Caerdydd, Cymru [or Cardiff, Wales, if you want to be that way about it]!

I had a few days before I had a place to stay in London, so I decided on a whim to head to Wales, since I had never been there.

Whenever I think of Wales, I think of this botched translation from English to Welsh.

The first night I went to a pub to have some traditional Welsh food [mmmm, mozarella/spinach pasta bake] and listen to some traditional Welsh music [who knew the Welsh also have a song about "the Reeboks with the straps"?!?]. A local talked to me a bit when I was ordering at the bar and looked shocked when she heard I came to Cardiff just for kicks - probably the same look I give people when I hear they've been to Wisconsin ["what?!? why?!?"].

The B&B serves breakfast at 7:30-8:30 a.m. on weekdays and takes it a bit easier on weekends - 8-9 a.m. Bah. I was hoping for rest and relaxation, but I refused to sleep through the full Welsh breakfast [exactly the same as a full English breakfast, but don't tell the Welsh I said that] I paid good money for.

I didn't learn much Welsh - except that "beth" means "what." I feel like that's very appropriate.

When I was walking around the shopping area, I noticed that they had a TJ Maxx - but...it was called TK Maxx? I can understand changing, say, car names that have a different meaning in the local language...but...why just change the J to the very next letter?

The second night I was having dinner in another pub [and this time I at least had a dish with Welsh cheese], and a group of student-age Brits sat down at a table near me. They started talking about the World Cup, and one of them said, "Don't worry about the Americans, they don't know football - I mean, come on, they call it soccer!" He was so indignant. I giggled quietly to myself.

My last day in town, after meeting up with a local CouchSurfer for a coffee and a walk around the park, I rented a bike and went around Cardiff Bay. I saw the Norwegian Church [clever name, that] where Roald Dahl was baptized and a harbor where all the rich people park their yachts before stopping at a Hungry Horse, which seems to be the UK's version of T.G.I. Friday's - except that, like pretty much all pubs, there is no table service - you have to go up to the bar to order.

The weather was beautiful the whole weekend, and after the bike ride I realized I was even a little red. How many people do you know who have gotten sunburns in Wales, of all places?!?

Look! Welsh!

More Welsh - but more impressive, because it's on a shiny building.

Roald Dahl's Norwegian Church.

God's on a boat [in the Norwegian Church]!

In case you wanted to sing Black Eyed Peas songs in Welsh.

Be nice, that plant is just big-boned!

Returning to Cardiff - the bike represents me.

Brains is Wales' most famous beer [and the dragon is a symbol for Wales].

It's a good thing to already know about before you see the ominous black tower marked "Brains" looming before you.

More on Norwich and Cromer [mostly childish pictures].

One of Norwich's characters is the Puppet Man. He stands in the middle of the shopping district, puts puppets on his hands, flops his hands up and down, and unintelligibly mutters along to whatever pop song he's playing on his little stereo. Rumor has it that he's actually a millionaire and gives away all the money he makes from his puppetry to charity.

Won't you donate? Think of all those poor broads without boats! What kind of life is that?!?

[Cromer] Pick on someone your own size and queue over the leopard.

[Cromer] Christmas lights shaped like crayfish. Oh, seaside towns.

[Cromer] I told them to twitch, mostly just for my own amusement.

[Cromer] Do not climb on the what now?

[Cromer] Happy Valley! Aw.

[Cromer] Playground zip line - not made for grown-ups.

Why is this even an option? Who could possibly not want juicy bits?

Thank goodness for the sticker at the bottom - otherwise I never would've realized I was supposed to wait.

Norwich, England!

I don't know whether it was because I'd been in Germany for so long or because the accent sounds so delightful when people say, "Alright, love?" - but everyone in Norwich seemed really really nice. Sometimes a little too nice - although Ella claims it doesn't usually happen, I was really freaked out when all the servers practically swarmed all over us at Wagamama...several different people offered to take our drink orders, several more offered to take our dessert orders, and in between people were bringing us dishes and whisking them away again at an alarming rate. Too much customer service, too much!

