10 – 12 March 2011
Wales!
Ok, this is going to be SHORT.
Well, if I wanted to make this truly short, I could summarize Wales in three words: sheep, singing, and daffodils. But I guess I’ll elaborate just a tad.
The first day in Wales was… not in Wales. Kind of confusing, I know. We left for a three day trip to Wales and we didn’t get to Wales until 10.30am the second day. Don’t ask.
The afternoon of the first day was spent driving around to different LDS Church History sites around southwest England. All the sites were really cool, but by the end of the day we were pretty much sick of being in that bus.
[Insert pics with captions… when the internet works… i.e. when I get to the states…]
The second day we say the ruins of Tyntern (sp?) Abbey and then went down into the Big Pit.
The Big Pit was the largest coal mine (in circumference, not depth) in Wales. It is not in operation anymore so we donned helmets, safety belts, and head lamps and went down a 300 ft shaft. It was so cool. My group got lucky – the first group apparently had a guide who told them about every accident he had ever witnessed. Mine told ghost stories and would randomly break out in the Welsh national anthem. At one point, we were all going through a narrow corridor with many low rafters. Two girls hit their heads in quick succession and somehow our guide at the front combined their two exclamations – “I lost my light!” and “Ah, Shizz…” – into “I lost my light and need a sh**!” He was decided to make the most of this and made fun of this one girl he pinned it on for the next five minutes, trying to get her to tell him how we cuss in America and how this cause and effect statement worked. We were all laughing so hard we couldn’t even attempt to explain that we don’t swear. When we got back to the lift up to the surface, we all crammed into the cage and he shut the gate. He then informed us that the lift wasn’t moving until we sang our national anthem. We all laughed. Then we realized he was serious. We finally just burst out shouting the Star-Spangled Banner. It was difficult, considering we were still laughing, and we eeked out “Home of the brave!!” as we saw sunlight again.
That night we were in Cardiff and went down to the Bay to take pictures and stopped at a pub for dinner. I ordered vegetable bangers and mash – sausages made of veggies with mashed potatoes and cheese.
The next day as we walked through Cardiff we enjoyed the pre-game festivities for the Wales v. Ireland rugby match. We walked amid the daffodils and leprechauns in the street and enjoyed the general splendor. Emily saw a book fair in front of a Baptist church raising money for their organ and I had fun chatting with some old people while Emily perused the books. I did a five minute “Fitness Challenge” out in the street and got a goodie bag full of Under-Armor stuff. All for men. Maybe I’ll give it to my brother-in-law…
Favorite foods: Welshcakes (between a cookie and pancake with raisins) and Bara Brith (kind of a fruitcake).
The last stop was a Welsh outdoor history museum. They had really good ice cream called “Celtic Crunch.” Ok, and there were some pretty cool buildings too…
