St. Fagans!

After our wonderful trip to Big Pit, Angela and I drove about an hour south to the west side of Cardiff and arrived at St. Fagans National History Museum.  I know you are probably thinking, "yeah yeah, I've been to history museums before," but I bet you haven't been to one like this... at least I know I hadn't.

Old farm house with thatched roof.

At St. Fagans they have a collection of over forty old buildings (many centuries old) from around the country that they have taken apart brick by brick, labeling each one, and then transported them to St. Fagans and rebuilt them so that they are exactly as they were.  Through a little research I found that St. Fagans was voted one of the UK's top ten FREE attractions by TripAdvisor!

There is a pretty good video at the bottom of this page, plus more information about it.

A long house from 1734 which housed both animals and people!

A couple of other things I liked about St. Fagans was that there were signs with information about each building AND there were also employees who were very knowledgeable and willing to answer any questions we had.  They also had some of the buildings actually functioning as their intended purpose with artisans working in them.  A few I remember seeing were the bakery, the blacksmith, the cobbler, and the general store (see below).

An old general store where we got some delicious Italian ice cream for a snack :)

You could easily spend a whole day here.  We just had the afternoon, and saw a lot, but did not have time for everything.  For example, the museum is actually located on the grounds of a late 16th century manor house, and we did not have time to see any of that.  On a nice day, like the one we had, it would be wonderful to bring a picnic, or get a few things at the bakery and general store, and enjoy the gardens!

Here you can see more about the manor home and gardens.

A round house.

Overall, a GREAT day!  Thanks again to Angela for the wonderful experience.  I highly recommend it!

Things that are more difficult than they should be:

• Counting money.  When you don't know which coins are which, it is quite difficult to count out money, especially without dumping all of your change on the counter or just handing it all to the cashier and asking them to do it.  

Big Pit and St. Fagan's

Although I am no longer in the UK, I still have a few more posts that I would like to do, so I'm just going to go ahead and do them.  The only thing I will say about being how is that it is a bittersweet thing.  I am loving being home and living with my husband again (not that the student village wasn't great ;), and also seeing my family and catching up with old friends.  I also really appreciate the everyday things more than I ever did before I left... however, at the same time I miss Wales and all the wonderful people I became friends with, and realize that it will be a while before I get to see any of them again.  But more on that later.

Swansea to Big Pit.

For now, I would like to tell you all about the wonderful day I had at Big Pit and St. Fagan's!  I went with my supervisor in the International Development Office, Angela Jones, during my last Sunday in Swansea.  (Just a side note, but Angela Jones is one of the most lovely people you will ever meet, and if you take the Swansea pre-sessional, you will likely get the chance to meet her, and if not then you should make it a point to meet her while you are in Swansea!!)  All visiting international students (including all ISU students) have the option of taking the 2-week Swansea pre-sessional, during which they learn about British (primarily Welsh) history and culture.  As part of the class they take a day to visit Big Pit and St. Fagan's, so that is what we did.

We started by driving about an hour and a half to Big Pit, which is a National Coal Museum, including a fully functional coal mine.  The drive there was unbelievably beautiful, which looking at the map above makes sense considering we were driving right by a national park.   

I hadn't heard anything about Big Pit, so I didn't have any expectations, but in the end I was REALLY impressed by it all.  It was incredibly interesting learning about the lives of the miners, and how difficult life was for them.  Coal mining played such a large part in Welsh history.  This mine was used until 1980.  We got to go 300 feet underground into the mine (see picture below :) and see the conditions they worked in, and that I'm sure people still work in who work in mining.  

Angela and I getting ready to go into the mine at Big Pit.

Our tour guide was an old miner that worked in the mine before it was shut, and one thing I remember him telling us was how the owner valued the horses more than the people, because if a man died he knew there would be someone else that would be looking for a job and able to replace him for just as cheap, but if a horse died he would have to buy another one (sounds like the situation with our economy today - but I guess that is another discussion).  He also had us turn off out lamps to see how dark it really was, and how people worked for many years, including women and children.  If they wanted a candle they would have to buy it themselves, and most did not have the money for it.  

Bit Pit!

We also walked through a couple of the exhibits including the baths.  I enjoyed learning about women's role in working in the mines, and then their involvement in fighting for better working conditions, including the building of the baths.  In the end we didn't have enough time to see everything, but what we did see was wonderful.  This experience is exactly why students should study abroad.  I know you could easily sit in a classroom in the US (or any other country for that matter), and learn about the industrial revolution, and British history, but it is a completely different experience when you are able to visit places like this.  It makes history come alive.

If you would like to learn more about it, check out their website and as always wikipedia :)

Since this entry got a little long, I'll wait until my next one to write about St. Fagan's.  Stay tuned!

