Weekend recap 2: Swansea

Swansea

My roommate and I got up early on Sunday to get to Swansea at a decent hour. Our destination was Rhosili, a beautiful beach an Assembly Member had pointed me toward. By the time we got there, however, we would have gotten to the beach at dark and not been able to catch a bus back.

Stepping out of the train station, we were greeted by closed or empty businesses, and a single coffee house that exuded an air of depression. We went in and ordered tea, which was served weak and in dirty cups. When we saw the woman behind the counter sneeze on to her hands and begin serving food, we left in a hurry, but not before I jotted down a poem about the experience:

A pharmacy dragged me here,
barely.
Here, this shabby restaurant
with grimy teacups
and gnarled fingers.
Numb customers, staring into
the hardness of the world,
are as gray as the sky,
dirt-lined as
the plates before them,
tasteless as the food,
and distant as the beaches
the guidebooks promised.

Walking through the sprawling city that seemed an odd mixture of sleaze and class, we found a bus to Mumbles, a little beach near the heart of Swansea.

As we walked along the water, I felt the fullness of the ocean, the calm of the tides. As it began to rain, we took cover in a little restaurant on the pier.

When the rain faded to a drizzle and then to a memory, we walked to Mumbles Pier and paid the 50 pence to walk on rickety boards out to the sea. Boards with holes for faces and plastic animals with "Mumbles Pier" signs lined the sides. Fishermen cast weary glances at us.
Soon, we left the creaking boards behind and climbed up a path leading to a look-out point. From the look-out point, we could see a great beach of round stones, and it took some clever rock climbing to make our way down.

We gallivanted on the beach while the sun set, watching the waves and sifting through the rocks. I found a few shells and rocks to bring home.
Then, we walked up to Oystermouth Castle, which was closed. Not one to give up so easily, I walked around the ruins, finding a hole into the castle. My roommate didn't like the looks of it, though, so I left it alone and we meandered home.
The sea has been on my mind since. What is it about the water that leaves me feeling more myself?

Weekend recap: Caerphilly

Despite a nasty cold coiling around me, I visited Caerphilly on Saturday and Swansea on Sunday.
Caerphilly
My first stop was Caerphilly Castle, which was a slight disappointment because of construction on the two highest towers and because a wedding occurred during my visit. All the people in expensive dresses and suits, smiling and celebrating the union of two lives, left me feeling lonely and small. Not one to bask in pity, I began to walk. And I walked and walked. I passed tired neighborhoods and graffitied walls, cats and birds, until finally I came to a little path through a strip of woods.
There, around me, a strip of Wales at its finest: rolling grasses and twisted trees, fall foliage and giant stones and streams. I meandered up and down this path until the cold wet began to seep through my medication into my bones.
Then I went back to the city, visited a local craft bazaar, and headed back for my train, just in time to catch the Cardiff-New Zealand rugby match.

Tired as I was, it was a beautiful day.

What's Thanksgiving in Cardiff? Thanks and giving, of course!

Today is the type of day that makes any American anywhere else in the world feel the weight of not being home.

All of us interns here at the Assembly foretold great sadness and decided to combat it with a makeshift celebration. We have a 15-pound turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, apple crisp and lots of wine.

We all really wanted pumpkin pie, but that's one problem with not being in America at this time. Pumpkins are, quite simply, out of season here. Four of us scoured every store in Cardiff (and several in faraway cities such as London and Swansea) and even searched Online. No pumpkin pie.

As depressing as the absence of one little American Thanksgiving staple is, it's also a sharp reminder that we've been blessed to become part of a very different culture for a while.

So, while we give each other company and food and comfort during this time of separation from families and tradition, we will also be thankful. How many people hop over the ocean and spend a small portion of their lives submerged in lives so different from theirs at home? How many people have understanding families waiting for them to return?

Today has made me acutely aware of my blessings. Here, I have a wonderful job with unique coworkers filled with character and passion. I have good friends and a nice apartment. At home, I have the best family anyone could ask for and friends to match.

Without knowing to whom to address this, I shout from the very depths of my heart, "Thank you!"

Wales at the Smithsonian 2009

Last Thursday, the Senedd launched an event that promises to bring Wales into thousands of international minds: Wales Smithsonian Cymru 2009.

As a 3-month Cardiff resident, I've become quite enamoured with Wales and her ways: compassionate, community-oriented mind frames; raucously partiers and hearty pubs; Welsh cakes; breathtaking landscapes; distinct literature; and lilting language.

