WALES

Okay, so this week Annie, Rachel, and I went to Cardiff! We left Thursday morning and caught a 9:30ish train and arrived in wales around noon.

We spent the afternoon walking through the central area, its really just like a big mall, so we walked in and out of stores, we walked through the marketplace, we walked through a park (and made daisy crowns) and by the Cardiff Castle. To ensure that this trip was educational enough to justify it, we also went into the National Museum. We walked through the art exhibits upstairs and it was fun. :) After this we went and grabbed dinner at Chimicanga, because Cinco de Mayo, and hit up a pound store where Annie found her long sought for candy bars: Kinder Riegels. She bought lots and lots, because we haven't found them anywhere else. We headed over to the hotel/hostel we were staying the night at. We had a private room with two bunk beds, which were honestly nicer than our beds at the center, so we slept well. Speaking of sleeping, we went to check in around 4 oclock, but had planned to walk down to the Bay, but fell asleep until 7, where we didn't feel comfortable walking a strange city after dark. So we opted to stay in, and hung out and went to bed.

 

Bookstore selfie because we love it :)

 

So Hipster

I really like this painting :)

I got to bless my traveling companions with my rendition of the Two Little Birdies Poem.

Their parks remind me of Thanksgiving Point Gardens, but theirs are just Public Parks!

Annie wouldn't let me ride the Ferris Wheel, but it made me happy to see it

Cinco de Mayo

We knew we were in the right hotel when we saw the ad for icecream

The next day we had our day tour. It started at 9 in the morning and finished at 5:30 in the evening, so it really was all day. We started out at the Roman Baths in Caerlon. It was interesting to see, though really all it is now is stones. I decided that someone should come and build a replica of the Roman Baths near the ruins and have it be a public swimming pool! We walked over through the welsh village to the Roman Ampitheatre, which was a lot easier to see the idea of it, though we were told that the seating structure would have been made of wood and had rotted away leaving just the pit basically.

One of the hundreds of pictures I took out the tour bus window. It was all just so pretty!

 

Three wheeled car?!?

I've had this problem with all my photos, either the foreground is in focus and the sky is washed out, or the foreground is dark, but the sky is beautiful. It's really frustrating.

I'm too lazy to take a panorama picture, so I just take a panorama video

Trying to jump all together

Rachel a little behind the times :)

Everything there is SO green! The tour guide cracked a joke about not needing gardeners because the sheep keep the grass trimmed through their healthy appetites, and I thought to myself that in Utah you need 10 gardeners just to keep everything alive!

We hopped back on our bus and headed for Chepstow, and the oldest Norman Castle. Before we toured the castle though, we grabbed lunch and walked over the bridge into England to get a better view of the castle. Then sat by the river and enjoyed the beautiful weather. Inside the castle, we got to see a lot of examples of architecture styles we have been learning about in classes and heard a little bit about the history of the rooms and castle. It was really cool to see and explore. I really like how open it was. It is crazy old, but they want you to look around and enter all the (safe) rooms, whereas I feel like over in America, anything old is roped off and only for looking. It was a lot cooler to be able to explore for yourself.

Walkin the Streets

View from England

Because I never really know what to do with my arms

Annie is really exited about the River

We play the He loves me Loves me not game a lot... Results were mixed

Kind of hard to do a three person cut through when there is only three of you, so we tried to selfie it... Didn't really work, too bad I didn't bring Emily's selfie stick to Wales!

I wear bowler hats now, bowler hats are cool

Annie is just kind of really excited about a lot of things today

Castles are my favorite :)

We are really good at this

 

And sea salt carmel fudge to seal the deal. (it was SO good)

After Chepstow Castle we headed for Tintern Abbey, which is HUGE! Pictures can't show the scale of this building, but it's amazing. It doesn't have a roof, and the floor is grass, so we decided its the perfect place for a wedding, because it is outdoors and pretty, but still in a church so traditional. Too bad we are all temple bound. :/ ;)

Also me and Rachel got engaged

Can you tell we are obsessed with Daisies?

Decided to Entertain ourselves with some yoga while waiting for the tour bus to be ready

All of those are kinder riegal wrappers from Annie's eating spree (it's a lot)

We made our way back to Cardiff through the countryside, which is SO perfect, and pretty, and picturesque and so great. I took lots and lots and lots of pictures.

When we got back to Cardiff we grabbed dinner and headed to the train station to await our 7:30 train home. Because of a fatality on the line we ended up being delayed 2 hours and not getting home until midnight. Luckily our train came in before midnight so we could ride the tube home, because otherwise I don't know what we would have done.

Anyways, we adventured in Wales and it was a great experience. Though I'd love to see more of the Wales countryside, and I am disappointed I didn't get to see the Bay in Cardiff, I don't think I'll be headed back there this trip, so it's a good thing I enjoyed it while I was there.

Sleepy Friends

Pretty Gardens

I think I'm funny