I took a day trip to Cardiff yesterday. Because I don't have a car (and too afraid to drive here to rent) I'm kind of limited to what and where I get to travel. There is a bus company based out of Cheltenham that does excursions, mostly shopping trips for older people, but the trips are fairly cheap. Yesterday was their monthly trip to Cardiff. Most of the passengers were indeed elderly and then some grandparents with their grand kids. Sitting directly behind me was an old man sporting a cream color fleece jacket with images of tan kittens on the bottom, and his deaf wife. The entire journey he whistled, hummed, repeated overheard conversations under his breath and pointed to every pasture filled with sheep, pigs, ponies and cows. Not sure that his wife isn't faking her deafness.
The forecast had called for rain, but I lucked out and it was sunny the entire day. (Sunny being relative. You can tell from the pictures that there were many clouds in the sky. But I was actually able to remove my jacket for an hour and didn't open my umbrella once, so that was pretty successful.)
I went to the museum. It's pretty big and is a mixture of natural history and art and lots of Welsh culture. I usually get a headache after spending an hour or so in a museum. I think it's a mixture of shifting focus from reading tiny placards and then trying to stare at a huge painting. Add the fact that the placards are written in Welsh first and English second and I didn't last more than an hour.
The picture below is the top of the city hall, which is next to the museum and the picture on the right is United Kingdom Coat of Arms and then Welsh dragons.
The next two photo's are locations from Torchwood. Don't know what that is? Missing out. (Sorry Dr. Who fans, I couldn't find the Tardis.)
Finally got to see my first castle. Not sure that moat would really keep out that many invaders...
Along the castle wall are carved animals. This one is my favorite.
And here are more...
And some more....(I did take a picture of every animal but I will spare you.)
Behind the castle is a park. I did have to do some homework during the day (I get too sick if I read on the bus) and the park was the perfect place to catch up on my reading. The river Taff runs through Cardiff, which is to the left of these large knobbly trees. Even though I was cold, there were a fair amount of people out swimming in the river. I love the carved flowers in the tree trunk.
There must be something in the water here in the UK because I've turned into a hobbit too! I have no idea what camera setting the woman put my camera on to give me such short legs.
As I was walking back to the bus a naked bike tour rode past. These were my thoughts as they rode past:
a) good thing for them the weather forecast turned out to be wrong
b) men of Wales are mostly uncircumcised (what? you'd look too.)
c) I wouldn't care about people seeing me nude, but I wouldn't want a bike seat up my bum.
Here they are making a run for it.
While I had my camera out, I'll walk you through my almost daily journey through this park. On nice days I do my morning reading in front of the fountain, eat lunch, and then walk on to campus to write up on what I've read. It's a favorite place for lunch hang-out and sometimes I do get a little distracted watching people.
I am now walking on the path to exit the park. (This is around where the duckies were hanging out.)
Continuing along the path.
And now I'm exiting the park. (Also used as an entrance upon my return home.) I like to think of these different areas as outdoor rooms. This park has three or four such rooms with very different atmospheres. If you click to enlarge this photo you can see that it is still raining. It was difficult to snap the photo's while holding an umbrella overhead.
