Caerdydd, Part I
April 08, 2003 ~ 1:58 p.m.
OK, well, you may have read the wife�s account of our weekend trip to Wales. Now here�s mine, with more to come later:
I started off the trip the way I usually do. Take stock of the essentials � the good luck little stuffed dragons (our perennial travelling companions) and the Walkman with some jazz, Billy Joel and Chicago to keep me musically sated. No passport needed. Although Wales turned out to be something quite apart from England, scenically and spiritually, it is still a part of the United Kingdom.
It took two hours to roll into the first stop in Wales from London�s Paddington station. We arrived at a bustling city with a few moderately tall buildings and I stood up to fetch our bags when I realized that it was the city of Newport. Cardiff was the next stop. Very much like Newport, only the immense bowl of the newly built Millennium Stadium distinguished it.
My MIL and her partner Bryn were there at the station. They waved at us as our carriage rolled past. The four of us walked out the station and down two busy thoroughfares to the castle. Looking around, I saw that Cardiff was a respectably sized conurbation. No underground, but plenty of traffic, including buses, to make up for it. It is indescribable to say just why � something intangible � but I knew I wasn�t in England; Cardiff felt like no other English city I�ve ever been to, and I�ve been to quite a good number of them.
The castle grounds were pretty, all green grass and spring flowers including a surfeit of the Welsh national flower, the daffodil (Bryn told me that). We went up to the fortress along narrow staircases and into dark stone rooms, but would it be a castle without those things? While Jo and Bryn went to check out the Welsh Regiment Museum, I spread myself out on the lawn to catch some sun. The temperature was about 68 degrees, hot enough for me to take my shirt off. Let the tanning season begin!
We went into the souvenir shop just across the street that sold every nature of Welsh artefact you could ever want. The one that held my interest, and which I did not pass up purchasing, was a 16-inch tall cartoonish Welsh red dragon. I�m a sucker for stuffed dragons.
Then we went for a walk around the shopping centre, but by a statue someone had written in chalk numerous anti-war slogans such as �America sells arms to Saddam,� and other easy excuses for claiming opposition. Somehow, I expected the Welsh to be a bit more grounded in reality.
Bryn informed us that there was not much else to see along the route in which we were headed, so we backtracked and walked along the street toward Bute Park. The view of the castle from the park was hypnotic. We had a quick look at the Animal Wall and then headed back through another part of the park to where Bryn�s car was parked. Along this stretch of asphalt somebody had written �Support the Troops!� Cardiff became attractive to me again.
End of Part I
� M.E.M.
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Copyright � 2001-2007 by M.E. Manning. All material is written by me, unless explicitly stated otherwise by use of footnotes or bylines. Do not copy or redistribute without my permission.
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