Posted on April 24.

Cardiff was awesome.

James (the couchsurfer I was staying with) met me and took me back to his place. He was living in student housing (I'm feeling more and more at home in them) and I dropped off my stuff before we went exploring.

It had stopped raining by this point and we walked through a place called Bute park on the way to Cardiff Castle. It was nice to have some greenery for a change. Wales is much greener than the part of England I've been to so far. It's not the same green as Canada (no coniferous trees) but I was surprised at how much I missed it.

We went into Cardiff Castle and walked around for a few minutes before being kicked out for apparently not paying. Oops. It ended up being pretty expensive so we decided that we'd seen enough even though I forgot to take pictures (I'm trying hard to remember though!).

We went by the Millenium Stadium, walked by some nice churches and decided to see how high we could make it in the nearest tall building. Apparently the ground the floor was too much for us as there was a guard/receptionist at the door and he didn't believe that we were there to meet my mother on the 15th floor (turns out it was unoccupied, I think I need to do a bit more research if I'm going to be more successful at this).

We went shopping and made LOTS of pasta for dinner. We ended up feeding the flat above James' though as well so it turned out ok. We went out to the Student Union club (not pub like in Canada but huge club go figure) and had a great time.

The next day (Tuesday), I went for lunch with Jackie (my cousin?) and Michael (her grandson, who was my age and my 3rd cousin once removed. I think.). I had Cawl Pot pie (it was supposed to be Welsh) and then went to Pontypridd (where my grandfather was born). I got to see some nice sites around there, hear some family history and take some pictures.

We also got to see the outdoor Welsh history museum which has lots of old historic Welsh buildings which was kinda neat. After Jackie dropped me off I met up with the 3 German couchsurfers that I was staying with Tuesday night (Karen, Linda and Steph).

The three of them had essays to work on so we had a quiet night at their place (I needed on at this point). I went shopping, cooked a nice dinner, and corrected their essays before going to bed.

I'm back in Portsmouth today, doing laundry, some errands and meeting the girls I had lunch with last week this afternoon/evening. Not sure what the plan is yet.

I'm off to London tomorrow and back on Sunday sometime.

Posted April 21.

I made it to Wales! But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Saturday night Katerina (the couchsufer who showed me around Bath during the day) gave me a call and invited me over to her house for dinner. I went over there are was introduced to her 7(!) other roommates.

It's a little ridiculous if you're a student in the UK. Housing costs are so high that even with a huge number of roommates it's expensive living. And you wouldn't be able to afford to just have a couple roommates, you'd need at least 4 or 5 to get a house.

We ended up getting a call from another couchsurfer (from the Czech Republic but studying in Bath as well) and went out for a drink and dinner with her. It was really interesting to here about the Czech Republic, as I don't really know much about it at all.

I was complaining about the hostel and as we were leaving, Katerina offered to let me sleep in the spare room at their flat so I decided to do that instead of spend another uncomfortable night in the hostel.

The next morning I got a text message from yet another Bathian couchsurfer, this one from Estonia, (I had asked her a couple days prior if she was available to suggest some sites in Bath or get a coffee but she didn't get back to me until Sunday) so Katerina and I set off to meet her. Veronika (the Czech couchsurfer) joined us and we had a great lunch. I also learned a lot about Estonia, you don't realize how ignorant you are and how many countries there are in Europe until you meet people from them and realize how different they really are.

I went back to Bristol Sunday afternoon and spent the afternoon with Emily and her flatmates. We went out to a pub in the evening for a pub quiz (like music trivia but just general trivia. A british thing? Maybe I just don't frequent the right pubs in Canada). We ended up coming back reasonably early though (after placing 3rd to last) because they all had class in the morning.

I took the train in the rain to Cardiff today and wandered around until I found the library. They are currently building a HUGE new library (opening 2009) so the library is set up in a temporary location with murals of books to hide the fact that it's a temp building. It's kinda neat though.

I'm meeting a couchsurfer this afternoon named James. Tomorrow I'm seeing Jackie for lunch or something then I'm meeting a different couchsurfer for a place to stay tomorrow night.

Hopefully the rain stops so I can take up some pictures.