Day #5..."To Wales!"

August 13th 

Another breakfast big enough for a football team and we are off to a new country for us......WALES.

I have looked at the map and I can't say the name of any town. I know it started with two L's but at another look I see there are MANY that start that way!

I can see that we will be driving very near Hereford.  Since the Meadows and Herefords married each other , and many of my greats had that name, I would be very interested in this.  I would  love  to come back here during the Hereford reunions.

We have been traveling toward Wales all morning.  We are just about to enter.  We stopped at a service area for treats and  bathroom break and I picked up a bunch of "fuzzy brushes" to give away to grandkids, kids, and friends.  Expect a wonderful one-of-a-kind gift when we get home!

Laura started telling us the difference between, commonwealth, UK .  England, Great Britain , Crown Colonies, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, British Isles, and others that really got me confused!  There are geographical areas rather than political areas. Perhaps someone gave Trump the same speech and got him confused too.

I can tell that we are in Wales now  because I can only read half of the signs.  They have y, w, and more as vowels.  Some of the words sound like you are clearing your throat.  I won't be learning or even mimicking this language! The town, Llangollen, sounds like Lang-glocklin.

Wow!  I love this place!!!!  Everything is so quaint!  The little shops here have every thing dragons. That is their animal of choice here and their flower is the daffodil.  I learned how to say Thank You in Welch and  bought a welcome sign for the front,  thank you sounds like Dee elk in vow, but it is spelled Diolch yn fawr. When we got to the bus Laura had "black bomber cheese". YUMMY,!!

We are now in the Royal Town of Caernarfon.  This is by the castle that my 18th great grandfather, Edward "Longshanks" Plantegenet  built.  We took a walk around it but with poor planning I did not take my phone or camera for pictures. Because of that and because we will be gone all day tomorrow, I will get out for pictures around 6:00 in the morning.  

The castle with a wall around the city was built in 1283;  It was where Prince Charles was officially invested as the Prince of Wales in 1969.  When he becomes King, William will become the Prince of Wales and come here.  

Our hotel where we are staying is quite historic as well.  The Celtic Royal Hotel was originally built in 1794 and is the prominent feature within Caernarfon.  A suburb Victorian it was refurbished in 1997 with 110 bedrooms as well as extensive conference  facilities. In 1832 Queen Victoria actually visited here with her mother and stayed at this hotel.  It was then renamed in her honor.

I am so sorry we won't be here longer.  We have signed up for a Welsh Day Experience tomorrow, from 8:45 to 4:00. I'm afraid we might be late so I plan to get downtown in the morning by 6 or 6:30 to take lots of pictures of the castle

We had the best home visit of all our trips here. Tomorrow, on the bus I will have time to write about it. When we got back to the hotel there was a great guy singing all our music.  His choices were just what we loved and we sang along and enjoyed it all until 10:45.

I have everything laid out for tomorrow so need to get showered and get to bed.

Hope you are still hanging with me.  Nana, aka grove, etc.

Day #6......  Wales Home Hosted night

 August 14th

Last night it was quite late when we finally arrived at the home hosted house.  We had gotten a late start as Laura was overseeing Mary Jo who had fallen and had a head wound.

This home visit was the greatest experience of all our home hosted.  We were the California Contingency with the Fishers and Fred and Lyudmila from Oakland.

The host and hostess were Eleri and Kevin who were both a lot of fun.  They have two children : a son who just got his master's in environment studies and is working but missed his dream job by one.  He was called back for a second interview but the other person had more experience.  The boss really wants him and has told him when there is an opening again to call him directly so they are hopeful.  Their daughter is 21 and attending college but doesn't know what she wants to do yet.  

Eleri told us she had never heard about Grand Circle but one night she saw a bunch of people going to her next door neighbor's house.  Letty was hurt that they were having a party but the next morning the neighbor told about the home hosting and they decided to try.  They have had 15 evenings as hosts but they had a problem with their roof and had remodeled.  She had worried about if her cooking would be good but we assured her we would love it.

Our menu was :

STARTER

Caws a phate iau air Cymreig

Welsh Cheese and chicken itch chicken liver pate, salad and roll

MAIN MEAL

Casserole cig eidion du Cymreig

Welsh black beef casserole with  potatoes and peas

DESSERT

Melysgybolfa

Summer fruit mess ( Pavlova)  

Kevin told us that not far from here was where his grandparents lived and the name of their town had the longest name in the world.  On day he was at the train station and his older cousin was asked How to say the name of the town and he rolled it out, then to their surprise he was given some money.  

