Hello and Happy Thanksgiving, that most anticipated of American holidays when the only demand placed on you is to eat as much as physically possible then fall asleep whilst watching football. We celebrated in style here at the house with a dinner composed of various family recipes contributed by the people on the program and prepared by an army of conscripted housemates. We were divided into three castes: those who gather, those who cook, and those who clean. I was fortunate enough to be one of those who gather. While it required quite a few trips on my bike, laden with cranberries or flour or parsley, it was much better than having to cook or clean. I spent most of the day at the faculty apartment that UGA owns in Summertown, waiting for a call to fetch one foodstuff or another. But after about 3pm, the calls stopped coming and my job mostly consisted of watching the Scottish version of "Legends of the Hidden Temple". Dinner was of course amazing, and I didn't even have to clean. For those of you who have read Brave New World, we've been joking that those who clean are the gamma minuses of the house.
In other news, it was great to see the family some more. Unfortunately I had lots of work early in the week so they kind of had to do their own thing, but on Wednesday we had the chance to see Oxford together. I'm not much of a tour guide, but I think we hit all the big attractions and even got to see some rowing. The Christchurch regatta is this week, meaning the novice teams from all of Oxford's colleges are racing each other in a double elimination tournament. I enjoyed watching the racing (especially since they're novices) but I would have like to have gotten a chance to race. Because I've competed before, I'm ineligible to race at Christchurch. Also, since I'm leaving next week I think our coach made a decision to leave the Americans out of the boat so that the real rowers have more practice together. Both the men and the women's boat (which, for the record, contains 3 Americans, including one that's raced before) advanced out of the first round and race again later in the week. Should be fun to watch.
Next week is the last of our stay here. In addition to being one last chance to impress our dons before they give us a grade, it also means that we have to deal with all of the little things to do with leaving your apartment at the end of the semester plus everything associated with a transatlantic trip. Just like the rest of the semester, I expect it to be busy, busy, busy.
Well, it's Monday again, so I'm doing the same thing I always do on Monday: slave away at a philosophy paper. Damn you, De Tocqueville!!!! But I had a fairly enjoyable trip to Cardiff this weekend, which was a nice break. That's the third weekend in a row I've been out of town.
As you will see when I finally get around to talking about Ireland, I thought I had found the least appealing place in the United Kingdom (namely, Crewe. No coincidence it rhymes with eww). How wrong I was! The first place I changed trains on Saturday was Didcot Parkway, and now I can confidently say that that is the most unappealing place in the country. The entire area is essentially one big switch yard overshadowed by a huge nuclear power plant (remember that Nuclear plant that looked so nice from far away way back in the post about Salisbury? yeah, not so picturesque up close). Needless to say, I was glad to get out of there on time.
And a good thing that the train was on time, since if I missed a connection I was hosed. The plan was to meet my family, who had just arrived at Heathrow early that morning and apparently experienced no small difficulties of their own making the train on time, aboard the train between London and Cardiff. If one of us was not on the train, there was no way for us to get in contact with the other. It's doubtful that we would have ever met up and I probably would have perished in the cold lying in a ditch somewhere near Dorking (yes, there is a town called Dorking). But happily, it didn't come to that. While I did meet the train at Swindon instead of Reading, I bounded aboard and literally ran into my Dad. After an emotional reunion ("hey Matt". "hey".), I settled into the luxuriant 1st class seats with the rest of the family and caught up as the train rocketed through the Welsh countryside.
Imagine our surprise to find the train getting progressively fuller of red-clad Welsh rugby fans. Turns out that there was a big international Rugby match that very day. New Zealand vs. Wales, which apparently is a somewhat bitter rivalry. In any case, that meant that 1. We finally had an explanation of why hotel rooms were so hard to find 2. Much of the city was closed down for the game and 3. there were crowds of very large sports fans of varying degrees of intoxication everywhere. We managed to find a cab (piloted by the most helpful cab driver ever, as we shall see) and rode off towards our lodgings. Because of the match, every hotel room in the city was taken, driving us to stay in an apartment that the owner lets out while he's not home. Sounds good, but the trouble is we had a hard time getting in touch with the company that was supposed to give us the key to the place. The first address we went to was a deserted storefront in a scuffy part of town. The cabbie hopped out of the cab and rang the doorbell (now that's service!) then tried the number on his cell phone with no success. The next address was indeed the apartment complex in question, but with no key-giver in sight. We eventually managed to get in touch with her (she just wasn't expecting us until later), but with every hotel in the city full, for a while it looked like we may have been spending the night in the aforementioned ditch near Dorking.