I love pubs. There weren't too many places in Freiburg where you could just sit down with a [slightly too warm] beer and chill with friends, occasionally bringing the barkeep into the conversation and meeting new people.

When we went out, women's fashion transported me back to the 80s. And/or to a tropical island [well, at least they got the "island" part right] - apparently English women are known for wearing very little clothing no matter what the temperature.

One day, Ella, Charlie, and I went to Cromer, a town on the seaside. To celebrate the day, and since I needed a pen anyway, I bought a souvenir pen that proudly states, "I went crabbin' in Cromer!"

I had fish and chips - and those of you who know about my current struggle to learn to like fish will be glad to know that I ate it all!

Coxswain Blogg and crabs.

By land, by sea [but not by dirigible].

I hate flying. I’m not scared of it, and I don’t get motion sickness. I just hate it. I hate having to travel two hours to get to the airport and then spend another two hours sitting around waiting to board, and dealing with security measures that don’t even seem to be that effective, and spending a small fortune on airport food and a bottle of water, and the weight limits on the baggage that then more often than not gets lost anyway, and all the stupid extra little fees, especially from the low-cost airlines [really, RyanAir, charging for the restrooms? yeeees, let’s charge $10 for a bottle of water and make people pay to go to the bathroom so that they’d rather just do without and then become completely dehydrated and have their blood thicken up until it lands them in the hospital with thrombosis – nice], and not being able to sleep a wink, and and and.

So to get from Sweden to England, I decided to take it slow and keep closer to the ground. It was significantly more expensive and time-consuming than flying, admittedly, and you’ll soon see how many different segments there were in just the one trip, but – I didn’t hate the experience. What a concept! [Okay, I hated it a little because Sweden had given me a cold and I was miserable most of the time, but that’s not the journey’s fault. I know I would’ve enjoyed it – seeing so much of the countryside, taking it easy, etc. – if I had been healthy, whereas flying I don’t enjoy at all, even when I’m healthy as a horse (is that the right phrase? are horses that healthy? and why do dogs always have to be the sick ones?].

1. Train from Uppsala, Sweden, to Stockholm, Sweden. Subsequent chilling for an hour or two in the Stockholm train station.

2. Night train from Stockholm, Sweden, to Lund, Sweden. I was in one of the two topmost beds of a six-bed sleeper compartment. Despite the cold, I managed to sleep for a few hours before getting into Lund about 6:30 a.m. I had originally planned to switch trains in Malmö, but I realized a few days before [thanks to facebook – say what you will about facebook, but it has its upsides] that Tim was studying in Lund, and he was nice enough to wake up ridiculously early, despite his own cold, to meet me for breakfast. Tim’s one of those people with whom I hang out in a different country each time. It’s nice to see a consistent familiar face in all those different places!

3. Train from Lund, Sweden, to Copenhagen, Denmark. Had a fair amount of free time, but was sick and tired and didn’t feel like dealing with the luggage lockers, so I just found an internet café and tried to be slightly productive. But I’ll be back, Copenhagen, just you wait!

See, I actually was in Copenhagen! The Axelborg proves it! [I don’t know what happens in the Axelborg; please don’t ask.]

4. Train from Copenhagen, Denmark, to Esbjerg, Denmark, and then a pleasant walk to the port.

5. Ferry from Esbjerg, Denmark, to Harwich [pronounced “hair itch”], England. It was an overnight, 18-hour journey, so it included a hotel-like room. After we had set sail, I went out on the deck, but not for long, because it was much too windy. Then I had dinner and, because I was still sick and miserable, took a nap until I had to wake up around midnight for a conference call. I was actually feeling alright, but the wi-fi area had the air conditioning on way too high, and by the end of the call I was sneezing and sniffling to beat the band [you know, the one band, The Sneezing Snifflers]. I ran back to my room and slept more until it was time for breakfast, ate breakfast, and slept even more until we reached land. I wish I had been healthier, because I do actually enjoy boats, and I would’ve liked to see what kind of entertainment they had on board and so on and pretend I was on a real cruise, maybe take part in the kids’ treasure hunt [okay, not that, but I would probably quietly pretend to myself that I was a Danish pirate]...next time!

