Day Thirty-one: Afternoon, Sherlock Holmes

I woke up this morning and got dressed for another day here in Cardiff. I was excited for the chance to give my awesome tennis shoes a break and wear my black flats, as I knew they would be fine with a few miles a day, rather than our usual 4-6 miles a day with Tom. I went to grab my flats, when a terrible smell reached my nose. With great dismay, I picked up a shoe and knew long before it reached my face that it was the source of the offending smell. Drat. When I wore them in the rain walking home from church on Sunday, they dried smelling terribly, even though I left them out in the open to dry. 

Drat. I hate having to retire a pair of shoes I really liked. Well, I guess it was time to find another pair of flats soon; I wasn't going to be caught dead wearing my tennis shoes to church next Sunday. 

So I changed out of my skinny jeans and dressed once again to wear my trusty trekking shoes. After I finished getting ready, made some breakfast, and got my bag packed for the day, we left our house and walked off to class. 

It had rained through the night, but the clouds were slowly burning off into the rising sun. The sidewalks were damp and made the sounds of the sleepy city echo strangely off the faces of the many flats we passed. 

We were about five minutes to reaching the class building, when something really amazing happened. I had only seen this once before, when I was in Hawaii years ago. As I walked along, looking at the trees and homes along the street, the air started to fill up with what looked like sparkly dust that meandered fairly quickly to the ground. It was tiny tiny bits of rain falling everywhere, making the dirty city look like it was inside a freshly-shaken snow globe. My mom and I called the similar scene in Hawaii 'misting,' and that was indeed the best way to describe this moment too. Super cool. 

We got to class soon after and started another awesome lesson just after we turned in our homework. We covered more about the rules in talking about 'coming from' and 'going to.' It was good to know that once you have a new vocab sheet memorized, you can just apply the same mutation and structure rules and it all clicks. 

Tea time was lovely, as usual. Hot chocolate with chocolate coated shortbread today. Definitely my cup of tea, if you know what I mean :)

Josie was sitting next to me today, and decided out of the blue that she is now my water Nazi. As much as I hate drinking water, its good. Ethan was my awesome water Nazi back home, and I was trying to drink a whole bottle a day while it was really hot out, but I guess I've been slacking a bit ever since the temperatures started cooling down a bit. So every now and then, Josie will sporadically elbow me and tell me I have to drink water. The funny think is that she doesn't stop telling me until I actually do, and when i run out (haha, it's not incredibly often, granted) she actually gets up, walks out, fills up the bottle, and then sits back down. Haha, okay, that's awesome points right there. 

For lunch, we went back over to the Hays, along the main road called Queen's Street. We found an awesome fresh produce stand with outrageous prices. Like two flats of raspberries or five big nectarines for a pound! Can you say awesome? I can! So we each spent a single pound and got a ton of fruit to spit for lunch as we meandered over to a big store called Primark. There are a TON of huge name brand clothing stores in this part of town, but Primark sells more Walmart-grade clothes. I was delighted to find a cute pair of light gray flats for only three pounds! So I got them. 'Find a replacement pair of flats': check. 

After lunch, we all met up at the Llyfergell Gaerdydd (a big new library right by Queens Street) for a tour Lowrie had booked. The tour...well, was a bit on the uninteresting side. Our guide was more interested in showing us where each section of the book genres were than anything. The place where you return the books was cool, and the architecture is fun. I guess. 

Okay, so here was my real problem. I was so ready to get out of this llyfergell as soon as possible because Lowrie had mentioned something ASTRONOMICALLY COOL: Rewind to earlier this morning. 

Once upon a time at the beginning of class, Lowrie had mentioned as a passing side note to something else she was talking about that her sister had breakfast with Benedict Cumberbatch that morning. Cool huh?

Fast forward to later that afternoon. As we were starting the tour, we happened to ask Lowrie how her sister had managed to have breakfast with Benedict that morning. She told us that it was because they were doing a lot of filming for Sherlock in Cardiff that day at Cardiff University. 

.....What? 

Here? Duh, this is close enough to England. Why not just happen to be filming in the city in Wales I'm living on a day that I'm there. Sure. Not even a big deal. 

When were they filming? All that afternoon, Lowrie said. Did she know where? Oh yeah, probably just over by the museum there beside the University. 

Sweet. Lets get out of this library already. Who cares where the children's section is, get me out of here!!! 

At long last, the tour finally ended. Abbey, Josie, and I actually took the opportunity to get Cardiff Library cards before we left so we could check out a copy of Sherlock so that Abbey could watch it for the first time ever! To our disappointment, they only had season two, but the guy said that he would order in the first season from another library, reserve it under my card, and then email me when it got in. We did, however, find a copy of the new Hobbit movie, which we checked out instead. 

