Final thoughts on our trip

There were several things that I noticed or learned while on our trip.  I thought I would share them here.

1.  I do not like the airport in Chicago.  It was large and full and busy.  To get from domestic to international flights (or international to domestic) you have to leave the secure area, and go back through all of the hassle of taking your shoes off and everything out of your bags.  It was rather annoying.

2.  I was quite surprised that everything in Dublin was in English.  Everyone spoke only English, all of the signs in English.  I wasn't expecting this.

3.  Signs in Wales were in both Welsh and English.  This at times made things confusing as you felt like you should be able to read them, but often it was Welsh that you were looking at and therefore the words were lost on you.

4.  Even with everything and everyone for the most part speaking English, I often found myself standing there in front of something thinking, "What did you say?"  And this was not because of any accent.  I clearly heard the words that they spoke.  I knew what there were, but in that context they conveyed a completely different meaning to me.

 Twice someone told me the phrase half fourteen.  Because of what we were speaking of I knew it was related to time.  But I stood there dumbfounded as I attempted to decode this phrase.  Eventually I realized they meant 2:30.  But of course my first thought was 1/2 of 14 = 7.  But I knew 7:00 was not the time we were talking about.  And besides why would they make me figure out a math problem just to tell me 7:00?  It was really funny that even the second time I heard half fourteen, I stood for a moment thinking "Wow, English is HARD!"  I have come home and now I wonder how they were say, 3:45?  Would that be 3/4 fifteen?  I guess I may never know.

Another very odd 'English' moment happened at the Irish Ferries.  We had missed our ferry and had to wait for the next one.  The man at the desk had assured us it wasn't a problem.  But he had not given or printed us a different ticket.  We had hours to wait so I wasn't too concerned about it until 2 hours later when people started coming in and picking up tickets.  So I went back up to the counter with my old printed ticket to ask about it.  He told me it was fine and I didn't need to worry.  Then he asked if I wanted him to print a new ticket.  I felt better about this and said yes.  As this was printing he held out a hand and motioned to the paper I was holding.  He asked, "Would you like me to cut that off for you?"  I stared at him for a long moment once more thinking "English is hard."  As my brain worked out what he was asking me  He wondered if I wanted him to shred my old ticket paper.  Finally I nodded and gave it to him.

Over and over as we spoke with people we found little difference in the way we used words and had to sort through to find the actual meaning.  And this was with all of us being native English speakers.  Imagine how it is to communicate with someone who speaks English as a second or third language.

5.  Many things are backwards.  It was about the 4th or 5th night of our trip and I was sitting in the bathroom that I had a revelation.  The handle to flush the toilets was on the opposite side as they are in America.  I had felt a slight oddness most times.  But it wasn't until that night that I stood there looking at the toilet and thought, "I know this is the wrong side."  We had a good laugh as I left the bathroom and asked Angie.  She had thought so herself, but thought it was silly and had decided not to ask me.   So roads, the side of the car you drive on and toilet handle are backwards.  I also found myself turning the water on/off in the wrong direction.  I had not check to make sure this was standardly backwards or only some of them were, or even if I was just confused by the workings of things.

6.  I had told Michael and Ann that Wales was like Nebraska.  They seemed unconvinced.  But as I explained to them what I meant they seemed to understand and agree.  Wales did not look much like Nebraska, well, except for all of the green and growing things and the lack of large cities (at least the areas that we were in).  As we drove down the roads, people waved and smiled at you.  It felt like Nebraska, rural and quiet.  Peaceful.

7.  Everyone we actually sat down and talked to was just as interested in Nebraska and where we were from as we were in Wales and Ireland.  We spent a lot of time sharing information.  It was fun to hear of the places that they had been or what they did while in the USA.

8.  We noticed several different accents.  We were not able to tell who was from where, but it was quite noticeable.  Michael had told us that he was from London and you could tell from his accent.   But I was not able to really tell his London accent from Ann's non-London one.

9.  Everyone was very interested in our presidential campaign.  It was strange to see if on the TV and in their newspapers.

10.  And one more thing...  This was not a surprise.  I love BBC.  If I watch TV even here in the USA I tend to enjoy the BBC.  So this was not a surprise to me.  I just wish we could easily get all of the BBC channels.  :)

I am sure there are more things that I could add.  But for the moment I think I will end here.  I loved our trip, even the scary parts.  My thoughts for each of the days of my trip should be posted now.  Of course my favorite pictures are posted in my Facebook album.

