Well, after a good amount of time away from this blog I feel like I need to commit a little bit more. Mind you, it has been hectically busy around here. I’ve made a couple of fantastic trips out to Wales and Ireland over the past couple of weeks. Combine this with rehearsals and script work for Dog in the Manger (DIM) and teaching responsibilities and it gets pretty exhausting after a little while…but in a good way. This post is going to be dedicated to my trip to Wales followed swiftly by a description of my time in Dublin for St. Patrick’s Day and then a general update on the goings on over here. I really want to get back to some of the commentary work that I had been doing before, especially with a lot going on in the realms of education, theatre, and a certain wedding next month. All in good time though, first Wales!
If you don’t remember from a post way back in November, I had one a trip through Protocol at the Christmas Dinner Social I attended. I had to choose between three different trips and decided to travel to Wales, as I had never been, on a trip that culminated in a three hour horseback riding session, of which I had never done. It was a perfect combination of new experiences and I had to jump at the chance. We left London extremely early (well, 7:30am….it was a Saturday!) on a little bus/van thing. There were only 16 of us on the trip but it was great because everybody (except me) were college exchange students from the U.S. I was afraid I might end up on a trip with a bunch of older people and was excited to find out that it would be a very chill group. I got on right away with one group of people specifically here from U of Maryland. Of course, as fate would have it I sat on the bus beside the guy taking a degree on theatre performance and that kicked off conversation right away. Even in a group of Americans I’m still a token novelty being from Canada. Combine that with being a teacher and not a student and all of the ingredients were there to solidify my reputation as “Mr. Smith” with a group of very fun people. Our first stop on this trip was to Chepstow Castle.
The ride to Wales itself was pretty uneventful. Most people slept along the way and I took the opportunity to finish a book (a book on Wikileaks by writers from The Guardian, great read!) and then get through my Saturday newspaper. Once we finally reached the bridge over into Wales the trip really kicked off. Our tour guide, Mike, was extremely knowledgeable about the country and even lived there for a period of time. He speaks Welsh and was able to give us a phonetics lesson of how words on signs were pronounced and what letter combinations gave what sound. It is a very complicated and strange language to be honest but it sounds very cool at the same time. We drove for a little while through Wales until we reached the small village of Chepstow. Now, I will definitely be saying “small village” a lot in this post because, unless you are travelling to Cardiff or Swansea, this country is entirely made up of small villages. It gives it a very quaint and homey feel and you learn to appreciate the scenery more due to the lack of industrialization. It seemed like we were much farther away from London than we actually were! Anyways, Chepstow is a small village just inside the border of England and Wales. The village really revolves around this castle that exists from the times of the English conquests over the Welsh. It was a very unique castle experience because it seems to be endless. There were constant twists, turns, nooks, and crannies to peer into. The tour around is completely independent so we just explored on our own for a certain period of time. I took a bunch of pictures (including one of me posing with a crossbow) on my Facebook album. Once our castle experience was finished we walked up into the village centre to have a poke around and get a bit of lunch before boarding the bus and heading out into the Welsh countryside.
Our next stop was to a little village called Hay. Officially it was called Hay-On-Wye because of it’s location on the Wye river. Apparently this village as a really huge book festival every summer and is considered of the central book areas in the world. Walking around the village I realized that this was definitely true. There were bookstores EVERYWHERE! Most likely the highest bookstore per capita anywhere you could possibly imagine. We popped into a couple of them and managed to sneak around into a few other stores (including a puzzle shop with a 32 000 piece puzzle!!!) before everything closed up. It was a charming little place but we didn’t spend much time there before we had to head back to the bus and move on to our lodgings for the evening.
When we reached the hotel/hostel I was not expecting what I saw. It was basically an old English country house that is apparently from a Sherlock Holmes story (The Baskerville Hound), the name of the place was Baskerville House. When you walk inside there was a grand staircase with a piano on top the broke into two smaller staircases heading up but in the opposite direction. The place looked like it was straight out of a murder mystery and we all thought that one person was definitely going to die through the night and we’d have to figure out who the killer was. We got settled into our rooms which were hostel style with four bunk beds in each room. All of the guys shared a room and since there were four of us and four beds we each got a top bunk (no fighting!) and two pillows each with one from the bed below. A pretty sweet deal if you ask me.
After exploring the building for a while and eating some food we made an ill-fated attempt at an alcohol run. Of course, everything in small village Wales closed before 7 o’clock so we were a little SOL. Luckily there was a bar in the hotel and we were the only group there apart from a bunch of guys having a rather low key stag party. We ended up getting some wine and playing a hilarious game of Kings in the bar while the bartender just laughed at us. We heard there was a club around the back that opens at 11 o’clock and headed over there eventually. It was bizarre…it was literally a big city style club inside but attached to the back of this building and from the outside looked very derelict. We stayed there for a little while but the combination of really sketchy old dudes and extremely young girls created a cocktail of creepiness that we started to feel really uncomfortable with.
The next morning we headed down for breakfast (lovely full English) and then loaded up our stuff into the bus before heading over to the stables. Eventually we got suited up and were able to mount our horses before heading out. I’ve never ridden a horse before and it was definitely a strange experience. My horse’s name was Stranger and he apparently did not like other horses so we had to stay at the back of the queue during the trip. It didn’t take much to make sure that we stayed in line and the horses were extremely smart and just followed one another. With the beautiful day that it was and being surrounded by mountains and tiny villages while riding a horse…it was a really breathtaking experience. Once we arrived back (after 3 hours!) we dismounted…which was painful and it felt weird to walk…before gathering up our things and heading back to the bus.
After a really great lunch in a tiny local pub (real authentic feel to it) we headed back on our course to London. Of course we were impeded by traffic but eventually made it back to the central city so I could catch a tube back to Colliers Wood.
This was an incredible trip even though it only lasted a couple of days. I met some great people who I plan on meeting up with later on in London and we had a blast. I definitely want to try and get to a lot of other places on day trips like this to see a lot more of the country beyond London. Really worth it in the end. Speaking of trips, next time we’ll be discussing a certain trip to the Emerald Isles for St. Patrick’s Day! Until then…
Cheers and Love
Erik
