Cardiff

Here we were, concerned about running into Daleks and Cybermen when apparently it was zombies we had to worry about.

Never mind.  Worry about Daleks.

I'm probably going to say this a lot as the summer progresses, but I could happily stay in Cardiff for the rest of my life.  I'm not kidding.  The pace of this city is so relaxed, you wouldn't know that it was the capital of Wales at all.  Given the choice, I would rather live there than in London.  Unlike some of out other travels, we actually left Southampton in the morning and arrived with a decent amount of daylight left to us in which to explore the area immediately around our hostel and engage in a little of the requisite geekiness that bewhoved (the spelling error is deliberate here) us to make our way down to Roald Dahl Plass and Mermaid Quay for a bit of sightseeing.  We found a nice little restaurant called Bill's the next street over from our hostel and had serious nerd-outs with a waitress named Ellie who could easily have passed for a pin-up.  She was kind enough to tell us where we should go and even how to get there -- we would probably have stayed all night if funds were unlimited and we didn't care about disrupting her work every time she thought of something interesting she wanted to talk about.  This seems to be the nature of most people we've encountered in the British Isles.

Can you guess where this is?  Disregard the tents.

We stayed at the Bunkhouse hostel on St Mary's -- a very short walk from the bus station unless you're carrying large and heavy backpacks -- basically in the centre of the city and within walking distance of most major bus routes.  The rooms were nice and the staff was friendly, but the combination of not being able to connect to the wi-fi in our room and the fact that we weren't allowed to be in the common area after midnight meant that we often had to sit in the hallway until the batteries were used up if we wanted to do things like peruse the websites of various language schools.  The day was for exploring as much as possible and looking for work, so naturally all of this would occur at night.  The fellow responsible for manning the desk on our last couple of nights there is one of those heroes that would otherwise go unsung -- he let us stay in the common area as long as we needed to.  We were quiet and out of the way...and quite frankly I think it must not have been very interesting down there all alone.  I feel bad for never thinking to ask his name.

A pretty lady in a pretty TARDIS

The Norman motte-style shell fort at Cardiff castle.

 Our first full day in Cardiff was spent meandering and doing research into where we wanted to go for work.  We went quite a ways to get to some of these places and even got lost near one in spite of walking right past the school we were looking for.  The second day involved the Dr. Who Experience, and the Everyman production of Sweeney Todd at the Sofia Gardens.  They had a remarkably minimalistic set, but made it work beautifully to suit their purposes.  Our last day was passed just wandering around.  There was some sort of craft festival going on in Cardiff Castle, which meant that we could actually look around a little without being worried about having to pay 12 pounds for a tour.  We couldn't go inside any of the buildings for this reason, but it was still a lovely place to visit for what we could figure out on our own.  We also had a blast over these days wandering the various arcades off St. Mary's -- and by arcades I mean the random side-alleys lined with shops that would sometimes run between buildings from one street to another.  There we made the acquaintance of an entertaining hat salesman named Stu who had a penchant for all things vintage or antique.

Umm...I've read detective stories.  Not sure I'd stay here.

Cardiff Bay: taken from Mermaid Quay

Cardiff Bay

Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight

So far we've been lucky to find a good number of breathtaking places since we got to the UK.  Yarmouth, on the Isle of Wight, is certainly no exception.  Its early roots date back to the iron age, but most of the buildings date back to Tudor England.  The town is actually quite small and very charming.  The people are lovely and very welcoming -- and also very willing to talk your ear/jaw off about anything and everything.  Especially when they realize that you're from Canada.  It's odd that even in our motherlands (Britain and France) apparently they don't see a lot of Canadian tourists.  Are we really so focused on tropical getaways that we don't stop to ponder those tributaries that feed the rivers of our own (albeit brief) history?

But I digress.  I could just keep on writing away, but it may be easier to show you a few little snapshots than to simply tell you everything.

Sarah on the ferry.

The view from the ferry as we came to the Isle of Wight.  Yarmouth Castle is in the foreground.

A few shots from inside the castle.  It costs about 4 pounds to walk around.

A shot from the village green,  The yellow buoy marking the wreck site is closer to shore than you'd think.

Construction on this church began in the 1100's.  It's still in use today.

This one, on the other hand, was converted into a private residence.

There are plenty of little lanes like this off the streets...

That lead to views like this.

The King's Head Inn -- so called because the people of Yarmouth were loyal to Charles I before he lost everything.  The first time I read the sign I thought it said "The King's Dead."  Oops.

A bowl of chili with rice, cheese, and sour cream at the King's Head.

Steak and ale pie with vegetables and potatoes.  Strongly recommended.

The old cemetery at Yarmouth.  Most of it is very overgrown like this and some of the stones are so old and weather beaten that you can't read them.  Many are leaning in one direction or another, and some have even fallen and disappeared into the grass.

