Cardiff - Home of the Rugby, Doctor Who, Welsh People and Roald Dahl.

1st - 4th May 2009

Dan and I set off as soon as we could Friday afternoon - we really wanted to make the most of the Bank holiday long weekend. After all this is the only public holiday we will get to enjoy while we are working. We got down to the Benfleet rail station hoping to catch the 4.30 train to London, but the nice man told us that if we waited until the 4.50 one the cost of the train ticket would go from £110 to £40. We chose to wait. Finally we made it to London, did the annoying tube changes, had dinner and we were reading to board the 6.45 train to Cardiff, along with the thousands of other commuters/rugby fans/holidaymakers etc etc. Apparently they were all smarter than us and reserved seats. We did not. We had to stand in the isle of the train for ages. Until after a few stops, people started to get off and we managed to snag a seat each. 2 hours later we arrived in Cardiff, walked out of the station and into our beautiful hotel (We splurged a little). We dropped our bags and headed out to find a nice quiet bar to have an ale or lager (I still don't know the difference, although I know that I like the cold ones, not the 'cellar temp' ones). The guy on reception gave us some directions to the brewer's quarter, but we didn't find it, we ended up just walking through the busy nightclub area and around a few corners and finally we came across a quiet, small pub. We had a couple of pints and thought that we'd take it easy and head back to bed.

Next morning we got up and enjoyed our free hotel breakfast and made our way to the Cardiff Castle. After getting in we headed to the audio guide desk. The friendly lady asked us "Which country are you from?" (They usually ask "What language"), to which I proudly replied, "England, I mean Australia, England, arghh". It was this moment that I realised that the Welsh really don't like the English. She pretty much persecuted me for being Australian but trying to pass myself as English: A big slip of the tongue. We wandered through some of the exhibits and across the lovely grounds until our tour of the apartments began. Although the castle was originally built by the Normans 1000 years ago, the apartments were a much more recent addition (18th century). This got built on when the wealthy people who controlled all the oil purchased the castle grounds. The rooms in the apartments were beautifully decorated. One of the rooms, "The Arab room" was completely covered in gold leaf, and the floors were done in exquisite Irish marble. The room was recently valued at £200000 and it was only about 3m square! From the apartments we headed back outside and up to the keep. It was just a shell now, but we could climb the stairs on the inside up to the top. From the top it gave a great view of Cardiff and the castle grounds.

We left the castle and decided that we'd go and explore the bay area. We jumped on what we thought was the right bus, but ended up on the wrong side of the bay. We got out in an industrial area, and must've looked confused because the bus driver came out and told us we were in the wrong spot. He told us that they were building this area up to be a world class sporting precinct. They'd already building a multimillion pound swimming pool, have put up a temporary ice skating rink, and the white water rafting course is well on its way to completion. The only other standing building in the area was a Toys'r'Us. We thought we'd go check it out cause we had time to fill. Both Dan and I love toys so we filled in half an hour just looking at everything. We were shown a demo of a new Wii product called Wii Jog. If it has come out in Aus yet, you all need to purchase one. Its just clips onto your belt and plugs into the controller, and you have to run to make your character in the game move. Very cool, keep your eyes out for it. They also had the biggest Doctor Who section. I made Dan put on the Dalek helmet so I could take a photo. (I actually just heard Dan downstairs telling Hannah that there's going to be a Doctor Who marathon on TV this weekend - Jealous yet Rob?)

We left the toy shop and climbed on the correct bus, and quickly found ourselves in the newly developed Cardiff Bay area. We walked past the Millennium Centre with its impressive Welsh and English writing on the front, but we actually had to walk inside to figure out what the building is used for - It's a performing arts centre. We then walked down Roald Dahl's Pass - just a big open area - to the main eating and shopping centre on the waterfront. We marvelled at the big, expensive boats parked in the little marina, and decided that it was time for lunch. Nando's was picked and it was damn good. But if you think it's expensive in Australia, you should see the menu here. Everything is the about the same price as back home, but it's in pounds, so its almost double the price by today's exchange standards. After lunch we decided to take a sightseeing cruise out on the harbour. We just did a big 45minute loop out and around and back again, it was very pretty though.