Days 10-11: Homeward

We got up early that morning and loaded the car.  I was actually really sad about leaving Wales.  Some part of me was ready to go home and some part of me really wanted to stay.  But it was time.  We had a long drive, a 3 hour ferry ride, a 8 1/2 hour plane ride, 6 hour layover, 1 1/2 plan ride and a 3 hour car ride.  Yes, sore butts all around.  So much sitting.  So much waiting.

I can't say the days went by quickly.  But also they were not terrible.  Of course there were frantic moments, going to customs, hurrying to get places on time, and whatnot.  But mostly we just sat for two days... all the while getting closer to home.  Getting closer to life and the stresses that were going to be waiting there.

And of course there was no sleep.  The clock moved backwards, but our bodies felt the passage of time.  27 hours after waking up on the 6th of June we were back at home ready to fall into our beds.

Back in NE and my own car, I had once or twice felt the urge to drive on the wrong side of the road... and never once did I have the crushing feeling of being 'hugged' the the hedges and smallness of the Welsh roads.

We had a wonderful adventure, something we will remember for the rest of our lives.  I am so very happy that we were able to do this.

Day 9: Berriew aquaducts - Our last full day in Wales.

We wanted today to be a relaxing day.  So we did not travel far from home.  The first stop was Berriew aquaducts.  We had tried to get there the day we went to Montgomery Castle, but had missed the turn.  So today was the day.  This time we did not miss the turn.  Of course as always driving was... stress.  We enjoyed walking along the aquaduct for a while.  We even were able to see a duck and her babies.

Then we headed back into Welshpool.  We were going to eat at Charlies.  Or at least that was the plan.  We got to Coed-y-dinas with no problems.  We looked through the store for any last minute items that we wanted to purchase.  I had been considering buying some seed, Welsh Poppies.  But I did not find any.  So we just looked around.  Outside they were having all sorts of things, aerial acrobats, face painting, and all sorts of little food vendors.  So instead of eating at Charlies, we got some delicious pork and chips out there.

We enjoyed watching the acrobats, but none of us got our faces painted.  When we were finished we decided to go on back to the cottage.  We did life things like laundry and packing.  It is so hard to believe that it is time to go home.

Day 8: Harlech Castle

Today we were heading west again, this time to Harlech Castle. It was also use/built by Edward I during the 1280's. It was quite a bit smaller than Caernarfon Castle. At the time it had been right on the sea, but now there is quite a bit of land between the sea and the castle. There is a path that leads down to where the sea used to be. This castle could be stocked by ships and they would use that path to carry the supplies up to the castle.

It also had rings of walls around the castle. These are the things I imagine when I think of castles. We explored the ground floor. The great hall, kitchen, and chapel have been destroyed, just the bottom bits of the walls remain. Then we climbed up the tower stairs. None of the floors remain, but we could look through the doorways and windows to see what it would have been like.

We made it all the way up to the wallwalk and walked the entire way around the castle. You can see for a long ways from on top of the wallwalk. We really enjoyed this castle.

Because today was Saturday and it was lovely and warm outside, there was a lot more traffic. We had thought about going into Portmeirion. I had also considered going back to the beach, since the girls had really enjoyed that. But I just could not deal with all of the traffic. Winding around on roads that are 'two-way' but one car barely fits down while other cars are coming and twisting and turning about... It just stresses me out way too much. So we decided to just come back to the cottage and relax for the rest of the day.

Of course as always, Michael came over for a visit. Either he is just the most friendly and outgoing person in the world or he rather enjoys us. He always asks us how our day went and what we are planning for the next day. Plus he usually has questions or information that he wants to share with us. I am rather fond of him.

Day 7: Hay-on-Wye

Today we were going to be heading to Hay-on-Wye. We had originally picked these days for our trip so that we would be able to go to the Hay festival. But after the whole driving experience I was worried about going to a place I knew to be so busy. We had decided that we should go, because we had really wanted to go. I mean who wouldn't want to go to a town that has 20 bookstores in it?

Lucky for me I had checked out information and found that they had a parking area across the river in a different 'town', and that they were offering free transport over to Hay. Solution! I don't have to drive through the busy town praying for a parking spot. We were ready now.

We drove down and through this new area of Wales. In fact Hay-on-Wye is across the border and on the England side. The ride on the bus was quite exciting. I am super happy I didn't have to drive through those streets. The town was lovely. So many interesting buildings and shops. We rode all the way through the town and up to the festival site.

Now here is the funny thing, there are authors here signing books and giving talks. I had hoped that I would be able to find someone that I knew. That I could continue my closeness to writers that I had every time I went to WorldCon or even ConStellation. But after looking through the list of authors that was going to be there, I realized I had no idea who any of them were.

