The Stuff of Legend

Right after Vanessa left on Monday morning, I met up with my friend, Melissa (from OU), and we flew from Paris to Manchester, and then caught a train over to Cardiff. The countryside was spectacular, and I'm actually really glad that we couldn't get a direct flight from Paris to Cardiff. It was too much fun staring out the windows. (We got in pretty late Monday night, so we headed right to the hostel and got some shuteye.)

On our first day in Cardiff, we went to the National Museum in Cardiff -- a wonderful combination of natural history and art. First we wandered around the natural history part before taking a quick guided art tour. While wandering around, I noticed a familiar staircase....

From "Vincent and the Doctor" (Doctor Who) -- my favorite episode

After the art tour, we got to take a behind-the-scenes archaeology tour where we were led to the basement of the museum and even got to handle tools as old as 400,000 years!

The front of the National Museum

The architecture in Cardiff is absolutely gorgeous

We turned in a bit early on Tuesday so that we could plan for the next couple days (and also get a nice spot of afternoon tea in the hostel common room).

I really need to get myself a fancy tea service

Wednesday morning, I headed off to Cardiff Bay to see the Doctor Who Experience, which was amazing -- part interactive show, part museum. I had quite a bit of fun here, and then met Melissa for lunch.

Outside the experience, waiting for it to open

TARDIS on the bay!

Costume of Professor River Song (I hope I get to wear outfits this cool as a professor)

The costume of the First Doctor

The Second Doctor

The Third Doctor

The Fourth Doctor

The Fifth Doctor

The Sixth Doctor

The Seventh Doctor

The Eighth Doctor

The Ninth Doctor

The Tenth Doctor

The Eleventh Doctor's Costumes

In the TARDIS

Fighting off some Daleks

Protecting my TARDIS

Falling out into the time vortex

Cyberman

Whole bunch of daleks

Weeping angel (and cherubs)

Rose's Outfit from the 50th Anniversary

With the 3 TARDIS'

While I was experiencing Doctor Who, Melissa went to an open air museum, and then we met up in the bay for lunch before heading back into the city to see the castle.

Millennium Center on the bay

Gorgeous red brick church

Chilling in front of the bay

The original keep

The medieval castle that was added around the original keep

A most exquisite fireplace

Fables and fairy tales illustrated on the wall of the kids' playroom

The banquet hall

The fireplace in the banquet hall

A pretty spiffy bathroom

Rooftop garden

LIBRARY

The "nut" in the monkey's mouth is actually a button that would ring the bell for the butler downstairs

Mr. Peacock showing off

(Now he's sulking because the female peacock ignored him & his fabulous plumage)

This was one cranky owl -- but so adorable

A little kestrel

HEDWIG

We got to see this guy eating his dinner

Inside the keep

On top of the keep, overlooking Cardiff

The Welsh flag flying from the keep

We accidentally stumbled on a little WWII museum underneath the wall surrounding the keep (a place that was used as a bomb shelter). All of a sudden, a siren went off, and there was the sound of dropping bombs. Scared me half to death before I realized it was just a recording.

The next day, we hopped a train to Newport, where we caught a bus to Caerleon (pronounced "Kay - lee - on" apparently). Caerleon is the site of some ancient roman baths, the remains of a roman barracks, and the remains of an amphitheater. There's also a pretty sweet museum (and it's all free -- hooray!). The coolest thing about Caerleon, though, is that it is, according to historians, one of the potential sites of King Arthur's Court (like legit and for real). So that is SO AMAZING.

Some flowers that were growing outside in the garden of the museum

a 10 minute bus ride and we're already this far out from the city, and it was awesome

The amphitheater -- it looks pretty small, but was actually HUGE

Don't mind me, just climbing into some of the ruins.

In the middle of the amphitheater

To give you an idea of the size (that little dot down there is me)

The barracks

This side of the barracks was for the centurions -- you can tell because of the different layout of their rooms compared to the other soldiers

In the baths, trying on some roman gear (I'm SO ready for battle)

It was really dark and therefore hard to get photos of the ruins of the baths themselves, but they were pretty impressive

As we were walking around, we found this little courtyard called "Ffwrwm" (Welsh for "a seat" and derived from the Latin "forum") which has got a bunch of little crafty type shops as well as some cafés. It's also got a bunch of stuff representing King Arthur.

A giant Welsh love spoon

Arthur fighting Mordred

Athur's Throne

There's just some statues in a field and I'm not sure why...

It's pretty cool, though.

After returning from Caerleon, we spent the afternoon in the shops making fun of the 90s that have apparently decided to make a comeback in British fashion (seriously -- crop tops, scrunchies, plaid shirts tied around the waist). Then we went over to Pettigrew Tea Rooms for afternoon tea and it was AMAZING.

The most British invention to ever British -- the travel tea kettle

90s fashion here to save the day

Delicious lemon and lavender cake

Traditional Welsh cakes

Lavender earl grey tea

(the type of tea they used -- I almost bought some, but figured I'd search in the US when I get home)

 After tea, we headed out to a pub for dinner, and then went back to the hostel to taste the local beer -- Brains.

Dragon doing Thriller

Brains -- it was SO good

We left early on Friday morning, taking the train back to Manchester, then flying into Paris. My train back to Dax was pretty late in the evening (at 10 to 10pm), so I met up with a friend who happened to be in town. It was great to see Stacie since I hadn't seen her since we studied together 2 years ago at Orléans -- we caught up over a drink and then she headed off to meet the friend she was staying with. I wandered over to the Centre Georges Pompidou to take in the Paris skyline one more time, and then I walked down to Notre Dame to say my final farewells since I don't know when I'll be returning to her.

I took the overnight train from Paris to Dax, but this time I got an actual bed instead of the reclining seats and managed to get a pretty good night's sleep, all things considered. Finally rolled into my apartment, exhausted, at about 8am.

The last week (since I got back from Cardiff) has flown by. I had my very last two days at the middle school which passed really well. My very last class even nearly made me cry -- one of the students made enough little American flags for the whole class, so they all came in smiling and waving their American flags. THEN, they had made me a giant card, which the whole class had signed. AND THEN, about half the class got up and presented me with little handmade notes and cards. All in all, it made for an incredibly sweet send-off, and I'm hoping to keep in touch with the students via a special "assistant" email account I made just for them.

Thursday morning I hopped on the train and headed to Orléans to visit my host family. It was a wonderful few days filled mostly with game playing. I also got to meet their current host student, who is a really sweet American girl who grew up in the Ukraine. We spent quite a bit of time talking together. I can't believe how big the girls have gotten! Philou has just started learning how to read in French, and so she read me a story on Saturday morning (or rather, most of a story; about 3/4 through, she went "I'm TIRED of reading" so I finished reading the story to her). We played quite a bit of Rumikub as well, and it was just really wonderful to see them all again.

Now I'm back in Dax for about 10 days before I ship back to the US. I am currently frantically trying to pack and clean my apartment. Also upload as many photos as possible to the blog since, as of tomorrow, I will have to cut off my internet line (which means basically no internet in my apartment).

For those of you who don't know, I will be moving to Florida this summer to start my graduate studies at Florida State University. (I've got just enough time to get my France stuff unpacked and pack up my entire life at home in MI basically, then I've got to move down to the Sunshine State).


That's pretty much all for now. I'll probably try to do a "Year-In-Review" post or something en route back to the US, or when I get back. Until next time, DFTBA.