Day Six: Cardiff Bay

Today was very different than any day here so far, in that it was by far our least busy yet. 

Our orders for the day were to be in the van by 10 this morning, so I woke up at 9:30, but despite getting a solid eight hours of sleep last night, I still felt exhausted. I got up, got dressed and cleaned up, grabbed a croissant and a scone from my cupboard for breakfast, and walked to the van with Theresa and Miya. 

It was a gorgeous morning! The sun was beaming, the sky was pretty cloud free (its so fantastic to see a blue sky here!), and The people of cardiff were up and alive! 

One thing that I have noticed in my few days here is that the sun seems to rise earlier and set later here than it does at home. It's probably a combination of there not being many mountains here, as well as being higher up on the latitude lines. 

We all met at the van in time for morning prayers. Then we loaded up and drove the half hour to Cardiff bay. This drive was mostly through  city areas, so not nearly as delightful as through the countryside, but it was still fun to see the new buildings and city areas here, especially when Tom decides to drive; I thought that man only walked fast, but he has a lead foot like nothing I've ever seen before! When you drive with someone who likes to go fast, that's one thing. When you experience the feeling of flying down tiny city roads and around sharp turns, in an 18 passenger van, on the opposite side of the street, with everyone else driving in the passenger seat of their cars, that's a whole different feeling altogether. Lets just say that I've found my little hiking backpack doubles as a terrific hugging pillow for when Tom drags main. 

Side note: I almost flipped out the first time I looked over at the car to my right and wondered who in the heck would let their three year old drive a ruddy car down the road. It took a single second for my companions to follow my aghast gaze and remind me that the driver was in the other front seat. It's not wrong, just opposite. 

Our plan for the day was to take a tour of the Welsh embassy building, Cardiff bay, the Rohl Dahl chapel, and then go to the big Welsh Food Festival. My problem was that though my mind was strangely alert and clear, my body was absolutely dragging. I don't remember ever feeling so tired, even on trek! I still can't figure out what went wrong, but I felt so overwhelmingly tired. 

Which is so dumb, Becuase I hate taking naps in the day! Naps are such time and opportunity wasters. I would much rather be doing something fun than taking a nap. But the problem is, I usually need one,so if I get warm and comfortable, then I'm done for. But I loath the feeling like I am missing out on something by sleeping through it. Absolutely dumb. 

But here I was, in Wales, taking a tour of the Welsh big wig room where all the countries decisions are made, and all I honestly wanted to do was to sleep. 

The funny thing is that I knew the answers to more pop questions today than ever. When Tom was taking us around the bay, I answered almost every one of his random questions correctly, even though I didn't know I knew the answers. They just kept popping out of my mouth. Okay, that's kind of a lie: there were two times where two separate lessons from Mrs. Scott's fifth grade class popped vividly into my mind, and that's where my answers came from. 

Like, "who can tell me how a ship lock works?" "It's for moving a ship up a step-incline system in canals." "Excellent. Can you explain how the process works?" "Sure. ....." 

Or, "what are those large logs that look like a building skeleton used for in the bay? Rachel?" "To buffer the ships so that they wouldn't come in too close to the shore and bottom out along the rocks." "Precisely"

Or, "who can tell me what this hue round iron cylinder with squares in it was used for by the Vikings? Yes Rachel?" "To hoist the anchor" "yes, perfect"

It was crazy, because every time he asked a question, I always waited for someone else to answer, but when no one did and I saw him getting ready to give up the answer, I would raise my hand and the words just kind of fell out. Like I said, I didn't even know I knew the answers to those questions. But that made it even more amazing for me I think. Thanks, people upstairs!

So Tom told us a few things about the bay, showed us the Rohl Dahl chapel which is now a diner, and then we went to the parliament building. 

This was super cool because it really is where the political leaders of Wales meet together almost every day to make laws, like charging five pence for every normal plastic bag or shopping trolley you use at the grocery store...lame. But I learned that you only need to get ten signatures in order to propose a new law to the government leaders here, and you don't have to be eighteen or even a Welsh citizen in order to sign. So technically we could have put up a whole two new laws right there for the committee members to assess on Monday when they get back to business. Hmm, I'm thinking something like fish and chips Tuesdays for Americans? 

I almost fell asleep at the grand committee table. Well, okay, I did fall asleep, but only for like two seconds. I don't know what was wrong with me, but the fear of drooling all over the bill-signing table kept me barely awake enough to when we got up and were on our feet again. 

When we tell people here that we are students from the Rockies here to study welsh, they always look so happy and amazed. Our tour guide looked so grateful and happy when we told him that Tom thought it would be cool to sing him a song in welsh that we had been learning. I honestly don't even remember what it's called, but Gareth looked very touched as we sang it. 