After a mediocre but perfectly serviceable dinner at a Thai restaurant in a newly developed pedestrian area by the waterfront jauntily named "Mermaid's Quay", we retired to the spacious apartment for bed at the ambitious hour of 8:30. Parenthetically, Wales lost the Rugby game 29-9, and given how British sports fans have a history of being somewhat sore losers perhaps it was good to be indoors. The rest of the family went to bed very early with a case of jet lag, while I stayed up to read for the very paper I'm ignoring now. Quite an evening. No seriously, it really was kind of nice.
I'm not precisely sure why I suggested that we go to Cardiff. I suppose it's because I enjoyed Conwy so much. And I'm quick to say that Cardiff is a very nice, cosmopolitan European capital city (its the capital of Wales, which is sort of its own country in a way that I don't fully understand and cannot explain. Bottom line is, the Queen is still on the money, so...). Perhaps that's just it: in many ways, it reminded me of Dublin, sans Guinness, James Joyce, shops selling stuff with Guinness logos/James Joyce on it, and Irish people. Which is to say, some of the good parts.
Our main event for the day was visiting Cardiff Castle. While very, very different from the castle in Conwy (Imposing Rural Ruin vs. Urban Well Maintained attraction) I liked it in a different way. Worst Part: the goofy,narrationless video depicting the history of the castle via scenes of a girl running through modern Cardiff bumping into reenactors in period dress. Best Part: touring the residential part of the castle. While the site had had a fortification on it since Roman times, after the early 19th century it was used as a residence by the Marquesses of Bute. The 3rd Marquess was an especially awesome gentleman by the name of John Patrick Crichton-Stuart. In addition to having a sweet name, he was also one of the richest men in the world. He owned the Welsh coal mines that provided 1/5 of the worlds coal in the 19th century, as well as the railroads, canals and docks used to ship it. In today's money, his yearly income was estimated at £3 billion, which is more than enough to spend some of it upgrading and redecorating your castle (even thought he only lived there 6 weeks out of the year). Bute's taste in interior design can be summed up as "let's get as much really expensive stuff going on as possible". Every flat surface in the entire house was lavishly decorated, including a significant portion that was gold leafed. There was a single room that would have cost £15 million. This guy used gold as wall paper. If there's anything more ballin' than that, I have yet to hear about it. Plus, like many of his contmporaries, he had an excellent beard.
The rest of the castle was not quite as impressive, even though it probably would have been better recieved by the hosts of "Trading Spaces". There was a museum about the Welch regiment of the British army, a Norman-era motte and bailey keep to explore, and not one but two giftshops. But the highlight was the tour of the apartments. While my visit to Conwy made me realize that it's good to be the King, my trip to Cardiff prompted the collarary "or at least a obscenely rich Scotsman". After the castle and a brief trip to see the self-proclaimed "World's largest Welsh Love-spoon", we dropped by a pub (curiously appellated The Goat Major) for a pint of Brains and then headed to the National Museum. While no Smithsonian, I thought it was a fairly impressive as museums go. In addition to an exhuastive display about the geology of Wales (I mean, really, you can only look at so many rocks in display cases before giving up and returning to the pub), there was some French impressionist pieces and a copious amount of ceramics.
The lady at the information desk recommended a nearby resturant for dinner. I really liked it, despite the fact that they were out of almost everything, presumably because the Rugby fans had rolled throught the day before like a plague of locusts. After dinner, we caught a taxi back to the apartment, where I collected my belongings and hopped back into the same taxi for a lift back to Cardiff Central. I had to much to do for the upcoming week to spend another night. Which reminds me; I have too much to do to sit around blogging! Back to work. My only real regret about the weekend is that on my return train ride, I unknowingly selected an itinerary that brought me back through Didcot Parkway. And man, that is one ugly town.
