To Wales and Back

We made it to Wales and back alive, which at times seemed doubtful for the three of us (Harv, Sally, and I).

Friday we went to Hummus Brothers for dinner in Soho after our friend Thomas, who studied here last summer, recommended that we give it a try. Harvey and I tried aloe vera juice, which definitely was life changing, as was the hummus.

Saturday we woke up at 6:30 to get ready and make the trek to Victoria Station for our coach ride to Wales. We made it right on time at 8:00am and then slept for a majority of the way. Cardiff was our destination, and is also the capital of Wales. As we were driving into town we noticed that there were hundreds of people dressed in red rugby jerseys...apparently, the European Rugby Finals were taking place in Cardiff yesterday. We soon discovered that the red team was Munster from Ireland, and the other team was Toulouse from France. The crowd, which seemed to expand exponentially as the day went on, was in strong support of Munster, and took every possible moment to chant, yell, and scream it for all to hear. They even closed down the city streets to accommodate for the growing, and increasingly intoxicated, crowd. One Irish supporter stopped us to ask for directions to the stadium, and when we responded that we weren't really sure but gave him a general idea of where it was, he started laughing and said something to the effect of "how did I pick the only 3 yanks in this city today to ask for directions??" Yanks are what Americans are commonly called over here, and I'm sure it is one of the only times that our Texas/Kentucky accents will be mistaken for that of "yanks". He was kind enough to explain all about the match and the teams, and wished us a great stay in Wales.

We took one of those cheesy double decker bus tours around the city, and our poor guide Robert could barely speak over the rowdy bus full of rugby supporters, but it was still enjoyable. We also toured a castle that was near the city center, and visited the National Museum of Wales before a little shopping and then running after our bus. We had a hard time finding where the bus was supposed to load, because it was in a completely different place than where we were dropped off, but ran up to the curb right as the 509 to London pulled up. The drive home was beautiful- the countryside between London and Cardiff was breathtaking.

Today has been a lazy day, just working more on the stuff we brought home to do for the Diorama. Talk to you all soon!