Day Twenty-six: North and South plus Lord of the Rings

We woke up at 7:30 this morning so that we could get ready and pack up the van before leaving Llanberis this morning. None of us were looking forward to leaving Llanberis, but we're certainly looking towards good things ahead. 

We had another hearty breakfast at the hostel before we left. Once again I opted for a bread-less route. So far, my little diet experiment has really been awesome, so I plan to continue unless convinced otherwise. 

When I got in the van, I chose to take one of the seats in the very back. We're required to sit in a different seat each day, and though the back seats have their little quirks, they're a blast! Seriously, going over unexpected speed bumps in the very back is hilarious, especially when your neighbor is totally asleep. :) One of my favorite parts though is looking up through the sky light in the back. I watched a rain storm roll in this morning through that window. The clouds were blowing by so fast and so low that I thought something might be wrong up there. After watching the kaleidoscope of clouds for a while, it began raining fat drops of water on us. It was really cool watching that window fill up with thin sheets of water that flew off as fast as it came on. 

Our first stop of the day, an hour or so away and beyond the storm, was Flint castle. Flint was one of the castles that made up Edward I's iron chain against invaders of all sorts. He was pretty much indestructible, regardless of who he was up against, and these castles were a vital reason why. This castle was very much in disrepair though, so there was not a ton to see. Sad huh?

The theme for the rest of the day was J. R. R. Tolkien. While we had already seen his grave in England, his boyhood home was in northwestern Wales, in the town of Birmingham to be specific. 

The sad bit though is that Birmingham always has been a really rough ever since the industrial revolution. I've seen a few dodgy cities as we've travelled all over Britain and Wales, but Birmingham bore every mark and sign of being a really hard city, the roughest I've seen yet.

Our first stop in Birmingham was to Sarehole Mill. This was a grain mill that Tolkein used to live in as a boy. About twenty years ago, someone cleaned it up and turned it into an exhibition site. Now it looks really nice, it has a famous picture spot up in the attic of a doorway painted just as the Baggins had theirs, and a film about the life of Tolkien as a boy in Birmingham. At the base of the mill, a series of fun little plaques took you on a treasure hunt up to the the top of the building. Each plaque had a different main character from the stories Tolkien wrote. I know its meant for kids, but I had a flippin blast with those :) 

After we left the mill, we walked down the street and grabbed some cheap sandwiches at the Hungry Hobbit. It wasn't great food, but it's more fun to say that I've been there now. :) 

After lunch, we walked farther down the road to Mosely Bog. This is the bog where Tolkien played as a young boy, and where many enthusiasts believe he got his idea for Fangorn Forest. I was sad to see this forest in such disrepair though. The signs had been kicked in, trees broken and dead all over the place, and cut up branches carelessly tossed along the trail. 

I thought it this was super ironic actually. See, in the movie about Tolkien I had seen in the mill, Tolkien really had a love for trees. There was a story about how someone had come to his home and cut down a great willow tree, for some needed purpose. He was sad that the tree needed to be cut down, but he was extremely distressed afterwards because they had cut it down, but then just left it where it lay for days. This bothered him immensely. He wrote something like 'it just is not right that such a noble part of this earth should lay in such a defeated state.' I could only imagine what his reaction might be if he could walk through his childhood Fangorn today. Sad really. 

On our way back to the van, we actually stopped by the tiny home where he lived for a while after leaving the mill. It was a joined flat, one that looked like every other one on the street. Number 264. Someone lives there now, not related to Tolkien, and not very keen on having people come by. I took a quick picture out front anyway. 

After that, it was time to squash everyone back in our packed van and drive the remaining 5ish hours back to Cardiff. I wrote, thought, talked with Bronte and Tom (who took a strange opportunity to sit back with us while Anders drove), listened to my iPod, and played Smurf with half the van along the way. 

Goodness, I do love looking outside these windows. Really, I can't really explain how or why those fields make me feel so great about life, but they really do. I keep thinking how lucky I am to see such incredible landscapes in such sunny weather; I don't know if I would look at them the same way if everything was rainy and gray. The people here keep telling us that this is the sunniest and hottest it has been in Wales in 7 years. Coincidence? Try grace, maybe. 

Haha, maybe not for everyone; some of the people don't know what to do with so much heat. "I'm getting a tan and I'm not sure what to do!" is a phrase I have honestly heard by some of the locals. :) 

Once we arrived at home, it was getting late. I can't understand what it is about long car rides that makes people so tired, but it's ridiculous. I was very happy to get super cleaned up before I went to bed. It was nice to finish up the day back in my bedroom in Cardiff. I'll surely miss northern wales, but I have no qualms with the south either. Thanks to ALL involved in making this Friday such a good one. :) 

Day Twenty-five: Slate and Wool

I woke up in my cute hostel in Llanberis this morning a little earlier than I expected to. Sometimes it makes me really happy when I beat my alarm by a few minutes. When I beat it by a few hours, not so happy. But a few minutes is excellent :) 

I got ready and went down to breakfast. I'm trying to cut breads out of my diet a bit more, so I had a lovely breakfast of fruit, yogurt, and a little bowl of milk and musseli. Delish! 

