Cardiff, Wales

I'm sorry it has been so long since I have updated my blog about my trip! Right now I am in Wales, so I'll tell you all about it in this entry... and I already did an entry about the last place I was in, Zennor.
So since we left London, all of the places we have stayed have been very remote... which makes it easy to get cabin fever. So when we got to the fabulous city of Cardiff and saw that there is a movie theater just around the corner from our hostel, there was much rejoicing. The first thing we did when we got here was go see Mamma Mia. Which, is hilarious. But it made us all very happy. Then we went to Cardiff Castle. It was really cool! We went on a guided tour and saw most of the rooms in the castle... some of which had ceilings of 22 carat gold! Pretty incredible... then we all had free time for a couple of hours and we just kind of walked around the city. Then it was my group's day to make dinner so we spent some of free time doing that. After dinner we met with another BYU study abroad group (Welsh Studies) and had a little lesson at a stone circle in a park. So it was a pretty low key day. The one downfall about Cardiff is the spiders! You know that saying that wherever you are you're within 6 feet of a spider? Well.. in Cardiff, you're within 6 feet of like eight spiders. And big ones at that. Haha.
The next day we went to two different castles, Caerdilly Castle and Coch Castle. Caerdilly is actually pretty awesome and it hasn't been completely cheezed out by touristy stuff. I think that we have now gone to 5 or 6 castles. There was the London Tower, Warwick Castle, Cardiff Castle, Caerdilly Castle, Coch Castle, and St. Michael's Mount.
The next day we went to Hay-on-Wye, a town in Wales that is made up of mostly second hand book stores. It was interesting, but we spent three hours there and I was done after like one. Anything worth buying in those stores is really super expensive. After that we went to a place called Arthur's Stone...another possible place for his tomb.
I have really enjoyed my time in Wales. So far it is my favorite place (besides London, of course...) but London is so crammed that it gets old after too long. Cardiff is a big (comparatively speaking) city, but it is much less congested. Tomorrow we are heading for North Wales. After enjoying Cardiff for a week I'm a bit nervous for the adventures ahead (cuz it doesn't seem like it could be much better than this), but I am excited to see new things.
Yesterday we had a pretty full day. First we went to Caerleon to a Roman Amphitheater (the remains of one) and the weather was incredible so we all just sat down and enjoyed the sun for a while. Then we went on to Tinturn Abbey which was really, really AWESOME! I got all creative with my picture taking there...so that will be fun to show you all. After that we had cream teas (which of course means hot chocolate)with scones and clotted cream.Then we went to Arthur's Cave, which is in the middle of a wood. It was kind of a little hike, but it was fun. Then we got back to the hostel around 9:30 and had tacos for dinner!!! I was so happy for mexican food, you have no idea. They don't have mexican restaraunts here... that's a crime if you ask me. I'm craving Taco Bell like woah. That and In-N-Out will probably be the first things I eat when I get back to the states... but I still have another 3 weeks to be with out it.