galadriel1010 | Cardiff Trip Day 2

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Cardiff Trip Day 2

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.

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Wow what a full day. I think the red roses were perfect for the occassion and I am glad the shrine is still there and still attended. TI sounds like they are on top of things when it comes to tourist value, good that you got some research value out of them.

BOO for snorers!!!

YAH for postcards!!

Look forward to your next update......

PS> GET SOME SLEEP!!!!!!!!!!!

The people in the TI offices in Cardiff are great about Doctor Who and enthusiastic, but they don't know that much about it, which would be one of my recommendations. Still good, though.

And it had to be red roses. Red is his colour, after all XD

I had no idea the shrine was still there! I really must get myself to Cardiff at some point...

Shrine is still definitely going strong. I have suggested a grand meet-up this summer, perhaps. It could be fun to get a load of us going mad down here.

I'm glad people are still going to the shring. ♥

And I would love a postcard! Do you still have my address?

I know, it's so awesome. The most recent binge was Valentine's day, and there's loads from then.

I don't think I do have your address. Or if I do, it's at home. I was disorganised coming down here.

You're an amazing woman. After Australia I didn't think you'd stay in youth hostels ever again. I love your take on travelling the world - inspiring and yet, slightly hopeless at the same time. Real life in other words.
Do you even have any contact with our old friend Harry? Wonder what she's up to? Is she still anywhere near Cardiff. God I'd love to get there one day.

I still love youth hostels and travelling like this. Plans are already afoot to go back to Australia after I graduate, and to do New Zealand in the same trip. *Excited*

The hopelessness is half the fun lol. It's no fun if it all goes to plan.

I haven't been speaking to Harry for a while. Can't remember if we fell out or just stopped speaking to each other, but I have no idea what she's up to these days.

You must come here one day. Come visit and let me play tourguide XD

I would love to come visit and have my personal tourguide. That would absolutely be brilliant. first I have to a) get rich and b) ditch hubby. I'm working on it. LOL

Aw, that's so fantastic that the tourist info people will add letters to the shrine. <3 That makes me all kinds of happy; happier, even, than when you go down there and see a big throng of people crowded around discussing it. I don't know if they're Torchwood fans, but seeing elderly men and women pointing out different poems or pictures is just so cute. =P

I've never stayed in a hostel before; I think the roommates part would be the worst for me because I get annoyed enough with my housemates and we're at least in separate rooms! haha!

I might be down to Cardiff sometime in the next week; I haven't been to see Castell Coch or Caerphilly Castle yet and would like to make a day of it while I'm not swamped with school work. If I end up going I'll drop you a comment and if you're not too busy with your own stuff maybe we could meet up? It's a possibility anyway! =)

I know, I thought that was so awesome. And that people are sending letters there at all - the suspension of disbelief is strong there.

The room mates can be great. I shared with a couple of Irish girls who were absolutely tiny and drank their bodyweight in beer when I was in Australia, and they were a right laugh, and one night in Sydney I met a group of girls from the USA and got on really well with them. it's always hit and miss, and the misses can be as bad as the misses can be good. I think it's definitely the way to do any travelling on your own for any length of time, because it's so much easier to meet people. A lot of hostels have private rooms as well, which are more expensive but give you the privacy of your own room with the social life of a hostel.

That would be awesome :D I'm just doing the tourist thing, so I'm not swamped or booked up at all, apart from the Doctor Who locations tour on Sunday. Come rescue me from having to make decisions! lol

... And that is why I don't think I could ever sleep in a hostel.

Nothing against hostels or the people who sleep in them, but, I snore, you see? And I'm hyper-paranoid about my snoring, and I would feel so bloody awful for ruining another person's experience.

The Shrine sounds really awesome, and the TI people sound even more amazing because they will add people's letters to it. To me, that is going above and beyond their jobs.

I would love a postcard, but let me know if it's a feasible thing, I don't know what the postage is like over there and would hate for you to be paying a crazy amount to send a postcard to me.

Most hostels do private rooms these days, and the socialising outside the bedroom always makes up for the problems. It's always worth trying once.

The TI people are really great about it. Most of them don't seem to understand it, but they're still enthusiastic about it and love the fans coming here, which is fantastic. Going and talking to them has made me really sure that it's what I want to do.

Postcards anywhere are feasible :) I'll gleefully send you one.

I'll think about it, but... again, I'm super sensitive about my snoring problem, so we'll see... LoL.

I'm taking all these little mental notes about your travels, and compiling my own itinerary for when I graduate. LoL.

And I shall gleefully PM you my address.

Oh it's a nightmare with the snoring, also because it's a stranger you can't go and turn them, which can work well. I now always get my own room everywhere, which costs a lot, but I have the problem of snoring if I have hayfever or a cold, and I have had really cross friends before when I've shared rooms. It's hit or miss, but I decided to stop even taking the chance. I just can't bear how guilty I feel the next day, and it's a strange feeling because at the same time you can't help snoring, so you get cross about that as well!

So pleased to hear the shrine is going strong. You know I'd love for it to be going strong even after Miracle Day. One of the things that upset me was recently, with all the new series posts, reading fans saying how the shrine is mental and another sign that Ianto fans are lunatics etc. Whereas I think it's actually a really nice thing, totally harmless, and why not?

I always feel bad about being cross with people who are snoring, because they can't help it. With my parents I now get more annoyed with my mum, because she ends up spending the night in my (empty, these days) bed, but she won't just start the night there. She knows he snores, she knows he can't help it, and yet she still sleeps in the same bed as him and then complains about it in the morning.

I'm pretty sure that this woman must have known that she snores, though (she's married, and he must have told her considering how loud she is), and yet she went for a shared dorn that could have had 15 other people in it, which I don't think is quite on.

