Ah! I am sorry for the delayed nature of these posts. I have been busy! And when I come home, the vast majority of the time, I just sort of want to sit, and watch a TV show on my computer, or read on my Kindle.
But! You all deserve to know about the Doctor Who convention, and Wales, etc.
I took a bus from London to Wales, which I was nervous about, given what a hot mess my bus trip from Utrecht to London was. I got to the bus station (Victoria Coach Station) in the early afternoon, and was pleasantly surprised to see how organized and scheduled everything was. Just like an airport. Much, much better than waiting on a concrete slab, outside, wondering if your bus would ever show up, and being insanely relieved when it finally did.
Nice, and organized. Lots of little grandmas waiting for buses that will take them to extremely British places like, "Bath," and "Hertfordshire"
On the bus! Got my Doctor Who stuffs! Got my own seat! Totally pumped!
Happy Kelli! Much happier than the guy behind me anyway...
It took about two and a half hours to get from London to Cardiff. It was a beautiful day, and I was super excited, as I was not only going to an awesome thing the next day, but it was also an adventure, with my big backpacking pack, and my cute skirt...
We pulled into the bus station, and I got my pack. Slung it over my shoulder, and found my way to my hostel, which was, arguably, the most adorable, wonderful place I have ever stayed. And that includes many a hotel!
It was called The Riverhouse Backpackers
My very sweet room, and bed!
Getting ready to go for a walk after setting up my room things.
The cute little kitchen.
Now, there was ridiculously good weather for this entire trip. It was sunny and gorgeous in both London and Cardiff, something I think many a person will tell you is an anomaly. Still, I just fell in love with Cardiff. I went for a walk after sticking my stuff in my room, and everything I found on my walk was delightful. First, it was really wonderfully sunny, so all these people were picnicking underneath the Cardiff castle walls. I mean, come on! Anywhere where you can go picnicking in the shade of a castle is a cool place!
Cardiff was also so much less busy than London, it was quite a relief to finally get somewhere slower, more like Utrecht. Cardiff also comes with Welsh cakes.
A Welsh cake is an incredible treat, a mix between a biscuit, a pancake, and a donut. They taste, so, so good, and I really had to control myself where they were concerned.
Here I am, eating my first Welsh cake:
They were freshly baked at the little shop behind me - I sort of went walking and found myself in this giant indoor market, like the West Side Market in Cleveland, and voila! Welsh cakes. They were so good. I ate one at this point, and then, I walked away for about five minutes, and immediately went back for more, to eat the next day with my lunch.
As I walked, I decided I would like some tea, so I sat down in this very sweet little cafe/bar/hostel in the middle of the city. It had big couches. I can't say no to a big couch! Also, free wifi. Also, they had cute little flags hanging from the ceiling, and it felt so warm and cozy...And the nice man who made my tea called me "darling." This is actually something that happened repeatedly, no matter where I went in Cardiff. "Lovely," "Darling," and "Sweetheart" were freely used terms of address. I LOVED it. Who doesn't like having a nice, handsome man with a Welsh accent say, "Ah, now. There ya go, darlin'?!"
After my brief walking tour, it started to get cold, so I decided to go home and get my jacket. Back at the hostel, I found some other girls who were there for Doctor Who, and we decided to go to dinner together. They were incredibly sweet, but a little young. I kept telling them things about myself, to which they would enthusiastically respond, "NO WAY. You do that?! That is SO COOL. YOU ARE SO COOL." Hey, if I was 19, and I met a 23 year-old person who liked the same geeky TV show I liked, who was traveling in Europe by herself, who lived in Holland on a Fulbright scholarship, yeah, okay, I'd think she was pretty cool too. NOT to toot my own horn.
Toot.
In any case, we went to dinner at a Welsh pub, and got authentic Welsh food (Warning: It's all sausages and/or fried). AKA, delicious.
Our "waiter" (they don't really do waiters in the U.K., you just go up the bar and order and tell them your table number) was cute. He kept asking me what I had ordered, and then would come over with it, and would be like, "Now, I want to see if you like it!" And I would try a bite, and I would be like, "Hey! It's delicious!" And he would go off again. When I went to go pay my bill, he came up to the table and said, "Now, you didn't go paying for that drink, didya?" And I said, "No, I don't think so. It wasn't on the tab?" "Yeah, now, that's because that cider was a treat from me, okay lovely?" (There we go with the "lovely" again) in his extremely nice Welsh accent. I left him a note thanking him for the dinner as my first true "Welsh" food experience. I never leave notes for waiters! Scandalous!
My first dish - Cockles and Haver Bread - basically fried bread, with cockles (I don't actually know what cockles are!) and bacon. So, so healthy.
Bangers and Mash for dinner - homemade sausages from the restaurant. Yes, please.
Walking back from the restaurant, I, unfortunately, got myself and the girls I was with quite lost. Long story short, we ended up in the bad part of Cardiff, and it was extremely sketchy and scary. The good news is, we made it out completely fine, and I was very, very happy to get back to my bed in the hostel.
I went back to my room to find some new roommates - a girl going to the Doctor Who convention, and a guy who was a surgeon in training, going to a surgery conference. Both very nice. I talked to the Who girl a bit, and we agreed to set out super early to get to the convention center.