I know I cannot bring this country I've come to love home with me, but the Smithsonian can.

The Smithsonian Folklife Festival, an annual event, invited Wales to be showcased in June through July 2009. More than 100 Welsh performers, artists, craftsmen, linguists, storytellers, and culinary experts will attend the event.

I even met one of the cooks near a bowl of chips; food always unites people, doesn't it? She was so excited to go to Washington, D.C., and bring pieces of Wales with her. Our fast-paced conversation was soon interrupted by the beginning of the launch.

Welsh poet Gillian Clark read her poem "R. S." for R.S.Thomas (1913-2000):

His death
on the midnight news.
Suddenly colder.

Gold September´s driven off
by something afoot
in the south-west approaches.

God´s breathing in space out there
misting the heave of the seas
dark and empty tonight,

except for the one frail coracle
borne out to sea, burning.

(Menna Elfyn translated the poem into Welsh, and here's how it goes:
Newyddion hanner nos am ei ddarfod. Gaeafodd. Newidiodd y naws. Aur Medi wedi ei hebrwng gan ryw ddigwyddiad, ar droed, gwynt y de orllewin yn nesáu. Anadl Duw, allan yn y gwagle a thawch dros ochenaid y môr sy´n dywyll a llwm - heno heblaw am yr un cwrwgl brau ollyngwyd i´r lli a´i si´n ysu.)

(poem courtesy of Clark's Website, http://www.gillianclarke.co.uk/home.htm)

After several poems, the Assembly's First Minister Rhodri Morgan gave a passionate speech about the incredible opportunity this event presents.

Wales is "one of the strangest, most paradoxical countries," he said. It has "the strongest hangover and heritage from medieval time" and is also able to move into the future.

Wales must "bring back that spirit of having challenged ourselves to say, 'What is the best of Wales?'"

Well, everything! Except the chavs. Don't know what a "chav" is? Good; keep it that way (or check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav).

As I pondered what I would pick to bring home, a folk group comprised of fiddler Sille Ilves, singer Julie Murphy, and acoustic guitarist Martin Leamon played two songs that melted me into a colorful emotional puddle.

Here's how Murphy described those songs:

"The first piece was a composit of two folk songs, Lisa Lan and Ffoles Llantrisant, the first one is a really intense love song from the point of view of a young man and the second is a much lighter song from a young girl's perspective. By putting them together it was like the two were having a conversation along the lines of 'I love you so much I"m going to kill myself' (him) to 'I'm too young to settle down, you're being too intense' (her). Well at least that's how I think of it!
We recorded that one especially for the folkways CD ( to be released next May I think). The last song we did was 'Y Folantein' - love and lust in a poetic metre called a triban."

The Folkways CD will be released in 2009 to coincide with the Smithsonian show. I highly encourage everyone to buy it. Until it's released, however, check out Murphy's Website: http://homepage.mac.com/juliemurphymusic/juliemurphy/.

Christmas lights, check!

Wednesday night, the Bay was filled with an eerie sense of emptiness. A huge Christmas tree had been erected near the Millennium Centre, and I stared at it in silence for quite a few minutes. It was November 12: still more than a month before Christmas!

Someone gave me a head's up that the rest of the city's lights would be turned on that night, so I met a friend in the city centre. People flurried to one of several hot spots. There was a giant Christmas tree in close proximity to a Santa booth and a carousel. There was also a Ferris wheel next to a stage with a giant puppet show hosted by CBeebies (BBC for kids). The stars of local hit TV show Gavin and Stacey helped turn on the city's Christmas lights.

Fireworks went off and a mass of little kids on big kids' shoulders looked on in amazement.

After people began dispersing (read: after I was no longer elbowed, poked, prodded and stepped on), my friend and I made our way to a delicious-smelling donut booth. While we waited in line, I noticed the next booth over was a British burger and fry booth.

This is ironic because Brits don't call fries "fries"; they're "chips" here.

The donuts were better than any I've had in the States: softly crispy and slightly greasy on the outside, but still gooey on the inside, and not too sweet all around.

St. Mary's Street had the biggest light display; I felt as if I had entered a Christmas Wonderland the second I stepped on to it.

I practically waltzed home, entranced by the magic of the night and the mystery of the moon.

Tintern Abbey

She died and decayed long ago, and her gnawed bones protruded from the mud and the short green grass. When I first saw her, Tintern Abbey, I felt the ghost of her memories bleeding at my feet. She whispered to me that life always goes on, that that which ends is not forgotten.

