Drinking Brains

Well, this week was a fun one. On Monday morning Danielle, her friend Caitlin from Canada and I left for Cardiff, Wales. We caught the train from Poole around 9. Then we had to change trains in Southampton and got to Cardiff about 12:45. It was a really nice train ride. The area around here isn't that exciting, but further north toward Wales the scenery was really pretty. We couldn't check into our hotel right away when we got there, so we went to find lunch. We ran across a gourmet burger restaurant so we stopped there. I got a pork burger with apple chutney. It was really tasty. After lunch we still had a bit of time to kill so we headed for the tourist information center to get a map and some brochures of things to do. It was then that we realized that Cardiff pretty much only has a castle and a museum. And a giant mall. So we headed back to the hotel to check in and drop off our stuff.

After dropping things off we decided to head down to the quay. It was about a 20 minute walk and we followed the signs and were soon walking through the ghetto. It was a bit sketchy. Nothing bad happened, but it didn't feel like the safest neighborhood. But eventually we got to the quay and me and Danielle geeked out because The Doctor Who Experience was down there. It is basically a small museum of costumes of the villains and some of the doctors and companions from Doctor Who. So we went through it but Caitlin didn't want to. We also went and saw the area where they filmed Torchwood and saw all the silly signs that people had left about bringing Ianto back (a character that was killed off in the last episode of Torchwood). It was pretty geeky and awesome! We also went on a ferris wheel ride near the quay to get a view of the area. It wasn't actually a super high wheel so you could see things, but not all of Cardiff or anything. Oh well. We grabbed dinner at an American diner themed restaurant. We got hotdogs and milkshakes. They were pretty good, but not as good as Sam's. After that we headed back to the hotel. We took a different road and it was amazingly different. There was a railroad track separating where we had walked and where we were then walking, so we had literally been on the wrong side of the tracks. We got home and were pretty tired so we just watched tv (a luxury as we don't have tvs in our dorms) and went to bed.

The next day we headed out to the castle. It was pretty neat, but not the best castle I've been to. Apparently it has been redone quite a few times in the past by different owners who thought different periods of history were cool. I do have to give one of them credit though because when they found the original roman walls during one construction phase they left them and then built replica walls on top, leaving the roman wall as the base and marking what part was Roman so you can still tell the Roman part from the rest. And that was in the late 1800s I believe. Awesome. The apartments where the family lived were quite nice and had some really fairy tale like painting going on in them. The keep was quite imposing, but only the stone part was left. There would have been a lot of wooden structures inside, but those are gone.

From the top of the keep I had seen a stone circle so I wanted to go over there. While looking for the entrance to the park it was in we found a Baskin Robins. Eventually we found the park entrance and Danielle made friends with a lady handing out fliers who used to live in Canada. Apparently they are going to be pen pals now...The stone circle was neat, but not very large. I must admit that until I got here I didn't realize how many of these circles are all over the country. I thought Stonehenge was more unique than it is. It is much bigger than the others, but the idea isn't original by any means. Something to consider. After the park we stopped at the Baskin Robins for ice cream. We then wandered around and went souvenir shopping. I got a Wales shirt with a Dragon on it and a present for my friend's baby that she is having in September. Then we headed back to the tourist center to find out if the brewery where they brew the local Welsh beer gave tours. They said no, but that there was a microbrewery near the stadium, so we headed there. I got a peach beer. It was pretty good. After that we ordered some starters and another beer, the pale ale. It was the darkest pale ale I'd ever seen and was a bit bitter. We were not really fans. After this we wandered around for awhile and then stopped for dinner.

