Traveling in the UK!

Hello all!

Since a ton has happened in the past week, this blog post is going to focus on the sites I have traveled to recently and then I will catch you up on my continued exploration of Bath in my next post (which will hopefully happen in the next few days before I am off to Ireland and Scotland for the weekend!).

So two weekends ago was spent in Cardiff, Wales with my flatmates, Chelsi, Madeline, and Melanie, and Amy, who lives in Flat 5 above us. Wales is actually incredibly accessible from where we are located in England as it was only an hour train ride from Bath Spa train station to Cardiff Central. Once at Cardiff our group decided to split up with Melanie, Chelsi and I heading off to Cardiff Bay to see the Doctor Who Experience and Madeline and Amy going to peruse the shops and museums. Since I hadn't purchased my railcard yet, which will ultimately get me discounted train tickets, I balked at spending even more money on a bus ticket to get to Cardiff Bay and ended up cajoling my friends into taking a forty minute stroll there as opposed to the fifteen minute bus ride. The scenery was well worth it despite us having to take a detour at the Cardiff Bay Visitor's Center to get further directions about thirty minutes into the walk. I definitely recommend the Doctor Who Experience to any Whovians who have the opportunity to visit Wales :) The first part of the Experience consisted of an interactive tour with us "shoppers" helping to free the Doctor from a Dalek take over; the kids on the tour had a great time especially when they got to fly the TARDIS. The tour then followed through to the exhibition rooms where they have all the special effects creatures and costumes that the actors wore on the show. As someone who is not a die-hard Whovian quite yet (my friends made me watch a couple episodes the night before and I am several episodes into the second season now) it was still pretty entertaining. I am sure I will appreciate the tour more once I am further invested into the Doctor Who show.

The rest of the afternoon took us to a Welsh restaurant for lunch (the chocolate sundae was magical and I would happily travel to Cardiff again just to get dessert at that restaurant!) and onto Cardiff Castle where we successfully climbed to the top of the battlements and didn't fall on our way back down the incredibly steep winding staircases! Although the apartments where the people actually lived were elaborately adorned and just breathtaking, the section of the underground paths used back in the World War II and Cold War days as bomb shelters thoroughly creeped me out. By about four in the afternoon, we decided to head back to the train station, but finding our way back to Bath proved to be a bit more difficult than we anticipated... our train was cancelled due to flooding in the area and we had to catch a connecting train to Swindon, which eventually got us back to Bath in a roundabout way that took double the time it originally took us to get there. For our very first day trip outside Bath, I would say it was a resounding success!

On the train to Cardiff!

In the exhibit room of the Doctor Who Experience, cheesing with the TARDIS!

The original castle inside the outer wall. It had a real moat around it!

From the top of the wall surrounding Cardiff Castle.

The collection of the World's flags on the outer wall.

Just some of the many steps up to the top of the castle!

There were peacocks wandering around outside the apartments of the Cardiff Castle...Amy and I got really excited :)

Some of the amazing ceiling work in the Cardiff Apartments!

My next excursion this past Friday was with my whole program to the Cotswolds, which according to Andrew Butterworth, our very own Blue Badge Tour Guide... "wold" means an enclosure of sorts and a "cot" is essentially a flock of sheep, therefore "Cotswolds" is the number one place to see a TON of sheep pens! Literally, the view from the coach was just miles and miles of fields with sheep grazing in the pastures. Once we arrived we had a bit of time to look around Broadway Tower, which played a part in World War II as a radio tower; very cool bit of history, but honestly my number one focus was on staying warm with the wind whipping around us like crazy! I was very happy to start moving on our hike down through the countryside so we all could get the blood moving and I could start to feel my fingers again! The English countryside is absolutely gorgeous; the closest that I can compare it to is the hills of farmland in rural Lancaster, but even that isn't an accurate depiction. My favorite part of the hike took us directly through one of the sheep enclosures and I watched some of my friends try to chase down the sheep to pet them :) Honestly one of the most ridiculous things I have seen in my opinion, but they looked like they were having a grand ole time. After our hike we grabbed some lunch and headed off to Painswick to see the snowdrop displays in the famous Rococo Gardens. Apparently these carefully cultured gardens of snowdrops only bloom for about three weeks, so we timed our visit perfectly to see the displays in full bloom. Sorry to all my family and friends in the States, buried under layers of snow, but it was so nice to see flowers in full bloom at the end of February! The weather here doesn't stray too much from the upper forties with at least a thirty percent chance of rain, EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Never have I had such a valuable piece of clothing as a raincoat. And I bought my very own wellies (slang for rainboots!), which is a story in and of itself (suffice it to say I completely forgot that the shoe sizes are different for the US and the UK so when I asked the salesman for a women's size eight, he looked down at my feet and gave me the strangest look; turns out I am a size 4.5 here...oops).

Broadway Tower. 

Countryside on our walk down the hill.

SHEEP! 

The snowdrop display at the Rococo Gardens.

Just yesterday Melanie and I ventured out on our first trip to London and spent at least half the day in the British Museum wandering in and out of the Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Africa, and Egypt exhibits. Two of the most interesting rooms for me were definitely the Money Room (dedicated to all aspects of trade and commerce throughout the centuries) and the Evolution of Clocks and Watches Room (pretty self explanatory; my favorite clock was actually gold cast in the shape of a ship!). Since we didn't get out of the museum until around 4:00pm and it gets dark around 5:30, we had to book it around to some of the other touristy sites that were in the area. We hiked over to grab some great pictures of Trafalgar Square, the London Eye, Big Ben, and Parliament Square; I would definitely love to go back there and actually go up in the London Eye--I hope you aren't afraid of heights, Mackenzie!

On the train to London!

The streets of London.

London edition of Madame Tussaud's.

In front of the main entrance to the British museum.

An ancient Greek lyre made of a tortoise shell, wood, and string.

Gladiator's helmet. 

A few of the many Roman busts of all the emperors. 

The African tree of life... completely made out of old weapon parts!

The African pottery. 

The African brasscasting. 

Some of the amazing African hats used in rituals... they give Queen Elizabeth a run for her money :) 

Inside the main hub of the British Museum.

Melanie in front of the Rosetta Stone. Just goes to show how crowded it was. I thought it was incredibly symbolic that in the five minutes we were standing in front of the Rosetta Stone, I could hear a British accent, an Australian accent, someone speaking Chinese, another speaking Italian, and a third speaking Spanish... and then of course you have us Americans!

The closest I could get to the Rosetta Stone.

Ancient Eygptian statues room. 

An Egyptian sarcophagus. 

The Egyptian Gayer-Anderson Cat.

A few of the many mosaics adorning the walls of the staircase.

My favorite clock in the shape of a ship. When it was fully working, the cannons would fire to sound the hours. 

Yoda floating in Trafalgar Square. We had a bagpiper serenading us with the Star Wars theme song as well!

The National Gallery in Trafalgar Square.

Random blue rooster...not quite sure what this was there for... but it certainly caught my attention!

Selfie in Trafalgar Square!

Roomie picture in Trafalgar Square. We both decided to dress a bit more posh than usual since we had just done the whole trekking through the mud thing the day before at the Cotswolds. 

Sherlock is the next British show that I am told I must watch, so Melanie geeked out when we saw this.

View from the Embankment Pier, overlooking the London Eye and Big Ben in the distance.

Whitehall Palace along the walk to Big Ben. 

The London Eye! 

Obligatory telephone booth picture!

Stay tuned in the next couple days for more about my life in Bath, including the Bath Abbey Tower Tour, brunch at the famous Sally Lunn's, and my first experience with Regency dancing!

Cheers!