Brilliant! Time to go. 

We left the llyfergell and walked down the center fork, as we knew it would eventually take us to the university museum. We hadn't gone more than fifty yards though before we came to a fairly big crowd of people standing outside a random restaurant. We were trying to get through as quick as we could, but we stopped long enough to ask some girls what was going on. 

"Oh, they just started setting up here to film a scene for Sherlock. The actors are just arriving now." 

......

Gahhh....REALLY???????? HAHA!!! holy flippin moley!!!! 

Sure enough, a small square had been fenced off in front of Giovanni's Italian restaurant and a crowd of excited fans was pressed up against the plastic gates. Yellow vested security guards were keeping a weather eye on us all as four huge trucks unloaded and set up the cameras and gear. The four of us looked at each other, jaws hanging mere inches above the ground almost...and then, we squealed our delight. Oh, we were not quiet about our feelings. This was not a time for discretion. 

With great delight, we ran up to the last available section of open fence, and within ten minutes, a sleek black Jaguar rolled through the shopping center and pulled right up to the door of Giovannis. The windows were tinted completely black. This was it. 

Sure enough, who gets out of the car with a smile and a quick wave, but Mr. Benedict Cumberbatch himself. He was right there. I was seeing him with my own two eyes. It was crazy! He was only out for a quick moment before he went into the restaurant, where nothing could be seen through the menu-laden windows. Not too long after that, the man playing the new bad guy (I think it will be Lars) drove up in a similar car. A couple of girls standing next to us told us that the man who plays Mycroft had arrived a few minutes earlier. We waited and watched for a while longer, but Martin Freeman (good Dr. Watson and also Bilbo Baggins) did not come to this scene. Bummer. 

After asking around a bit, we learned that an announcement had been made that Giovannis would be open to the public about three hours from then. I looked at the girls I was with and asked what they wanted to do. I was dying to see more, but at the same time, was okay with leaving, since they had announced that all the filming would be done inside the restaurant and that we wouldn't be able to see much of anything. To my amazement, the three other girls all wanted to stay. 

To make an already long story a little shorter, we stood there for three hours, until they each left Giovanni's in the manner they had come. In the mean time, we saw many different shots taken of Lars dramatically entering the restaurant. I'm honestly not super familiar with this character, but this guy is very good at his job, as he gives off a very cold bad-guy feel, right from the start. Classic. 

Josie and Abbey ran into the nearby H&M store while they waited, where Josie actually scored a fabulous black leather coat that was on sale, and Abbey just got some candy. Three hours later, we saw the celebrities leave Giovannis, get back in their cars, and leave the scene.

What are the odds? I use the word 'happen' here more of as a code word than anything, but the grammar warrants it. Isn't it incredible that I just happened to be in the one country in the exact BBC Headquarters (Wales, no less) where Sherlock is being filmed, on the day they were filming a scene, just outside of the library that I just happened to finish a tour at? I'll say it again, dear reader, I don't really believe in coincidences. The people upstairs deserve far more credit than an acknowledgement as 'coincidences.' 

In this elated state, we made the walk back to Cathay's terrace street. I stopped off at Lydls to grab some milk and produce, before I went home. On a potentially humorous note, I bought a package of fresh English Muffins while I was there, though had to chuckle when i realized that they are just called 'breakfast muffins,' because I'm pretty much IN England, so they wouldn't really need to call them 'english muffins' here, now would they? :)

Once I was home and got everything put away, I polished off the remainder of my Indian leftovers just as a couple of guys from the ward came by. They were some of the guys that played rugby with the girls, and Lydia invited them over for the Hobbit. 

While we wished we could have seen Martin Freeman today at the filming, we were excited to see him as the friendly little hobbit we have all come to know and love. I think this movie is super great. A little long and a little too stretched out (honestly, you don't need three whole movies just to make the Hobbit), but good. Unfortunately for me, as soon as I was finished giving Lydia her requested back rub, i made the mistake of laying down on the couch. I slept through probably half the movie. 

I vaguely remember waking up a little when the guys went home and when Josie went up to bed. I checked my watch, it was about midnight. The next thing I knew, Abbey was waking me up and telling me that she was the last one up and was going up to bed. I checked my watch again. It was a little past two. Well, time for bed. 

I walked upstairs, said a prayer and read my scriptures, then fell asleep again once I got into bed, grateful that I had already gotten at least three hours of sleep that night. 

So, dear Bilbo, I'll have to catch up later. Many thanks to Sherlock, Mycroft, and Lars, for bringing my absolute favorite story come more to life than ever before. And last but certainly not least: Happy Birthday, Harry Potter.