After dinner we stopped back at the hotel to drop off our shopping and then headed out. We ended up at an Irish pub that was showing the Holland v Uruguay? football game. I've never watched a football game, but it was kind of fun. I didn't know exactly what was happening at all times, but it was cool. We wanted to try the local beer, Brains, so we ordered that while we watched. The beer wasn't that good, but Holland won, so I texted my Dutch friends to congratulate them :) One of them has been following it and is pretty excited. I guess Holland has never won a World Cup. After the game we headed to another bar and Caitlin and I switched to better drinks but Danielle was determined to like Brains. At this bar they served Brains in a glass with the company logo on it, which is a dragon. Since the brewery wasn't open we figured they didn't sell the glasses anywhere, so I had to order another Brains to that I could swipe the glass. So I'm now the proud owner of a Brains glass :)

The next day we had to take our bags to the tourist center to lock them up because the hotel wouldn't keep them for us after we checked out. So we dropped them off and then headed to the Cardiff museum. The top floor was art and the bottom floor was natural history. That was kind of odd, but they had a neat exhibit set up of Cardiff through time. It started with the earth forming and then moved on to dinosaurs and mammoths and then current animals. There was also a big room of archaeology of Wales. That was pretty neat. I didn't find any bone tools though. After the museum we tried to go to a small art gallery, but they were installing a new exhibit so we couldn't see anything. So we headed back to Poole.

When we got back I had an email from one of the museums that I'd been email asking to set up dates to come and do my research, so that was exciting. Then I had to head next door to my friend's going away party. She is going home to finish up her dissertation and then going to Belgium in August to work on an excavation there. She's the first person to leave and it was very sad :(

Thursday I went to school and got some stuff done. I also talked to my advisor about the museums and how to go about doing things and whatnot. So hopefully that goes well when it actually comes to doing it. Then I came home and bought my ticket back to America :( I had frequent flier miles so I had to book early because when I tired to use them for Christmas I waited too long and there were no flights left. So I am officially coming home on Sept 26th...I didn't realize how sad I would be to make it official, but pressing the buy button was really hard.

Friday I was going to go to school again, but instead I ran errands. I had to change my small change into bills, get small shampoos and stuff for my Italy trip, get Euros and return a library book to the local library. I got all of that done and then decided to pack a suitcase for my parents to take when they come to visit. They are going to bring an empty suitcase and I'm going to swap that for the one I've packed. I figured it would be good to do it early because I'm going to Italy and then my parents are coming and I don't want to have to be packing while people are visiting. So it isn't completely packed, but its pretty full and I still have a lot of stuff. Hopefully I can fit it all in two more suitcases. I've even started a bag to bring to a charity shop, but it isn't as full as I'd like it to be... In the evening I went to Sarah's again to have a movie night before she left. We watched Men Who Stare at Goats and it was actually pretty good.

Saturday I headed to the local library for a few hours and wrote the guide to my database for my dissertation. I also worked a bit on the intro of the dissertation. I figured it would be good to get the guide out of the way though because it is pretty thoughtless to do, but takes a bit of time. I'm not completely finished with it, but should finish it today. One less thing to do when it gets to crunch time in September. Then I met Melissa for lunch at the Chinese buffet. I had really been craving Chinese food, so despite being broke when she suggested it I agreed. It is only 3.95 for the lunch buffet though, so that isn't too bad. After lunch I had to go home and get ready to go out. A friend of a friend is getting married next month so we were having a hen night (bachelorette party) for her. We took a pink fire engine into Bournemouth and then went to a drag/strip show. It was a pretty fun evening for me. We ended up with 3 people crying though. How, I don't know. It was kind of ridiculous. Oh well.

Today I must get the guide finished and clean my room. Tomorrow I have to go to school and do laundry and then Tuesday Sara gets here! Then Wednesday we leave for Italy for a week! So there will be no blog next Sunday as I will be in Rome. I'll try to get at least a mini thing up sometime in the next two weeks, but I can't promise anything as if I don't have the pics up it may not really be worth it. My parents get here on the 23rd and I switch Sara for them at the airport and then come back to Poole. So if I don't get one up during this stuff I'll have a big one for the 1st of August. Well, I suppose that's all I've got. Here are the Wales pictures. Enjoy!