Cardiff

Saturday Feb 6th a few of my friends and I decided to venture to the main city of Wales, Cardiff. Starting off bright and early in the morning we caught a shuttle bus that took us straight to the centre of Cardiff. Cardiff is a beautiful city and one that has GREAT shopping! Unfortunately we only browsed the local malls (or as they are called here, Arcades) but seeing as the bus ride is only an hour we will be back to do more than just browse ;)

We started off our day at Cardiff Castle where we were able to see great views of the rest of the city and also were able to watch a band march and some shooting of some very LOUD canons! Yes..I jumped when they lit the first one. And then it continued about 12 more times! Following our expedition of the Castle we went on to grabbing some lunch in the Cardiff Market before heading to the double decker guide bus! We were able to see the main sites of the city including Cardiff Bay. The bus tour was not only freezing as we chose to sit at the top, out in the open ;), but also funny as people from the streets would wave to us and yell, "Welcome to Cardiff!"

Following that, we perused the streets, checked out the many shopping sites before deciding to grab some food. Our original plan was to watch the Rugby game between Wales and England. One of our friends had a friend from Cardiff who was watching the game, but upon arrival at the Pub we realized that would not be possible. When people told me that Rugby was big here, I nodded, sure of course...but I had no idea HOW big. The pub was PACKED as the security guards outside laughed and said, good luck fitting! (And that was only one place..every restaurant and pub was PACKED from early in the afternoon as people were preparing to get their seats before the crowds came!) Feeling slightly claustrophobic as we followed our friend Daryll into the pub I decided..NOPE..im going back outside. We decided to leave Daryll (who's from England, cheering for England) surrounded by Welsh to watch the game with his friend while we went off in search of perhaps a slightly different type of food. One with certain ethnic flavour :) We found a really nice Spanish Tapas restaurant where we indulged in some seafood paella, stuffed mushrooms, peppers, churros and more! It was a nice change :) Before heading back home to Swansea on the train we met up with Daryll, who was still alive after England won the rugby game :)

I leave you now with a little slideshow of pictures. I hope you can notice the contrast between the Castle and Millennium Stadium in the background. It's a lovely juxtaposition between the old and new, ancient and modern, classic and contemporary...etc. You get the idea :)