Tom then announced that all those interested in walking to the slate mill should be outside in 15 minutes, and everyone else had the better part of an hour before Anders would drive them there. I was actually kinda tired, so I went up to my room to rest for a bit instead. Not something I usually do, I know. All the other girls from my house were already in our room, doing the exact same thing. We chatted for a bit while I continued considering how willing I was to flake out on the walk, when Josie happened to look out the window. 

"Oh look, everyone else is outside. Hello people!" She called. 

"They're still out there?" I asked. 

"Yup, they're just leaving now." She replied. And that was all I needed. I jumped off my bunk, grabbed my rucksack and jacket, and ran downstairs and out the front door. I cantered over to the van, put my bag in, and then joined the group. Shortly after, we left. 

It was a really gorgeous morning. Llanberis is full of green plants and thick grassy hills. It's a ton more lush up here in northern wales than in southern wales! We walked down the hill and along the street for a bit. After a while, we broke away from the road and went down a little trail in the trees. We hadn't gone more than a dozen feet before the damp gray street we were just on was swallowed up with thick vegetation. 

I know it sounds crazy, but the farther we walked through this place, the more it looked like a fairy land. Just as i thought this, Tom told us that it was not uncommon to find little stone rings a little bit away from the trail that people would make. 

There were little burbling brooks which we crossed upon strong slate bridges, black-colored trees heavy with dark green leaves, and every porous rock bursting with an impressive spectrum of green moss and lichen. It was a really beautiful place, and Im really not doing this one justice, guys. It was so serene that Matt, a model unenthusiast, even left the trail to go be by himself out there. 

After we meandered through the forest for a while, we came to an old ruined castle tower, the last remaining bit of a fortress built by an ancient welsh family. We went up as high as the tiny spiral staircase would take us, and then came back down. Tom took a few pictures of our group there, and then we left for the slate mill.

It was only about a 20 minute walk from there. The others at the hostel must have left later than planned, because they pulled up to the parking lot at the very moment we got there too. 

We all waited outside the mine gates for about ten minutes before it opened for the day. It rained on us just a little bit, but we were all good with a little drizzle. Plus it made all the slate on the ground black and sparkly. 

When we got in, Tom let us meander through the site for a bit before ushering us into the splitting demonstration. We walked into a room with two walls set up with auditorium styled seating. All the seats faced a corner with a bunch of hand tools and stacks of thin rectangular slate. There were a few chairs and a big piece of metal mounted to a slanted log. One of the chairs was so strange, it had a very tall back, but the seat was only raised about four inches off the ground. 

As we were noticing the different cuts and sizes of slate mounted on the walls, a man walked in with one of the telltale light blue 'I work here' shirts. He took us through a brief demonstration on how to split slate. He threw out a couple of odd jokes and then dramatically split a slab. I was so surprised at how smoothly slate will split! And so easily! All he did was barely tap a chisel into the grain with a hammer and then the slate just split itself as he pulled on the chisel. I knew the grain on slate was very unique, but I had no idea that the process was so slick! 

After he split the slate, he looked around the room and then pointed at me. "You. Do you think you could do something like this?" 

Dear reader, if you are reading this, you probably know me well. If you know me well, then you know that such a question is exceptional kindling for my unfortunate amount of pride. Sorry, I'm working on it. 

"Sure." I replied. 

"Do you really think you can?" 

I stood up. "I think so. What do you think?"

"Fine. Come over here." he said as he got off the super short stool. 

He had me sit in the same spot he had been in, pick out a piece of slate, and then he tapped in a groove along the top edge. I really wanted to just split the slate, but he wanted to make a show of it, I guess. He had me wait until he slowly got out a first aid kit and until I posed for a picture. He really was trying to just entertain the group, but I've heard much better jokes. (Honestly, I didn't realize someone could depend so much upon their eyebrows while trying to be funny. Plus, some of his puns were a little on the sketchy side, so that wasn't my favorite while I was up on the chopping block). When he finally had me set everything up and told me to put my thumb on top of the chisel, I knew that I was finally allowed to split the slate. (Note: I'm blonde, but I'm not quite THAT blonde). I was again surprised at how easily the slate split; it was halfway through after my first hit. I asked him if I should keep using the hammer, but he said no. By the time his sketchiest jokes finally ended, I was holding two smooth pieces of slate. It was crazy how even the split stayed all the way through; my biggest fear had been that I was going to accidentally make one side thick and the other side thin, but they were both the exact same thickness! 

