Eisteddfod

That’s pronounced I-steth-vod. It’s basically a county fair on steroids, and Welsh-ified. It’s a country-wide celebration of all things Welsh, so everyone speaks Welsh, all the signs are in Welsh, they sell hand-crafted Welsh stuff, and the central event is “the crowning of the bard,” a contest of Welsh poetry that’s pretty serious stuff. They have one every year, switching off between Northern and Southern Wales, since they have pretty distinct subcultures. This year it was in Bala in Northern Wales, about a three hour drive from Cardiff. We got in and just walked around, watching the Welsh speakers from our program converse with the natives and looking at the little booths and picking up free stuff from who ever was giving it out. I got like 10 pens from universities and women’s organizations and community projects and stuff. The water treatment plant even gave us flash drives and mousepads! It was super cool.

The big pink tent where they hold all the events

I also bought a new shoulder bag since mine is basically shredding, and bought a few other small souvenirs. I helped Diana pick out a musical instrument for her dad and leafed through some music books they had of Welsh folk songs and stuff. It was a great day, but pretty tiring, so when we got to the hostel in Conwy, I decided to just settle in and go to bed. Conwy’s hostel was even nicer than the one in Penzance – we only had four in each room, and had a bathroom right in our room! Believe me, that’s a real rarity in hostels. The beds were comfy and the views in the cafeteria were incredible. Out one window you could see the whole town laid out, and out the other was the wild Northern Welsh countryside, with rolling green hills and trees. It was pretty amazing. I decided I’d just stay there and never go home, but of course Tom said they wouldn’t let me. We stayed there Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights, so we really got to enjoy it and the beautiful little town it was in. Conwy is definitely one of my favorite places.


The views out of the hostel windows...

Cornwall

Thursday we got up early and drove down to Cornwall, the extreme southwest of England. We started the day at Tintagel Castle, rumored site of King Arthur’s conception, but now it’s only ruins. It sits right on the shore of the Atlantic – simply beautiful! Hopefully the pictures will help you get the idea. We climbed all over the rocks and explored a little tunnel, though we couldn’t explore “Merlin’s Cave” because it’s a tidal cave and our trip was during high tide, so it was too dangerous.

Ocean viewThe Atlantic!
The group on the hike up to the castleThe "tunnel" we followed for like 20 feetSo happy to be here!
By the time we hiked back to town, I was starving, so some of us popped into a pasty shop to get traditional Cornish pasties. Mmmm, so good! They’re full of steak, potatoes, and onions, so basically a Sunday dinner in a big flaky pastry shell. We’d had several pasties before – there are Greggs all over Britain – but how often do you get to eat a Cornish pasty in Cornwall? Once in a lifetime : )

Me and Zoe enjoying the best pasties EVER!
We spent the rest of the afternoon at St. Ives, a little beach town totally geared toward tourists. The day was pretty nice, even if we weren’t tempted to swim, so we climbed around on the rocks, waded in the water, and walked through a bunch of little art shops in town. It was so warm that I actually got a little sunburned! I didn’t even know that was possible here!

Wading on the beachclimbing on the rocks
In the last few hours of daylight we went to some Neolithic sites that were basically some rocks in fields : ) Lanyon Quoit and Men an Tol were pretty cool, and we had fun getting some pictures. The hikes out to the sites were particularly fun, considering that they were covered in slugs and Camilla cannot stand slugs. She actually thought they were make-believe creatures before this trip. Forgive her, she’s from Las Vegas, so she kind of freaked when she found one in our house the second week…

I work out... at Lanyon Quoit!One of Tom's better - but less executable - ideasMen an Tol. They're about waist-high, so not spectacular
We checked into our youth hostel in Penzance to find that it had been completely remodeled. It was so nice! We had five of us in each room, and the beds were way more comfortable than ours at home. It was clean, quiet, and served a really mean hot breakfast. I wanted to stay there forever!

Friday we got up and drove to St. Michael’s Mount, a tidal peninsula not far from Penzance. We arrived at high tide, so we had to take the boat out to the island. There’s a big castle on top of the mountain, and the family who owned it in the 1600s still lives there! Weird. We walked up the path and got some gorgeous views of the ocean and the island and the castle itself. We got to tour most of the house, though not the part that the family lives in, obviously. They wouldn’t allow photography inside the building, but I got some great shots of the outside and the view and such. It was a cloudy day, but barely sprinkled, so we were pretty thankful. At the end of our visit it was still high tide, so we got back on a boat and went to the mainland. When we got back in the car, it started raining pretty hard, so we only stopped to look at one more Neolithic site, Hurler’s stones, and then booked it home. We had planned to visit Exeter Cathedral, but we were all pretty tired, and some girls wanted to get home as early as possible to get to a YSA dance in Merthyr Tydfil that night.

View of the island from the shoreGetting into the boat The castle!On one of the turretsView from the top. Such a pretty coastline! Can you imagine looking out your window everyday and seeing that?
I was sad to leave Cornwall, but happy to get home to some internet access : )

Intermediate Post

The last two weeks we’ve been mostly out of town, so no internet cafes to update the blog. Unfortunately those are the days when we do the most. So for a while my posts will be really behind, because I’m trying to cover it all. And uploading pictures is a bit hard, too. Sorry I can’t seem to get up text and pictures in the same post…

Bath and Wells Cathedral

Wednesday we were in Bath. It had been pretty good weather so far in the week so I guess that should have warned us; it rained allllll day in Bath. The sky kept up a constant drizzle from morning to night, and the icy wind didn’t help. Luckily we found enough things to do that it wasn’t so bad.