The other interesting thing we noted while we were here is that not all the gravestones face in the same direction.  It's difficult to observe certain matters of graveyard etiquette when you don't know which way they're lying.

The view from a bench.

Of course this is only a brief little window into the day we spent here.  We perused book stores (of course) and crystal shops and stores full of art and handmade crafts.  If I showed you everything there would be over a hundred photographs in this post.  I'm not going to do that to you or myself.

For now though, I must look up language schools to visit while in Galway and see about getting some groceries for our stay here.

You'll learn of our adventures in Cardiff next time.

J'aime Voyager

 It's only been a couple of weeks since I updated this last, but it feels like it's been forever.

The Last Breakfast: Kipp, yours truly, and Sarah (R-L)

The last week of work was surreal and bittersweet.  It wasn't just about saying goodbye to classes and knowing it's highly likely we won't see them again -- but saying goodbye to friends and colleagues, being relatively certain we won't.  Our arrival in Poland put us through quite a lot and the first few months were definitely a stressful time, but we landed on our feet at the end of it all.  Sofia arrived fairly late on our last night there and seemed more than happy to have people to come home to.  She's quite sweet, actually, and seems very (understandably) concerned for our welfare while we're abroad.  I know I've said it before, but we are both very grateful for everything she's done for us and we don't know how we would have managed everything without her assistance, Peter's, or Christina's.

The Last Breakfast: Sarah, Amelia, and myself (R-L)

We sat up most of the night, talking with her and getting to know her as we tried to work out how best to negotiate the weight limits for Wizzair when we didn't want to pay for check-in baggage and would therefore have to keep the two of us living out of my laptop bag and one large backpack for two months of meandering.  They wouldn't even let us take purses on board as additional carry-on, so Sarah and I had to leave the large bags we brought with us from Canada with the rest of our luggage in Gliwice.  I think it's safe to say we won't be flying with them again.  Peter's boss was kind enough to let him have an extended lunch so he could drive us to Katowice (after helping us move our stuff to a colleague's place before Sofia arrived), where we caught a direct flight to Luton Airport.

Gemma and I

I will warn you of one thing when you're visiting the UK: they expect you to have all the details mapped out when you arrive.  They want to know it all: where you're going, how long you're staying -- how they can reach your host if you're visiting someone.

The train from Luton to London was lovely, except for the part where they forgot to mention that there were two different routes for the Capital Line and we weren't on the one that went straight to London Bridge station -- where we arranged to meet our friend Gemma.  I'm not going to lie -- asking for directions on the tube in English and getting more than just a blank stare in return was -- and still is -- something of a novelty after 10 months of essentially being cut off from my own language outside of home and classroom.  There we were, sitting at Blackfriars Station -- overlooking the Thames -- with a little time on our hands, bone tired but still exhilarated by everything we didn't have in Poland.  Being able to talk to people, ethnic diversity, and the smell of a well-made curry.  We finally made it to London Bridge, met Gemma after a text-based game of Marco Polo through the station and made our way to the hostel in Princes Square (just off Hyde Park) to deposit the two bags we had.  It had taken me that long to realize that I was carrying a not insignificant percentage of my body mass on my back and would be doing so for some time.

The British Museum.  It isn't actually bowed like that: that's just a quirk of the panorama feature on Sarah's camera.

We only had one day in London, since it was really just a quick pit stop on our way to Gemma's place in Southampton.  We packed as much into it as we possibly could: the British Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, and a staging of The Importance of Being Ernest at the Harold Pinter theatre.  Will have to explore more when we go back with Amelia in August.

The Bar Gate marking the boundary of Medieval Southampton

While in Southampton, we spent some time exploring the town and looking for work.  We have a couple of prospects with potential, but nothing promised.  It all depends on enrollment for September and how willing these potential employers are to sponsor us for work visas.  Everyone we've asked however, is fairly confident that it will be easier for us as Canadian citizens because we are members of the Commonwealth.  We took the ferry from Lymington over to Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight during our stay and spent the entire day wandering around the heart of town.  Most of the buildings would almost leave you believing the village had been frozen in time were it not for the cars and the ferry terminal next to Yarmouth castle.  Since Gemma needed some time to prepare for her departure to Germany on Wednesday, we got on a bus bound for Cardiff on Tuesday morning to begin another leg of our journey.

But that's all for another post.  As I write this, I'm sitting on the cruise ferry Ulysses -- headed for Ireland.  It's 4:35 AM and the sun is just breaking over the sea.  It's time for me to go out and enjoy some fresh air, get my first look at the Irish coast, and stretch my legs a little before having to get on yet another bus in Dublin to make for Galway.

(Actually posted from the Sleepzone Hostel in Galway.  The internet on the ferry was terrible and uploading pictures would have been a bitch and a half.)