On the 23rd day of my 23rd year...

It’s cold here. Really cold here. And windy. The kind of wind that pierces your body, making it hard to move, which is unfortunate as all you want to do is move to anyplace that is warm.

Yesterday was back to work as normal after a busy but good weekend. I’m hoping that the way Monday morning went is not an omen for the rest of the week. I fell up the stairs at work, spilled hot tea on my foot, ripped my panty hose, and smashed part-ways into a wall. In my partial defense, however, I would like to say that this is only the fifth time I have fallen at work. This is HUGE, as there are four flights of stairs and I run up them, easily, 20 or 25 times a day, and in four and a half months I’ve only fallen five times.

As to the weekend, Saturday I took the train to Cardiff for the day. I love taking the train as it provides amazing scenery and makes me appreciate all of Great Britain. To be honest the scenery this time wasn’t that great until after we passed Bristol, but there was one scene in particular that will stay with me a long time. Passing through the countryside, which was a beautiful shade of green that I didn’t expect in January, there was a solitary hill, with one, perfect tree at the center. I’m not good with tree names and types, but it was one where you could see all the branches and leaves, appreciating the structure and shape. The way it stood at the center of the mound, and the way the mound stood alone, overlooking everything around it, it was strength and protection manifested in the landscape in a way I’ve never really seen before. I started to take a picture, but the train moved too fast, and I’m kind of glad, because a picture never would have captured how perfect I found the scene to be.

As for Cardiff, it is a nice city, small but nice. I started at Cardiff Castle, located very near the city centre. It’s small, but the grounds are beautiful, and very green as well. Though it was cold and windy, the sky was clear and blue and made walking around the grounds nice. I took a tour of the inside, where the architecture was amazing. So many intricate details, murals on the walls and ceilings, delicately carved woodwork everywhere you looked. There was little furniture, which was nice because it’s always the furniture that deters me as it always seems so unwelcoming. The tour guide was great because he had a perfect, dramatic British voice. He would take pauses when describing the room, that weren’t too short or too long, but gave a sense of anticipation to whatever he said in only a way that British people can do. My favorite room was the library, an incredibly long room full of shelves of books, with the names of different great writers painted on the walls. And it was the warmest room of the house (the tour guide called it a house) as it still used the original heating method to heat it. (Or well, maybe not the original, having trouble remembering the exact date of the radiator, but at the latest it was from the 19th century.)

Oh, almost forgot the peacocks. Peacocks freely roam the castle grounds. My hatred of birds is no secret, but there are certain birds I can tolerate, at a safe distance of course. Penguins, flamingoes, swans – but only in an appreciation of the fact that they mate for life – and peacocks, the latter simply because their feathers are pretty. So the fact that there were peacocks just walking around didn’t bother me as much as you might think – until I came out of the house after the tour and had one on the railing by my head, so close that when it jumped away the tail grazed my hat. I froze, cursed, and then hightailed it out of there. And of course the whole time there I never saw them with their feathers out, which I think is a good thing because I think that means they are going to attack, doesn’t it?

After the tour of the inside I climbed to the top of the Keep to get a good view of the grounds and Cardiff. I didn’t stay long, however, as the wind was too strong and I was having trouble keeping my balance. And flying off the top of a castle keep in Wales, while a great story, is not how I’d like to die.

By this point I was quite frozen, so after warming up in the gift shop, and buying a few things of course, I walked around town a bit, passed City Hall and other municipal buildings, and finally ended up at the National Museum, where I went to unthaw for awhile. I also looked at some of the exhibits too. They had some great artifacts, and some beautiful, and massive, Celtic crosses made of stone.

After the museum I headed back toward the city centre to eat and shop and absorb Welsh culture…in their malls. Yes, malls abounded in the city centre to the point that I kept getting lost and couldn’t tell if I was in St. David’s mall or Queen Anne’s arcade. I bought some really good mixed nuts, spent less than 10 pounds at their three-story Primark, quite a feat, and then spent my last hours warming up, yet again, in a Café Nero with a cup of tea and my book.

The first half hour of the train ride home was miserable thanks to two incredibly drunk, vulgar men in the same car as me. I waited it out hoping they would pass out, but when they didn’t, wisely switched cars, where I was later yelled at by another drunken man coming out of the toilet for my “bad manners.” Apparently he being in my way and refusing to budge, forcing me to move around him, constituted bad manners. Whatever.

Sunday I slept late, then slept some more later in the afternoon. Just was very exhausted. In between all the sleeping I ran in Hyde Park, and then went to the Imperial War Museum, easily one of my favorite museums in London, and I've seen them all. I only went through two of the exhibits, my favorites, the one on the Holocaust, and the one on post-1945 conflicts.

Nothing too big looming on the horizon. Hope to see another play this week, and then will probably just stay in London this weekend. I want to take another trip out of the city, maybe an overnight one, and then think about where I want to go for a few days my last week here. Any ideas throw them my way. For a weekend trip I’m leaning toward Liverpool, and for my last week I’m still leaning toward Ireland, but just for a few days.