Castles and Capitals 3: Sunshine in Wales

Our next stop during the week-long break was Cardiff, the capital of Wales, where we would be spending a couple nights in a lovely hostel along the river. Our trip began at an early hour of the morning in Dublin, and after a quick flight with Ryanair we found ourselves in Bristol, England, a gorgeous city bathed in sunlight that I had the pleasure to view out the window of a bus to the train station. Our trip to Cardiff was brief and when we arrived in Wales, we were greeted with an open blue sky and dry pavement and weather that we would be able to enjoy for the greater part of our stay, which contributed to the general feeling of relaxation I experienced here.

A lion on the Animal Wall outside Cardiff Castle

We dropped off our belongings at our fabulous hostel across from Cardiff’s Millenium Stadium and the River Taff before exploring town. Along the way towards Cardiff Castle stretches the “Animal Wall,”  a cute collection of well-sculpted stone animals set and different intervals that we had fun taking pictures with. The shopping area in the city centre was packed with visitors, and we walked around a bit before stopping in to eat an inexpensive lunch in a quiet tavern. The warm sunshine, coupled with the general atmosphere of leisure, made this day extremely relaxing and calm. We took a walk down to Cardiff Bay to enjoy the sights along the pier of the Bristol Channel and saw the exterior of the massive Millenium Centre, a building dedicated to housing artistic events like opera and theatre, and the neat reflective Water Tower outside in the plaza. In the streets around Cardiff Bay in waterfront Mermaid Quay I indulged in some shopping before we made our way back into town. For dinner that night we went out for tapas, the Spanish-based meal of appetizers, a dining experience that I found extremely fun and satisfying. 

I think Dad will like this!

At the end of the shopping centre

Cardiff Bay

The Millenium Centre

Near a recreation of an old farm

We woke up to a fantastic selection for breakfast and walked in the Welsh sunshine to our bus to St. Fagans. This amazing national history museum is designed as an outdoor walk-through of different eras of Welsh life, with buildings, stores and other structures designed as if they were from different periods. I especially enjoyed the old general store, where a pile of outdated British coins sat on the counter for anyone to examine (half crowns, shillings, sixpence and the like were phased out around 1971 on Decimal Day), and the absolutely gorgeous gardens near St. Fagans Castle where we spent a long time after lunch. Our meal consisted of fresh warm bread purchased at the bakery in the museum along with different types of cheese from the general store (I believe white wine and garlic cheddar, and something I can’t remember that was also tasty) and some rhubarb and vanilla jam that we devoured happily in the café. The weather held up for our time in the gardens. It was a perfect autumn day – leaves on the grass, a little chill, sunshine and a bright sky covered in a few fluffy white and grey clouds – and before long we realized we needed to catch a bus back into town. While relaxing and the bus stop we chatted with an older couple visiting the museum from Northern Wales. They would speak Welsh to each other, and conversed with us about how the language is taught in some schools at an early age. 

Old Celtic village

Near the gardens

Cardiff Castle

Back at the hostel we prepared to head out for dinner and took a bus back to Mermaid Quay to meet a friend of one of the group who was attending Cardiff University. We enjoyed food and laughter for three hours in an upstairs restaurant near the bay before we called it a night.

After a beautiful and relaxing couple of days in sunshiny Wales, it was on to London for the remainder of the trip!

Castles and Capitals 2: Dublin and County Clare

The next few posts concern my mid-semester break during the week of October 22^nd through the 30^th, during which we took a grand tour of the British Isles via capitals Dublin, Cardiff, and London!

Our first day was Saturday the 22^nd, when we hopped on a plane out of the country to Dublin. After a little hour long jaunt over the ocean we finally saw our first glimpse of the brilliantly green Irish countryside as we landed, and in the airport we exchanged our pounds for colorful Irish euro notes and bought expensive airport bagels to break them into change (the Irish euro coins have a very graceful little harp on the back). There was our first taste of rain while we waited for the bus (little did we know what was to come) and after a trip into town we somehow managed to get off at the correct stop and found ourselves right outside the hostel. That night was mercifully dry and so we explored the Temple Bar area just near our place, a popular and fun night atmosphere where I enjoyed a dinner of Irish stew in an upstairs pub with friends and later got gelato down the street. We stopped in for some good live music before continuing our exploration along the River Liffey, taking pictures of gorgeous, columned buildings lit up from the ground, and the harp-like Beckett Bridge. When I think of Dublin now I remember how lively, urban, and relaxed the city seemed that first night. 

Temple Bar at night

Bank of Ireland

Samuel Beckett Bridge

The River Liffey

The next day, Sunday, we enjoyed a nice hostel breakfast and took a walk out of the main city centre towards what my Dublin map dictates as the “cathedral district.” I walked in the shadow of the impressive St. Patrick’s cathedral and saw the exterior of Christ Church before a few of us moved on to Dublin Castle. After picking up some souvenirs we took the tour of the beautiful state rooms and the impressive hall where Ireland’s presidential inaugurations take place! 