I was grateful to go back to my seat after that. He then showed the group on the big wooden stand. The miners would first split the slate, then put it on top of the enormous blunt blade mounted to the stand and then hack that edge with a huge knife. This would allow the miner to cut the slate down to the exact size and shape needed, while also creating a beveled edge to keep water off of the roof tiles better. He asked how sharp we all thought that knife must be, in order to split the slate. I realized that in order to hack at stones, it would either have to be tipped with something harder than the stone that wouldn't let a sharp edge dull, or it was just the dull metal blade it seemed to be. 

When he picked Abby out next and volunteered her to find out, my suspicions about the dull metal were confirmed. But Abby really was panicked as he put a towel under her hand and then drew the knife across her palm. She screamed, but it was just the punch line to his joke. He looked pretty smug about it and then sat down at the cutting station again. Without saying anything, he began hacking at a small piece of slate, following a pre-drawn curvy pattern. When he was finished, he held up a small slate heart. He asked the group who he should give it to, me or Abby. The only thing I wanted was the piece of slate that I had split, but I knew that wasn't going to be given away. I definitely was all for it going to Abby, so I was very happy when it did. 

After that, he actually started giving some really interesting information about the slate mines. This mine had been pretty much closed for the last twenty years, but back in the day, it was the best place for boys and men to work. Hauling it off the mountain could be a little dicey, and the dust coming up from cutting the slate was a major minor killer, but it was better than working in the coal or tin mines. I had some questions about the grain and how it was possible to still carve into the stone with it being so easy to break along the grain, but he told me that with the right tools and a steady hand, it would just work like a soft stone would. He told us that most of the slate today was imported from China (boy, what isn't?) but he said that this mine did still continue to put out some products since the slate in Wales has the best colors and strength than anywhere else in the world. 

After about another 15 minutes, the presentation was over and we were shuffled into another room to watch a 20 minute film on the mine. It was cool to see footage of them blasting huge areas of slate off the mountain and then hauling it down the mountain. What a dangerous job that was!!

After the film, we were left to walk around the slate mill for another half hour. It started to drizzle again, but it wasn't crazy at all. It just made the place look a bit gloomy now. I walked through the majority of the rooms and then met my group a little early at the gift shop. As usual, everything in the shop was crazy expensive. I was hoping to find a bit of smooth slate that I could use as a chalk quote board, but I didn't really find anything like I was looking for. They had some plain squares of slate tied up in bunches of four, but they were crazy heavy and they wanted like £18 for it. No bueno. 

I 'happened' to go back outside through a weird side door, when I noticed a disheveled stack of plain slate squares just like the one I had split, but these were being sold for like a pound seventy each! I picked out a really nice one that I could use and bought it back at the counter. The lady wrapped it up in bubble wrap, which was good, but the edges are so sharp that it is already starting to cut through. Haha, that'll be an interesting feature in the future I'm sure. 

On our way back to the van, we noticed another really nice looking shop. I've been considering getting something, well...normal from one of these shops, like a t-shirt or jewelry or something, but I really am not one to buy normal stuff I guess. :) Plus I haven't found anything like that that I have really just loved, so I haven't bought anything like that yet. 

The van would be leaving soon, so I did a quick scan of the shop, noted that everything here was actually reasonably priced, and then stepped over to take my usual look at the jewelry. To be honest, i usually do find things I really like in the jewelry sections, but everything is always SO expensive! Seriously, £26 is the average for necklaces like you would find at the Scottish Fest. Crazy. 

So while I did my quick sweep of the stuff there, I looked closer at one or two pendants and started to move out of the store. But then, out of the blue, I did a double take at the rings. Weird, I don't usually wear rings. I used to wear a couple of rings all the time, but that was a few years ago and I don't have them anymore. And I haven't found anything I liked a lot since. But here I was, being drawn back to the ring counter. There in the middle of the box, squashed against six or seven other styles, was a simply gorgeous silver ring. I think I loved it so much because it was so simple, but so elegant at the same time. Really, its was almost humorously simple, but I really just loved it more for that very reason. I was absolutely delighted when I realized that it was only three pounds! In a flash, I picked out the last of its kind, plopped three one-pound coins on the table, and hurried out to the van (they don't give out receipts at oddity shops like these). Halfway there, I realized I may have just purchased a ring that doesn't actually fit me. To my delight, it fits my right hand perfectly! Oh goodness, I won't be surprised if people chuckle when they see how simple a thing it is, but it's the first ring I've thought was worth stopping for in years! 

