Cardiff Trip Day 2

[galadriel1010]

And oh look, I'm back to being exhausted by travel. I could barely think last night, let alone write a diary entry.


The problem with hostels is the people you're sharing the room with. Most of the time they're great - I only had two nights on my Australia trip that I would say were bad roomie nights, and one of those was because they were all men and I didn't realise.

Last night was one of the really bad ones. Worse than the previous worst, whcih was the Swedish girls who talked loudly until 3 in the morning.

We had a snorer. We had a snorer who didn't stop until past 7 in the morning, by which point my alarm was due to go off in under an hour. Putting my pillow over my head made the volume not physically painful, but she drowned out the traffic. So yeah, no sleep at all.

Having said all of this, the room itself is great. Two en suite showers and an en suite toilet, plus a row of sinks actually in the room, each bed has an individual light, the lockers are massive and the beds are among the comfiest I've ever slept in. The staff are great as well, and the cooked breakfast is worth paying for if you think you can get up in time (they stop serving at 9am).

I had the cooked breakfast and left the hostel at about 9.30 to walk across to the entrance to Cathays Cemetary, where I could catch the bus to Tesco. It's quite a long way over there, but the buses come at half hour intervals, so I had plenty of time to go in, get some lunch and flowers and get back out to catch the next one along, which took me down to Mermaid Quay.

First stop was Tesco down there for batteries (although I appear to have left my camera in Halifax :/), and then I went down to the memorial to leave the flowers. I got him red roses.

I still love going down there, because it's so much our place. I would classify visiting the Shrine as a truly authentic tourist experience, because there's no performance or staging going on. It's just us, and we did it because we wanted to for our own benefit. That's all kinds of awesome.

From the Shrine I went for a walk around the Bay to the Norwegian Church (which they're refurbishing) and tried to find the TI office down there, which appears to have moved or closed. Back along the Bay to Mermaid Quay again, where I wandered up the Plass and stood on the lift. It still didn't move.

I popped into the Milennium Centre TI office, where I bought a postcard for littleni and chatted to the assistant about Doctor Who and Torchwood tourists. One of the first things she suggested was visiting the Shrine, which is very cool in terms of its tourist value, and she told me that they get letters for the Shrine delivered there occasionally, and that they take them down to add to the collection.

She also gave me the email address of the person to talk to regarding tourism research in Cardiff, so yay for actually getting research done.

After that I meant to go up into town to do the museum, but I got on a bus going the wrong way and sort of gave up. I was so tired that I decided to see it as a message, especially as it was raining as well, and went to Tesco and then home. Bought the first issue of Baked and Delicious, which came with a set of 6 silicone cupcake moulds and a recipe for bitter chocolate puddings, amongst other things.

Got some more writing done back at the hostel and made it to 5000 words on my casestory fic, which is nowhere near enough but good going for a week's work. I need to get into the NaNo stride and get 2000 words a day, ideally.

Forced myself to stay up until a sensible time for bed before I collapsed into my pit.

Next entry

If you would like a postcard from Cardiff, I will need your address. PM me or something.