Finally some sightseeing; the rain has stopped

After days of rain the sun finally decided to break through the gloominess. On Friday the 7th of February I finally got the break I’d been waiting for. Time to explore Cardiff to a somewhat greater extent than I had done so far (I doubt anybody would spend more time than necessary wandering around town when it’s raining cats and dogs). I might have tried to find the shortest routes while shopping for all the “bare necessities” now that the sun was out I decided to wander a bit more.

The first thing I went looking for was a guitar store. I had done a few quick searches before, but nothing major. So I followed a few directions given to me earlier and decided to see whether I could find a guitar to my liking. My first target for a guitar was a no go. It was a secondhand shop and the cheapest guitar wasn’t really my style and it cost ₤50. I decided to go back to another store I visited on one of the quick searches where I had seen a new guitar of good quality for ₤45. I figured I tried a few shops now already and that was the best offer to date, so I planned to buy it. Also I wasn’t keen on waiting any longer to fill up the occasional silence in my room by beautiful tunes of my own making. Before I actually bought the guitar I did a bit of shopping at other places and roamed afterwards.

I bought some groceries and a large map of the UK (for on the wall) which I ordered earlier at the ‘Union’ book shop. Some of you might think, “what would he want with a map of the UK if he is in Wales?” Well the answer is quite simple really. I plan to explore the UK in at least two one-week-trips. If I want to see as much as possible this will of course require meticulous planning. Therefore I will plot my travels on the map using pins and string (if you don’t get the idea yet, don’t worry I will make pictures of the final result as soon as I have planned my trips).
Now as for the roaming part. I pinpointed a few buildings of note close to and around the city center and planned to take pictures of these. I had on my list the “Cardiff City Hall” and “Law Court”. Why those buildings? Well I had seen earlier that their design is beautiful and unless I’m mistaken based on old Greek architecture and I love old architectural styles. Another building on my list was “Cardiff Castle” where once an ancient Roman fort stood. Over time of course adaptions have been made, but the battlements are still very Roman. In between my wanderings also took me a war monument in a beautiful (even in the winter) garden. I could tell (also due to postcards I had seen of that monument) that in the spring or summer the garden would be even prettier. As soon as I stepped in that garden a flowery and spicy scent assailed my senses and I decided on the spot that I would visit the garden again. I relaxed in the garden, made some more pictures of the architecture of buildings and reluctantly moved on to the next building to visit on my list, the castle.

I started by walking around the castle and photographing the outside before actually going inside. There wasn’t much to see to be honest. If I had done the tour I might have seen more interesting things, but I decided to postpone that until the temperature allowed for more comfort during a leisurely stroll around the castle grounds.
After visiting the castle I decided to go pick up my guitar (I had already claimed it in my mind :P). On the way to the guitar shop, Gamlin’s guitar shop, I have walked through a few so called “arcades”. Now when I hear the word arcade I think of game arcades. Apparently Arcades are shopping centers. Whether this is only in the UK, or also in other English-speaking countries I don’t know (yet). I have to say that these shopping centers are really interesting. They are full of cozy (alternative) shops: Jewelers, exotic foods, bookstores, tea corners, etc. They all border to a narrow(-ish) hallway where light comes shining through a roof of glass. I will definitely take some pictures of these as well (regrettably my battery was nearly depleted by that time). To be sure I could browse some shops in the arcades for hours. I also picked up a couple of post cards there before I moved resolutely to the guitar shop. By the time I had my guitar in hand I had already been on the road for at least 4 hours and since I had at least half an hour ahead of me before I would reach my house I decided to end my wanderings and go home. The fact that my stomach gave subtle hints that it was lunch time had nothing to do with it, honestly ;)

Well apart from an intensive fencing training that evening that was it for the Friday. In the next chapter I will tell more about my eating habits here in the UK.

Cheers!