Things that are more difficult than they should be:

• Turning on the oven/stove.  Shouldn't be difficult, right?  Well, let me tell you, haha.  
First thing to know when traveling in Europe is that you almost always have to flip a switch on to make an outlet work.  Usually the switch is located on the outlet plate immediately next to the outlet (see below).  This doesn't usually cause me any problems, however when I went to use the stove top for the first time, it did, haha.  
I turned the knob to turn on the burner, but nothing happened.  So I did actually look for a switch but did not see one.  After about 15 minutes of messing with things (and thinking that I had been successful since I put the pan of hot water on the burner which heated it up just enough for me to think that it was working, but was not) I finally figured it out.  There was in fact a switch, but it didn't look like any other switch.  It was a big orange switch about three times the size as those below.  Probably to make it abundantly obvious, but whatever. It didn't look like a switch to me, but turns out it was.  So, although most people will probably laugh at me for this, I decided to share the little story so that others will not have to have the dinner delayed like I did :)

Outlet with switches.

Cardiff!

CARDIFF!

I have been lucky enough to have the opportunity to travel quite a bit in the last week and half.  Most of that time was spent in Ireland with my family, and was wonderful!!  So much fun! But my travels began with my husband a few days before.  Our first trip was just a day trip, but was one of my favorites!  On Saturday we took the train (for only £7.70 round trip!) to Cardiff.  It was a great city.  Right when you leave the train station you see the huge Millennium Stadium, home to the Wales Rugby team.  It was built to host the 1999 Rugby World Cup and holds up to 74,500.  Made me wish I had been able to go to the Rugby match the previous weekend even more.

                                                              (picture from Wikipedia)

Millenium Stadium 

When we arrived we wondered off the train and just walked around for a little while.  For some reason we both wanted a doughnut, and lucky for us we happened upon a Krispy Kreme (wish granted!).  Now, I know that Krispy Kreme is not exactly authentic Welsh or British food, but it was just what we wanted. 

So after our American breakfast of glazed doughnuts and lattes, we continued to wonder around.  The city had all of these great covered alleys with all kinds of shops that led to large pedestrian streets with even more shopping.

Shopping in Cardiff

Some there were many modern chains like H&M and Top Shop, but there were also small local shops of all kinds.  If I had money I would love to spend more time in Cardiff!  However, since I don't, we moved on to the tourist attractions.

We were planning on jumping on the open-top tour bus, and knew we were supposed to catch it at the Castle.  We weren't quite sure where the castle was, but knew it was not far from the train station, so we just wondered for a little bit and sure enough ran right into it.  It was quite amusing really, we turned a corner... and there was a castle!  Not something that happens in the States.

Cardiff Castle

So we took the bus around the city.  I'm not sure if it was totally worth the cost, but I'm sure we wouldn't have seen as much of the city otherwise, so I guess it was.  If we would have had more time we would have gotten off and looked around the bay area because I've heard it's really nice, and I'm sure would have been extra exciting the weekend we went since the Canoeing World Cup was taking place there.  However, we didn't have a ton of time, so we just rode around once and saw everything.  We did hear about a very unique restaurant they will be opening soon called the Clink.  It is unique because it will be in the prison located in the middle of the city, and the inmates will be the employees of the restaurant.  I would love to hear about this if anyone does go there!

When we got back we went into the castle.  It was really cool to see and hear about its history.  Well worth the visit.

In front of the original castle.

While we were there I saw a poster about a jousting competition that was going to be taking place the next weekend.  I wasn't able to make it, but Sarah, who works at the International Development Office did and said it was really cool.  I stole this picture from her:

                                                                             Picture taken by Sarah Spitzauer
Jousting at Cardiff Castle

After the castle we decided to walk over to the art gallery that was only a couple of blocks from the castle, and on our way there we were quite surprised to see a naked bike ride going through town.  There were probably about 100 riders.  I did not know this at the time, but they were riding to raise awareness of cyclists and the dangers they face on the road.  (I think I will skip this picture).  We went on to the museum.  The building itself was quite nice.

After our visit to the museum we caught a train back to Swansea in time for dinner at the Bryn where we watched the beginning of one of the Euro Cup games.  Definitely a great day!  I would highly recommend a trip to Cardiff to anyone!!


Fun Phrases: 

"Proper" I know this isn't a new word to most of you, but I love the way the Welsh use it.  They use it sort of like the word very.  For example, someone said a lid to a bottle was "proper stuck" when they couldn't get it open.

"Toilet" Again, I realize you all know this word, but here in Wales, they use the word toilet instead of bathroom.  So people always ask where the toilets are, not where the bathrooms or restrooms are.

"Rubbish" means trash.