After everyone had eaten lunch, we made our way to the coal mine. The workers there were awesome. They were all really friendly, which was a little different than North Wales. I quite liked it!

We had to leave our stuff above ground (so I don’t have any pictures), but they gave us hard hats and belts that held battery packs and gas masks. While we were down in the mine, Palmer turned to me and said, “You’re in a coal mine in Wales with nothing but a light and a hard hat. What are you doing?” Haha it was great. I have moments like that a lot. I’ll be doing something or looking at something, and then I’ll just think to myself, “I’m in the UK right now. This is crazy. How did I get here?”

Anyway, back to the mine. That was pretty cool. We were 300 feet underground, and we had to hunch over much of the time that we were walking. My mom would have hated it. Haha. Our guide told us about the people who worked down there. A lot of the time, entire families would go to work in the mines just so they would have enough to eat. And the youngest children were responsible for opening and closing doorways (so that wind didn’t pass through the corridors). So when both doors were shut, the children would just sit in complete darkness. We turned off all the lights, and I couldn’t see my hand when it was right in front of my face. I can’t even imagine sitting in that kind of darkness for twelve hours every day. And the kids didn’t even have anything to eat either! Food would attract rats, so the kids would just go without it.

After the mine, we went to Castell Coch, a castle built in Wales by the Normans in 1280. People often refer to it as a fairy tale castle, and as soon as I saw it, I knew exactly why. Look at it!

Unfortunately, we got there late, and we didn’t have a lot of time to explore, but we managed to get through everything. 

And we still got to explore the grounds a little bit!

After leaving Castell Coch, we drove to Cardiff, where we would be staying for the night. As usual, some of the girls and I went out to explore the city, but we had no idea how different this time would be.

We quickly realized that there were a lot of groups of guys walking around. We didn’t mind of course, but still, that was a little odd. After all, it was a Saturday night. Soon after, we noticed that there were also several groups of girls. Only the girls had strange outfits, including pink boas, tiaras, and wedding veils. And that’s when we realized that they were having bachelorette parties, or as they call them, hen parties. And the guys must be having bachelor parties, or stag parties. Well that’s all good, but it’s not like there were only two or three parties going on. There were tons and tons of them! We’d pass a guy in a tiger costume one second, then pass ten guys dressed as smurfs the next. And I can’t forget to mention Snow White and the seven dwarfs. All guys. Including Snow White. Needless to say, it was all pretty bizarre. But it turns out that a lot of people go to Cardiff for their hen and stag parties, which means that many of them were visiting. If they had all been locals, Cardiff would have given Provo some competition for who can get the most marriages!

Once we had gotten used to this bizarre city, we decided we should interview some locals. That’s when we found Gethin and Owen. They were a lot of fun. Gethin asked some of the girls deep questions about religion and politics, while Owen asked the rest of us whether or not we thought he was attractive (even though he has a girlfriend). Owen did ask some good questions about the law of chastity. That was fun. Haha. The best part, though, was when Owen decided that Abby, Shayla, and I were part of the “Super Group.” He said that if the other girls ever gave us a hard time about anything, all we had to do was tell them that Owen said that we were part of the Super Group, and they would immediately back off. Haha. We talked to Gethin and Owen for quite a while, and before we knew it, it was time to head back to the hotel.

Molly, Shayla, Owen, me, Gethin, Kylee, Saundra, and Palmer

1 July 2012

On Sunday, we got to go to church in Cardiff, and it was SO great! I felt like I was back home. It was an actual ward, rather than a branch like they had in Cork, so that was nice. There were a lot of people, and they were all incredibly nice.

"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Visitors Welcome" in Welsh

Relief Society was the best part. The president taught a lesson about visiting teaching. Turns out, they have the EXACT same problems with it that we do in Utah! Haha. That was fun. All of the women were just so fun and cute. At the end, one woman stood up to bear her testimony, and she said something about how meeting other members make you want to hug them all. And two seconds before she said that, I thought to myself, “I just want to give her a hug.” Haha. I wish we could go back to Cardiff for church next Sunday, but somehow, I don’t think that’s going to happen.

After church, we went to a place called St. Fagan’s. There’s a castle there, as well as buildings that have been taken from other areas of Wales and reconstructed around the castle in order to show people what it all would have looked like years ago.

Most of the time, Kylee, Palmer, and I just explored the grounds of the castle. They were beautiful! I decided that my future husband is going to buy that castle for me some day so that I can live there. Haha. And of course, we got some good pictures.

 Also, we found an old telephone booth.

After St. Fagan’s, Palmer, Kylee, Molly, and I decided to go eat dinner against the Cardiff Castle wall. Yeah, eating against a castle wall. No big deal. It was pretty great.

On our way back, we stopped at McDonald’s so that Kylee could check her email (free wifi at McDonald’s!), and while we were there, I found four kid’s masks…conveniently the same number of our group. So of course, we took them. And we may have put them on. And we may have taken pictures.

Okay, yes, we took pictures.

After that fun little adventure, Palmer and I went back to our room and watched an episode of “Sherlock.” I had never seen it before, but it was really good! I’ll have to watch some more of that when I get home.

Well, that ends my time in Wales. We would leave the next morning. I liked Wales quite a bit. It was great to see some real mountains again, and there were some pretty cool sights. But I still have to say that Ireland is my favorite.

Next is England, where I’ll be for about three weeks while we do school work…yes, I actually have to be productive while I’m here. I wish we could just keep traveling around. But at the same time, it will be nice to be settled in a flat for a while, so that I won’t be living out of a suitcase as much. That gets tiring after a while.

Anyway, I’ll let you know how England is!