We go to bed. Everything is comfy, and peaceful. I am super excited to wake up and have a breakfast that was made for me (Hello, Bed and Breakfast Hostel!). Around 1 AM, Mr. Surgeon wakes up screaming, something about vampires eating his face. Who girl and I are like, "WAAAA, WHAT IS GOING ON?" Except Mr. Surgeon is already back asleep. Who girl (her name was Jennifer) and I are laughing to ourselves, like, "Dear God. Only we would get the room with the guy who wakes up screaming randomly in the middle of the night." To be fair, he was taking his final exams in a few weeks, and he said he has night terrors before immensely stressful things like that. I mean, hey. We all get a little anxious. Except it happened twice that night, again when Random-Girl-#4 came into the room at bloody 3 AM in the morning, and woke Mr. Surgeon up again. Phew. Jenn and I didn't get a lot of sleep. Oh, well! Doctor Who!
I woke up around 6 AM. Yeah, it was early. I took a shower, got ready, curled my hairs (Hey, Nikki! I thought you was gonna come over and curl mui hairs today, eh!?) and put on some fairly normal, Doctor Who-colored (i.e. blue) clothing. I went downstairs to the most AMAZING breakfast ever - I kid you not, scones, Welsh cakes, croissants with chocolate, normal croissants, four different types of cereal, and bread, yogurt, fruit, peanut butter, nutella, seven different jams. Mmm. Just thinking about it is making me hungry. Breakfast food is the best sort of food, really.
Jenn and I made our way to the Convention Center. I had a small meltdown when we got there, and we both started skipping and squealing, and wiggling, and generally being like, "WE'RE GOING TO THE DOCTOR WHO CONVENTION!!"
I could tell you, in intimate detail, all of the things that happened that day, but I think I will just tell you with pictures. And a video (since at one point in the day, BBC grabbed me and asked if I would give an interview). Overall - I was a bit disappointed. The panels weren't outstanding. But! I got to see The Tardis, I gave my fan letter to Matt Smith (The Doctor), and I had a picture with Arthur Darvill (who plays a guy named Rory on the show). So! It was a good day in the end.
That giant metal thing behind me is the Millennium Center, where the Convention was held. Look how NICE I look. I took some of the best pictures of myself this day. That's what fan-dom does to you. It makes you keep up a snazzy appearance.
This group of people were from the Doctor Who Tumblr. I randomly met up with them and stayed with them for the rest of the day.
"Kelli and Ood"
A guy dressed as the Doctor had a funny tete-a-tete with a Silurian.
Woo! Giant poster!
This was in a room full of characters/alien models used in the show.
"Kelli and Tardis"
At the Makeup Demo area, they were passing around some prosthetics. This is a Silurian headpiece.
Steven Moffat, head writer and producer. (Also, don't tell him I said this, but one of the biggest, self-important poop-heads to ever make his stinky presence in this world known)
Ah, but here we are, back to my pretty-photo-taking. This is me right before my BBC interview. Holla!
And so, I was on the BBC. In all it's BBC gloriousness. Really, it wasn't scary, but as Rebecca and I were waiting, we looked at each other and we were just like, "Crap! Oh, oh no. We have to think of really clever things to say! Okay, go!" And then, well. We did. Ha!
After this interview, I went on a short bus trip to get to the BBC set where they keep The Tardis, Doctor Who's spaceship, which looks like a police box on the outside (blue box), but is much, much bigger on the inside, looking like a proper, retro spaceship.
My camera died RIGHT before I went in The Tardis (Murphy's Law), so these pictures were, sadly! taken on my iPhone.
Gadgets! Things that are used in the show! WAAA COOOL.
Everyone who watches Confidential knows this, but! The etchings on this board were made to look like the Time Lord language. Oooober-fan.
Increase the thrusters! We're losing altitude! The Tardis' mainframe is being tampered with! Geronimo! (Etc.)
A constantly flipping calender.
Also for anyone who has watched Confidential - this is the special cafe we sometimes see the actors in. I also ate there. Therefore I am now almost = to the Doctor.
Basically visiting the Tardis was mind-blowingly cool. THAT was well worth the Convention.
I also got a photo with Arthur Darvill. Also worth the Convention.
After the Convention, I went to dinner with a few ladies, and then made my way back to the Hostel. Jenn and I talked for a while, mostly gushing about getting our pictures taken with cast members, and then we went to bed.
I woke up the next day, and got ready. Jenn and I had another incredible breakfast, after which I parked my stuff in the storage room of the hostel, and proceeded to go out and explore Cardiff a bit more. I immediately came upon a giant Farmer's Market...How can I describe to you the things they had? Giant granola bars, loaded with nuts, and fruits, coconut, oats, and honey. Fresh produce, and sausages, freshly baked breads of every shape and size, some sweet, some savory. An untold amount of Welsh cakes, made by little Welsh grandmas. I ended up buying a cup of tea (which turned into two cups as I sat leisurely reading my book and eating my granola hunk), a thick granola bar, a loaf of focaccia bread with caramelized onions and Emmental, and a whole wheat "burrito" with vegetarian chili and Welsh cheddar. After my book-tea-granola break (if you can call an hour in the sun by the river a "break"), I went wandering, and came across the gardens behind the castle.
Cardiff Castle is in the background.
A charming little garden cafe where I had a coffee. Just me an muh Kindle, chilling in Europe. Like we do.
I took the bus from Cardiff back to London, and basically just went to Suzy's and went to bed. I was super, super tired of traveling, especially knowing that the next day I would have some time to explore London, but that I would ultimately have to go back on that bus...
I will write the next post about my last day in London, and about what it's like to fill a Dutch bike tire, and about my Easter Dinner! Till then!