My cabin on board.

On deck.

6. Train from Harwich, England, to Manningtree, England. When I got there, there were announcements that my connecting train was twelve minutes late...then fourteen…then sixteen – every couple of minutes they added two minutes to the delayed time. But the sun was out, so I just stretched out on my backpack, rested my eyes, and soaked up the sun until the train finally showed up.

7. Train from Manningtree, England, to Norwich, England. Just about two days after I left the loving arms of Ansti in Uppsala, I ran into the loving arms of Ella in Norwich.

I had made it, and, for one of the first times, the traveling part of traveling wasn’t so bad. It might sound crazy, but I’d totally do it again – minus the sneezing.

Out of chronological order: AFS Portugal!

Thanks to facebook and good timing, I was able to go to AFS Portugal's first ever "national meeting of volunteers," an all-play, no-work two-day retreat. Eeeeearly Saturday morning, I got in a car with three girls I had never met before – but they were AFS volunteers, so of course we all had a good time the whole way there. And they taught me how to say "lighter" and "pocket knife" in Portuguese! The whole weekend was great – silly but fun activities, good conversation partners at meals, and lots of discussion about returnees as volunteers. Everyone was more than happy to speak English with me but also didn't mind when I tried to stumble through in Portuguese. I even spoke a mixture of those two and Norwegian with a guy who had done his AFS year in Norway – fun!

AFS is always a good time, of course, but those two days were an especially positive AFS experience, and I'm really excited to get involved with this group of people when I come back in the fall. Anyone out there who's thinking about doing AFS or has a kid who wants to go somewhere, I can absolutely recommend AFS Portugal and its fantastic volunteers – and I promise they didn't pay me anything to say that, except maybe friendliness.

I got a ride back with a girl from Porto and her parents and brother, who had decided to make a day of it and go out for lunch before they had to pick us up. On the way back, we stopped by the beach for a quick stroll, partly because it's there and partly because they weren't happy anymore with the beach they usually go to and were looking for a new one. These things just don't tend to happen in Wisconsin or Germany – "well, might as well pop on over to the beach, since we're right by it anyway" and "I don't really like this beach anymore – luckily there are a kajillion others, so let's go shop around."

Nordic fashion.

In Sweden, it seemed that you were either a goth/metalhead or a hipster. It was mostly hipsters. Don't get me wrong, I love hipsters - well, ironically, because ironic love is the only kind that hipsters understand - but it was a bit of an overload.

Passing through Denmark, I saw not one but two girls with their pants tucked into their socks. They were nowhere near bikes, so they didn't have that excuse. They...just...thought it looked good, I guess?

This explains why the world looks to Paris and Rome for its fashion and not to Stockholm or Copenhagen.

Uppsala [Sweden]!

Although I was nowhere near ready to leave Portugal, it was high time I continued on my adventures - and I found a reasonably priced plane ticket. [I thought about taking the train to Sweden, but as it turns out, Sweden is much too far from Portugal for that to be reasonable in terms of either time or money.]

I took a train from Aveiro to Lisbon at 2:30 in the morning on May 13th to catch my flight to Arlanda, the airport in Stockholm. The flight was so empty that I had a whole row to myself and stretched out and slept the whole way - glorious. In the luggage pick-up area in the airport, I noticed a box where you could leave your mace - apparently it's illegal in Sweden.

On the bus to Uppsala, I saw an Ikea in its natural habitat!

Once in Uppsala, I feasted on Dutch cheese, Chinese buffet, American cream cheese, Finnish chocolate...okay, okay, I also had some Swedish bread and candy. I asked Anna-Stina's friends whether they ever ate at Swedish restaurants, and they said there pretty much was no such thing. You eat Swedish food at home, but there aren't really sit-down restaurants for it - at the most, meatballs at street food places.

