In two weeks, a number of Cardiff faculty and lecturers intend to go on strike to protest a proposed slash to their pensions. The university’s response has been to ignore the strike and proceed as if nothing is happening. Our Cleopatra professor, at the start of class, told us that the newsletter that Cardiff University …
My plans to go to Caerphilly, second-largest castle in Britain, were scuppered today by my lack of one more pound coin to make the three-pounds-eighty exact change for a bus fare. While I was slinking to Barker Coffee with my laptop (knowing that by the time I broke my five-pound bill on an americano, it’d …
My eyes may be bigger than my stomach, but my wallet luckily is not. While taking out my garbage this morning, my nose lured me into the Music Library (the one that shares a building with Aberdare), which was having a cake sale to benefit Belarusian children. Regardless of the fact that I would not …
Levi sent me this beautiful sunset from York. Now I’m totally counting down the days till I get to visit York.
I love the high ceiling in my room and I love the swivel chair at my desk, but these are a poor combination when there is a spider on the former and you cannot stand on the latter to kill it.
I have a riddle for you. Google Transit and UK travel forums agree that it is physically impossible to get from Cardiff to Tintagel Castle in less than four bus transfers (generally five). This is a lie. The secret is to overshoot Tintagel by about forty minutes. If you take the National Express bus from …
There is so much history here. You literally cannot walk fifty feet without tripping over ancient ruins. I took a field trip out to Caerleon today. Prior to reading Rick Steves, I mostly knew Caerleon as the supposed location of King Arthur’s winter court. This association probably stems from the still-visible Roman amphitheater just outside of …
So you know how humans are like 18% carbon? I’m pretty sure Brits are at least 18% canned pineapple. Things in which I have unexpectedly encountered canned pineapple in Aberdare: -carrot salad -rice salad -salad salad -mince pie -stir-fry -curry -yogurt -casserole -veggie lasagne I was outraged to find canned pineapple in my lamb tagine …
I missed half of Literature. At the beginning of class I showed up to a lecture hall populated by four other sheepish-looking students who were already trying to figure out why there were only five of us there. There is a strange sense of fellow-feeling that arises when you find yourself part of a group …
As Mom and Dad can attest, getting me to drink milk has been a lifelong struggle. But I have found a liquid nemesis viler than milk, and that is the water in Aberdare. First, it tastes funny, and second, it comes in two temperatures: tea and tepid. So I bought a pint of milk for …
Today dawned miserable and cold—perfect conditions to visit Cardiff Castle without tripping over tourists. (The flaw in my logic was that it was miserable and cold, but I’m not one to let a little common sense get in the way of a castle.) So here’s the tale of Cardiff Castle, to the best of my …
This week’s Welsh Culture and Mythology lecture covered Welsh saints. Looking at an aerial view of a chapel, Professor Wood drew our attention to the round churchyard. Most churchyards are angled. If a churchyard is round, it likely means that the church was built on an earlier Neolithic site. Some still have stone circles on …
Professor Wood on most translations of the Mabinogion: “I’m supposed to say not sufficiently academically rigorous. But what I’m actually thinking is get out the garlic.” Professor Wood on the rugby game on Saturday: “If you went downtown, you saw the Scots. They were the ones in kilts. And you saw the Welsh. Those were the ones who …
Google says that the grammatically correct name for this village is St. Fagans with no apostrophe. This means that there is more than one Fagan. St. Fagans is an open-air museum. It’s centered on “St. Fagans Castle,” which is really a Tudor-era manor house built on the old grounds of a long-gone Norman motte-and-bailey castle: …
Aberdare doesn’t serve dinner on the weekends. This is a bit of a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that I do not have to eat Aberdare food. The bad news is that there is no Aberdare food to eat. The other bad news is that I am a student with access to …
There’s not a lot else to be said. The letters are in the right places, but the shift, tab and enter keys are all caddywhompus. I was going to do my writing today on one of the big-screen Macs in the lounge at the top of the ziggurat, um, I mean Student Union Building, but …
Since the sky looked like rain, I decided to postpone my visit to St. Fagans till tomorrow, when it’s supposed to be sunny. I figured today I would go to Cardiff Castle and finish looking around there. I cut through Bute Park to get there. As I was passing the Pettigrew Tea Room in the …
…so I have no amusing stories to tell. I like all my classes, I watched Maze Runner with Anna and company last night, and I discovered the best chocolate chip cookies in the UK at Lidl, the grocery store around the corner (“Big on quality, Lidl on price,” although the catch is the forty minutes you stand …