We drove to the nearby exhibit that Tom jokingly titled the 'wool pit.'  We like joking every morning about what we should wear for the weather that day. So far, we have been wrong every day, since we keep preparing for rain, but every day has been beautifully hot. The only day we were right in preparing was when we went to the Big Pit mine, since we made sure we all dressed in stuff that was good for cold, dirty, and damp. So when we were preparing today, we thought to make sure everyone was in good clothes to survive a plunge into the famous great pit of wool. :) 

When we got there, we took a cool tour of what the process is like for raw wool to be washed, beaten, spun, dyed, and then woven into magnificent blankets, tapestries, and fabric. Honestly, this wasn't a very exciting tour and it took about a half hour to get all the way through. The best part though was when we came to a fidgety man who was in charge of weighing and oiling the washed wool. He was used to giving tours but obviously was nervous about talking to a group of people. Abby, Miya, and Lydia were chatting on the opposite side of the group, while Theresa and I had gone up closer to hear the quiet guy better. At one point when the man paused in his demonstration, Abby let out a loud 'Ba-a-a-a!' as part of her discussion with the other girls, a sound which the entire group heard clearly. We all laughed so hard that the guy asked us if Abby could come back tomorrow and do the same thing for the next tour. She is super chill with stuff like that and said that she would if she could. 

I was planning on buying out that whole shop, but was completely shocked to find that hand-made woolen clothing is actually pretty expensive. Strange, huh? :) The stuff there was really cool though. Seriously though dad, if you're ever interested in switching your style of slippers, I think I have a good place for you to check out!

We stopped at a cheap little vegetarian diner for lunch. I got a really delicious slice of 'forest pie'. Oh man, I was suspicious of such a pie of brie, lentils, and a tiny bit of sun-dried tomatoes until Josie ordered one and I saw how good it looked. I promise it tastes even better than it looks or smells! Seriously, it made it on my list of things I want to try to learn how to make, or at least try again in the states. Oh, yummy! 

Our last stop for the day was another grand estate home. On our way there, I kind of rolled my eyes a bit (dare I say it!). We had seen so many exquisite estates, and I had begun to develop mixed feelings about these homes. First, that they were such wastes of wealth. They were places where the few dined better than hundreds of kings and queens before them, while the many who served them were kept in total poverty. I'm sure there are dozens of socio-economical factors that I am not considering as I make such a statement, but as a blanket statement, there it is. On the other hand, these were such incredible collections of the world's finest craftsmanship. From floor to ceiling, the house was a no-expense-spared living space of the finest furnishings available. So I guess I appreciate these places a lot more when I consider them as man's ability to create, rather than man's ability to hoard really expensive things. 

That being said, for the many extraordinarily beautiful estates I have personally seen, Penrhyn Castle put every one of them to shame. Maybe with the exception of Castle Coch, though Penrhyn is much more modern so had a lot more use of technology in its incredible design than ancient Coch did. 

I know I keep saying that every new thing was better than the last. Sometimes that's just me being really excited. Most of the time that's total honesty and I just happen to be lucky enough to see things in order from great to best. And sometimes that's just me playing with writing styles. It's really good to practice talking about the same thing, because it forces you to have to come up with new ways to describe it. 

This time though, I walked through the most incredible architectural masterpiece I have ever seen. Seriously, this place rivals Glastonbury Cathedral on my list of exquisite places I have seen in my life. A house (yeah, a gigantic castle house). Rivaling a Cathedral. Yeah. 

This is why: I've decided that I really love detail work. It just makes me happy. The more I can zoom up on something, the simpler the better, like a staircase, an archway, or a table, and see that some magnificent detail work has been masterfully added. This is an art, because while anyone can splash really complicated detail work on some crown molding or along a banister, it can very easily make the scene look very busy. That just makes the observer's eyes tired. 

Fail. 

BUT, a true artist is able to take the same crown molding, a banister, or a set of tiling, and add just enough finesse to make that same place to swallow you up in elegance. 

If it were possible, I would spend many a happy hour walking through that house, just staring straight up at the exquisite ceilings and pillars. Then I would have walked through that house a dozen more times, slowly working my way down with every new passing down to the elegant marble floors and rich woodwork. No joke, whole hallways and staircases made entirely of veined marble, with domed skylights above. 

I don't know who designed that house, but I'm asking him for a few tips with my corner of the Celestial Kingdom. 

Since this castle was built rather recently, during the industrial revolution, the current Queen and her eldest son stay here every now and then. The queen's room houses a four-poster bed with a frame made entirely out of slate (screws and all!). 

It weighs one ton.