She was a Cisterian abbey founded by the earl of Chepstow in 1131. Most abbeys were more than self-sufficient communes; they were the heartbeat of nearby communities, the angels whispering Christian conscience to the laypeople. They were the mothers of literature and the creators of discipline. They framed the meaning of brotherly love.

How many footsteps padded here? How many men died in these walls? How many found God, and how many lost Him?

"I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, that on a wild secluded scene impress thoughts of more deep seclusion and connect the landscape with the quiet of the sky," wrote Wordsworth in "Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting The Banks Of The Wye During A Tour" on July 13, 1798, 189 years and one day before I was born.

Yet his words capture today's essence of the fiery hills and the paralyzed sky surrounding Tintern Abbey, that quietly obtrusive ruin.

"In darkness and amid the many shapes of joyless daylight when the fretful stir unprofitable and the fever of the world have hung upon the beatings of my heart -- How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee."

I can picture him jabbing at his parchment, looking at her, feeling the same strange mix of life and death beating in me.

She has seen a thousand years of faith and folly; surely, her commune with nature and God account for some wisdom or peace.

During Edward II's wars, Edward stayed at the abbey for a short stint in 1326. Throughout the 1400s, Owain Glyndwr's quest to fight off the English hurt the abbey's finances, but by the early 1500s, the abbey was the wealthiest in Wales. It still could not escape dissolution and was effectively gutted by the first Act of Suppression in 1536. (http://cistercians.shef.ac.uk/abbeys/tintern.php)

Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries to give credit to his new protestantism and to put a crimp in the Catholics' formerly comfortable lives.

Tintern Abbey was killed, effectively, by a king and disrobed by an earl, but her soul sat still for a thousand years, welcoming the pilgrims who sought remnants of her solitude.

"For thou art with me here upon the banks of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend, My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch the language of my former heart, and read my former pleasures in the shooting lights of thy wild eyes."

Amsterdam

On Friday, October 24, I arrived in Amsterdam with my parents. Their trip to belatedly celebrate their 25 anniversary coincided with the Assembly's recess, so I not only got to see them, but I also got to travel with them.
Once we got settled in, we wandered around the city, dodging more bicycles than I've ever seen.

I didn't expect to see so many rivers, but the Dutch certainly know how to accent them: curvy bridges, lights, and lines of trees. Between the rivers and the maze of gray buildings containing stores, it was easy to get lost.
Until one runs smack into the red light district.

Now, don't get me wrong. I appreciate a woman's body as much as any man (in fact, I'll wager, more so). I also think that if our society insists on engaging in prostitution, it should be legal and regulated.

However, this red light district infuriated me. Women in windows with men in black clothes, snarling as if they were sizing up steak. Shadowy figures leaning against corners, ready to negotiate deals with the sleazy men who wanted to pay for a woman's body.

These men seemed to have one purpose in this district: fantasy sex without emotion or ties, completely rationalized by throwing a few coins at the receptacle they used, like a toilet.

"Look at that!" one man shouted at a woman gyrating in the window.

"That? We're thats now? She's not even a human being?" I protested loudly enough that a few men glared at me.

I heard many other comments I'd rather not mention and saw inconsiderate asses throwing things at the windows.

Needless to say, I fled the district as soon as possible, to angry even to talk about it with my parents.

The next day, I found a spectacular looking coffee house called Dampkring. Its sign looked like stained glass, and from the moment I walked in, I knew I found a good place.
I ended up sitting at the bar, talking to a group of Canadians about everything from law to music to news to politics to university.

Later, I sat with a local who told me a scene from Ocean's 12 was filmed there.

So, so far, I'd covered sex, culture, and movies on my trip. Now, I just needed history and literature.

Easy enough: the Anne Frank house offered both in abundance, with a tremendous amount of emotion.

I don't know how he did it, but my Dad managed to get us tickets that allowed us to skip the incredibly long line and begin the tour immediately. The beginning rooms with the timeline, media and memorabilia were interesting enough, but time stops the moment you see the hole in the wall where the bookshelf hid so many lives.

Up the narrow, steep staircase we walked, to bare rooms with creaky floors. Anne was here, once, and her family, and two other families... and most of them died gruesome deaths.

That any human being could treat another that way seems incomprehensible to me. That was the point, though, wasn't it: Jews were not human beings to the Nazis.

How many groups do some human beings dehumanize because of perceived differences? Prostitutes, homosexuals, Muslims, drug addicts, people with different skin colors... Mind you, I haven't seen any of them shipped off to concentration camps to die of disease and starvation; but the caustic jokes, the hatred so poorly concealed, the threats...