When we left, we stopped by a really popular ice cream place right on the dock. Now, I really wanted to go a full day without spending any money, but I really needed some sugar to keep me awake for a bit. And I really kind of like ice cream. So I bought some. And it was superb. :)

Then we went into a great big building that had a bunch of booths init and a small play. This is where the food festival was supposed to be, but much to my delight (awful I know), the festival is actually next weekend. So we walked around for a little bit, I went and watched a short production of Mary poppins singing supercalafragilisticexpialidociis and teaching the audience how to do the dance, then I looked at a bunch of the booths. One was selling some gorgeous stained glass jewelry, and I so wanted to get one for mum, but they were like eighty pounds each. Bummer. 

We met up and watched a twelve minute video on Cardiff bay on the other side of the building. I honestly could not tell you one single thing that was said during those twelve minutes. I remember asking Katie if I could sit next to her, thanking the man at the counter of the movie as I left, and that is all. 

I must say that walking to that parking lot and seeing that van was a beautiful moment for me. I was so glad I was going home that I smiled all he way there. On the inside; my body was dead. 

We were dropped off at the other house, so me and the girls from my house walked home. I set out my things, set my alarm for almost two hours later, and fell right to sleep. 

Three hours later, I woke up and shut my music alarm off. Oops. I went downstairs and found that only a few people were still home. Everyone else had gone back to Tesco for more stuff and would be coming back a few hours later. So I went down to my quiet sunny living room, sat on my soft brown couch by the big window to the back porch, and just wrote. A few minutes later, Katie came down and fell asleep by me on the other end of the couch. It was perfect. 

After a while, everyone came home and started doing things. I kept writing until everyone had either cooked dinner or came back from getting some before I got up to make mine. I made a slam-bang dimmer tonight actually, a scrambled egg chive and cheese filling for my super delicious flatbread I got at Tesco for a pound! It would have been better with some thyme and rosemary, but it turned out pretty dang good considering how few different food items I have here. The whole twenty pounds a week for food thing is tricky, but certainly not impossible. 

While I was eating, everyone from both houses just kind of came together at my place and we all sat and chatted in the living room, which is perfect Becuase our living room is perfect for having a ton of people over. 

Tom quick divided us up into a bunch of teams and had us play his welsh history flash card game. The thing is, all but two of us suck at that game. Like a lot. But he still pushes us hard to know this stuff. But it's all totally random stuff. I wouldn't even know where to look any of those questions up online to find the answers, but he likes us to know them. I am happy to say that I knew one of the answers and scored a point for my team, becuae I happened to remember a diagram of a cathedral I had seen. It turns out that the part of the cathedral that runs parallel to the nave is the aisle. Store that little tidbit away for later.

I got permission from Tom to leave the game early so I could go to the other house and Skype with my family. After some bit of trouble, we got everything working. It was so nice to see them all, just sitting in the room that has always been there my whole life, and is so far away from me now. 

Its funny, as a psych major, when you see what some creatures so when they see themselves in a mirror. cats and dogs get super ticked, elephants actually show self awareness, and fish become more confident. my sisters pull faces. The whole entire time. It was great, they really made me laugh. 

Oh, and then Ethan returned my parents call! That was super crazy timing. I felt bad more than anything Becuase my math said he should be at work, and that's not an ideal place for him to take or make calls from, but it was way nice to be able to hear him too. I heard a hello, how are you

and then the Skype call dropped for like the eighty-seventh time. Perfect. 

I was bummed that nick wasn't there today so I could see him, but it was really nice to be able to tell the rest of my family a tiny tiny bit about what has been happening in my world out here. 

And then I realized, I probably never will be able to adequately tell them what I'm doing out here. There is soo much happening in my life right now that even if they did ask about specific things, I probably won't be able to remember them. Fortunately, I'm long winded when I write (and talk in general, actually) so I really really hope that this blog will help me preserve these memories for myself, so even when I can't tell all these stories to my family when I get back, I will still have them here to remember by reading them, rather than by telling them. I think that is something new I have learned about myself: I know many things, but I don't remember them until I get a prompt about them. Like some of my answers today (there were others I gave, but they were in the parliament tour). I haven't thought about my fifth grade class for forever, but I had the answer because I was asked the question (obviously also Becuase of the people upstairs too). So I hope I'll keep this silly blog up, yes to share, but also for me to remember a ton of these tiny things, as I'll probably not get to talk about them all later. 

You're very welcome, world :) 

Goodnight, Cardiff and family back home. Thanks for being there for me.