Snowdonia

to be totally honest, i had no idea what i was going to do after Cardiff. i hadn't really met many people that had travelled to Wales so i didn't really know which towns to visit. all i knew of Wales was Cardiff and that the Snowdonia area at the top of Wales was worth a look. i was lucky that the girl that worked in the hostel had a good knewledge of the area and pointed out a few different places for me to check out. it was lucky i did because she also showed me of how to get there.

good transport here in Wales is as fictional as the dragon on the Welsh flag. i heard that wales has some really beautiful country side so i wanted to at least travel through some of it on the way to Snowdonia, but the only way by train to get to the top of wales goes back out to england then shoots back into wales at the end, putting on a lot more travel time and missing out on some of the best bits of scenery, so i decided to used the local buses. it took me longer in the long run because the bus companies don't offer many runs so i would sometimes have to wait a couple of hours for a connecting bus, but in the end i think it was worth it. along the way i noticed that spring has definately sprung, with flowers begining to bloom as well as plently of baby lambs running about with there, yet-to-be-docked tails in endless fields sectioned off by hedges or stone walls. actually the Welsh kind of get treated by the English similar to the way Aussies treat New Zealanders, plenty of sheep jokes and stuff like that. which made me think, i've been through a fair bit of the United Kingdom but to be honest theres nothing united about it, the Scots hate the English, the English hate the Irish and the Welsh hate everyone.

after going through a number of cute little towns my first stop was Aberystwyth (try saything that 10 times fast) which is a little seaside town. i couldn't get into a hostel there so i had to stay in a B&B which ended up being quite nice and right on the water, and the cooked breakfast was just what the doctor ordered. Aberystwyth itself isn't very big but a nice spot, as i mentioned its right on the water and it has the ruins of an old castle but there isn't a hell of a lot of things to do there, which pretty much sums up the majority of wales, and the rest of this blog to be honest. its mainly just a pretty place to hang out.

next stop was Llanberis which is a little town at the foot of Mt Snowdon (if you hadn't guessed thats were Snowdonia gets its name from) to get there i had to get 2 small train rides then catch a bus and wait for an hour for another bus. it was while waiting i met a guy who was also waiting for the bus, he told me his name but i'm hopeless at remembering names, it mightt have been Adam. anyway, we got chatting because we were the only two people there, and it turned out he was in the airforce, he used to be a pilot but had an injury and couldn't continue flying. we got talking about a number of things, it turned out that his parents were killed in a car accident (on christmas day too i might add) when he was only 3 and his fiance, who i imagine he met while serving in the airforce, was killed in battle. naturally, i started to feeling sorry for the guy, but i was thinking to myself, why is this guy telling me so much about himself? he hardly knew me at all. anyway, the bus came and we got off at the same stop, i told him earlier that i was going to the hostel in the town so he said he'd show me where it was. anyway we got there and i checked in but i couldn't go up to my room because it was getting cleaned. i thought that once this guy had shown me the hostel he would go on his way but he insisted on showing me around the town, there wasn't really much to point out, it was quite small, it had a couple of shops and a lake behind it, he suggested that we head to the lake, but i was starting to feel a little bit uncomfortable about this guy, sure he's really helpful, but what is he getting out of it? i decided that going to a remote area like a lake wasn't such a good idea. so i said 'if you show me everything now, i'm not going to have anything left to explore, do you know where i can ge some internet?' he pointed out a library up the road, then i said 'i hope you don't miss your connecting bus just to show me around, what time did it get here again?' i thought i was never going to shake him, but after a few more minutes he left to catch his bus. he might have meant well and just been one of those people that was overly friendly, but i just got a bad feeling from him after a while, i might have been over reacting but i didn't fancy getting chopped up into little pieces, well, not today anyway. i think sometimes you have to follow your instict and i guess being alone i'm an easy target.

Anyway, the rest of the time in Llanbreris was quite nice, and pretty relaxed. theres a little train here that goes up to Snowdons peak but it was closed for maintenace so i caught a bus up to a point and did a bit of a walk around but nothing too over the top, there were a couple of lakes about half way up, so i sat there and read for a while and made the most of the sunshine. if your a fan of the outdoors, Wales is definately for you, there seems to be a huge treking and climbing community here.
while i was here i did a 'Britney Spears'. no, i didnt forget to wear underwear or have a wardrobe malfunction. i shaved my hair off. i was sick of having to to get it cut all the time and having longer hair while your traveling can be a nightmare at times, so i went to the hairdresses and got them to give me a number 4 all over, just for there own amusement they gave me a mo hawk for a bit. the little old ladys who were in there getting there blue rinse were loving it. its a strange feeling because i've never really had short hair before and it looks better than i expected. its good for a change, but it think i prefer having my hair longer.

i didn't mention this in my Cardiff post but you learn pretty quick that Wales is a bilingual country. whenever you see road signs they are both in English and Welsh. supposedly when they get there bills around here, they are given 2, one in english and one in welsh. sounds like a terrible waste of paper to me. whenever i see the Welsh words they don't look like you could pronouce them at all. the letters that sit next to one another look strange, i suppose its becuase i only know how to speak english i always look at it and try to apply the english rules, which simply just don't work. something interesting i noticed was, in Cardiff most people spoke english, but the further north in wales you go the more people speak welsh.

after Llanberis i headed off to the little, seaside, walled town of Caernarfon, which was originally built by Edward I and has a castle that connects to the walls and sits right on the water. in hindsight, heading to wales and putting a ban on myself seeing castles was probably a bad idea, i've seen a stupid amount of castles since i've been in europe and they are all pretty much the same, but the majority of things to see in Wales are castles, supposidly they have more than anyone. again, unless you count the castle theres not really much to see a guess, but its still quite a pretty little place to wander around and look in shops etc. the hostel i stayed at had a young family that ran it who were really nice, but they had a little Jack Russell that reminded me of my dog, Eddie, so it was nice having a dog to pat and play with.

i had to head to Bangor because i was going to Chester the next day and the train left from there, so i spent a day up there. i knew of Bangor because the Beatles came here once to do listen to the Maharishi do a seminar on meditation. anyway, Bangor is also a seaside village but probably bigger than the other towns i went to. they have a university here which is quite old and beautiful to walk around but probably the best thing about having a university in a town is the students, i found this place a bit more youthful, with cafes and bars etc. but more importantly for me a music shop, i was desperate to play guitar, even if i had to pose as a man in the market for a new guitar, i think the fake moustache and glasses through off the sales assistant because he let me play for a while.

i suppose because i didn't know much about wales it was always going to be a little bit hit and miss, but thinking back, i think i hit more than i missed in Wales, though on the train to Chester i noticed a town called Conwy that looked like an interesting spot, almost a combination of a number of places i visited, but i suppose you can't do everything. i'm writing this blog a in Chester becuase there was hardly any internet access in wales, i hope you haven't been hanging on the edge of your seat, don't blame me, blame the welsh! anyway, more about Chester in the next blog.