Oh wales...
I had a blast this weekend getting out of the city for a while and I must say it was a much needed break and I think I have returned to London refreshed and ready to get back into things. Had a nice train ride out to Bangor with Thania, Sarah, and Jen (almost died in the minicab on the way to the Euston train station. But we made it to Bangor around 10:30, checked in to our bed and breakfast (which was absolutely cute and adorable AND had free internet....what?). We literally put our stuff down and then decided that we should head out for a nice little night out on the town. So we went down to where the woman who runs the place, Joanna (who was so sweet), and asked her what was good in the town to do. So she gave us some direction toward the pier and the Tap and Spile tavern, and we headed out that way. I would say that we got there around 11 ish. I ordered my first Old Rosie cider....never again. One pint of that stuff (7.0 %) will really get your juices flowing. The funny part was that we sat down and then last call was at 11:20 and the place closed at 11:40. Well, we were definitely not in London anymore....where things still close semi early on the weekdays, surprisingly. So after we went to the Tap and Spile, we weren't quite as exhausted as we thought we would be, so we headed into the main part of bangor to see if we could maybe get a glimpse of this "crazy" nightlife that Joanna had referred to.
Crazy....yeaaa.....we ended up getting fries at KFC (KFC and Subway seem to be the only two things in Bangor that stay open as far as food goes past 5 pm. We are pretty sure eating out for dinner is illegal here). After hitting up KFC...ps, I've never been to a KFC in the states before...We went to this club place called Jupe. When we got into Jupe, we got a few drinks and the four of us girls sat down and started talking. Well, I got thirsty and went back up to the bar to order my next jack and coke (I love jack) and this guy calls out to me. Annoyed because we are trying to have a girls night I start to walk away but he just calls out "excuse me! I was just wondering if you recognize my friend over there." So now I'm interested in who this idiot is thinking up the lamest pick up line in the entire world. So I turn around and go stand next to him and ask him who he is talking about. He points out this guy who is his friend. "Sorry love, I just wanted to know if you and your friends recognize my buddy over there." Sorry bloke. I have no idea who your friend is. He is kinda cute but I have never seen him before in my life. I tell the guy that I don't and then go back to the girls and we continue to enjoy the music and relax. Then, this old guy comes up to us and starts trying to chat us up. I don't want to have any of this, so I decide to go hang out with the other guy and his friends (the one who had talked to me before). I wanted to get to know some welsh people! It turns out they weren't welsh at all. They were from Birmingham, England, and also visiting Wales just for the weekend. But I did find out who their allegedly famous friend was--they finally introduced me, Thania, Jennifer, and Sarah to them (I made the girls come join me...that old guy was CREEPY).
So we are talking to the guys and finally they call their friend--who has been taking pictures with complete strangers for the past 30 minutes--and introduce him to us as Sean Smith. And from the blank looks on our faces they clearly realize we have NO idea who he is. And from the look on his face, Sean was actually kind of relieved we had no idea who he was. Apparently, Sean Smith is a singer, and a rather good one. He competed against Susan Boyle and lost to her in the semifinals of Britain's Got Talent (that is why a ton of people recognized him--really popular show here). So we chatted with him, and he was relieved to find some people here who weren't fawning over the chance to get to meet him and talk to him. The only regret I have about that night is that out of the four of us girls, NOT ONE of us thought to take a picture. We eventually decided it was time to leave Jupe and head back to the Garth Guest house and get some rest so that we could wake up for our 8 am breakfast. We said goodbye to the guys and headed back. We went to bed.
We woke up the next morning and all took turns with the shower and bathroom--thank god nobody else was trying to get into the restroom (there was only one for all of the guests....of course there could not have been more than like...8 to 10 guests. While we were getting ready for breakfast, we also youtube'd Sean Smith. Pretty good voice. Sang one of my favorite songs in his time on the show (Ain't no sunshine) and actually did pretty well with it. We all sat there kicking ourselves in the butts for not taking a picture with him, and they left for Birmingham that morning. So there went our chance to get with (I mean be friends with...minds out of the gutters please) the "famous" Sean Smith. After lamenting the fact that we missed our chance with stardom (kinda) we headed off to the bus depot to get to Caernafron, where Edward I built his flagship castle during his castle building campaign in northern England. We went around the castle (which no longer has a mote, by the way) and took a guided tour, which was very informative. Our guide was also hilarious, which didn't hurt anything. After our guided tour, we climbed around a little, went up the towers, found the King's bedroom (not really, but it could have been!) took some pictures, and then left. It was actually pretty neat being there. I have seen ruins from thousands of years ago from all over India, Egypt, and Jordan, but the history that went along with this place was so much more complete and contemporary. After we finished up at the castle, we went to the Black Boy Inn for lunch, where we amused ourselves playing glee music on the jukebox until our food arrived (yes, we were those americans). After we ate we shopped around Caernafron the city for a while--we went to a little market, and then we went to actual stores. Then we went to the bus stop and took the bus back to bangor and did a little more shopping in the town's center and the continued on our way back to Garth Guest House...where we took a 3 hour nap. And it was glorious. I was so tired, I literally passed out.