 I tread rather carefully through that room when I heard that little detail. 

Really, I could go on for days about this house, but I wouldn't want this blog site to crash due to an overload of awesomeness. I'm not that heartless. 

After we left Penrhyn, without having time to catch a glimpse of the acres of Victorian gardens, we headed back to the hostel. Once we got there, a few of the girls found a stash of movies the office workers said we could watch in the lounge for free. While a few gathered some more of our group to come watch, Abby and I grabbed a bunch of goodies, pulled our comforters off our beds, and headed back down to the lounge. We quickly got 'Catch Me If You Can' going for our big group. I was surprised that I stayed awake for the whole thing, as I was pleasantly warm under my huge blanket. The movie was really good though, so I'm glad I saw the whole thing. 

After the movie, we all decided to play some Mafia. While some people went to get the cards, Calysta and I went to the breakfast room and made some tea and hot chocolate for the game. We decided that if either of us died, we could celebrate by grabbing another mug. :) With mugs in hand, we happily returned to our big group in the lounge for some fun. 

I have played my fair share of mafia in the past, but this was a way fun group. I thought I would try my hand at reading body language. I actually had all but three people figured out within two 'days' of our first game, but really stunk the next two games. :) 

After we finished for the night, we all went upstairs and got ready for bed. After I took some time for The Lord, I got a little bit of late journaling done and then drifted off to sleep. The last thing I remember was listening to the wind rustle through the trees just outside our open window. 

Day Twenty-four: Castles, Indian Food, and a Children's Park

Good morning, Llanberas, its time to see what cool stuff you can dish out today. 

Actually, pouring rain was the first surprise on the menu. 

I had gotten up and ready for the day, went down to the cafeteria area for breakfast, and looked out the window into the downpour as I munched on my cold cereal. Wheatibix, not bad at all. 

I had heard rumors that we would be going to a lot of castles today, so I....

Actually, I'm not really up for writing my traditional novel today. I'll probably kick myself for this later, but whatever. :) 

Today we went to Conwy castle first. While I was walking past the prison tower, I heard the girls goofing off in the lower levels. They must have been pretending to be lord of the rings characters, and I saw Abby recording them on her camera when I peeked over. They were totally making crazy stuff up, so I walked to the edge of the balcony high above where they were standing and sang "I am the angel of music. Come to me angel of music." Some of them fell against the walls down there they were laughing so hard. That was an awesome moment. 

We stopped in the town of Plas Mawr to see the gorgeous manor house that is there. It was super high-to-do a long time ago, but sometimes getting really excited about the rare walk-in closet is just too much. :)

After we finished the lovely tour, we walked through the old town surrounding it. Our ever un-excited companion Matt decided to start talking as we left the manor. He was talking about how he had to go to a terrific vanilla slice place and wasnt leaving town without one. If Matt was raving about it, these must be good. 

The majority of us ended up going over with Matt to a little bakery that was selling all sorts of big amazing baked sweets and pasties for really cheap! The vanilla slices ended up being a thick slab of vanilla pudding sandwiched in two fluffy sweet pastry bread and topped with lemon icing. They were huge, and I decided that I was really just hungry for something more substantial, so i picked up a chicken and curry pasty, which was pretty dang good. 

Next we drove to Caernarfon castle. This castle held a big slate Dias where King Charles II was crowned, so we took it upon ourselves to reenact the ceremony. 

We also walked through a big British military museum they had in there, which I thought was really cool. 

Our last stop of the day was Beaumaris castle. This castle was one of the few that had the moat area actually filled up with water. The funny thing about this moat though is that it looks like it had endured a green paintball fight or a lime cool aid ceremony, Because it was startlingly green! the castle was pretty cool, but there wasnt a lot else that was new about this one. 

When we were driving back to the hostel, Josie noticed an Indian food place at the street of shops at the bottom of our hill. I've loved trying out new foods here, and the other girls really wanted to eat there, so we walked down. 

The food was excellent. The service was really bad. I really don't take much stock in how the waiters act around you, but these guys seemed snappy and very terse, which actually made it a bit uncomfortable. Oh well, the food really was great. Pretty sure we left that place feeling very stuffed. 

After dinner, Abby went back to the hostel with Josie. Miya, Lydia, Theresa and I decided to walk down to the river to see more of the lovely mountain scenery. When we got to the river, we noticed there was a children's park just down the trail a bit. 

Upon reaching the park, we noticed a strange toy, one we haven't been able to find since. It was a vertical pole with a large horizontal circle hanging from the pole about a foot off the ground and had a web of black ropes all in between. It's really hard to describe, but just imagine standing on part of a steel circle that spins around a tall pole in the middle. Well, that's pretty much what we did...for like an hour. And we got that circle spinning CRAZY fast! It was ridiculous! Like double the speed of the teacups at Disneyland, no joke! We got the most speed by pulling it pretty fast and then having everyone lean in close to the pole at the same time. Then we whipped around that little circle! 

