Corene travels the UK in pursuit of Austen, Doctor Who and baked bean pizza.

Monday, October 1, 2007

VISIT BEAUTIFUL CARDIFF


Wales: Land of Mystery, Land of the Red Dragon, and Land of the Intermittent Daytime Showers.


Welsh: Language that looks like someone you owed money to, snuck up behind you and then started bashing your head against a keyboard repeatedly and then you died pressing down on the "f" and "l" keys.


Cardiff: Full of Cornish pasty shops and friendly Welsh people who all look very happy despite having to speak Welsh.


Case in point: Wales has the same "Visible street signs? Whatever for?" syndrome as England, so when the road I was supposed to be taking to my hostel came to an abrupt end, I was a bit perplexed.

I had barely started to raise my eyebrow in a hint of perturbation when a handsome young Welshman bounded up to me out of nowhere, took my hands in his and said: "Can I help you? Where are you trying to get to?"


So, I married him and we are now living in Gllafffndwr with our eighty-four, dusty faced miner children and we all eat coal and sing songs about saucepans and I'll never leave Wales again.


But before I settled down to my life of knitting jumpers and canning seaweed, I look a turn around Cardiff Bay which was beautiful if you could forget for a minute that the ocean is trying to kill you with all its might.


I couldn't. Especially not with all this "art" littering the Boardwalk to remind me how the ocean is just a glorified graveyard with seals.


There's also the architecturally stunning (if we can believe the "Cardiff is Fantastic! Come Spend Money Here!" video they were playing at the Cardiff Tourist Information Centre) Millennium Building and the Roald Dahl shiny thing which occasionally starts pouring water down the sides much to the delight of tourists posing for pictures up against it.


Cardiff is also the Welsh equivalent of Disneyland for Doctor Who fans.


Who's Inside the Doctor Who Up Close Exhibition in Cardiff Bay?

I am, that's who.

(Anyone who doesn't experience a little thrill inside every time David Tennant licks a toaster may want to skip the next part)


The Doctor Who Exhibition was well worth the ₤'s despite the fact that I wasn't allowed to stroke anything. The craggy old lady behind the counter was very clear about this and I think she'd been driven mad by the constant looping of the Doctor Who theme music so I thought it best to just take pictures and then stroke them in the comfort of my own home.


The sacred jim-jams.


The holy Converses.


Outfit of the Big Ear-ed One.


Cannot believe they made poor Martha Jones fight evil in heels.


Why the Welsh school system is superior to ours: Terra-cotta Daleks and tin foil Cybermen made by Welsh school children. I was never allowed to skip math to make Rainbow Bright figurines out of pipe cleaners.


Me crushing Captain Jack's "Oh-so-secret" Secret Tiny Elevator.


Evil 18th Century Clockwork Puppet beckons you to come to Cardiff.


*Bliss*

1 comment:

ariencrossby said...

OMG, did you TOUCH IT? In defiance to the mad craggy lady, did you touch the holy T.A.R.D.I.S.?

...tell me you didn't look shiftily from left to right and then stand on the paving stone. Go on, tell me you didn't. ;)

Also, this is perhaps a cruel question, depending on the answer, but did you know that Neil Gaiman was in Bath two days ago? Or had you already gone away by then?