Day 6- Cardiff

Cardiff was sooooo much fun. Lynette and I have both liked it the best out of our entire trip. We ate breakfast at our hotel in the morning in our very retro breakfast room. Huge pink flowers on the wall! We walked down to Cardiff City first thing in the morning and made sure to check out the Cardiff Market. It was pretty cool, but nowhere near as awesome as Pike Place Market.

The only fun addition there was a pet store. For a moment I contemplated bringing a pet back with me!!! Who wouldn’t want a wee little welsh kitty? We also checked out a series of arcades which are tiny hallways containing a series of stores off of them. I found the coolest Welsh Lovespoon ever…which was the one tourist thing I wanted from here. This one was includes a lock and a chain with a key attached to it. Keys are my favourite symbol. We took the bus down to Cardiff Bay and began our Torchwood Tour of Cardiff. Lynette loves the show and though I have only seen one episode in the hotel in Vancouver it was good. We got off the bus at Mermaid Quay and very quickly found the Ianto display where the fans posted a ton of cool stuff in memory of their favourite character. Lynette was so happy that she even cried at one of the sweet comments from a fan. We found a carousel which I was so excited for because I have been on one in Spokane and St. Louis. I have decided that I am going to collect carousel rides when I travel.

Lynette and I sat in the Welsh Dragon on the carousel and fully enjoyed ourselves. Next up was Millenium Centre which is a beautiful bronze stadium style building with the words “Under these stones horizon’s sing” in both Welsh and English. There is also a glass tower where the Torchwood office and magic elevator is. We met a cute Asian boy at several of the Torchwood sights and chatted with him at several of them. I even helped him to take a picture on the “magic stone”.

We hit the Craft on the Bay craft market but did not find anything interesting there. We had lunch at a pub in the Quay where I chose to eat Welsh Rarebit, pronounced Rabbit or so I am told. It was all right, but I am proud that I ate it because I like to try local delicacies wherever I go. Lynette and I decided we were going to take a boat tour back to the city central so we killed some time by stopping and checking out the Red Dragon Centre where the Dr. Who exhibit used to be. There were a few cool restaurant s in there that we may go back to tonight. It was pouring BUCKETS by the time we got off the boat and we had to walk a ways to our hotel. It ended up being okay though because there were several of the arcades with covered halls that we walked through to avoid the rain. Lynette is sick so we stopped in a mall and found her a Boots the chemist (aka pharmacy ) to buy decongestant. The person at the check out commented on our accent and we chatted about living by the sea and sea gulls. We are hoping to go back to the Bay tonight to check it out at night and also drink some more local ale. We may give up on this however if the weather doesn’t hold out for us. Tomorrow we will stop at the castle and possibly make a trip to Barry which is half an hour away. It is a seaside amusement park that was featured in Gavin and Stacey another British show that Lynette watchs. Then we catch the train back to Paddington for four days in London!!!

Fun things on the trip that I forgot to comment on so far:
HUGE fan of British boys and their cardigans and dress shirts….just saying
British coffee is NASTY. They really like their packaged instant food and that is what the coffee is in the rooms. Also, they don’t use coffee cream in their coffee so we have had to put up with milk. Thankfully I am a fan of lattes and I have been drinking them the whole time.