They all lined up for the next time the train came in and said in Welsh  " welcome", said the long name of the town and then all held out their hands for Joey.  The older cousins bought cigarettes with their money but Kevin bought ice cream with his. The name of the town is 

llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch   It sounds like Clan vire poolth guin gilth go ger u queern drob oolth   clandus ilio gogo goch   ...which means: "a St Mary's church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool and the church of St. Tysilio of the red cave"   I did manage to try it twice and earned three quarters of a glass of wine. Evidentially the kids got busted by the third day at the train station for organized begging!

The family loves the US and has been to Florida for Kennedy Center  and DISNEY WORLD.   For their twenty fifth birthday his mom surprised the two of them with a flight and stay in New York and a ride back on the Queen Mary.  Kevin had bought a fancy suit only to find at the boat that it required suspenders which he didn't have.  He had to hold his pants up with his hand in his pocket until he could purchase some very high priced ones.  We had a good laugh over that.

They are  very worried about Brexit as Wales gets lots of money from the EU and that will go bye bye!  They don't think things will go well and that Theresa May is just staying there to get the blame.  People really didn't think it would pass just like we didn't rally think Trump would win as our president.  

Another thing we learned was that Kevin was given a kidney by his mom.  We saw her picture and she is a very beautiful and young looking woman.  She just married her good friend of many years while on a Cruise in Iceland.

Our event came to an end much too soon with photos and hugs.  E hope they will come to California to meet us.

Now you know the whole story!   Grove

Take a walk with us to dinner in Caernarfon at Black Boy inn. Skip the mushy peas!

Day #7...  Optional Trip To Northern Wales

 August 15th

I was so disgusted that we hadn't taken a camera around the walk to the castle.  When I found out that the castle I was seeing was built by King Edward I ( Longshanks).  It was quite an impressive castle with a moat and a wall circling the city.  It was special to me as after DNA and genealogy tree I found that He was my 18th great grandfather,  yea, I know it seems pretty impossible, but after checking and rechecking it seems to be.  I needed to keep it quiet however as the Welsh are not keen on him.  He was pretty awful to him... that he needed a wall and a fortress to protect them from being overtaken by them should have been a good hint.  

Still I wanted pictures and was afraid the next day we would return late from the optional tour so I got up this morning at 5:30 and by 6:00 I was at the castle taking pictures in the pouring rain.  I got back to the hotel in time to change into dry clothes and meet Michael for breakfast.  Within an hour we were off on an optional tour to the north.

The Welsh pressured King Edward I for they wanted the next King to be born in Wales and not speak English.  Longshanks gave them their wish.....poor Elenore had to have her 18th child in the cold Caernarfon Castle.  The King said, "Done, this Prince was born in Wales and at least now he doesn't speak English."

As you might remember, with Queen Elizabeth her husband became the Prince of Wales.  When and if she ever abdicates the throne to Charles, William will become the Prince of Wales.  I think you can google " Prince Charles becomes the Prince of Wales."  He is very young and Elizabeth looks so proud.  They are standing at the window of that castle.

Michael is standing where Prince Charles and the queen stood after he was invested as Prince of Wales.

I know everyone loved Princess Diana, but most that I talked to felt it was a shame that Charles had not been able to marry who he was already in love with because Camilla was divorced.  Maybe they were afraid Camilla couldn't have children to pass along, but many felt sorry for Charles, just as we felt sorry for Diana.  They believe that since Harry was able to marry for love even though she was divorced that the change in the royals is good.

Today we went on an optional Welsh tour.  We rode a steam train along the Ffestiniog Railway from the coast of Porthmadog into the mountains of Blaenau.  It is the oldest independent narrow gauge railway in the world and was built to carry slate in 1864.  It also carried slate workers but the seats are very tight and squashed together.

The scenery was lovely but actually much like our ride to Wales anyway.  We then went to a village that some guy built to look like an Italian village for lunch.  The chicken, potatoes and veggies were good....much like the beef we have had only substituting chicken, but the lemon tart with a side of raspberry sorbet was delicious!!!

The name of the place was Portmeirion. I took some photos and although it was pretty I thought it was fake and I like the real villages best!

We are now on the bus on the long way home.  It Is raining like crazy and they are telling us about the mountain we can't see, behind the hill we can't see, by the wild goats we can't see!

Yep, this is the first optional tour I have ever taken that didn't impress me!

Wales is indeed beautiful green hills, with lots of trees and thousands of sheep...and except for yesterday RAIN.