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 75th 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.