We weren't supposed to be in the van until 11am today, so I got to sleep in! I woke up around 9:30 to make myself the first real breakfast here, since this was the first bit of extra time I had in the morning. I made the most scrumptious egg, cheese, and chive wrap (Tesco food is surprisingly super high quality, despite the cheap food I buy) for breakfast, and my, was it crazy filling!
Our first stop that day was to St. Fagans' outdoor museum, a park where many buildings from all the old time periods had been brought together into one place. My favorite thing I saw there was actually at the 200 year old children's school. There we were shown a small rectangular block of wood with the words 'Welsh Not' carved into it. An old twine cord made this block into something like a necklace. See, when Britain really took over Wales, they killed off almost the entire language by forcing the children to stop speaking Welsh in schools, as they wanted them to learn and only ever speak English. This was most successfully done by implementing the Welsh not. When a child was caught speaking in Welsh, they would be forced to wear the 'Not' around their neck, until another student was caught speaking Welsh. Then the other student would have to wear it. Whoever was caught wearing the Not when school ended was given a beating by the teacher. Stories say that in some schools, the biggest and toughest farm boys would always speak Welsh at the end of the day so that they would always take the daily beating and the other students could continue speaking Welsh. If the tale is as true as they say it is, my heart goes out to those brave boys for being the rare sort of people to make such a sacrifice for those who are weaker. Really, I believe there is a special honor in store for the few great enough to act like that.
By the time we got in our van, I was very surprised to find that I was drinking the last bit of water in my water bottle I had refilled only that morning! I very rarely drink water, so sparsely that a bunch of my travel companions had noticed and commented a few days back at how little I drink. Yet here I was, at 2 in the afternoon, with an empty water bottle! I was so happy that I proclaimed to the van:
Hark all ye people,
Hear Rachel's voice:
I'm drinking water,
and it's by choice!
Side note, Benadryll comes in the form of small pink pills, for any taking such allergy medicine without knowing the brand name beforehand.
Additional side note: I'm coming to believe that Benadryll has a sleeping agent to rival that of moose tranquilizers. So says the three-day Benadryll frequenter.
Our next stop was to the Old Bouprie castle, a fabulous Marcher Lord castle in the best condition of any I have seen so far. On our way there, we had to cross three fields. The first was empty, the second was filled with sheep (which made me think of Gretchen) and the third was filled with great big cows. I was walking by myself with some distance between the group ahead of me and behind me. I was happily taking in the scenery (and dodging poo) when I saw the group ahead of me quickly walk right by the large group of cows that were next to the stone wall we had to hop to get to the castle. When they walked past the cows, they all stood up and began pawing the ground nervously, some lowering their heads and snorting. The group behind me was a long ways off still, just coming through the sheep field; I was alone in front of a bunch of ticked off cows. The section of wall the group in front of me hopped was a small, lowered portion, as the real wall around this field was very high. I was in the center of the field, and the cows were still pawing the ground at me. I looked along the fence farther back and saw a big metal gate. Just as I looked back at the cows, they were already running at me. So I booked it up the rest of the hill to the metal gate and climbed up to the top. The cows reached me just as I straddled the top, plenty high above them to let them slow down and walk past me towards the far end of the field. Lets just say that I was trembling with excitement, only excitement. I jumped down the other side and met up with my group at the castle just a little ahead.
The actual castle was my favorite yet. Many of the walls and stone ceilings were still intact, and the layout was super labyrinth-like, which made it way fun to explore. A lot of times in these castles, staircases and rooms are locked off by big wooden doors (very modern of course), which is always a bit discouraging. Miya and I happened to climb up a very tall spiral staircase in one of the towers and found another big 'stay out' door (we prefer to call them 'limited access places') at the top, but this one was different, in that there was a big opening at the top of the door. So we each climbed the door arch and peeked over. It was a beautiful all-white stone room, like the lime wash had been beautifully preserved for the most part here. It had a gorgeous fireplace that was more intact than all the rest, and just hadn't lost its color like the rest of the castle had, but the room had been vandalized. The fireplace was filled to the flu with black twigs and there were all sorts of crazy things spray painted on the walls. So I took a picture and got down.
As we explored another 'limited access' area of the castle, we came upon the resident bat! He was super darling. We thought it best to not snap any photos of the cute little upside down creature though...
We then drove to two different quoit sites. A quoit is a Neolithic age (circa 3500 bc) burial site, made up of a few vertical stones topped with a massive horizontal stone. Think of like a small stone hut, with each wall and the roof being seperate 40 ton stones. When the ancient people who lived here became just barely civilized to where they started farming instead of just hunting, they began giving a proper ceremony to their dead. This consisted of burning the bodies in a nearby pit and then moving the remains into the quoit.
When we got to the first one, Matt got in the unearthed fire pit and lay down, where we quickly shot a photo. He then also climbed inside the quoit, but by that time, we were all getting on top of the low roof for a group picture.
The second quoit was much smaller inside, but much taller than the first. With some measure of coaxing, I finally climbed up onto the second as well, just for kicks and giggles. (fear not, gentle reader; these chambers have withstood 5000 years of war, people, and weather: they had zero problem holding us up, and we were certainly not the first or last to climb up.)
On our way home, we stopped off at Tesco, where I got everything I had been needing, but I actually splurged a bit this time as well (with some measure of wisdom; the box of Magnums was on sale for a pound fifty).
After I got home and put everything away, I decided to spend my last two pounds of my weekly budget on a cheap Indian place that my friends had raved about since we got there: Penjabis! They had all eaten there once before, on a night I decided to stay behind and save some money by making dinner by myself. But for some reason, I was in a major rare splurging mood! So I went and got me a big tray of chips and curry, (p.s., the chips here are peeled and chopped fresh each day, so they taste 100 times better than any 'English Chips' I ever had in the states!) for only two pounds! Thats a crazy thing over here, since I've seen common sandwiches usually sold for around five pounds. Living here is expensive!
We took our food home and indulged while listening to our pianist neighbor hard at work again. It was a joyous moment! I'm glad Penjabis is literally four flats down from me, I could see myself stopping in for a couple pounds every now and then....
After dinner, I doctored Abby's knee, which she had slammed on a quoit earlier in the day. It had bled through her jeans, but because they were skinny jeans, I couldn't do anything about it until we got home. She didn't want to bother with it until we had finished eating, so I saw to it after dinner. Once we got the blood all washed off, it wasn't real bad at all, nothing a common couple of band aids can't fix. She's going to have a real fancy bruise the next week or so though.
Tom reminded us that Tuesday night means discount Cinema night, so we all walked about a mile to the local Cinema and watched Despicable Me 2, which was cute, but I didn't think it was nearly as intriguing as the first. I'd definitely watch it again, but I don't think I'd pay to see it a second time. For some reason, I was still in a very strange un-frugal mood, so for the first time EVER, I bought a slurpee with my ticket. And it was dang good! I mostly got it because Theresa had let me sample a new soda she had found called Tango, and it is pretty fantastic. So since they were Tango slurpees, I traded my change for the strange delight. Scrumptious!
Once the movie ended, it was home, make tomorrows lunch, pack the backpack, scripture study, prayers, and bed. Day nine; definitely lived.
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