Wales

We had a lovely time in Wales. We spent time in Abergele, Penmanmawr, Conwy, and Wrexham. This is the neighborhood where we performed -- this must be Penmanmawr.  

That night, four of us stayed in Conwy (pronounced Conway), about 20 min. away from the rest of the group. Lucky for us, it was a walled city with a castle! It was pretty thrilling to drive through at night! 

It was also great to realize that my decision to stay back from the hike to Mt. Snowden was perfect, since I'd have a day in the walled city. 

After a long shower, and 3 loads of laundry put in and hung dry, I wandered into the town along the footpath by myself.  I had a message from Kimaya and Nicki that they had been dropped off there in the morning (also not hiking), so I knew I might run into my letter-writing-knitting buddies at some point.  It wasn't long before we were up to no good in the visitor center (the only place where I heard an actual Welsh accent). 

We spent a good chunk of time down by the harbor writing postcards and eating fish and chips. Kimaya muttered warnings under her breath to the tourists about not feeding the seagulls -- "don't do it! they'll eat you alive!" 

We ate our fill of chips, and heard familiar fiddle tunes from our friend Lysander down the way. We danced a jig and left some chips in his violin case. It seemed like the perfect payment. Afterwards, we caught up with Adam and climbed the city walls! 

The sky was threatening rain (apparently the weather can vary from minute to minute and mile to mile), but we managed to stay dry the whole time. These were the views from the top! 

On the way back, I had a lovely meeting with three black cats, who were very friendly and curious. The one on the right had 3 legs and a white heart on each paw. 

It was really nice to have a day off with absolutely no plan, and a host who could accommodate us! She made us cottage pie (which I learned is what the US calls shepherds' pie).  Shepherds' pie is actually made with lamb. Someone should tell North America. We were also served steamed broccoli, which was an unexpected (but very welcome) surprise. We've been eating a lot of sandwiches, and potluck foods (quiche! Chips! Cheese!) so it was great to be served homemade food that included real vegetables. 

I also observed in Wales that the Welsh are crazy about their tea. Every concert we did in Wales involved a hearty tea break for up to a half an hour, with long queues for everyone to get their "proper" tea. It was a miracle we even started the second half at all on some nights. It was also amusing to see signs in Welsh and English, which made it feel much more like a foreign country, even though almost everyone we met was English and had moved there.  Our host schooled us on letters like 'ff', which is just /f/ and 'f' which is /v/, and 'w', which is a vowel that sounds like /oo/, and 'dd', which is /TH/, of all things. 

I would definitely go back to northern Wales. It would be great to see more of it at some point. Someday!