Sorry guys, Ireland's gonna have to wait a little longer. I've been working extra hard to make some time to hang out with the family, who's going to be here for the next week or so. Plus i've been having some problems getting pictures posted. All in good time. As for now, I'm headed to Cardiff, the largest city and capital of Wales. Be back late Sunday night. Expect more posts then. Until Sunday, enjoy this video. Cheers! (btw, if you haven't noticed, the second part of the post about Conwy is a couple of posts down the page. Can't figure out how to get it closer to the top...)
[note: because I started writing the 2nd part of my post about Wales before this post, it's been placed under this one. But it is new, as of Nov. 18th. Check it out, and more to come about Ireland]
I wanted to take a brief break from writing my latest paper to apologize for the lack of posting going on in the last week or so. Being away from the house for 7 of the last 11 days has been a lot of fun, but it also means that I am a good bit behind on my work, and subsequently on blogging. Come Tuesday afternoon, I'll finally get a chance to finish describing the trip to Wales and talk about my recent trip to Ireland. Until then, I'm just too busy. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to Tuesday afternoon...
Sorry it's been a while; I've had lots of reading and three big papers since I've been back in Oxford. Now that that's done with, I can sit out in the garden and enjoy the surprisingly nice weather while describing the rest of last weekends trip to Wales.
After visiting the castle, we hiked back to the bed and breakfast for a nap. And what a nap it was. The beds there were infinitely more comfortable that the ones at the house, and the fact that it was chilly outside made getting under the covers even better. The only problems were the occasional fireworks going off outside in celebration of Guy Fawkes weekend (who knew it was celebrated for a whole week?) and a small child somewhere singing Christmas carols. It was tough to get out of bed after only an hour or so, but we had a reservation at Conwy Bistro, a restaurant recommended to us by a housemate and our trusty Rick Steven's travel guidebook.
Dinner was one of the best that I can remember. Conwy Bistro is a fairly small place on Chapel Street. The prices were reasonable (much like most prices in Wales) and the food excellent. I had the pork tenderloin, while the rack of lamb and steaks looked pretty good too. Deserts were just as good. In the unlikely event that you find yourself in Conwy, I highly recommend it. After dinner we sampled some of the local Pubs, watched a little footie, and went to bed at the altogether respectable hour of 10:30.
After a luxuriant sleep under our down comforters, we enjoyed a full Welsh breakfast (which is suspiciously similar to a full English sans the puddings) and set of for the day's main event: scaling the nearby mt. Conwy. The town and castle sit at the mouth of a river at the end of a narrow bay. North of town, between the castle and the ocean proper, there's a fairly decent sized mountain. It's no Everest, but it looked impressive from sea level (you can see it here). We actually had some trouble finding the path to the top. We followed the directions Andrew gave us, and while they did lead to a path, it was only about 200yards long and terminated in someone's backyard. Hardy the day hike we were looking for. After consulting our handy dandy Rick Stevens book and some wandering, we slipped through a gate to a sheep pasture and headed in the mountain's general direction. Let me tell you something about sheep pastures: while all the fields look nice and green from afar, up close they're a tiny verdant film over about 2" of mud. I had the foresight to wear boots, but some of my sneaker clad companions were not happy about what happened to their nice white kicks. After dodging some inquisitive ewes, praying that the farmer didn't come shoot us for walking through his flock, hopping another gate, and climbing an impossibly steep mountain bike path, we finally found the path to the top. The rest was easy!
The thing about the hills in Wales is that they don't have any trees on them. In Appalachia, you academically know you're up high, but the forest pressing around you on all sides limits your vision to 30 feet in any direction. The only vegetation on Mt. Conwy was some low heather, meaning the entire climb included spectacular vistas of extremely fetching countryside. To the east, the bay with its ever present rainbow (seriously, this rainbow was there the entire time we were. By the end of the trip we were beginning to suspect that it was actually a giant cardboard cutout that the locals had erected to boost tourism revenue) . To the south, the town and medieval castle. To the west, green fields and dramatic rainclouds. And to the north, more hilltops. I can't really do it justice; check out the movie.