We started at the Fashion Museum in Bath – a pretty cool attraction. They had a special exhibit on The Supremes that was fun, and then they had all their other pieces in the basement, tracing certain trends and such. It was interesting. In one of the first rooms, they had some real corsets and crinolines for visitors to try on. Ouch.

After the fashion museum, we went to The Circus and The Royal Crescent, settings for more than one Jane Austen scene. We also stopped at The Jane Austen Centre, an overpriced tour of something rather dull that none of us felt like paying for. But we did look around their gift shop and I got a picture with Jane…

I had to squint so the rain wouldn't get in my eyes The Royal CrescentME and the Royal Crescent
We drove over to Wells Cathedral for Evensong, but because England hates us, Wells had given their choir the night off, so there was no service. Oh well. We wandered around for about an hour or so, and I think Wells was one of my favorite Cathedrals/Churches/Abbeys we’ve visited. The paintings on the ceiling were gorgeous, and the architecture was a little more unique.
Up the neve, from the center all the way to the backA close up of the painted ceilings - aren't they gorgeous?
After Wells, we drove back over to Bath and toured the Roman Bath Museum as a group. It was fascinating, with so many rooms to look through, artifacts they’d discovered, and stories to hear. I think Dad, Jeff, and Ben would have particularly enjoyed seeing how the baths worked and how the Romans arranged things. You guys need to come see it : )
Really cool shot of the bath, the pavilion, and Bath Abbey in the backgroundWanna take a swim?Once went over the door to the baths. Much cooler than this picture makes it look
That ended our day in Bath, and as we pulled out of our parking lot, the rain let up. Figures.

P.S. I didn’t hear the mice for four days straight, then woke Wednesday to the pitter-patter of little feet. I hate this house.

Gadfield Elm and Stratford

Tuesday we piled into the van and drove to Gadfield Elm, the first LDS chapel in Great Britain. The land was bought by the church and the chapel has been restored. It sits by itself in the middle of some farmland. It was beautiful, if a bit chilly, and we looked around a bit before driving a little further to a little pond on Benbow Hill Farm, also owned by the church, where Wilford Woodruff performed the first baptisms in Great Britain. They were doing some clean-up from a big storm, so that’s why the tree is falling in the pond.

Outside of the chapel
Inside the chapel. So beautifully simple.Benbow Hill Farm Pond. Originally much bigger. And cleaner.We made a couple quick stops at Tewkesbury Abbey (the best mulberry trees!) and Gloucester Cathedral (where they filmed much of Harry Potter). Those were fun to visit, and had so many cool things to see. I don’t get tired of seeing Cathedrals and Abbeys : )

Tewkesbury Cathedral

In Gloucester Cathedral!

The girls in the hallway. You can't tell, but they're in the process of re-enacting a scene from Harry Potter six, which we've seen....was if four times by then? It's now six.
We spent the rest of the day in Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace and home of Shakespeare. Seeing that place was a real dream come true for me. We toured his parents’ home – where he was born – and then the church where he attended and part of him is buried. Grotesquely enough, only half his remains are in Stratford. The other half of him is buried in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey. Weird. But I’m glad I got to see him here, since Westminster wouldn’t let us in without paying an exorbitant amount of money. The grounds surrounding the church were just beautiful as well. We wandered around there for a while, admiring the old cemetery and the view of the river.

I'm in Stratford!

Shakespeare's childhood homeIn front of Shakespeare's houseStratford's church and cemeteryPart of Shakespeare's remains are buried here in the Stratford church, up by the altar. On the wall to the left of his grave, where they put a statue and a tribute to himJust sitting around in the cemetery
Most of the places to tour closed at about 5, so a few other girls and I spent the hours between 5 and 7 stopping by the grocery store to get dinner and chatting while we ate. Then we met our whole group at the Courtyard Theatre to see As You Like It. I was able to sneak one picture of the stage before it started, though it isn’t very good. The play was quite funny and well-acted, costumed, set, everything. We enjoyed it a lot. Every seat in the theatre was a good seat with a great view of the stage. Brilliant : )

The stage before the play started. A really bad picture, but one nonetheless. Straight in front is the audience on the left of the stage (I'm on the right of the stage), so the stage itself projects out from the right, with a beam of light shining across it.
Then came the long drive home to Cardiff.

St Fagan's

Monday was actually sunny – miracle of miracles – and we spent most of the day at St. Fagan’s Museum, an “open air museum” of several old buildings from Welsh history. It’s kind of a hard concept to explain, but believe me, it was really cool. It was basically a big park with all these cool buildings you could walk around. My favorite part was the castle and gardens. They were so beautiful. Hopefully the pictures will give you a good idea.

Me in front of the big "castle" and gardens

With a lightpost, walking between exhibitsIn the gardens of the "castle" - I felt like I was in The Secret Garden!The "castle" that really looks more like an Elizabethan Great HouseStatue in the gardensIn the gardensThey had a whole section of marigolds :)Thatch roof!