Boy, an hour of spinning plus a recently consumed massive Indian dinner equals someone extremely grateful to have a stomach of steel. Lets just say that some of the other girls weren't quite so lucky afterwards. No one threw up, but two really weren't feeling so hot. 

Once we went back to the hostel, we got into some more comfortable clothes and started winding down for the day. (haha) The other girls in my room decided to go downstairs to the lobby and play games, but for some reason, I really just wanted some 'me time.' So I wrote a little in my journal and then decided to pop in a movie, just by myself. 

Abby came in about an hour later, madder than I have ever seen her before. She opened the door, plopped herself down in front of me, exploded her frustrations of being killed by Theresa in mafia, and then went back downstairs. Sometimes I really enjoy how the world works for girls. it can be a tad volatile, but its pretty straightforward. To the men reading these blogs: if you want to make a girl happy, just actively listen when she talks and then validate her in whatever is happening. You'll thank me later. :)

By the time my movie ended, my friends had finished their game and were laughing and yelling about who killed who through the game. We all got ready for bed and probably chatted for another hour before we all drifted off to sleep. 

There you have it: day twenty-four, in all its fun :) 

Day Twenty-three: A Funny Start and Mt. Snowdon

Haha, remember how I went to bed at 1, and how I was supposed to be in the van by 6:30? I do! Funny thing about my brain at 1 in the morning, is that it doesn't always connect the simple dots. For example, if I need to be in the van by 6:30, I probably should have adjusted my alarm for 5:25 instead of 6:25. Oops. Fortunately, the people upstairs gave me a hand and woke me up a little before 6. 

I knew I had less time to pack up my clothes now for our big trip. I hurried downstairs to get my clothes off the lines that they had been on all night. Katy greeted me in the unusually dark kitchen. 

"Good morning, Rachel! Did you know it rained all night?" She said.

....What?

I looked outside the window to our patio, to see all of my clothes hanging heavily on the lines, sopping with rain water. 

Bring it on, rain. 

I grabbed a garbage bag and put all my waterlogged clothes inside. Then I took them to the shower and wrung them all out as much as I could. I went back to my closet and found that I fortunately had one last set of clean clothes, though it was a t-shirt and shorts. I knew we would be in the rain a little today, and that we were also hiking Mt.  Snowdon, so I wasn't sure how I felt about that outfit, but I didn't have time to question the turn of events. I picked out the wet clothes I needed to take, and stored them in the shopping bag. I would have loved to put them in my towel, but that was sopping wet too. Brilliant. 

I got everything packed as best as I could, then went downstairs for a three second breakfast. Josie told me then that she wanted some help using up her Nutella so she could wash the glass jar and use it for the rocks she had been collecting. This morning, I was very happy to help her out. I popped some bread in the toaster, whipped up a toasted PB and Nutella sandwich, and happily munched on it as I took my gear out to the van. 

Unfortunately, the van smelled horrid that day. I don't know if it was the person I was sitting next to or something under their seat, but it was really Really bad! And it wasnt my damp clothes, because I had those bags tied down along the front with the other things. 

We started our two hour drive by going to a gas station to fill up. Unfortunately, the gas station had been struck by lightning during the night, so there was no gas to be had there. Honestly, I'm just surprised that the whole place hadn't gone up in smoke! So we found another a bit down the road and were on our way. 

Two hours later, we arrived in the town of Abwryswith and pulled up to the National Library of Wales. We got there minutes before the doors opened and met our guide at the front lobby. 

This library is crazy cool, in that it is required by law to receive three copies of every book, magazine, and map published in Wales free of charge. As a reference library,  nothing is allowed to ever leave the building, though anyone can come in and read through the material. 

Sir William Henry, upon his death, decided that he wanted donate his entire ancient document collection to the National Welsh Library. This was how this Library came to own three first edition Charles Dickens novels (including A Christmas Carol!!), THE British Magna Carta, THE Black Book of Wales, AND a 16th century copy of the Bible translated by Sir William Morgan for Queen Elizabeth I !!!!! Holy dang! And those were only a few of the huge collection that was donated to the Museum by Sir Henry. Good grief, I got to see all these treasures with my OWN EYES!! It was amazing! The museum was set up really cool, with special anti-fire rooms that fill with CO2, 15-ton shelves that you can slide across a room by just casually turning a wheel on the side. 

Thousands of mideaval illuminated maps, hundreds of original aristocratic paintings, whole rooms full of giant bound books of every newspaper printed in England and Wales since 1911, and hundreds of thousands of books. It was a really awesome library! 