The climb certainly wasn't too taxing. Once you got up the hill a little way, there was actually a fairly level grassy path from peak to peak. The only concern was the strong wind (as you can hear in the video) and a little rain. But it was totally worth it, as we saw wild ponies. As a kind of special bonus, we found the ruins of a Bronze age hill fort at the top of the highest summit that we didn't even know was there. It was with reluctance that we eventually turned for the long walk back to town.
After retrieving our backpacks from the B&B, we decided to divide and conquer. The girls split off to do some shopping. Eric and I decided to try and hit the remaining pubs in town. What a splendid way to spend an afternoon! We started at the Bridge, where we befriended a Welshman that had apparently once been to Niagara falls. Eric managed to accidentally play "Beat It!" on the Jukebox, after which we decided to move on to less anti-Micheal Jackson pastures. The next place was The Malt Loaf (!) where the Wales-Australia rugby match was on TV. Eric and I know nothing about rugby, but by the end of our stay we were chanting "Go Big Red!" (which apparently isn't a traditional Welsh cheer, but it seemed appropriate at the time). Our enthusiasm was direly needed; there was no one else in the pub. We were contemplating purchasing the giant 19th century sailing ship's wheel we had seen in an antique shop earlier as a souvenir when we realized that it was time to go. We wobbled to the rendezvous point, met the bemused girls, and headed back across the bridge to Llandudno Junction to catch the train back to Oxford. A very good trip indeed.
If you ever find yourself in the UK with a weekend on your hands, I cannot recommend spending it in Conwy highly enough. You will not regret it; I certainly don't.
Conwy is a small city on the northernmost tip of the Welsh coast. From Oxford by train, it's around a 4 hour trip. Using the British rail system was a bit of a novelty. It's somewhat like a combination of air travel and riding the subway. Friday morning the five of us just walked up to the ticket counter and bought a round trip ticket from Oxford to Conwy for 70L. And that's all the tickets say: Oxford to Conwy. How you get from one to the other is somewhat up to you. Our outward bound trip involved riding from Oxford to Stafford, changing trains, from there to Crewe, another change, then from Crewe to Llandudno Junction. The inside of the trains look essentially like the inside of an airplane, but with the seats on one side of the aisle facing the rear (after some debate, we concluded this was to ensure that at least somebody got to face the front no matter which way the coach was hooked up).
Since there is no definite beginning or end to the train's trip, the reserved seats change after every station. We didn't have any reserved seats, putting us at the mercy of strangers who would unpredictable board the train, tap one of us on the shoulder, and politely inform us "Sorry, but I believe you're in my seat". The most desirable seats are the ones that face another row with a table in between them, as this allows more space and easier conversation with your fellow travelers. It is difficult to nap for any significant amount of time, since we changed trains every 45 minutes or so and the time on the train is punctuated by the rounds of the conductor circulating the train and examining tickets. These individuals have a remarkable knowledge of the railway timetables (The first time I surrendered my ticket to one he glanced at it and commanded from memory, "You'll want to get off at Stafford, take the 10:06 Liverpool L-Street to Crewe, and catch the 11:03 cross country to Conwy" or something like that). They also don't take any grief off of anyone and will not hesitate to throw the unfortunate ticketless travelers off the train, as a pair of dismayed Irishmen discovered at Wolverhampton. On his rounds the conductor discovered the pair had no tickets. One of them rather lamely explained that he had bought tickets but didn't have them on him. The conductor narrowed his eyes and walked off, prompting the ticketless guy to smugly grin at his friend, thinking he had talked his way into a free trip. The smug look quickly disappeared at the next station when the conductor reappeared with a pair of helmeted transit police, pointed, and screamed "J'accuse!" in a shrill voice before none-to-gently propelling the shell-shocked freeloaders onto the platform. Reminds me of the scene in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", where Jones throws a Nazi out of a blimp then explains to a surprised bystander "No Ticket". Needless to say, after witnessing this I resolved to always keep my ticket close.
