TARDIS tourism

I'm in Cardiff, a dynamic city full of exciting sights that is only on my itinerary because I am ridiculously nerdy. Doctor Who and its spinoff Torchwood are filmed here, and so I came. If television is to be believed, Cardiff is absolutely crawling with aliens. Mostly they are concealing themselves well, with the glaring example of Millenium Stadium, a building that is clearly a giant alien spaceship despite its thin disguise of a rugby/football/etc stadium.

Cardiff has some very old things, like a splendid Norman castle built on Roman ruins and some excelent medieval churches, but it also has a lot of fairly new construction. The city is full of skyscrapers of posh flats. I'm wondering if there is some sort of ordinance against plain, flat roofs on these tall buildings, because they all seem to have jauntily sloped roofs or some sort of strange roof topper (possibly more alien spaceships?) Possibly these are all installed to offer challenges to Captain Jack Harkness of Torchwood, who is fond of standing on roofs. I've managed two roofs myself. The belltower at St. John's church was having a special open to climbing day, so I went up a steep spiral staircase to a great view. I even got to ring one of the bells! I also climbed to the top of the castle keep. The castle was having some sort of Armed Forces day gala when I was there, featuring lots of marching soliders in a mix of historic and contemporary uniforms, plus one marching goat, evidently the local regiment's mascot.

I've done a lot of walking, gotten a little sunburned, eaten some excellent Indian food, gotten caught in an annoying crowd of people exiting a motorcycle rally that were mixing with the saturday night annoying crowds of drunk people, taken the backstage tour at the Millenium Center (the spiffy new arts center whose front can be seen on Torchwood and Doctor Who), seen some really cool ancient artefacts in the museum, and avoided the temptation to stroke the costumes in the Doctor Who exhibition. (Barely...I'm normally a model museum-goer, but it took a lot of will power to keep my hands to myself). It's been great...my only wish was other nerds with me so I could have someone to hear my exclamations of 'the invisible lift is RIGHT HERE!'

Let me just state my love for the fact that there is an actual locked door with the information center symbol and newspaper clippings, including the fake one about the Slitheen mayor trying to put a nuclear power station in Cardiff, just where the Torchwood entrance should be. It's not a set that is taken down when they're done filming; it's a real door. Possibly with a real Hub beneath? One can hope.

The next post will be more comprehensible to those who don't share my nerddom. Possibly.

Outstanding in my field

I'm in Wales, staying at Tyn-yr-Erw (w is usually a vowel in Welsh, so that's pronounced something like Tin-ur-AIR-oo) a small farm/bunkhouse. This is one of the most Welsh-speaking areas of Wales, although the couple who run the place are from London and still sound like it. I've been helping out in the garden, planting trees for a new hedge, digging up overgrown paths and laying down new woodchips, cutting up turf, and, my favorite, weeding. I don't know why a treehugger like myself finds pulling plants out of the ground quite so satisfying, but I do. It started out cool, cloudy, with intermittent light showers, but the weather has turned sunny and almost too warm. Everything is exuberantly green, and the pastoral hills around the farm are gorgeous. It's just a short walk from the house to the ruins of an Iron Age fort on a hilltop in a neighbor's cow pasture. Standing up there, you can see three huge wind turbines in the next valley over. I'm having an excellent time overall, although some sort of biting insect has been after me something fierce and my inability to hammer in a competent manner proved frustrating while putting up a rabbit fence around a vegetable bed yesterday.

I have lots more to write, but my internet time at this cafe is almost up (the net's down at the farm).

A dangerous business

Departure time! I'm about to leave for San Luis Obispo, where I will get a train up towards the bay area. Tomorrow, I fly to New York and then onwards to London.

This calls for some Tolkien quoting while I still have my copy of Lord of the Rings handy! Here's Frodo talking to Sam about Bilbo's sayings shortly after they set off.

"He used often to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary. 'It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,' he used to say. 'You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.' "

A dangerous business indeed, but an exciting one too. A guidebook cannot tell you for certain what lies around the next bend in the Road, and that's the best part. It might be Nazgul, or it might be elves. It might be just more trees. Either way, I need to see.

My bags are packed. My perishable foods are out of the fridge. I've made yet another traveling songs mix on my ipod. I'm as ready as I can be. Onward!

By Jove, it's a travel blog!

Huzzah! I'm going to abroad the UK and Ireland this summer. This blog exists as a way to easily keep everyone I know informed about my travels. I'll try to update with reasonable regularity, but don't expect too much. After all, the point of travel is to see and do stuff, not to sit around typing about seeing and doing stuff.

Things you can expect to see in this blog:
-excited rambling about everything from cool historical sites to British accents
-extreme levels of geekiness, especially with regards to Doctor Who. And Tolkien. And Shakespeare. And Monty Python. Really, lots of geekiness in general.
-excessively long and potentially whiny posts about the challenges of travel
-short and cryptic posts
-polysyllabic words, but also small amounts of internet slang (mostly employed for the humor value)
-tree-hugging, metaphorical and possibly also literal
-possibly mediocre photography, if I can figure out how to post photos easily
-puns. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
-raving about the various fantastic friends I will be seeing.
-the unexpected!

Right, enough typing. I have preparations to make.