We got off of the bus, they also had city buses that would take you back into town. This was good to know. I am sure we could have walked but it was still nice not to have to.

We found a place to eat. Then we wondered around the festival site. So many different kinds of food. There were also other kinds of vendors out there. Then we went into the main bookseller room. As I wondered around, I realized just how many of these people were 'British' authors and we just don't even have them on our bookshelves back in America. It was dumbfounding. I rarely found a book by an author I knew. I looked through the children's book, the fiction, shelf after shelf and only one or two that I had even heard of.

We continued around the festival site. Then stopped at the bathroom (toilets). Now normally I am not huge in talking about toilets, but I am going to make an exception here. These appeared to be what we would call porta-potties. I was not all that happy about needing to use them. But I didn't know if we would find a different option in the small shops and stores that we would be heading to soon.

So off to the porta-potties...

All I can say is WOW! We totally need these things in America. They were not the yucky, smelly, plastic boxes that we were used to. They were a sort of trailer (portable). You step inside and find a sink with running water and four real live bathroom stalls with flush toilets. Of course the stall were small, but not much smaller than our yucky porta-potties. Flush the clean nice toilet. Wash your hands. And we were one our way.

After our bathroom adventure we got on the city bus so that we could go down and wander through all of the bookstores. I do believe that I would have enjoyed the bookstores more on a non-festival day. It was quite busy all around. But I have never been in or even imagined a town with so many bookstores. It as really awesome. It was nice to just be able to look around so many stores. Some of them were several stories high. There were bookshelves around every room and sometimes even up and down the stairs. I have to say I was very good and did not really buy books. I had to remember that I would need to take them home on the ferry and then the plane.

It was a good day of being surrounded by books. :)

Day 6: The beach circle

The Ynyslas Nature Reserve / beach

This morning we woke up to what had been the most cloudy day. I was worried about going to the beach. But yesterday it had been cloudy when we left and by the time we got to the castle it was sunny and beautiful. So I was hoping it would be much the same today. We started driving. And sure enough, by the time we got partway there it was sunny.

The GPS would not bring up the Nature Reserve that we were going to, but I had looked at the map and we even brought the atlas along, so we figured it could not be that hard to find. I missed one of my turns, but we got back on the right road and drove directly there. When we parked in the sand, there were only a couple of cars there with us. Michael had told us that this was a secluded and quiet beach. Actually that is why we had decided to come to this one rather than the one on the other side of the river/inlet.

We had to walk up and over these large sand dunes. It was a descent hike. But once we were there the kids saw the sea and were ready to go. We walked over the large rocks there at the edge and across the damp, swampy sand area. Zeb headed straight for the sea. The girls got distracted by picking up shells.

As we explored a few more people started to come. The girls and I headed out to the water's edge and with our shoes off stepped into it. I had figured that it would be icy cold. But it actually wasn't too bad. Much warmer to me than the Pacific Ocean had been.

We all picked up a few shells and walked in the water a bit. We found a crab and several other sea creatures. We did not bring buckets or chairs. I know that the girls would like to go back to the sea and just play sometime. But we had other things on our list to do today. So we decided to head back to the car. By now there were actually quite a few people there. Several of them were flying kites or building castles. Back in the parking lot there was even an ice cream van selling treats.

Michael had told us that going to the beach was not a hard thing to do here, as there is no place in the UK that is more than 40 miles from a beach. This is an interesting thing to consider for someone who is from in NE.

Corris Craft Center:

After the beach we headed up to the Corris Craft Center. We did not know exactly what to expect from this as English is not always the same as our English. Words mean different things in different places. This was a short and easy drive. We parked and got out to explore. There were several octagonal buildings, each one was a different shop. There was also an ice cream / tea shop and the all important bathrooms...or as they call them here toilets.

There were so many things there that I would like to have gotten. One shop was a toy shop, one a tourist shop, a paint your own pottery shop, a glass blower, a chocolate/candy shop, a candle maker, a shop that makes all sorts of wooden things, and a soap maker.

Nearly every shop had something I would have bought. The glass blower shop was one of my favorites. They had this beautiful dragon. I really wanted it. But there was no way that it would have gotten safely home with me. They also had glass flowers that I would have loved to have.

The pottery shop also had lots of things I wanted. There were dragons, and castles, and the woodland faced mask. I did buy something here, there was a bunch of little mushroom houses. I decided I needed one of these and that I could get it home safely. So that was my purchase for the day.

Dolgoch Falls:

After we had finished looking around here, we went on to Dolgoch Falls. This was also just a short drive. But of course we went down to a B-road to get there. So driving was a little more of a challenge. We stopped at the car park and walked up to the first of the falls. The walk there was beautiful. We walked along the stream and under the train bridge. This was a little fall when compared to the one we saw the other day.

