Bath and Wales

WELL. It's been awhile and I only have a minute but here are some quick highlights -

In Bath, of course, I loved the baths (duh) but my favorite part was when Annie and I climbed up out of the city (it is built into a HUGE hill) and found this neat old graveyard. It looked like it was something out of a movie and the dates were pretty far back - early 1800s...very cool. There was also a neat view of the city.

The busride to Cardiff was hot as HELL and Annie and I felt very oppressed. The weather has actually been great, basically sunny every day in Wales and Bath. There were several football matches happening in Cardiff so the city was packed -- but it was actually kinda fun to be part of the crowd - they were inSANE it was great fun. The campsite was great except for the crazed football fans AND the couple having sex next to us - BOO - but a good place, actully within a park within the city. kinda weird but neat. We took daytrips to Caerphilly Castle - my first major castle, WAY cool - and Tintern Abbey. This was especially neat since I've spent some time studying the Cistercian Monks. We hiked that day, too, up to an overlook of the Abbey, BEAUTIFUL.

Yesterday we came out to Port Eynon, an incredibly beautiful RURAL (which was nice after the cities and the football fans) town on the Gower Peninsula. The hostel was incredibly cool, we got to play Clue (Cluedo, here) and ches on this HUGE chess set - the pieces were like the size of my forearm. Anyway, I got slaughtered in chess but managed to make a comeback in Cluedo. We also took a hike out to the edge of the peninsula today and managed to avoid being killed by cows (Annie insists that they were making friends with us but Peter pointed out that bucking is not the best sign of friendship). The views are gorgeous. The water was not too warm but I waded out in it for a bit anyway. We really enjoyed the seclusion of the hostel, and enjoyed the fact that mostly families were staying there so it was quiet.

We just took the craziest bus ride back into Swansea (but the bus driver was hot and gave us a family discount, so whatevs) and are about to grab some food at a Tesco before hopping on the ferry into Cork. 10 hours and no bed...we plan to buy some wine and get into the allnighter.

Get ready for a CRAPLOAD of pictures and of course, many good stories. Missing you all!