There be Wales here!*

Actually, there were. At the National Museum & Gallery of Wales.

Last weekend, to cure my desperate need to get out and do something, I travelled to Wales with my friends Cory & Ben. Specifically, we went to the Welsh capital Cardiff, which meant that I can now say I've been to all the capitals of the UK except Belfast. Despite looking fairly close on a map, Cardiff is actually a little more than four hours from Lancaster by train.

Once there, we took advantage of the warm and sunny weather and toured the grounds of Cardiff Castle, which predates 1066 and Uncle William by several decades. In my rankings of Very Old Constructions I've Seen in Europe I'd give it high marks, just above Edinburgh Castle. Among the highlights was the Norman Keep -- a hilltop tower with great views of the city -- and the apartments of the Marquis de Bute, whose exact importance I cannot grasp from Wikipedia but who was no doubt Important Enough to Have a Title. There were also some pretty neat tunnels along the walls of the place.

Our amble around Cardiff consisted mainly of pointing out odd instances of the Welsh language (actually, that was mostly me) and finding places to eat. I wanted to try laverbread balls, which is a Welsh snack made from seaweed, but none of the places we found had any. Instead I settled for Welsh roast beef, as well as my first taste of Yorkshire Pudding (verdict: rather underwhelming, actually).

We stayed overnight and luckily the price of the hostel was lower than what was advertised online. This seemed to be a running theme throughout the trip, seeing as on two occasions the cost of our meals turned out to be less than what was listed on the menu. Thanks, Wales!--it certainly gives you extra points.

On our second day we headed over to the National Museum and Gallery of Wales. I was surprised to find this was more of a natural history museum than a museum showcasing Welsh history, so there were no exhibits on the Welsh hero Gryfffflllyg (pronounced "Aaron") or on the myriad violent Welsh separatist movements. Still, there were some really cool ancient rocks on display and a model of a basking shark, the largest fish to live around Britain.

Besides from a walk through the vast Bute Park, this pretty much describes my time in Wales. The train ride home was even longer, about five hours, but we did get a stopover in Bristol which gave us time to walk around a bit and thus add the city to the list of places in Britain where I've been. Wales is a beautiful place, and I think it would've been a nice place to study abroad had I not picked Lancaster. I certainly would've felt at home, as from the train I saw more cows than I've seen for months.

So what has been going on in Lancaster? I've had two exams these past few weeks, one for Post-Authoritarian Transformation and one for Women Writers. I think Post-Autho went better than WW, if only because for the latter I only had to write one essay-length answer, which means my grade essentially rests on one answer. Man, it's hard converting every 'z' to an 's'... My next, and last, exam is June 10.

It's actually been quite sunny and warm the past week, and not just English Warm--I'm talking about highs in the 70s. I think the weather's supposed to stay nice pretty much up until I leave, so that's a nice bonus. I don't know if I'm going to do anymore major travelling in the two weeks. I definitely need to get to coastal Morecambe (pronounced "Morry Cambie"**), which is a few miles away, and see the beach. I may also go to Leeds, and possibly Hadrian's Wall or Glasgow, where, since it's June, night lasts approximately 17 minutes. I would like to have gone to the Isle of Man, but it doesn't look like that will happen.

Will there be another blog post from England? Only time will tell. In British news stay tuned to June 4, where the British National Party (motto: "Hitler Wasn't Such A Bad Guy") stands a chance of gaining a seat in the European Parliament.

*Thanks to Mom for the title
**Not really. It's "Morcum".