The bells of St. Patrick's were ringing when we arrived! Interestingly, it is an Anglican church now.

Me in the area outside Dublin Castle

A room inside the castle

Irish license plates are very long! See the Gaelic above the numbers?

Above the door to the chapel area

After lunch at an American 50’s themed café, we took a guided walk through Trinity College, an old and beautiful campus right in the middle of the capital. The system of governance (formed in some part in the 1600s) and some of the college traditions (see my extra note on Commons* at the end of this post) struck me as something I would read about in a piece of 19^th century literature about boy’s boarding schools (the official name of the school alone is very telling: The Provost, Fellows and Scholars of the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin would not fit tidily on a hoodie). Nevertheless, I enjoyed seeing another UK university campus, and especially enjoyed the old library, which contained an exhibit about the Book of Kells and the beautiful book itself! The old library also housed the “Long Room,” a gorgeous and staggeringly tall collection of old books under a dark, rounded ceiling. 

A view of the city

The bell tower on the campus at Trinity College Dublin is supposed to be bad luck for students to walk under; our student guide certainly believed it and walked around to meet us on the other side!

Lovely buildings in the city

It is important to note that we were absolutely soaked through the entire day, and that strong winds rendered our umbrellas useless for the most part, but the worst was yet to come…

The next day, a few of us in the group decided to take a day-long trip with a tour company across the country to see the Cliffs of Moher, one of Ireland’s most popular attractions and an amazingly beautiful landscape. Our day began with a nice view of the Irish countryside (traveling from coast to coast took about 2 and a half hours) and eventually we made our way through The Burren, a rocky landscape in County Clare. From a distance I thought the hills all around were covered with a sort of bluish heather or other flora, but it turned out to be a mosaic of stone! Our bus driver explained the impossibility of growing crops on the land and the efforts farmers took to remove the rock, which ended up being reused for the stone walls snaking up and down the hills around us. We had our own experience on an Irish farm, as the tour included a nice walk through the speckly Burren Mountains behind the Connolly family home, where we ended up at the end for some pie and tea. From the higher parts of the walk I could see the coast past a wide, misty plain, complete with an old church ruin and wintry little trees. 

Panorama of the view from the walk

The family that owned the farm had a cute dog!

This hill is not covered in some kind of tree or grass- look close and you can see all the small rocks!

Our tour continued on from the farm past a captivating countryside and coastline, with mist, castle towers, abandoned stone barns overrun with rich greenery, and strange rock formations protruding through the grass. We stopped at an ancient structure called a “portal tomb” dating from around 4200 BC (older than Stonehenge!) that stood in solitude amongst a whole field of jigsaw-like rocks underfoot. 

A cute donkey in Doolin

We stopped to eat in a small town called Doolin before arriving at the much anticipated Cliffs of Moher! I could instantly see why they cause such a fuss, and we explored the trail as far along the cliff as we could in the time allowed to see as much as possible of the towering, emerald green layers of cliffs and the pretty blue ocean. The little O’Brien’s Tower added a castle-like flair to the view.

O'Brien's Tower is the small dot on the left-hand side of the cliff. We walked over there as well

Friends!

Our bus driver serenaded us with traditional Irish songs to and from an unscheduled stop that I lamentably cannot find a name for, but what I believe I overheard referred to as “mini cliffs” still part of the larger Cliffs of Moher. The rock formations near the coast were flat as pavement, but with massive cracks, and I felt like I was hopping around on the top of a flaky brownie. It was a lot of fun and we explored the coast gleefully until we were called to leave.

We stopped for a quick bite in Galway before catching a transfer bus home as the sun set. For a while all was peaceful until our driver informed us that due to severe rain, we might not be able to drive back into the city! Courtesy of free wi-fi provided on board the bus, I was able to look up the situation in Dublin: the capital had received a month’s worth of rain in 24 hours! Streets, houses, even buses were flooding, and I overheard locals on board calling friends for information about the state of their lodgings (one gentleman’s flat was flooded, and he decided with a laugh just to ride the bus back to Galway- the Irish were very easygoing). On our way to a stop at the airport I caught a glimpse of cars abandoned in the water-logged streets, and the River Liffey looked decidedly swollen when we were walking back to our hostel, but luckily there was no trouble making it back for the night before an early start in the morning to Cardiff, Wales.

A very nice little castle on the drive home

My time in Ireland was very brief, but I really enjoyed both the vibe of Dublin and the calm of the countryside and hope sometime to make it to other parts of the country as well! Perhaps next time the rain will lay low – I don’t think my shoes will ever be the same again.

The next part of my trip began on October the 25^th, a bright and sunny day in Wales!