It was getting late and we thought we'd head back into the city centre to find out if we could take a tour of the Millennium dome - the rugby Mecca, or so I'm told. We knew that there was a game on Sunday afternoon, and it was a public holiday Monday, so we thought we'd better check it out then. We got there at quarter to 5, and were told that all the tours for the day had been filled, but if we wanted to get tickets to tomorrows Heineken Cup rugby semi final, they'd be on sale from 7am tomorrow morning. We saw how much they were and decided to pass. With it being 5pm and we'd filled in a busy day we thought we deserved a beer. We called into a pub and the pint went down all too well. So we walked 30 seconds up the road and called into another pub and sampled another "Brains" (Wales' national beer). Before you knew it we'd found our selves at the walkabout and Dan was having a VB and I was enjoying a Crownie. We thought we'd better take it easy so we went back and had a little relax at the hotel before venturing out for dinner. We'd scoped out a lovely looking Italian restaurant up the road, so we set off. The meals and bottle of wine was beautiful, but we'd got the taste for the booze. We took ourselves on a little pub-crawl of Cardiff (Very easy to do, considering there's 1000's of pubs within a 1km radius), and I'd met some lovely people in the process. A group of English women, who I swear, one of them was Sharon Strzelecki from Kath and Kim. Similar in looks, but all the wanted to talk about was the Ashes and how sexy Brett Lee was. We also met a nice group of people from Blackpool who were in town for the soccer, sorry, football. By about 1am we'd had enough of the increasing hooliganism and headed home (Just can't do a big night like I used to). We thought it would be a perfect time to wake a young James Arnott up on a Sunday morning, but he surprised us by not only being up, but being in the car on the way to the football. Damn. After a few more tipsy phone calls back home and it was bedtime for Possie.

After a very long sleep in Sunday morning we eventually crawled out of bed and back to the pub for grease filled breakfast. The Prince of Wales would easily hold 3000 people in it, and it was pretty full at 11am Sunday morning. All the lads were starting their day early before the big Rugby Final later that day. After breakfast we navigated a bus back down to the Bay area to visit Techniquest - Dan's pick. Science museum and Planearium. We had fun playing all with all the exhibits; Dan liked the big human sized keyboard, and playing the pipes with a thong. Finally the smell of small child (namely urine and snot) got the better of us and we left.

Back to the Bay area for one last look around, and we jumped on a bus back up into the city centre. By now the big rugby match was half way through, so we had the town to ourselves. The streets were deserted except or a few cops, strategically placed, waiting for the game to end. We did run into a couple of boys in blue standing out the front of an appliance shop, watching the game on the TV's in the window. It was in the second lot of extra time, still tied at 26 all. Dan and I could've committed any crime we wanted three feet behind them and they wouldn't have noticed. We knew that the game was close to being over, so we thought we'd hide in the hotel for an hour or so. We eventually braved the outside world and tried to find some dinner. The streets, pubs, bars and clubs were all packed by rowdy, and now disappointed (Cardiff lost in a penalty goal kick out thing) rugby fans. We settled on an expensive burger at the Hard Rock Café for dinner, and then took a stroll down to the cinemas. It had been decided, by me, that we'd see "I love you, man". Romantic comedy, something light hearted, that I knew I'd enjoy, and one Dan was happy to sit through. We got our popcorn and settled into the cinema with about 8 other people. During the movie, Dan did something that I've never known him to do before. He became "That person" in the movies. 'That person" who always laughs too loud and too long so that everyone else ends up laughing at them, not the film. At one point I thought he was going to have to go to the toilet he was laughing so loud. Sure it was a funny movie, but I don't think it was that funny. Worth seeing anyway. After the movies it was back to the hotel for our last sleep in Cardiff.

Next morning we were up and on the early train. Again, most of the seats were reserved, but no one was sitting in them. So we sat in them. No one complained! The journey back to Benfleet was long, boring and depressing, knowing that after our lovely 3 days in Cardiff it was back to work tomorrow. ☹