I worried that while people would want to come visit us over here – they would somehow be unable to, or it just wouldn’t come together, but I’m happy to report that is not how it’s been going and I’m so grateful for it. As much as I really enjoy the Brits, it’s nice importing over some people we really know, even if it’s never for long enough…

And, now to Wales!

Tara arrived on 4 July. Best Independence Day present ever! And, the following weekend we trekked on over to Swansea, Wales. Swansea felt pretty big to me after a few months in Wantage, and also, weirdly modern and metropolitan (note to self, leave Wantage more often, your perspective is skewing…). With all the transit, it was about 3.5-4 hours to land at our lovely dragon themed hotel. The Welsh have a serious thing for dragons, which is awesome, I’m completely down for more countries adopting mythological creatures for their flags, mascots, etc. The British Unicorns, here we come!

Upon our arrival on Friday, we wandered around downtown Swansea, including stops in a town square area complete with fountains, castle ruins, a respectable number of references to Dylan Thomas and a bunch of drunks Welsh boys yelling things and cheering on one of their ranks who was dressed to impress in neon wig and a tiny French maids costume and who then commenced to belly flop into one of the aforementioned fountains. Oh drunk Welshmen, you’re going to be our weekends reoccurring theme, aren’t you?

Next, we walked on to the Dylan Thomas Centre, which was sadly closed (that’s what you get in Europe if you try to go places after 5pm. I’m not kidding) and so, we continued on to the waterfront with its boats, nifty bridges, excellent sidewalk art and a weird boat step system that I’ve forgotten the name of (it gets boats out of the harbour, which is damned up higher than the water body around it?).

Next came beer and pub food and more drunk Welshmen (and a Scot) who sloppily hit on Tara and sang both of us old army songs from their time in the service. Yup, that’s right, we were serenaded by a Welsh veteran celebrating his 75^th birthday and he was definitely well soused.

After dinner it was too late to go do anything touristy, but too early to just keep drinking, so we settled on seeing the only movie about to start that was not animated. Magic Mike XXL. Oh yeah, this was definitely a girls weekend. The movie was delightful and afterward we ventured into a couple of bars, had some lovely cocktails and listened to some remarkably loud cover bands. We considered walking into some of the plethora of nightclubs, but realized while it might still be midnight in 1995 in Wales, but it was 10pm in 2015 for us and we didn’t need the black lights.

Saturday was for the Mumbles. We bussed over and started with delicious brunch across the street from Oystermouth Castle. And, then CASTLE!!! RUINS!!! All of the lovely scenery! Oystermouth Castle was first built in the 1100s; it’s a Norman castle, built on a hill overlooking the bay and the Mumbles and it is AWESOME. It is by far the most complete ruins I’ve ever seen, with full rooms, fireplaces, staircases and battlement (?) walkways still intact, or at least, well restored for your meandering pleasure. It was a fantastic place to wander around, although the narrow and well-trod staircases were pretty terrifying. We watched a bit of the Swansea airshow – watching fighter jets circle and swoop around the bay from on top of one of the battlements and it was pretty spiffy, if not a little silly as it was only ever one plane at a time.

After the Castle we headed down to the coast, we were hoping to head out to the lighthouse, but it turns out it’s a closed island, so not so much an option. Instead we saw the beach and the downtown with all the fun tourist accoutrement, 10 feet tall monkey statues in red bikinis, a ginormous arcade, dozens of adorably named restaurants and souvenir shops, etc. The Mumbles reminded me a lot of Lincoln City or the nicer parts of the tourist-y Oregon Coast. Everything is coastal themed and laid out as to take the best advantage of the ocean views. But, with the monkey lady, so there’s that…

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.

Saturday night was our fancy night out, just us girls and my sunburn out on the town. We finally tried cockles (which Tara was questing for, as she assures me they’re definitely an iconically Welsh thing) and I tried my first pâté. All together a pretty exciting date night.

Sunday was Cardiff (yes, I will take absolutely EVERYONE there and use them as an excuse to visit the Arab Room over and over again) and a surprise cab ride when we discovered that the buses no longer serve Wantage from the train station nearest to us. Whoops. Sadly, Tara left last Tuesday, but we’ll always have Wales… and drunk Welshmen.

The whole no car and pets at home thing almost threw a wrench in it, but we were happily able to meet up with the wonderful Brant and Mariko (and attached adorable Marlowe) for a day out in Cambridge. It was a long trip, but we happily arrived in down town Cambridge on time and no worse for wear. We had some crepes and walked around the market square, visited the outside of King’s College and couple of lovely old churches, and awaited our punting-buddies-to-be…

What is punting you may ask? Punting is awesome. Granted, I’m completely biased by the amount of fun we had doing it – the whole one time, but anyway. Punting is boating in a punt (you may now roll your eyes), which is a flat-bottomed boat which is square on the ends. The punter stands on the upper part of one of these ends and propels the punt by pushing against the river bed with a pole. Kind of like a gondola, but gondolas use oars. Punts are especially designed for small, shallow rivers.

As Brant and Mariko had the baby and none of us wanted to risk falling in the river, we did a punting tour with a professional, who propelled up along an area of the Cam River known as the Backs. So named as it runs along the back of some of the major Cambridge colleges. The tour guide gave us some facts, some history, and lots of local color commentary, so, in short, the best kind of tour guide patter. He also was incredibly good at yelling at people to pull their arms, legs, elbows, hands, etc. back into the boat so they wouldn’t get broken off when the novice punters crashed into us or each other. I’m not saying he had to yell at Matt twice… But, he did. Matt just really wanted to lose a limb apparently (he wouldn’t have necessarily lost it, but it would have definitely been a painful injury). Highlights from the tour included a great view of St. John’s College and it’s asymmetrical eagle (which is apparently there as an snub to another wealthier college just down river), another Bridge of Sighs (there are just too many of these, apparently everybody has got to have one…), the Mathematical Bridge (not built without nails, not built by Newton, not taken apart by students, or for that matter, not any of the other conspiracy theories), and last but not least,  baby water fowl (ducks, swans, geese, we had the gamut – and they dealt admirably with the obnoxious number of boaters).

After wine in punt came the Round Church, or the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is one of only four medieval round churches still in use in England, and was actually kind of delightful for not looking as complicated as EVERY-OTHER-CHURCH-IN-EUROPE… Seriously. It was built in 1130 by knights returning from the Crusades and is based on the Holy Sepulchre  in Jerusalem. Or so says Wikipedia, here. Inside the church is two stories of columns with arches between circling the nave (yup, totally had to look that word up, still don’t know what it means), which is I think the whole of the original church, though other parts have been added (but they aren’t round, so what on earth is the point!?!). Oddly enough we met an Alabaman (?) in the churches gift shop…

I’d like to make it back to Cambridge when we have more time. We didn’t get into tour inside of any of the colleges and there are some parts of the grounds/courtyards I’d like to get a better look at. Plus, as an Oxford employee, I like to think Matt is tempting fate just stepping on the premises. (Note: Oxford and Cambridge are rivals, it’s like U of O and OSU, except their insults would probably be in Latin and somebody would be wearing a monocle).

Anyway, more to come.

– a

*Note: I know Brant isn’t actually a ‘former’ Brit. And, Marlowe is only .5 an Oregonian because she’s little. Also, she and Brant both have dual citizenship, so really together they’d equal one more Oregonian, and only a single Brit, but that’s all too complicated and not nearly pithy enough for a title…