Travels Across the UK: Cardiff

Student life in UK is very different from the student life in India. Most students work part time in order to earn their living and very few hang around with friends after college hours on campus. Social life is mostly active in pubs and clubs and no one is bothered about how the others are coping with their assignments. Vacations are used to earn as much as possible or to go back home, by almost everyone. With this backdrop, we Indians from Oxford Brookes University or rather from Crescent Hall (student residence) were planning to go to Cardiff for New Year’s 2013. It was supposed to be six of us including two of my friends from Coventry. So we booked our bus tickets for the 30^th of Dec and our hotels for two nights.

There isn’t any direct bus route to Cardiff from Oxford. It goes via Bristol where it changes service. Ironically, it takes five hours to travel from Oxford to Cardiff, but just half of it to travel from London to Cardiff. That’s because the service from London is a direct service. We reached there at around midday. Now, December, all over UK is a very bad time to travel. December and January are meant for snuggling inside your blanket. It’s so cold and rainy you don’t want to be out on the road. Yet, we were out and about.

Cardiff seems to be a small place, especially since it is the capital of Wales. I had expected it to be more like London. Hot and Happening! But, it was nothing like London. It is pretty but a rather small place. I also observed that unlike the other cities in England, this one had an unplanned mix of new and old architecture. They have made a good attempt to retain their old structures but they have changed their style of new constructions over the years and so the city’s buildings do not conform to the famous English consistency found everywhere else. The population seems to be even scarce than that in Oxford. Not many people were on streets on a Sunday afternoon of 30^th Dec and it was surprisingly dull. We went to our hotel to throw away the boredom from the journey. The hotel was far from the city centre and strangely isolated from the city. We freshened up and went back to the city centre to explore the place. The city centre is well planned and close to the seashore. A quay has been built on the shore to host a number of restaurants which I felt is a perfect place to hang out in summers. But this was winter and the sea winds were chilling. So we chose to eat in a warmer place towards the inside of the town centre.

31^st Dec began with a rainy morning. We took the city tour bus that took us around all the major tourist locations in Cardiff within half an hour and we decided to visit the Cardiff Castle to start our day. The Cardiff Castle is a quadrilateral with every side of it hosting a new structure used for a new purpose. You walk in to see a tall tower like structure built on a small mound which overlooks the rest of the castle. This tower like structure is surrounded on all sides by a water channel. A major part of the front of the castle has been made into a museum for the war time artefacts and collections. It also hosts AV shows for visitors projecting stories of the Roman Empire. The exhibitions cover the entire history of the Wales region since World War I. Wales has a very different historical background from that of England. That is what separates it from England till date. Just as we were about to leave, after a long historical tour of the castle, we were greeted by two beautiful peacocks right at the entrance of the castle. One was a spotless white with black spotted feathers and a yellowish neck. The other a myriad of the usual peacock colours strutting next to the white; they both stuck together. Leaving them in that private moment of theirs we moved on to explore the place further.

 

 

 

Millennium Stadium is very close to the Castle. In fact you can see the stadium from the overlooking tower of the castle. It is huge and does form a major part of the city’s pride. I haven’t seen many stadiums myself, so I can’t possibly tell you if it is big in comparison to the most prestigious ones. Nevertheless, it makes a statement as against the rest of the city.

It was still raining as we hopped on the city tour bus once again and got off at the art centre.  The art centre is a huge piece of modern architecture built right next to the quay. It hosts several theatres. Its location and design makes it a building of great attraction and gives the area an edge of grandness. The walk down to the quay from the art centre is very relaxing given the view of the gently flowing water and the wide expanse of the dock that hosts the incoming waves of the sea. A sumptuous lunch on the dock got us into the mood of Christmas shopping. We went straight to the shopping area and spent the entire afternoon inside huge malls. It was dark outside when we left the malls. The New Year’s celebration would start in about a couple of hours. So we dined early in an Indian restaurant. Indian restaurants are abundant in the whole and soul of the United Kingdom. Even the smallest of villages has Indian restaurants here. But this particular one was special. It was decorated in a very exotic manner and the ambiance sent you back to India for as long as you dined. The food wasn’t authentic enough but that didn’t matter much on the New Year’s Eve. We left for the New Year Fair.   

It was hosted in an open ground on the outside of the city centre. There were giant wheels and snow slides and ice skating as also lot of fun activities. We played some dart games and shooting games and won a few soft toys in the zeal of the evening. A glass of wine is inevitable on such a perfect occasion and a chilly night! Letting the mild alcohol do its magic we strolled through the fair enjoying every bit of its brightness, energy and frolic. Just as we were sulking on losing the opportunity of ice skating as it was now booked full for the night, the countdown began. The crowd stared up towards the sky counting down on the seconds and the sound grew louder as the count reduced. And then came the last 10…9…8…7… …3…2…1 and boom! The sky filled with fireworks as Cardiff welcomed the New Year with the entire city to witness its arrival…

After a most celebrated night we left early next morning for the bus station for our journey back to Oxford. On the bus station, I experienced my first encounter with the Welsh accent. Frankly, I had underestimated some of my British friends’ opinions that the Welsh accent is very hard to understand especially to an inexperienced ear.  So, here I was looking for the washroom on the bus station. I thought of asking a lady on the till of a shop.

“Excuse me, where’s the washroom?”, I asked with the most Anglo-Indian accent that I could manage. As a response to that she pointed in a direction and said something followed by a few numbers. Seriously, I couldn’t locate any English word in what she said. I didn’t understand what numbers had to do with the location of a washroom so I ignored the numbers and walked in the direction she had pointed half sceptical that she hadn’t understood what I had asked. I found the washroom alright! But… it had a digital key code and only the person who knew the key could go in for a pee! At first I felt like laughing. Why would anyone in their right mind use that level of security on a washroom on a bus station? I mean, what could anyone possibly steal from a washroom? Toilet Paper??!!  Anyway, that’s when I realised what the numbers were for. I went back to the lady on the till with a sheepish expression and asked her to repeat the code for me. She almost spat the numbers out in a disgusted manner giving me an expression that screamed “Dumbass!”.

My new year began with a fantastic note I must say!