Cardiff

After some train shenanigans, I've arrived for my one night in Cardiff. This is my only stop in Wales, and I'm sort of okay with that.

In five rail journeys, today's was the only one with a connection, so of course today's was the only one running behind. The pickup in York was 12 minutes late due to someone being hit by a train further up the line. That doesn't seem like much until you realize that I only had 11 minutes to make my connection in Bristol. Given that stations here often have long labyrinths between platforms -- and 12 is more than 11 -- I figured that wasn't enough time. To make it more fun, an old woman boarded at Leeds who had a reservation for the same seat that I did. After some discussion, she decided to take the open spot next to me and interrupt my reading the whole way to complain about the slow speed and lateness of the train. As we neared Bristol, however, she admitted that she'd been worrying about missing her connection for 2 weeks, so I forgave her whining. In the end, we made up some time and I caught train #2, just barely.

Cardiff is nice; the city centre is small and walkable, but not in the charming old-world way of York. It seems to have been built there recently as a distraction for tourists on their way to the castle.

The castle, yes, I saw it. It's rather large and impressive like Edinburgh, but they charge to go inside the walls, and paying for a ticket didn't impress me particularly. I stayed outside the walls and instead strolled around the adjoining arboretum in Bute Park. Afterwards, back in the city centre, I stopped briefly to listen to a pipe band perform (apparently there's some St David celebration going on?), and did a bit of shopping.

Unfortunately, my shopping wasn't especially successful. My one objective in Cardiff is to get a gift for Jonathan, because he's a big Dr Who fan, and evidently they film here. I went into a few touristy shops and saw plenty of crap covered in dragons and Welsh slogans, but that's about it. To complicate matters, I know fuck all about Dr Who. No, that's not true; I know tardis. I'm not entirely sure what a tardis is, or what Inspector Spacetime does with it, but I have definitely heard the word tardis thrown around.

I guess I'll try again tomorrow.

Speaking of which, I have about 18 more hours here in Cardiff, then it's back to finish my trip in London. Part of me can't wait to go spend time in one of my favorite places in the world, but at the same time, I'm sad knowing that it's the end of the journey.

For the moment, though, Guinness and Top Gear are cheering me up.