A Weekend in Wales

Bangor Uni

Last weekend I made the journey through the Chunnel once more to visit my friend Gini (yes, this is a different friend named Ginny/Gini. They are attracted to me. I can't explain it.) at her study abroad university in Bangor, Wales. I left on Thursday immediately after class and started a long voyage that included a metro, several trains and a lot of waiting, and arrived in Bangor around 10:30 pm that evening.

The first night we went out to a club with some of her flat mates, and I got my first opportunity to see a bit of the town and truly experience Bitch Hill, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. The next day Gini showed me some more of the town and the campus and I was able to snap some pictures in the daylight.

First we explored the Bangor University campus a bit, which is much older (and frankly prettier) than the campus of Lille 3. Gini showed me some of the buildings where she has her classes, the library, and the student bars.

We also at lunch at a pub in Bangor and then took a stroll down High Street, the main shopping thoroughfare. We ended our day of exploring by visiting Lover's Lane, a path that winds through a park to mount the aforementioned Bitch Hill (which you must do in order to get to the student housing).

That night we cooked dinner at Gini's flat and headed to bed early so that we could be up to catch a train to Cardiff, the capital of Wales, at about 5am. Cardiff is located on the very southern tip of Wales, while Bangor is in the far north, so the train ride to get there takes about four and a half hours. We arrived just before ten and grabbed a quick breakfast at the train station before hopping on a bus and heading to the Doctor Who Experience, the main attraction of the day.

The first part of the exhibition is an interactive experience, which includes lots of corny jokes, Dalek robots, and even a chance to steer the TARDIS. It involved the most recent Doctor, played by Peter Capaldi, but I haven't seen any of his episodes yet, so it was a bit of a new experience. After this portion we moved into the museum, which includes countless props and costumes used throughout the filming of the series.

 My favorite part was actually explaining the different monsters and costumes to Gini, as she hasn't really watched the show. It made me want to go home and rewatch the series from the beginning.

After we had finished perusing the exhibition, we noticed that just next door to the Doctor Who Experience was something called the World of Boats. It turned out to be a small museum exhibiting different types of boats and how they have changed throughout history. It was only three pound, so we decided to go. Why not?

When we had seen everything in the (very small) museum, we decided to head back towards the city center to do some shopping or find another attraction to visit. On our way there, we decided it might be fun to see a movie since Gini doesn't have a movie theater near her university. There turned out to be an IMAX theater very close, so we decided to go see Interstellar (a film I am very glad I was able to see in English rather than French).

After the movie was over we ate dinner in the mall where the theater was located and started to head back towards the train station to catch a train home. We had forgotten, however, that it was the day of a rugby match between Wales and Fiji (Fiji? Really?), so some of the roads were blocked off because of excessive traffic.

The bus dropped us off a few blocks from the station, and we were rushing to get there with only a few minutes until our train was set to leave. Once we got to the station we realized we wouldn't make it, as there were insane masses of people being filtered into lines based on which part of Wales they were traveling to. Luckily we had our tickets already, so we were able to get right in line, and they actually ushered everyone in that line onto the train we'd been hoping to take anyway. Whew.

There were a couple complications with our train along the way (some vandals threw a brick through the conductor's window, and apparently there was a "fatality" within another train on the line) so we arrived back to Bangor a bit late, and went to bed soon after we got back to Gini's flat.

On Sunday we slept in a bit, and then decided to take a bus to the nearby town of Caernarfon, where there is a castle dating back to the 1200s. We ate at a nearby cafe and then spend the day exploring the castle and shopping a bit.

The castle also featured a museum which detailed the history of the Welsh military, as well as the origins of the castle and its different uses over the years. We saw some beautiful views from one of the turrets, and spent a good deal of time just exploring the many nooks and crannies of the castle.

We stayed in that night and watched some Netflix with one of Gini's flatmates. On Monday, my last day, I went to class with Gini and grabbed some lunch with her before catching my train around two. I had a layover in London for a few hours, and with the time change, I arrived in Lille around ten pm that evening.

I'm so glad that Gini and I were able to reunite in Wales!