Most of the time it doesn't bother me that must, but when it's painful... *shrugs* she moved on, I slept for hours last night. It all works out in the end.

I hate the negative attitudes towards the shrine :( They make me so sad. it's such a special Torchwood place, somewhere we made together and that we can share, but because the fandom is so divisive and divided that scorn has to be poured on it. Sucks to them, I say.

Exactly why I get my own room. I do think it's simply not on. You have to find the extra money. I do it all the time, and I don't like paying out but I can't bear the thought of keeping people awake.

I literally read people saying that about the shrine in the past few weeks, and I did challenge one post (can't remember where it was now) and the person was saying it's gone on too long, and it's mental etc etc. I just said I really didn't see how it's doing hard and I think it's sweet. i see it's now on the Dr Who tour. Which is great!

Sorry for the thread hi-jack, but...

There was (very recently), a HUGE argument on the Torchwood facebook page over the shrine. One of the Mods of the facebook page, went all out saying that the fans who post stuff are mental and was even going on about how GDL thought they were mental as well. Never before have I been so angry with a moderator of a discussion board. The things he was "quoting" GDL (and other members of the cast) as saying, were taken completely out of context as well as calling him on his arrogant "People who visit the shrine have a serious mental instability problem" b/s.

The way I see it, the shrine is a huge part of the tourism of Cardiff, just like the DW tour and the former Exhibition. The fact that it's a fan-created thing shouldn't detract. Bloody hell, the neighbourhood where Neighbours exteriors are filmed gets bus loads of tourists through there every day, and people do the same thing and no one calls them 'mental' or tells them to 'get over it' or that they should stop.

I just... I don't see the bad in the shrine. It's one of the reasons I'd like to go to Cardiff (aside from the whole 'I'm a huge nerd and want to travel the UK and look at castles thing).

Hi-jack away! It's encouraged on this journal :D

The admin of one of the Facebook pages is seriously anti anything to do with the SIJ campaign, or anyone who didn't like CoE. They've deleted posts that show negative attitudes towards the new series, but left absuive comments from some of the other fans towards the campaign up. It makes me so cross.

But you're right about it being a tourist draw. I want to do an essay on the importance of community attractions and pilgrimage, and the shrine will be one of the things I point at (along with cairns on hilltops and the Royal wedding)

I think that would be Chris. He seems like a right twat. Not to mention that the information he seems to pass on is always incorrect. Best example: Today (yesterday) they posted a video from Cannes where John was talking about Captain Jack and how the character has always had the potential to go to dark places and then he was fan-boying over working with Pullman, and Bill Pullman was talking about his character and his relationship with the rest of the cast and crew, and it was labelled Jack and Rex.

It really pisses me off, that for a group that claims they like to engage with all the fans, and encourage discussion, they seem to be the first to jump all over anyone with a different opinion.

The times that I've been told off for calling attention to things they'd rather were swept under the rug, I've come back swinging with links to interviews with RTD himself. Ahh, evidence... seems to shut them up a bit.

I think he got fired from running the page at some point, but he seems to be back. Not cool, and not good marketing.

OK, maybe GDL does think it's mental, but I really doubt it! Let's face it, if anyone played a character who died, and then had a shrine made to them that lasted a long time, and was well maintained, that is hugely flattering. I'm sure that he may have met mental fans over the years, but that is a different thing, and I really doubt the mod of the Facebook page actually knows him, because the last thing you would do if you knew an actor like that is quote them calling their own fans mental. You simply wouldn't dream of it. I have to avoid that Facebook page because I can't bear all the miracle day business, the page makes me feel properly depressed.

I do hope someone actually posted on the page that the shrine is officially part of the DW tour, and that the tourist info people like it.

The really daft thing is, I've been to Cardiff a couple of times for work since the shrine was there, and both times forgot to go see it, I was even killing time last time I went, only when I got on the train I remembered. Quite glad it's still there, I think I'll be back there over the next few months..

He was definitely called out (the Mod), over mis-quoting GDL like that, and not just by me, but, by one of the ladies behind SIJ and several big-time Blue Gillespie fans. And it truly was a mis-quote. From reading people's accounts of hearing him talk from places like SDCC and The Hub and even SupaNova, here in Brisbane last year, I think the term 'mental' is more a colloquialism than a slur, like the Mod was implying.

I hang out at the facebook page, because I love seeing the pictures and, am looking forward to MD, but, it's reaching a point where, I'm regretting being excited for MD, especially where the facebook page is concerned. It seems like 'Ianto', 'Tosh' and 'Owen' are becoming worse than the worst kind of swear words over there, and Heaven forbid if anyone has an opinion on RTD or the BBC or Starz.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the shrine will still be around in a couple of years when I finish Uni. It's on my list of 'Things I MUST See.'

Well "mental" can be used to describe someone in an affectionate way, although even then it means you think the person is eccentric at the very least. I'm sure that if he used it when talking to fans that would have to be the sense he meant, not in complete lunatic.

I'm not really interested in Miracle Day, I do tend to think that if RTD had left it, with CoE being the end, then made a US version of the show as a spin off, that would have been more palatable. I mean I may not have watched, as I've yet to see a US remake of a British show that I like, but I hate that they try and make out it's the same show, when it isn't at all.

Sometimes when I do venture to look at comms that are all excited and celebrating MD, I feel it's like 1984, where you rewrite history or something, and it's forbidden to care about the past, or bring it up.

I always say, when people say that the Shrine has gone on too long, that I'll stop going to see it and taking thing to it about 100 years after people stop visiting the Sherlock Holmes museum.

And let's not get into people visiting the Globe Theatre.

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Cardiff Trip Day 2

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