Uppsala is one of my favorite city names. The stress is on the second syllable, which makes it slightly less fun than if it were on the first syllable, but it's still very fun.

After Chinese, we went to an Irish pub, where a drunk metalhead heard us speaking English and invited himself to our table. He declared his love for me and asked Anna-Stina whether he could go with her back to Finland. [I said "thank you" and Anna-Stina said "no."]

The next night, we went to a rooftop party at one of the dorms, where a guy made an excellent first impression by asking Anna-Stina about me [instead of asking me, even though I was right there?], getting my name wrong when asking about me, and then making fun of my lisp. Smooth! Good way to make friends. We also met a punk, complete with leather and chains and a necklace consisting of a chain held together by a padlock - later I was absolutely delighted to see him totally rock out to pop music. Yeah, you break free of those stereotypes! Nice!

When we headed back around 3:30 a.m., I was shocked to see how bright it was outside - I had forgotten how far north we were.

I had to do a lot of work while we were there, so I unfortunately didn't really get to see too much of the city, but it was still exciting to just be in Sweden. I attempted to use my Norwegian a few times, but people just mostly answered in English. Worth a try!

Bread with a vacant smile.

A popular bread brand in Portugal. In the course of the extensive research that I, of course, always do for this blog - glancing at wikipedia if I'm not too lazy at the moment - I have discovered that the brand is actually Mexican:

"The name 'Bimbo' has no specific meaning in Spanish; thus, the name has not caused significant uproar as it would in the United States, where the word "bimbo" has a negative connotation. ... In Mexico as in some Latin American countries, it is common to refer to any bread brand as 'pan bimbo' (bimbo bread) instead of the proper 'pan de caja' (loaf of bread). The name 'Bimbo' has almost become a synonym for bread." [wikipedia]

Xerox, Kleenex, Bimbo...I like it.

Other pieces of Portugal.

Lisbon. The first night, Miguel and I found a fado house [Luso] and spent a few hours splitting an expensive bottle of wine and listening to beautiful traditional Portuguese music. Fado is full of emotion, mostly sorrow, but beautiful sorrow. It can really hit hard if you have the right fadistas singing - and we definitely had some very good fadistas. Beautiful evening. The second night, we bar hopped with Jorge and Nelson, two CouchSurfers from Sintra who I had hosted in Freiburg. The guys had great fun making me order inappropriately named drinks in Portuguese...

Meu Fado Meu by Mariza. This is usually how fadistas sing [from what I've seen, at least] - eyes at least half-closed, really focused on the music and the emotion, hands in front of them - often they're wearing a kind of shawl and twisting it in their hands as they sing.

Two songs sung by Amália Rodrigues, the "queen of fado."

Cascais. The second day in Lisbon, I took a short train ride to Cascais for a luncheon put on by the Americans in Portugal group - I don't want to get too involved in the expat community [which won't be too hard, since they all live in southern Portugal because they like the sun or something silly like that], but it's still nice to know some of your fellow countrymen in a strange country. Cascais itself was great - right on the ocean - and the luncheon itself was livened up a little by the British man next to me who told me all about his Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories. The highlight, of course, was the guest speaker, a representative from the American embassy in Lisbon. Ooh, yes, please do tell me more about the hours when I can go to the embassy to renew my passport!

Cascais!

Aveiro. The more I see of this city, the more I like it [although I think that's true for almost every city I go to]. A lot of fun bars, both student-y and traditional, and culture - they'll have a TEDx event there next week! It has canals going through it and is just a few kilometers from the beach. Costa Nova do Prado, a beach town not too far away, has fun beach-y architecture. And...have I mentioned...beach?

