Cardiff

Today we woke up in Llandudno and prepared to leave for our trek to Cardiff. There is something enchanting about Wales. I love the beautiful shade of green here. I love the beaches. I love the look of the buildings. And I love the culture! Part of me wants to return to America and take Welsh rather than Vietnamese this coming fall. On our drive today, we saw some of the most beautiful scenes in the area around Snowden and Snowdonia. We stopped to take pictures near Snowden. There was a lake and rolling hills covered with greenery. I loved every minute of it! There are sheep everywhere here too. In fact, we saw a few baby lambs when we got out to take pictures. The roads here are also very narrow. After a few close calls, we finally made it to the town that Dr. Evans originally wanted to go. It wasn't really a tourist town, but it was the hometown of a BYU professor and famous poet, Leslie Norris. Merthyr Tydfil looks like a lot of it is struggling financially. Our bus driver was telling us that parts of Wales went from 100% employment with the coal mines to 10% employment when they closed down in the 1980s. I was thinking about the opportunity to teach English here to people coming from different countries. How fun would it be to return to Wales to teach English!

After visiting Merthyr Tydfil, we headed into Wales. We checked into our hostel, which is fairly nice, despite the fact that it is in a rundown area in Cardiff. After dropping our things off, we went in search of food. We went to a pizza/kebab place here in Cardiff. Cardiff is home to many Farsi people/ people from different areas of the world. I had a lamb kebab with pita. It was incredible! Trying to find ice cream for some people in the group, on the other hand, proved to be an adventure. We walked around for a long while only to find a grocery store that was about to close. Then we walked home, and I am about to get ready for bed. Tomorrow, we will be visiting a few places in Wales related to church history.

I love Wales!