"The Cardiff Bus is the Only One I Take"

Cardiff is a very classy city. It is located right up to the coast and has lots of interesting architecture.

The buildings are not old, like in Oxford, although some are. Mostly the buildings are newer and more modern looking. Large glass windows, shiny, steel structures, and crowds of people walking about are the main things you will see there. (And the ocean, of course!)

There are almost two sections of the city, the area near the bay, and the more dense part, further from the city. The area near the bay is where the Doctor Who Experience is located, as well as the BBC Studio, Millennium Centre, and Roald Dahl Plass. In the Roald Dahl Plass is where the iconic Millenium Centre is located, along with a tall silver fountain, which any Torchwood fans would recognize as Torchwood Tower.

The buildings are shorter and only go up to about four or five stories max, besides a few specific ones. There is also lots of space to move around and the sidewalks are large and generally empty.

In the area further from the bay, the buildings are much taller and closer together. There was a giant mall right in the middle of it, and several tiny streets that could take you to different sections of the city. There were quite a few museums, such as the Cardiff Story, and churches located in this section of Cardiff, but we did not get to spend much time there.

However, all over Cardiff, you can smell the sea, and get just a taste of the salt in the air. Seagulls fly around, circling people for scraps of food, and the waves crashing against the bay is echoed around the city. There are also signs written in welsh everywhere, which just looks like nonsense unless you can read it. And every now and then you catch some people conversing in it, and it sounds a bit more elegant than it looks.

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We had been planning to visit Cardiff for a long time, because of the Doctor Who Experience being located there. (My roommates and I are huge nerds, if you haven't noticed.) And we were very excited to get the chance to see all the cool costumes and trivia about one of our favorite shows. Technically, Libby was not caught up on the latest series, but we let her come anyways.

The Doctor Who Experience was amazing. Mostly because of the 'experience' part. You were walked through different rooms at the beginning of your visit and were told my the Doctor that he needed your help to escape the Pandorica 2. Once we helped him escape, we got to fly the TARDIS, but then crashed on a planet and had to run through an area infested with Weeping Angels. Then the Daleks tried to convert us, but luckily the Doctor assured them that we were poor stock for the Dalek race. Finally we were saved by the Doctor and transported by to the Doctor Who museum safely, although I did have a few black marks on my arms for some reason.

The rest of the Doctor Who museum was just like any other museum. It had costumes, props, and information on all things Doctor Who. And luckily, it had information on how history actually went, and none of the silly nonsense that teachers tell us in school. Such as that Queen Elizabeth the first never married because she wanted to elope with the Doctor but he left before they could get married. This is clearly all true, haha.

There were also set ups of some of the bad guys from the series, like the evolution of Cybermen and Daleks, and some of the Weeping Angels. And by the way, Daleks are huge! I am pretty tall and they even towered over me. Their plunger and whisk combo also made me a bit nervous around them.

All in all the Doctor Who Experience was amazing and well worth the money. Except I came out with TONS of weird black lines on my arms, almost like tallies. But worse things could have happened, right?

Afterwards, we continued our geek fest over to the fountain in Roald Dahl Plass, which is 'Torchwood Tower' in the Doctor Who spin-off show 'Torchwood'. There was also a Ianto Jones fan board that we saw near the bay, where people places pictures and letters about how much they loved Ianto Jones from Torchwood. We also ate at an 'American' restaurant called Eddie's, which I did not want to go to at first because we can eat hamburgers and pizza anytime we want, but it turned out that an episode of Doctor Who was filmed there, so I quickly got over that problem.

Lastly, we visited a museum called 'Cardiff Story'. It is all about how Cardiff was made and established from the point of view of people who lived there. We sat down for a while and watched a few videos about different people from Cardiff and their life stories living in the city. It was really exciting and interesting to get to hear about real people and see why Cardiff is special to them.

Until next time...

Embrace the Odd,
Caitlin

P.S.- The title is from a song called "The Cardiff Bus Song" by I Loves the 'Diff. Also, thank you Austin for the pictures of Cardiff since my camera was not working properly that day.

"Fish and visitors smell in three days." -Benjamin Franklin