Our next stop as we headed north was to Harlech castle. This was a pretty quick stop, as it started raining again a little, and there wasn't a whole lot of new stuff to see. 

Next we went up to Cricceith Castle. We actually met with a friend of Tom's and the man's whole family, consisting of a wife and 9 kids! This family was super cool because the older children had been born and raised in the US up until 4 years ago, when they moved to Sweden. Their youngest three were born there in Sweden. A year ago though, the whole family moved to Wales, where they lived right between Cricceith and the beach. 

It was really cool talking to the kids who remembered living in the US. They all have American accents, but a few have more of Welsh accents now more than others. They had all taken a hard-core eight week course in Welsh, so they were all fluent in the language now. Lucky. It was interesting hearing how the British kids really picked on these US kids because of their accents. I guess it really doesn't take much at all for kids to pounce on each other. Kind of ironic, for the only group of people on earth who can also make friends the fastest. 

We walked around the old Cricceith ruins, one of the many castles we had been to recently that made the Iron Ring of King Edward I back in the day. Its amazing to think that these ultimate powerhouses, these 'Chess Queens' of world takeover, now lay in crumbled ruins; such a trivial little clump of brick and earth in today's view of war power and invasion. My, how the world has changed...

After we were here for about an hour, we piled into our very tight-packed van and headed for the base of Mt. Snowdon. This is the tallest mountain in all of Wales. It isn't much taller than anything in Utah, but it is certainly not a hike for many. When we got out, I loaded a few bottles of water and poweraid, some trail snacks for Lydia and I to split, and a light jacket in case of rain into my hiking pack. When Tom gave the word, we were all off. 

Now, I'm really not in good shape, so I've actually been really nervous about climbing Snowdon. I told myself for months before I came here that I was going to hike the Y a ton to get ready for Snowdon, but I did a lot more interesting things instead. 

So, I just decided to hit it as hard as my legs would let me and see what would happen.

...I also made sure that I said a prayer or two to get some real help. :) 

You know how hikes go, my patient reader; they're typically lovely but strenuous journeys along mountain paths to a great lookout point. This was just the craziest one Ive ever done. It was indeed very lovely, we went around three lakes and along an incredible view of the mountains. I took progressive pictures of the lakes as I went higher and higher up the face. 

Somehow I made the three hour cutoff time to be at the top of the mountain. Tom and two others had been up there about a half hour before I reached the crest. Courtney and Anders got there shortly after, and two others got there about fifteen minutes before me. I was the eighth to get up to the crest, and Tom told me that I had just made the three-hour cutoff, so he was going down to tell everyone else to turn back where they were. Sweet!!! I was going to make it to the top!! 

It took me about another fifteen minutes before I reached the summit. The other seven, with the exception of Miya, had passed me and were heading back down. Miya realized that I was at the very end of the line now, so she walked with me to the very end so that I wouldn't be alone for it. She cheered me on those last few climbs and even snapped some photos of me when I got there.

It was so cool up there! I knew it must be cold, but the hike was exerting enough that I really didnt feel it. The whole top part of the mountain was engulfed by a big silver cloud, and I was swimming in it. Seriously, there was one point where I could only see about ten feet in any direction, and then it was just white all around. It made for a terrible view up there, but the chance to be in that cloud was so dang cool! I remember I looked down at my arm at one point, and every little hair was covered in dew drops. My hair was soaking wet (I'll blame it all on the cloud :) ), and the air seemed thinner but heavy. I realized then that I was really glad I was from Utah and used to crazy high altitudes. I had climbed three thousand feet, but that was still nothing compared to the thin air I'm used to. 

But now we were at the very end of the line, with a lot of minutes separating us from the next few people, and the summit was completely socked in. To top it all off, for those a bit nervous about heights, those steep ledges we had climbed up were a lot easier going up than going down. Miya wasn't so nervous about it, but I sure was. It took a little while before I got more comfortable with the idea of running down the rocks. Honestly, the thing that surprisingly helped most was singing fun songs. We did everything from How Firm the Foundation to Smashmouth. It was perfect for taking my mind off of the cliff sides we were going along. 

We eventually caught up to Mandi and Bronte, so our group size doubled. We traveled the rest of the way down the mountain with these girls, which made the trip even better. 

