WALES IS OK!

so adam and i went to southwestern wales last weekend. it was an adventure.

i present to you a choice selection of welsh pictures, as "montage" is my favorite way to recap events or wacky mishaps. there were both.

above, adam mastering the art of driving on the left side of the road while shifting with his left hand, all while i gripped various objects such as, but not limited to, the car seat, door handle, dashboard, and his knee while making panicky noises.



bridge into wales - toll coming in, but not going out? weird.


we then headed up the river to tintern abbey. i am usually disdainful of "tourist attractions" - i don't really like crowds and a lot of stuff seems to be overrated - but tintern was amazing.


it is astonishing, from an north american standpoint, the antiquity of great britain remains. tintern was founded on may 9, 1131, at a point where the new world hadn't even been discovered.


more staggering is its awesome size, in every sense of the word. imagining coming around the bend at a time when the abbey was surrounded by peasant farmers, cresting the hills around its valley must have been such a overwhelming reminder of god's greatness.


despite being there on an absolutely gorgeous fall afternoon, there was a real sense of melanchony to it. the abbey once housed 50-60 brothers and lay people, at the heart of an isolated but tight-knit community, but now there are only tourists flocking about and ravens croaking from the stone rafters.

Once again
Do 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.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!

- william wordsworth, "composed a few miles above tintern abbey, on revisiting the banks of the wye during a tour, july 13, 1798.

this picture sums up holiday well for us ; adam gets romantic and snuggly and i make faces at the camera.


after leaving tintern, we kept on truckin down to swansea for dinner. swansea is billed as one of wales' big sea-side tourist towns, but it was pretty ugly and built-up so we peaced out pretty fast.

now, as it was a delightfully perfect weather weekend, as we later found out, most of england also had come to wales. seeing as it is almost october, cooling down a little bit, no leaf-peepers like in new england, we both figured we would have no problem finding a place to stay - wales is crawling with b+bs.

no such luck. stopped in solva - everything was full up. walked around st. davids for an hour and a half, banging on doors at 9:30 at night and wrangling with a hotel to let us both take their one empty single room. no vacancies, no vacancies, no vacancies. to reallllly get things going, we were running on 1/8th tank of petrol.

so on our way to a 24 hr gas station in fishguard, where the ferry comes in late from ireland and where several people swore we would find a room, we stumbled upon the awelfan b+b in beautiful square and compass, wales.

leeetle sketched out when two teenage girls answered the door, but who gives a fuck, we didn't have to sleep in the car. turns out her mum was at a late meeting. we popped down to the [surprisingly unfriendly] square and compass pub and passed out.


after a delicious full welsh breakfast [sausage, beans, toast, mushrooms, tomato [adam ate mine], eggs, toast, lots of tea], we ran to a cashpoint to pay karen. turns out she thought we had stiffed her. so for future reference, adam and i look just that shifty.


on karen's suggestion, we headed to porthgain, to walk a two mile section of the pembrokeshire coastal path to abereiddy.


this is THE classic adam power stance photo op.



porthgain from the hills.



a cairn of some sort? we never figured it out.


if you are a portly man with elongated fingers, whatever you do, DON'T TRY TO CATCH YOUR ROCKS IF THEY FALL OFF A CLIFF.



adam noticed that a number of erudite fellow walkers had taken the time to write their names with stones in this valley. we were too lazy; or else ANNA + ADAM 4EVR would have graced the welsh countryside.



beach in that we frolicked on the trek back.


adam kept on making lotr comments and eluding to the "shire" all weekend.


out of order and too lazy to fix it; beach came after ice cream time.


enjoyed fresh home-made welsh ice cream [adam, rum raisin, me, tasty tasty coconut] with a side order of WACKY WELSH ACCENTS. also, a cheese+onion toastie which was pretty delicious. walked back.


ate lunch in solva. if you ever happen to find yourself in pembrokeshire, stay at the ships inn in solva. the bartender was immensely helpful in trying to find us a room and the pub was loud, friendly with a good vibe. plus, they had an attached curry restaurant.

don't stay in st. davids. they're kind of assholes there.


see the full set here, if you are so inclined.