Just to the left of the falls was a cave. “The Cave of the Brave” Michael had told us to walk into it without a torch. He wanted to see if any of us were brave. He of course told us that it was perfectly safe. It was a bit on the muddy side, but the kids headed in while I took a few pictures of the falls. After Zeb came out I went on inside. It was dark and wet inside, but it did not go back all that far. Then it opened up to a secret little place. There were plants and trees growing. They of course had to fence it off. When we got home Michael said that they had done that because people had been dropping things down from the top of the falls when people down below called out.

Day 5: Castle Caernarfon

Time for another castle. :) That makes me happy. Now Michael had wanted me to not look up this castle so that I would be surprised when I got there. I knew that I had seen it before, because I had looked up so many of the main castles around here. Plus I am very needy when it comes to seeing the map before I drive to a place. So I did actually look it up. I did not read about it.

The drive over there was not that bad. It was of course mountainous and curvy for a part of the way, but I have come to understand that this is the way it is when driving anywhere around here. The road there once off the A-road was very direct, which is another good thing for me. And there was a parking lot right next to the castle. We had to pay to park there, but it was a real parking lot so it was well worth it to me.

Mmmmm. Castle. We stood there and looked at it. Then as we walked around to the gate we got to see the other side. It was wonderful. This huge old building sitting right there on the water's edge. We went inside. There was a large open and grassy area inside the castle. The broken wall of the great hall was there. I expect there had been at one time a stable and many other little places, possibly a blacksmith and more. But there is no sign of these things.

We looked around just wondering where to start. There were doors everywhere around the courtyard. Finally, we just picked one of the doors and went inside. We were walking down an outside wall of the castle on the ground level. It was rather narrow and a tad dark. There were arrow slits spaded evenly along the corridor. We peeked out of several of the arrow slits. We followed along, corridor and stairs. Eventually we came to a small room. Here they were showing a video about the castle history. We stayed and watched this.

When the video was finished, we continued to explore. We just went in and out of doorways and corridors. We had come across several staircases to take you to upper levels, but we had passed them by and just looked around the first level. When we had gone halfway around the castle exploring all of the tiny rooms and corridors we decided it was time to climb one of the circular staircases.

The stairs are very narrow, two people can pass on them, but I do not recommend it. No railings, just the stone steps. They did attach a rope to the inside wall (the point of the stairs) so that you did have something to hang onto as you climb. This however was hard on your hand as it caused your knuckles to rub against the stone wall. I learned this quickly and was careful about using the rope.

So many places to get off of the stair. We often chose the place to climb or get off by if there were people trying to come down passed us. We walked across the wallwalks. We climbed to the top of the turrets. We explored the rooms inside the wall.

I loved it!

Then of course we came down and outside again halfway back along the side of the castle that we had already explored. So we walked through the courtyard and over to the west side of the castle. This was the biggest tower. The tower that would actually have rooms inside of it.

On the first level, they had what appeared to be a human-sized chess board set up. But after looking at it better, it was a representation of the kings and rulers. Each one had a plaque telling about the king. It was very interesting.

The level above had a diorama of a Queen. That structure was very nice to look at and the story was good as well. It was not something that I had heard before. There were also other little side places to explore along this level. From this side of the castle were some excellent views of the sea.

The next tower level had a mostly empty room. This was a very good thing for them to do, because the other two levels were so full of other things to look at and read. So on this level we got to really get a feel of what the room would be like. This tower or side of the castle was supposedly where the royals or lords would have been. This of course makes sense as they were large rooms.

We continued to the top of this tower as well. There were two turrets on top of this large tower, but we were not allowed to go up into them. There were several doors and places along the way that were closed off.

Once out of this tower we climbed up on the wall again, a very long straightish wallwalk. Inside this wall was one of the widest corridors. Light came in from both sides, so it was rather well lit. This corridor might have been one of my favorite places.

Eventually we found our way to a little museum. This housed the story of the Welsh soldiers and the parts they played throughout history. It was interesting to read some of this. I found the parts about the American Revolution to be quite interesting. History is always told in the point of view of the people and place that you are in.

I almost forgot, there is part of the wall that had surrounded the town on the north side of the castle. I loved seeing this as we walked up to the castle. Inside one of the rooms we explored there was a model of the castle and the town as it had been when it was built. That wall had surrounded the whole of the town. But now of course the town has grown. I do not know if the rest of the wall had just been taken down as the town grew or if it had fallen over time.

So all in all, I would say this castle was an amazing thing to see.