The trail was very difficult to follow, as it was just a line of slightly smaller rocks along the great rock face and many nearly vertical fields of grass. Every now and then, some raised stones made steps that showed you were still on the correct path. As I was going up, I remember getting lost for a little while, as the two barely distinguishable paths had to be bridged, but without an outlined bridge. When we were coming down, we had passed three cairns, though I had only passed one coming up. When I looked down, the cloud had cleared enough for me to realize that we had come too far around the mountain and had missed the spot where we had bridged the upper and lower main trails. We backtracked for a little bit, and then found a steep rocky area we thought would work as the bridge down to the lower path. As we slid down this section off the edge of the trail, we came to a point where the rocks fell away at too steep a grade to continue; the only way down from that edge was to jump down, a good 40 feet before it sloped again. The shale was too slick to try to climb back up to the trail though, so we decided to keep going sideways across the mountain to the lower trail. The shale we had come down on ended and turned into grass soon, but it was level enough to walk on as we cleared a little ridge that hid the next part of the mountain face. When we came to the top of the small ridge, we saw the lower main trail, straight across from where we were, on the far side of the vertical dip in the mountain. The problem was, the face between us sloped very sharply and was all grass, no rocks. We tried turning around and going back up, but the shale couldn't hold us. So we decided to go straight across the face to the rock path on the far side. 

At this moment, my fear was gone. This was because Mandi suddenly said that she was very scared, and wasn't sure her shoes had enough grip to keep her from sliding down the steep face. I stayed close behind her, and just kept telling her that she was doing awesome and that it was all going to be okay. Being able to take that role for her really helped me to forget about what I was doing and help someone in a scary moment. I wish I was the kind of person who could do that more often. 

We made it across by walking upright on some divinely upheld patches of grass and dirt, but the slope was so steep that our whole sides were rubbing up against the field of grass that we were holding on to. It was craziness. As we got closer to the other side, there were more rocks to use. Seriously, Heaven was hard at work that day, as none of us slipped once on the wet grass, dirt, or stones. 

Would I have liked to do it another way? Heck yeah, via escalator! 

But did I learn something? Yup: I really don't believe in coincidences. 

We made it down to the craggy rocks again, resumed our quick jaunt down the face, and finally made it down to the edge of the third lake once more. We had made it off the mountain. Oh gosh, my legs were shaking so bad with fatigue and nervousness that I was afraid the other girls would be able to hear them! 

Miya, our Olympiad, decided to jog ahead to let Tom know that we had made it off and had to make the long walk around the last two little lakes before we made it to the van, a 45 minute trip. The rest of us did what we could. Bronte, who has a very long stride, quickly gained some turf ahead of me. I knew I had enough to jog for a few minutes at a time, so I started running when I could, but then realized my stupidity in leaving Mandi, who said she had no intention of running, alone at the back and waited for her. No one likes to be left at the back. We made the long walk back together. It was an absolutely gorgeous place, and we admired it as much as we could while walking as quickly as we could. I convinced Mandi to jog a bit on the steep downhill spots, so that sped us up a little bit. 

About forty minutes later, we made it to the van. Everyone else was waiting there. I was expecting Tom to be upset with me because we were so late in getting back. Everyone cheered for us as we ran down the last big hill and hopped in. I apologized all over to Tom, but he just greeted me with a smile and thanked me for staying with Mandi. It took me a while to stop being angry at myself, but seeing that no one else was angry with me really surprised me and cut that pretty short too. I was still feeling a bit embarrassed by the time we pulled up to the hostel, but I was just more exhausted than anything by that point. 

I had been staring at our hostel for a few minutes before I finally looked around to see where we were. The hostel was a tiny little building on a beautiful tree-filled hilltop in the tiny town of Llanberis. Our host met us outside and told us that all 17 of us had filled the whole hostel, so we had the place all to ourselves. He told us where we could find all the shower stalls, coffe (and hot chocolate/tea) maker, free tv, wifi, and towels. When we went up to our rooms, again easily divided by house, we saw that for the first time, our beds were made up for us when we walked in. EXCELLENT service! 

More than anything, I was super excited to just take a shower. Miya had accidentally snapped at Tom when he put his hand on her shoulder as she jumped out of the van. "Do not touch me!" She said, "I'm am covered in a whole layer of salt water, so don't touch me when I'm this gross!" She just as quickly apologized and told him that she was just tired and super dirty. He seemed very surprised, but also very characteristically forgiving, as is his great nature. I just thought it was really funny. :)

The first thing I did was to hang up the damp clothes that I had brought for the trip. The next was to plug in my dying electronics. Then I borrowed a towel and went straight for the showers. I was so dead tired, but refreshed when I got back to my room. Theresa and I stretched out our tired muscles before finishing up our days with some scriptures and prayers. Then it was a very lovely 'lights out' and a very lovely sleep. 

Today, I got my clothes rained on, then looked at a bunch of castles, and then sat on top of the pillar on the summit of Mt. Snowdon. How's that for a ridiculous summary of a seriously rad day?