One of the highlights of my time there this time was definitely the carnival. As you can probably guess, the Feira de Março [March Fair] happens around the last week of March and then most of April [okay, I can't make fun of it too much, since Oktoberfest mostly takes place in September]. After veal sandwiches washed down with wine [totally what you'd eat at a carnival in the US...yeah...], we went on the rides. Many of the rides had naked women painted on them - that's how I knew I was in Europe. The haunted house ride was even cheesier and more non-scary than I could have hoped for. It also had a few naked women in it, since, I guess, naked women are horrifying and might potentially haunt your nightmares? After a ride that seemed specifically designed to shake your brains out through your ears, we decided to call it quits. I had a fartura [also known in some circles as a churro], a very satisfactory funnel cake replacement, and on our way out we bought some mountain goat cheese and tried shots of cherry liqueur in chocolate cups...sometimes it felt a little too classy to be a real carnival. Then I remembered the naked ladies on the rides.

The brain shaker.

Patriotism: Portugal, you're doing it right.

The two countries I've spent the most time in so far tend to be on opposite extremes of the patriotism scale. Of course these are horrible generalizations, and I know very well that there are plenty of people in both countries who don't fit into them - but, disclaimer out of the way, the ideas are, basically...

US: We're so awesome. Seriously, we're the best. Everything is perfect here, except for the people who want to change things, and they should clearly leave, because they obviously don't love this country, if they want to change it.

Germany: Patriotism? I...I don't understand. Pride in my country? Not my thing, thanks. Goethe's a pretty cool guy, but that's really pretty much all we've got. I bought a flag for the World Cup, but as soon as it was over, I folded it up and hid it in my attic...please don't tell anyone I have it.

It was therefore a bit of a breath of fresh air to hear what seemed to be most Portuguese people's idea of patriotism, which went something like this...

Portugal: There are definitely things that have to be fixed in this country, and we're a small country and know our limitations - but also, you should really eat our food, listen to our music, drink our wine, read our literature, see how much we care about family here - we've got a whole lot going for us, too.

See, isn't that nice?

Porto!

I spent about three weeks in Porto, the city that I will call my home starting this fall, and I fell more and more in love with it the better I got to know it. It is kind of old and dirty - lots of abandoned buildings and so on - but that gives it character. That's one of the things I love about New York City, too - the messiness of it sometimes. There's a lot of life going on in both cities.

Porto is built on a bunch of hills - every time I walked home, I felt like I was doing a Buns of Steel workout, and every time I went running was a hills workout. It was surprisingly more energizing than tiring - but I will miss biking. And bonus - I usually have a terrible sense of direction/orientation, but the hills really help - "I know I was gasping for breath walking uphill to get here, so downhill must be the way back!"

Porto has a river and the ocean. So many bodies of water! And you know how I feel about bodies of water. The picture at the top of this post is a nighttime view of the river and Vila Nova de Gaia, the town just on the other side and the home of port wine.

I was kind of shameless about meeting people - when people wrote me about renting out a room but it didn't work out, I asked, "But do you want to hang out anyway?" That's how I ended up, for example, barhopping with a Brazilian artist/clown/pastry teacher/beekeeper.

Porto...soon you will be mine!

Welcome aboard, me hearties!

Spatzis, queridos, darlings, this is BethAnne, captain of the seas, coming at you from the MS Dana Sirena somewhere between Esbjerg, Denmark, and Harwich, England, and thrilled to the gills that I don't get seasick. I'd like to invite you to join me on this little adventure I like to call "Kicking the World's Ass and Taking the World's Names." Here's my rough schedule [yes, some of the stops are already in the past - please note that I procrastinate]:

April through mid-May: Portugal
last couple weeks of May: Sweden and England
June: Egypt
July: South Korea, China, Cambodia, Japan
a few days in Tahiti because, you know, why not
August and September: the US [the West Coast and the Midwest - talk about your strange cultures]

I'm going to attempt to document the interesting bits in short but sweet, semi-frequent posts. Wish me luck, and let me know if you're going to be in any of those places!

P.S. The title of the blog is from the Snow Patrol song "Chocolate" - the full line is "All these places feel like home." And it's true, they all do, in one way or another.