Call me naive, but I don't understand why we can't all respect each other and help each other through this world, which is traumatic enough without our participation or compliance with its cruelty.

Party politics, politics party: bittersweet election memories

This is the moment after. You know the one: your eyes have been focused on the path below your feet, each step is your only purpose in life... You stopped counting long ago; the scenery grew stale. Up, up, up you go, your back about to break and your lungs on the verge of collapse. But you focus your energy to make one more step.

Only, there's no step to take; you've reached the top.

There is a moment of precious amazement... and then the cartoon bubble of "What now?" pops up, with a cartoon version of you scratching your head.

The American election has defined me as an American in Cardiff since my first day here. Before that, the election dominated life at home. Dwindling newspapers pried into politicians' lives to dig up stories that would throw a curve ball in the campaign's course and resurrect ratings. Magazines sold comedy about the campaign's players, from satire to slander to caricature.

So, what now?

Welcome to the next era of American politics.

Last night, I was glued to the TV in Ty Gwynfor, Plaid Cymru's headquarters, which hosted an American-themed Obamafest party, complete with hot dogs, salsa, apple pie, Corona with lime and wine. Lots of wine.

Two Plaid people played McCain and Obama in mock debates. "McCain" focused on his war wounds and age; "Obama" used the words "change" and "hope" about 30 times in three minutes. Both tied the American election with U.K. politics; "Obama" compared Dafydd Iwan to extremist enemies, highlighting the American seemingly McCarthyist fear of terrorists and Muslims and individual thinkers, which is hilarious if you understand the carefree nature of the Welsh. He also mentioned a One American coalition, poking at the Plaid-Labour deal here.

Laughs were abundant as I sat with a group of students from Cardiff University. I planned to stay until 12 a.m. (7 p.m. in Ohio). Before I knew it, 12 turned into 5, and my heart turned into cement as McCain conceded.

My new-found Uni friends couldn't seem to understand why I was so sad. Was it the wine? I had been supporting Obama, after all, even if it was by default; I should be overjoyed.

No, sirs, it was not the wine.

No candidate has bowed out with such dignity, grace and class as McCain did last night. (Here's an AP transcript of his speech: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hmJfimrZW3jBur_BmaFtqj7mfFgQD948JFJG5)

The election is over. Obama won. By a landslide: he needed 270 electoral votes, he got 338.

Game over.

I keep lifting my foot to continue hiking toward something, but there is only open air. I look around me and wonder, what now?

an imminent flurry of blogs

I recently returned from a fairy-tale-esque trip to Amsterdam, Paris, Prague, Vienna and Budapest, and I promise to write multiple blogs about my experiences there.

For now, though, let me change the subject to one that's being overly covered (but necessarily so): the election. We all know what's at stake; I'm not going to hound you about our place in the rest of the world, about our flailing economy, about our laws and freedoms... I cannot begin to lecture, because it's not my place. My personal convictions in this election are just that- personal.

I am neither an Obama nor a McCain fan, but Palin tips the scales for me. I will not attack this poor women; she's been attacked by too many people already.

I don't agree with her views on just about anything, but that's me.

I wondered what people here in Wales thought, and here is the response I got from people working with Plaid Cymru.

"She's a nutcase," one colleague said, "but she's hot."

Another said she disliked Palin as much as I did.

One passed me an article from the Guardian, which contained an edited transcript of the prank call. Here's the only transcript I can find Online: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/081101/entertainment/palin_transcript (thanks to Yahoo news for this).

There is no doubt in my mind that the media is slanted against Palin and that my view of her has been slanted by all the articles I've read (particularly those from my favorite magazine, The New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/09/15/080915ta_talk_lizza, http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2008/09/22/080922sh_shouts_saunders, among others).

Still, I would rather have an enthusiastic, intelligent man as president who has a sturdy VP than one who has a VP with the demeanor of a flaky cheerleader. I like McCain; I like Obama. I'm not crazy about Biden; I can't stand Palin. So, by default, I suppose I'm keeping my fingers crossed for an Obama win.

P.S.- On a side note, I'd like to comment about my last blog. Matt Wardman did not exactly "reveal" that Wardman is his pen name; he unveiled that information on his blog a long time ago. I, however, had no idea that was the case. And, based on the numerous people who called him "Matt" at the conference, I don't think I'm alone. Either way, he's a fantastic blogger, and both he and Betsan Powys helped me adjust to Welsh politics.