I love England and it's been great to live here for the last few months. But the United Kingdom isn't just England and before I left I wanted to see a part of the United Kingdom that wasn't England and experience that. I really wanted to go to Scotland, but that is quite a long ways away so I went to Wales! Cardiff to be exact! It was fantastic! I loved Wales! One thing about Wales is that they love Rugby! It was match day in Cardiff and the Welsh team was playing Australia. There were a lot of people out for the match and it was really cool to see everyone all dressed in dragon hats, their rugby gear, and wearing flags. Unfortunately we couldn't get tickets early enough to get the cheap ones so we had to skip out on the match. In Cardiff we walked along the streets a bit seeing the shops, and people in the streets selling goods for the match later that day. We went to the Cardiff Castle! It was really cool! The castle is pretty cool but one of the parts I really liked was seeing the tunnels that they used in WW2. The castle wasn't really anything extraordinary in itself though. It was cool to look at and had a good view of the city. It is really old though and some of the walls are from the Roman era. After that we went and explored a bit more of the city. We ate Welsh cakes and they were fantastic!!! They're kinda like English scones, but better! We were going to buy a bunch to take home but unfortunately the shop closed before we could get to it. There was a Christmas market going on that day too! After we had lunch we walked down to the bay. We saw the Millennium Centre which was cool! The bay was really pretty and it would have been cool to stay longer but we wanted to walk back before it got dark. There is also a Norwegian Church down at the bay. But kinda the real reason that we went there was to go to the Doctor Who Experience! I'm a bit of a fan so I kinda had to go while in Cardiff! It was so cool!!! The beginning was a walk through experience and you could walk into the TARDIS and then walk though some other scenes. The second part had some stuff from the show and they have a lot of the stuff that was actually used in the show. They have the outfits for each of the doctors and a couple of the TARDISs and an old TARDIS set, and David Tennant's TARDIS set! They also had a lot of the sonic screwdrivers, several Daleks, weeping angels, cybermen, the Face of Boe, the companion's costumes, and a ton of stuff! It was really cool! We went back into the city centre after we had gone through the exhibit. The match was over and unfortunately it wasn't good news for the Welsh...they had lost 12-14 in the last two minutes. Back in the city centre we ate dinner, looked around a bit more, and then headed back to Oxford.
It was such a fun day! I loved Wales! The people are very different than the English, which I had heard but it's interesting to see. I would love to go back and see some more of Wales and Cardiff, and go to a rugby match! It was cool to see everything written in both Welsh and English and hear people (though not many) speaking Welsh. I wish more did, it is a really cool language! The girl I travelled with said that she felt like Cardiff wasn't very British. I mean it's certainly different than London or other English cities, but it did feel more European. I loved it though! People sure weren't expecting American accents when we talked though. That may have been because I was wearing a Welsh team scarf...You hear a lot of people saying that Cardiff is boring or what not but I liked it a lot!
(P.S. Recently I haven't been posting pictures here on the blog. I just want to clarify that it isn't because I'm lazy, it's because it's a pain to put them up with the WiFi as it is and all. No promises but maybe I'll post a bunch of pictures on here when I'm back home in the States. )
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