Hanging in Wales.

Lucy and I arrived at Cardiff, Wales Saturday around noon to stay the weekend. Why Wales? Well why not. I will never go to Wales if I don't go now. After all there is not too much to do there. Which we did discovered.

However, it was a great little get away.  Relaxing and chill, my roommate swears my face got tan... though I dont know how.  We lucked out with the weather though, it only rained a little Sunday morning.  Anyways, we arrived and had some great English pancakes (aka crepes) at a pancake house. Then walked through city center seeing the st David cathedral which was cool since Thursday was st Davids day (I saw it because Google changed it's homepage for it!). We also went into a little market place with lots of goodies.

It was about 1:30 so we set off to find our hostel across town. And yes it was all the way across town like 20 minutes, what a joke compared to London! We checked in and it was a nice and clean hostel.

Now that we had a place to store our bags, we walked to the bay to see the ocean, a main reason why we came! It was a good 40 minute walk but it was nice and warm and sunny. However of course as soon as we got there the clouds turned dark and rainy... Which lasted a whole five minutes.

We stood on the dock then walked pretty far down the bay until we found the park where we could sit right next to the water. Obviously I was happy even though it wasn't much, it was ocean :)

Once the extreme wind and cold got to us we walked back to warm up with a cappuccino at a cafe. Followed by a little shop with welsh cakes... If you don't know what welsh cakes are, they are basically fluffy cookies made on a flat top stove. They are amazing. I am totally finding the recipe and making them!

Since it was still light out we walked on back to City Center to check out the castle and park briefly before dinner.  The Castle was closed, but we heard it was a tourist trap anyway. Across from the Castle was a cute little Italian restaurant that we had dinner at with amazing pizza!  We took our time a dinner then headed back to the hostel.  We were back around 8:30 and decided to continue our relaxing with a night in, reading and writing.  I hadn't brought any homework so for 3  hours I sat, wrote, and read my sisterhood of the traveling pants book, guilt free until I fell asleep.

It was nice because no one was in our 12 person room until 5 dorm mates came in at 2... but they were quite entertaining to listen to so I didn't mind as much as I could have.  However, at 8 am another one who apparently never came home the night before came in and woke the whole room up telling everyone her story of the night...

That was actually good though because it got us up and moving... we left by 9:30, carrying our packs (looking like real backpackers!), we went to the national museum since it was raining.  It was cool, pretty similar to most... I'm getting quite tired of museums now a days, but it was a good way to spend the rainy morning.  By the time we left the sun was peaking out and it was lunch time.  We stopped an a little eatery that had a fantastic apple and walnut grilled cheese!  We ate so well in Wales, not necessarily Welsh food but we just did a great job picking restaurants!

After lunch we still had 3 hours so since the sun and blue skies reappeared we went back to the park by the castle and explored for a long time.  Watching the dogs run free and the birds fly around.  We had nothing else to do.  The castle is really neat, its just this massive structure in the middle of the city so its a pretty unique site, I really enjoyed starring at it for a while.

Once we were cold from being outside, we still had an hour so we went to a mall... yes a mall... but lets be real here what relaxing weekend does not include a trip to a mall.  It was weird walking into one, since I haven't been in a real mall since home.

The bus ride back was smooth, I stayed up to watch the scenery go by. Overall it was a very nice trip and I had a great time.  It was a nice change after over three straight great weekends in London.  Wales was a great start to my next weekends of travels, next weekend Barcelona and the following Brussels! For that reason I've been a little stressed with school and time. It's just a big push to perfect my time management skills! But last weekend I did do a little homework to get ahead.

Besides homework, last weekend I wondered around alone fora day... walking through Covent Garden where I saw a street performer and went to some markets.  It reminded me of one of my days in Boston where I say a street performer at the main market there.  They are always so entertaining to watch.  This one put himself through a tennis racket, while riding a 7 foot tall unicycle!  I also went to m&m world which reminded me so much of an over rated Disney store.

Last weekend I also had lunch with my dad's friend, Dag and his family at their house.  It was nice to be around some Americans that have lived in London for so long!  And then I walked around Hyde park because the weather was so nice!  I really hope that sticks around!

The past 3 weekends have honestly blended together because the weeks have been going so fast.  Between school and work it just flies!  Work has been much better, I've been getting actual client work and started to understand the agency as a whole better now; it makes the work day go much quicker. 

Anyways I have a short week ahead of me but boy is it full!  Its already March, and at this rate it will be April in no time at all.