*From the Trinity College Dublin website for “Scholars,” or university students who have passed a series of examinations that entitle them to free room and board: “Commons is a three-course meal served each weekday in the Dining Hall on campus. It has been around for centuries, and was originally attended by almost all of the College population where they might meet and discuss ideas. Before and after Commons, one of the Scholars gets up and recites a traditional Grace, in Latin, from memory.” We definitely don’t have anything like this at Washington State, let alone Stirling!

Cougs Abroad Prompt 4: Investing In Your Experience

Cougs Abroad Blog Squad asks me to reflect on the goals I set for myself before I began my study abroad experience. While some of the goals have been met, I feel that I have changed the way I want to experience things and am excited to involve myself in “investing in my experience” by setting new, more manageable goals every day.

One of the expectations that I am happily meeting during my time abroad is traveling. Every week my friends and I seem to find somewhere new to travel to, and I am very grateful to have companions that are just as interested in experiencing the UK as I am (I am also grateful to be able to hang out with wonderful people on campus- I have definitely made good friends!). I have seen both nearby and more distant sights, from castles and coffee shops in my own town, to the country-hopping week break from class in which I toured Ireland, Wales and England, and am happily planning even more adventures (within reason of budget) for the coming weeks.

However, time flies when you have fun, and I realized with some panic the other day that my time abroad was more than halfway done, and in just 35 short days I would be back at home – hardly more than a month! In order to properly enjoy the rest of my time here I need to set a goal every day to see something new: whether it’s eating at a new place downtown, taking a walk on a trail on campus I haven’t seen before, or inviting friends to see a sight a little ways out of town. While I might not have much time or money left in my travels, seeing the small things nearby can enrich my experience just as much as my longer trips around the UK.

For the rest of my stay here, my traveling goals are to see a few specific places in Scotland: St. Andrews, Glasgow, the Isle of Skye, and a return to Edinburgh; as well as another short stay in London and a possible visit to Mousehole, Cornwall to pay homage to “Mousehole Cat Day” or “Tom Bawcock’s Eve,” a permanent part of my family’s Christmas celebrations courtesy of the television show based on a children’s book. More locally I want to climb back up to the top of the Wallace Monument and pay to take the stairs to see the view, cross the Stirling Bridge on foot, and find more good places to eat in town before I go.

I have been blessed with an amazing experience so far, and if it were to be ended suddenly I would be content and happy knowing I have visited so many places and gotten to know all the people I have. That being said, I hope time slows down in the next month so that I might be able to balance my schoolwork and campus life and scratch the itch of traveling. I would love to see a little Scottish snow before I go and take part in a few early Christmas activities as well. There is so much left to do and I am so grateful I am able to take it one day at a time.

My goal for tomorrow? To fully enjoy my University “chores” of grocery shopping (online with free delivery to my door, perhaps), laundry, class, dinner preparation and other odds and ends to their fullest, because you never know what you’ll miss when everything changes.

Castles and Capitals 1: My adventures before the break

With the rush of mid-semester schoolwork it has been difficult for me to find time to write about my most recent adventures and experiences abroad, and for that I apologize! I hope all I am about to write, and all the pictures I will post, will make up for it.

The first thing I wanted to revisit was my excellent day trip with my friend Annamarie through Timberbush Tours out of Edinburgh. We visited a few castles and saw the beautiful northeast coast of England in what was once called Northumbria, when the region was its own medieval kingdom. This was my first time properly into England, and I thought it was interesting that the only mark of passing the border was a small turn out along the road with two flags, one for St. George’s Cross and the other for St. Andew’s, adopted by England and Scotland respectively. Our first stop was a little island off the coast called Lindisfarne, or the “Holy Island” for its monastery and production of the Lindisfarne Gospels, which had a beautiful ruined abbey and castle. The area had been hit by a wind storm the evening before and so the power was out in all the cafés and shops, and the wind kept coming – I have only ever felt this powerful a gale since the Pali lookout on Oahu! Driving in and out of the little coastal community involved a knowledge of the tides, which would cover the road at various times of the day. 

Driving in, the tide crept onto the road a bit

The ruined abbey with Lindisfarne Castle in the back

The castle a little closer

The coast from the castle

We continued along to another castle called Bamburgh and stopped to take a quick picture before reaching the highlight, Alnwick Castle (pronounced like “Anick” but with the a like “apple”). This place appeared in the first Harry Potter movie as the location of Harry’s first flying lesson with his class and Madam Hooch! When re-watching the scene from the movie, it was really fun to be able to recognize the castle exterior. 

Myself at Alnwick Castle

A picture from the movie...

...and the place where it was shot!

 After exploring the grounds and the inside, we continued on the tour to a field known as Flodden where James IV of Scotland was defeated by the English in the early 1500s. Annamarie and I grabbed a nice pot of tea and some cake at a shop in a little town called Coldstream. After that we enjoyed a relaxing ride back up to Edinburgh!