Hello all,
This weekend has been a very interesting one, with even more adventures in the great land of Wales. Unfortunately, the weekend started poorly when Jackie and I learned that our kayak outing was canceled due to low water levels... I have not yet wished for rain, but I may have to start, even though my study group mates may kill me. Anyhoo, we started the weekend out right by attending a production of The Hobbit in down town Cardiff. Margaret, Casey, Jackie, Maria, and I are all fans of the Lord of the Rings series, so we decided to go see how The Hobbit is done on stage. We left with the conclusion that it is done quite hilariously. The cute little theatre has a nose-bleed section that is super cheap, and of course we capitalized on that. We crammed ourselves into the hard wooden seats that could barely fit your knees, but we could see the stage quite well from our vantage. Except jackie, who just stuck sitting behind a very tall woman. bummer. The show had many memorable bits to it; the scenery was awesome (especially the dragon!), the characters were great, Elron flew around like a fairy (not an elf), Gandalf was Santa Claus, and Bilbo was balding. Someone laughed when the dwarf king died in the end, mass snickering ensued. Our favorite parts were the unexpected musical additions to the show. Every once in awhile the dwarves would break into song (the same song (over and over again)) only altering the words to fit the circumstance. It was pretty funny, and Im pretty sure I could sing along at this point. Our ALL TIME favorite part was the Techno Riverdance Hoedown that occurred between the dwarves and the woodsmen. We were so taken aback by the frolicking dancing to woodsy techno music that we forgot to laugh. It was great when they did it AGAIN at the end during the bows. Fantastic.
On saturday, since one epic outdoorsy thing was taken from me, we decided to do another. Stacey, Paikin, Jackie and I hiked for about 5 miles along the Taff trail to Castle Coch. The walk was lovely, and very interesting. A lot of the way was pretty wooded, and it really reminded me of Lord of the Rings, especially after watching the Hobbit. I was a bit afraid that creepy guys on black horses would sweep in and screech at me. We may have gotten a bit off track, but we could see the castle from a distance and basically just walked across a large field until we miraculously ended up back on the Taff Trail. The castle itself is aptly described as a fairy tale castle. It was designed by William Burges and owned by Bute, who also owned Cardiff Castle. Burges is a very interesting designer/ architect, and I really like his style. he incorporates themes such as the passing of time and morals by using aesop's fables, myths, and animals, all elaborately painted in each room. After wandering around the castle for awhile, we stopped at a cafe to eat our lunches and enjoy some welsh cakes. It was a beautiful yet chilly day; Jackie and Stacey both got soup at the cafe which was probably a good call. Paikin got a milkshake. probably less of a good call :P. On the way out, we saw a wedding!
The area above the castle was forested and had nice walking trails, so we walked around for a bit and saw a beautiful view of Cardiff and the bay. We walked for quite awhile and ended up on an industrial road heading back towards Cardiff. By a stroke of luck, we wandered right up to a rail station. We hopped on the train and zipped right back to Cardiff. Overall a great day.
No comments:
Post a Comment