Just as the title of this post implies, here’s a report on our weekend in Cardiff.
Our friends, J & D, moved south to D’s family farm about a year ago, and we decided to get together with them for a weekend in our capital city. Upon arrival on their farm, I experienced the best part of the weekend: lamb feeding!
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| Lamb feeding time! |
After that excitement, it was all downhill from there. Joking I am! We arrived at our hotel in Cardiff with our stomachs growling for lunch. Just a short walk away, we arrived at the Norwegian Church for some nice Welsh-Norwegian rarebit. The church was converted into a cafe and art space, so we enjoyed some of the photos up in the Roald Dahl gallery. Known for “James and the Giant Peach” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, Roald Dahl was born to Norwegian immigrants outside of Cardiff. The main square in Cardiff Bay was named after him as well, and we strolled through there from lunch to visit Y Senedd, the main seat of the Welsh Government. It’s a very new building that showcases many of Wales’s natural resources (i.e., slate).
Looking from the inside of Y Senedd towards Cardiff Bay
We were lucky enough to get a private tour and learned that a lot of the principles in the building design were familiar to us from the previous Parliament building we visited (glass represents the transparency of government, etc.). Next door, we spent a little bit of time in the fabulous Millennium Centre. The cool poem written on the walls works best within each language and between the languages (Welsh and English).
D & J in front of the Millenium Centre
We also visited Mermaid Quay, popping into Techniquest to play with some of the science exhibits, before stopping for a pint during the last of the England vs. Italy Six Nations game. Then we got ready for a big treat: eating at Jamie Oliver’s restaurant in the city centre! The food was outstanding, and we had a great table overlooking the bar/appetizers kitchen.
Jamie's Italian restaurant
We had a very impressive meal and spent the end of the evening enjoying the Cardiff nightlife. We turned in early so that we could get a head start on the next day. We started the morning with an American meal of pancakes, French toast, and waffles at an American diner called Cafe 37. We learned about the Evolution of Wales at the National Museum which had natural history on the bottom floor and art on the top floor. Finally, we were ready for the real highlight of the weekend: watching Wales play Scotland in the Six Nations rugby match!
What I have neglected to mention is that since arriving in Cardiff, we were never 10 feet away from a kilt. The Scots had come to support their team, and they were proudly showing off their national identity. Throughout the weekend, whenever we bumped into Scots, they were always jovial and willing to engage in fun, teasing banter about who was going to win the rugby game. My impression is that this friendly rivalry exists between Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, whereas each of those teams vehemently hate England and would rather see France or Italy win.
These fans were clearly supporting Scotland!
This fan was supporting Scotland (kilt), Wales (daffodil), and New Zealand??? (shirt) Talk about hedging your bets!
The streets in the city centre became pedestrianized for the game, and people had been in the pubs since the morning to ensure they had a prime place from which to drunkenly watch the game. We, however, were going into Millennium Stadium, so after taking in the electrifying ambiance, we headed toward the stadium. The colorful fans were quite entertaining to watch!
Proudly sporting the symbol of Wales, the red dragon
Proudly sporting the national flower of Wales, the daffodil
Proudly sporting the national root vegetable of Wales, the leek
Note the realistic roots of the leek! The leek is such an important part of Welsh culture, that the Welsh word for daffodils (“cennin Pedr” or “Peter’s leeks”) is based on the Welsh word for leeks (“cennin”). Once inside the stadium, we saw other important slices of Welsh culture, such as…
Shenkin III, the Regimental Goat, and the Goat Major, Sergeant Joseph
Traditional Welsh Men's Choir
Soon it was time for the game itself! We had great seats behind one of the try lines and were able to see quite a lot of the action. What we found quite strange was how quiet the stadium was during the play. In describing the two national obsessions, my colleague once told me “Football (soccer) is a game played by gentlemen, watched by thugs. Rugby is a game played by thugs, watched by gentlemen.” The fans were, indeed, very civilized. There was not much shouting, jeering, or abuse. I even got asked (“yelled at” is more accurate) to sit down when at an exciting moment, I jumped out of my seat. It was certainly different than every sporting event we’ve been to in the US where the action in the raucous stands were at best, just noisy, at worst, criminal. This atmosphere was very similar to our experience watching shows here. At the Dar Williams concert in Sheffield, we were struck by how everyone in the audience sat stiffly in their seats and gave polite, never wild, applause after each number. Interestingly, beer is allowed in the rugby games but not the football/soccer games.
I won’t go into an analysis of the game, but it was an exciting one with yellow cards, several tries and penalties. Check out our videos here, here, and here. Wales won, 27-13!
Overall, a great trip, a nice opportunity to catch up with J&D (and practice our Welsh since they both speak it), and our first real foray into Wales’s capital!
Coda: No news on the adoption front still!