Because the train from Crewe was, as the conductor explained to us, too long to stop in Conwy's runty station we would have to disembark at Llandudno Junction, which in addition to being hard to pronounce is about a mile outside town across a river. We were travelling light so the walk was not a big deal (actually it was a good way to enter Conwy, as there were great views of the town and it castle from across the bay) but could be regarded as one of those little unplanned minor mishaps that make travel so exciting. We experienced the second such mishap upon calling our Bed and Breakfast for direction from the station. On the advice of a housemate, we had planned to stay at the Castleview B&B. Somebody (Don't worry Elisabeth, I won't say who) Googled the B&B, saw it was full, saw an advertisement for a B&B half a mile from the original place, called and made a reservation, which she was only able to do after assuring the proprietor that we were all "reasonably well behaved". After getting off the train, we called for directions from the Llandudno Junction station, which surprised the guy at the B&B somewhat because Llandudno Junction is in Wales and he was in Northumberland, 230 miles away. Apparently, there is more than one "Castleview B&B" in this well becastled nation. Who knew? Quickly consulting our trusty Rick Steves Travel Guidebook, we found another B&B which, we were assured, was actually in Conwy.
Getting a room was a surprisingly informal operation. We never needed to sign anything and were able to pay in cash. The listed number connected us with the owner of the Bryn Derwen B&B, who suggested we meet him outside a downtown pub so he could show us where the hotel was. The voice at the end of the phone belonged to Andrew, a tall and friendly Englishman who owned the place with his wife Jill and their daughter Sophie. The rooms weren't especially large, but they were cosy and the beds were amazing. Having deposited our belongings in our rooms, the five of us set out for the town's most obvious attraction: Castle Conwy.
As part of his plan to tighten his control over newly conquered Wales, Edward I built a new castle and fortified town at Conwy in 1283. The castle sits on a rocky outcrop on the coast and commands a narrow point in the nearby river. Because the castle and town had easily defended access to the sea and the Welsh had no navy to speak of, the town could hypothetically hold out indefinitely under siege. Personally, I cannot think of a structure I would enjoy attacking with a ladder and sword less. The castle wasn't besieged until the English civil war in the 1640s, when the widespread use of cannon had rendered it practically obsolete. The attackers didn't seem to do much damage, since the stonework is all remarkably intact (all of the timber and metal was removed in 1665). Even though it's just a stone shell, the castle was a great deal of fun to tour. The best part was climbing the circular stairs up to the top of the watchtowers and looking out over the bay, town, and valley while trying to imagine what it was like to be on the lookout for a rebellious Welsh army 700 years ago. Pretty cool stuff. The awesomeness of the castle also reinforced my suspicion that it is indeed good to be the King.
Having realized how long this post already is and how much work I have to do before going to bed, I'm going to finish my account of the trip tomorrow. Until then, enjoy the pictures by clicking on here or on the "Photos" link at right.
Hey, short post time since it's late. I'm going to Wales tomorrow (don't worry family, I'm going to Conway, which is way different than Cardiff). I plan on making a more thorough post as well as describing my trip on Sunday. Until then, all is well. And as a side note regarding the election, Yes We Can! More on that later as well. Hope everyone has a good weekend.
Hello and Happy Thanksgiving, that most anticipated of American holidays when the only demand placed on you is to eat as much as physically possible then fall asleep whilst watching football. We celebrated in style here at the house with a dinner composed of various family recipes contributed by the people on the program and prepared by an army of conscripted housemates. We were divided into three castes: those who gather, those who cook, and those who clean. I was fortunate enough to be one of those who gather. While it required quite a few trips on my bike, laden with cranberries or flour or parsley, it was much better than having to cook or clean. I spent most of the day at the faculty apartment that UGA owns in Summertown, waiting for a call to fetch one foodstuff or another. But after about 3pm, the calls stopped coming and my job mostly consisted of watching the Scottish version of "Legends of the Hidden Temple". Dinner was of course amazing, and I didn't even have to clean. For those of you who have read Brave New World, we've been joking that those who clean are the gamma minuses of the house.