When we woke up, we got dressed and headed out to find dinner somewhere. It was around 8:30 by now, and not one restaurant was open. not one. Well ok, Subway and KFC were, but seriously? We wanted yummy noms for dinner. We headed out to the area where the pubs are and went into a pub and got dinner there. There were also these guys there that WOULD NOT stop looking over and staring at us...I'm pretty sure one of them was throwing little pieces of paper at us and kept hitting sarah too. I will never understand boys' need to be obnoxious. But anywho, we finished up dinner, went to our place, got changed (kinda) and then went out for our crazy night on the town. We wanted to go to a club, but when we got there (at like 10) it was so packed that we could not handle it. So we ended up going back to the pub we were at for dinner and had some drinks there (those boys were still there and continued to throw things at us...Thania stared one of them down....get a life boys). So after the pub we decided we didn't want to try the first club again. Or it was closed. I don't remember. So we kept walking and we went to this other club. We walk in, start dancing, and these three (or four?) guys come up to us and start talking to us about sheep shearing. HOLD THE PHONE, we found our welsh men. They were hilarious. It was one guy's birthday and he was plastered. They started talking to us about their sheep...I swear, it was like a "my dick is bigger than yours" contest. The one guys was like...yah my farm has been in my family for 92 years. I have 100 sheep. The other guy took the number up to 1000. By the time we left that club someone was claiming to have 10,000 sheep. We took pictures in the street as we walked to the next place and (to my hearts true delight) started BAAAAAA-ing as we walked. It was great. Only in Wales would this be considered true entertainment for a nights. At the bar we went to next, we sat outside with them and just talked. One of them tried to convince me on the industrious nature of sheep shearing and how profitable a market it is. He claimed that his net worth is 47.2 million pounds and that if he wanted he could up and move to South Kensington and live like a rockstar. PUH lease. So we eventually said goodnight to our new welsh friends (who invited us out to their farms for the next day.....to which we politely said no), and headed back to Garth....had a lovely skype call with Deepti on the way (sorry babes. love you!). When we got back we pretty much passed out.
So the next day we woke up, decided to skip out on breakfast, and instead we all showered and started to get ready to leave our rooms at the Garth house :(. Joanna introduced us to her son, who was wearing a spiderman shirt and had just gotten back from a trip to Disneyland and the states. He was a cute kid. Shy but cute. We packed up our bags and left them with Joanna when we checked out, and then headed up to the bus depot again to catch the bus to the Beaumaris castle. We hung out there looking around in the light drizzle that hit us on Sunday. Thania almost got hit by a bird. literally. After the castle we weren't really hungry for lunch, but the other three girls WERE in the mood for ice cream...so we went to get ice cream for lunch. Silly girls. Anywho, after we had the ice cream, we headed back on the bus to Bangor. We walked out to the pier and sat there for a while just talking. Then we headed back to Garth, got our bags, and took a cab to the train station. We hopped on the train (or what we hoped was the right train) and settled in for an hour ride to Chester, where we were going to switch. Our train stopped a couple times (pretty sure it was so that cows could cross the tracks) and we were getting a little worried cause our stopover at the Chester station to catch our train to london was only like 15 minutes. As we drew nearer to where we thought we were going, Sarah started getting worried we got on the wrong train but, alas, they finally called the Chester station and we all breathed a sigh of relief. That is of course until we realized our train for London was already at the platform. We literally grabbed our bags and did the classic "late for a train" hollywood SPRINT at our train. Cause, lets face it, none of us wanted to get stuck in Chester (aka bumblefuck) England for a night. We made our train (cue actual sigh of relief) and settled in for the rest of the ride. This is right about when I realized I hadn't eaten anything that day. So I went to the dining car, got some food, got sassed by the dining cart guy, and headed back to my seat. Passed out. We reached London and took the tube to the station nearest our Crofton. When we got out, it was like rebirth into civilization. In contrast, it really is crazy how few people are in Bangor and how many people are in London. I was once more in danger of being hit by cars! Oh goodie. We walked back to Crofton, and I went STRAIGHT to Pratik's room. HE IS HEREEEEE!!!!!!! So excited. Looks like its gonna be a great next nine weeks loves!
Radhi
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