tut tut, it looks like rain

Tip for Welshmen wanting to go into meteorology: don't bother. It's only ever going to rain.

Really, at this point we may as well be swimming through Cardiff---though that is much better than not being here at all, of course. Today we walked into town to tour Cardiff Castle, a large fortress smack inbetween our neighbourhood and the main shopping district, just across from the Millienium Stadium. In other words: aw, cool!

We made quite a group of it, all squished into raincoats and under umbrellas. The room-to-room run through was stunning; Lord Bute, reputed to be the wealthiest man in the British Empire if not the world in his time, renovated the age-old castle as an occassional residence and that wealth is apparent. Working with architect William Burgess, the two men took influences from Italy, Turkey, the Middle Ages, and their Victorian world to create a mansion of every excess, all gold and marble and full-length murals. Both were also fans of bird life, so every room had a sparrow or something like it tucked away in the design, which is just really one of my favorite things in the world.

For the rest of the afternoon we stuck to our umbrellas to take in the downtown area, wandering through the old Victorian arcades and ducking in and out of the odd shops and sweet-smelling bakeries. I scored an old copy of Katherine Mansfield at a used booksellers, and Tom took for Cornish pasties, and after a quick stop at the oldest record shop in the world (1894!), we raced home. Yep, this post just did get super sped up and shortchanged--I'm out of time. Must run! More later! Pip-pip!