Wales Day Two -- Mind Your Head

We woke up on Friday and had to say goodbye to Cardiff. Our first stop on the day was the Museum of Welsh Life located just a short 15 minute drive from central Cardiff. The museum is more of a park than a traditional museum. It's open air and basically consists of sprawling fields where old Welsh houses and buildings have been reconstructed. It also features a castle (sort of) and the much more impressive garden that accompanies the supposed castle. Much of the group didn't find this stop very interesting but I really liked it. It was nice to get out into the fresh air and I've been conditioned to like this sort of thing by visiting places like Cades Cove in Tennessee. Now for some pictures:

There are some places in this world that legitimately have more sheep than people. Wales is one of them. Hence, no Museum of Welsh Life can be complete without large amounts of sheep.
This is one of those old, reconstructed Welsh houses that I was talking about. They're pretty garden variety, but also just plain pretty.
Another, different old Welsh house.
What might you guess this building is? Did you guess cockfighting pit? If so, you are correct. It's more obvious what it is from the inside, but I had to preserve battery, so I didn't get that shot.
That is from left to right Roderick, Laura, and Katie looking at a meetinghouse. It was sort of a club hall, as in a Moose club or something of the sort. There's a theatre in the upstairs, pool tables and other things like that in the downstairs. It's an interesting building and if Santa can swing this, I'd like it for Christmas. It's probably to big to fit in his sleigh, though.

This is the obscenely beautiful, Italian-style castle garden.

After the Museum of Welsh Life we headed to a Tesco to grab lunch. This had to have been the biggest grocery store I've ever seen. It had an upper level for a cafe and the lower level was the size of a Sam's Club or Wal-Mart Supercenter and was ALL groceries. I also found at that prices in Wales are much cheaper than in London, which shouldn't come as a surprise but is frustrating nonetheless.

Then, we rode up to the northeast corner of Wales for our trip down a coal mine, which was just awkward from the get go. As we were getting "kitted-out" or what Americans might called dressed up with coal mining hats and rescue breathing kits in case of carbon monoxide issues, the guy putting on my helmet had to go to a third hat because the first was too small for my head. The third one was also too small and it basically strangled my forehead for the whole time. Then the next guy asks me where we're from. The following is the conversation as I recall it.

Miner: Where are you guys from?
Me: Chicago
Miner: Oh, so you know Frank.
Me: *puzzled look*
Miner: You know. Frank.
Me: Frank...
Miner: Didn't he sing that song about Chicago? Frank Sinatra?
Me: I guess...

I think he must have been referring to the song "Chicago, My Kind of Town" but I didn't have the heart to tell him that Frank's from Jersey. And dead. Next, we packed into the lift to take us down into the mine. I do mean packed. I think we all became closer friends on the way down. Once we got down there the tour itself was fine. It was all stuff that I had either heard before, didn't find interesting, or didn't really shock me. But it was fine. The part about the way they used horses in the mines was probably the most interesting. The bothersome part of the experience was that, well, I'm tall. The mines are not. I really don't mind ducking. It's one of the hazards of being tall. I get that. What annoyed me was that the guide looked at me EVERY SINGLE TIME we went to a place with a low clearance and said "Watch your head, young man." He didn't mean any harm by it and was almost apologetic about it at the end of it all, but at the time I really didn't appreciate be singled out time after time. Here's the view from the coal mining site.
After we got out of the mine, there was an aboveground museum that by that point I was too tired to care much about. After so many museums, you just get burned out on reading informational plaques.

Then, we got back on the bus and headed for Pembrokshire, specifically the town of Broadhaven. There was much to do at the hostel in Broadhaven. It's on the coast, which is nice, but it's nicer when it's not pouring down rain as it was when we arrived. The nearest town to it is a bit of a hike and is pretty sleepy. Supposedly, it had a nice pub, but I didn't bother to check it out. Dinner was a bust for me. We had heard about this great pasta buffet we were going to get. In reality, it didn't turn out that way. I got to dinner ten minutes ahead of time, which seemed to me to be ample, but actually everyone had got their long before me and my table of late comers was last to get to the "buffet". By the time I got there, all the lasagna had gone. All that was left was some vegetarian lasagna or spaghetti. I chose spaghetti and was given a HUGE portion, but I hardly ate any of it, as the sauce was very poor. In retrospect, I should have got it without sauce, but that's neither here nor there. Bottom line, don't expect very good food from Welsh hostels in the middle of nowhere. Actually, desert was fine but that was kind of tempered by having to bus our own tables.

After dinner, I stayed in while some went out to the pub. We flipped around the tube and eventually settled on a Welsh quiz show. And by Welsh quiz show I mean a quiz show conducted in Welsh. Not English. We had fun guessing at the answers when we couldn't read the questions. Jodie and Laura had a running competition going and were both doing poorly (naturally). Jodie then left the room briefly and missed a round of five questions which Laura by sheer dumb luck guessed correctly. Of course, I insisted that I saw no such thing as her getting all five right. This lead Laura to memorably explain that she had had a "warp-spasm" and proclaim "I am the Cuchulainn of Welsh game shows." This is only funny if you have read the The Tain, but trust me it was hilarious.

Then we played Catchphrase. Catchphrase, for the uninitiated is a game where one person gives clues an the other players have to guess the phrase by the given clues. Once the phrase is guessed, the clue giver passes it to another person. When the buzzer goes off, the player or team in possession of the machine loses. I, of course, immediately began a fairly constant stream of trash-talking and then started intentionally taking a long time with my clues to irritate the other players. To use wrestling terms, I was getting massive heel heat from the other players. When we were playing an individual round and when I finally bit the dust, (but only after destroying everyone to my right because of my stalling, both intentional and unintentional) a huge cheer of celebration went up. Good times. Being the enemy can be great fun.

Once Catchphrase got played out, there was NOTHING to do. Finally, I sat down with Emily, our TA who is affectionately known among us by her e-mail handle "eponder," Hipster Gabe (as opposed to Big Gabe), and Dan for a chat about academic things. Eventually, some Welsh youth services workers came in and we had a chat. We found out that people from Cardiff evidently find Dan's pronunciation of "gorgeous to be hilarious" and that Flares, the disco we went to the night before, is not a gay bar and just seems like it is. Eventually, we got into a rather in depth conversation with these ladies focusing on the criminal justice systems of the UK and US, especially as pertains to pedophiles. There's nothing quite like talking at length about pedophilia to drunken Welsh women at 2 AM. It was highly entertaining. At the end of our conversation, the leader of the group, Heather shook my hand and then leaned in. I was confused as to what she was leading in for. She ended up planting a kiss on my neck. I don't know if that's how they say goodbye in Cardiff (although I suspect it isn't) but it definitely caught me by surprise. And that was day two.