I can't believe it's been a week since we were in Dublin! This week really felt like spring with blue skies and temperatures in the 50s every day. So many fun things this week...
On Wednesday, we went to St. Fagan's with our Welsh folklore professor. This place is located on the outskirts of Cardiff and is recreated village of Welsh history (think Welsh Sturbridge Village). It was really cute with the quaint old churches, general store, cottages, mill, farm, etc. from a bunch of different time periods throughout Wales' history. But my favorite part was definitely the gardens/estate. I don't know the history of why this was built, but there is a BEAUTIFUL mansion surrounded by so many lush gardens and it was so beautiful to walk around. We ended our day with a cup of tea a proper Welsh tea house in a recreated 19th century-esque cafe above the general store.
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| Old Welsh church. |
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| Gardens |
Thursday was St. Patrick's day. A bunch of us did a pub crawl thing called "Paddy Parade" where our t-shirts got us into 4 of the pubs/clubs downtown. Tons of gold chocolate coins + a green chocolate fountain + a foam machine = so much fun.
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| Mmmm free green chocolate fondue. |
Today (Saturday), Lauren, Sarah, and I took an incredible day trip to the nearby village of Cowbridge. The day started with a short 1/2 hour bus ride where we were the only people without white hair on our bus.
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| Out of place at 20 years old... |
We immediately loved the village as soon as we got off the bus. When we were in the public bathrooms shortly after we arrived, we met a nice woman who told us that there was a nearby daffodil farm where you could pick your own daffodils today so we decided to add that to our itinerary! (Daffodils are the national flower of Wales and are EVERYWHERE here).
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| Such a quaint town!!! |
We checked out the small Cowbridge farmers market where we got some delicious samples of homemade cupcakes, wine, lamb burger, and beet root hummus and chatted with each vendor for a while. After some shopping around town, we stopped for a long, leisurely lunch at this great French restaurant called Oscar's. We were there for over 2 hours and thoroughly enjoyed our food and basking in the warm sun at our outside table in this great village.
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| Yummmy lunch |
Our adventure was just beginning. We wanted to get to the daffodil farm so we caught the bus in that direction but the bus driver told us to get off way earlier than we should have. After wandering down a main road for a while, we decided to ask an old couple who were working outside in their yard for directions. They were the nicest people ever! We chatted for a while, heard their life stories (they have lived in this great cottage for 40 years!), they drew us a map, and the woman then decided to accompany us part of the way so we wouldn't get lost! So the three of us, plus the woman and her dog, walked through some paths through the beautiful countryside for a while and then she headed back as we approached the farm (with instructions to tell the farm owners the Daniels family says hi!). They told us to come back to their house if we couldn't find our way back to the bus later!
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| On our walk with Mrs. Daniels. |
As we walk into the daffodil farm parking lot, who do we see but the older woman from the bathroom in the morning! She was so happy to see us and greeted us all with big hugs! She showed us to the field, where we all picked 20 flowers for 60 pence. After chatting for a while, she and her husband gave us a ride back to Cardiff. They were the cutest couple and had been out all day searching for the best daffodils and decided that the place we went was the best. She went on and on about her love of Welsh history, the importance of friendship, and how she loves meeting young people like us enjoying Wales.
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| Loving the daffodils! |
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