Saturday, September 16, 2006

UK Trip! Sat Aug 26/06

Saturday! Saturday was a good day. J* and I got up early and went down for breakfast, which I finished pretty quickly, so I went back up and had a shower while she was still downstairs - you know, since the shower stall was BESIDE MY BED so we didn't have any privacy - and then when she came up I went outside for a bit of a walk so she could have the room to herself. That was nice, there weren't many people about yet, so I wandered a wee bit and sat on a bench in town, writing in my book a bit and soaking in the air outside a student club. I was worrying though, that maybe J* wasn't going to get enough sleep on this trip - having to share a room with me wasn't something she'd had to do before, and I have chronic rhinitis so I turn into a mouthbreather at night (yep, I'm a mouthbreather, but don't hold it against me!). Ah well, if I was dead by the end of this trip, then we'd know *grin*

After J* was ready, we walked to W's place, as it really wasn't that far. We ended up walking right past the venue for the meetup without even realizing it - in fact, we stopped at a store RIGHT BESIDE IT so I could get water!

Okay, so we got to W's house, and we all went into the downtown area of Swansea and did a bit of shopping. I got a new pair of shoes and some fun undies at TK Maxx (the US/UK equivalent to Winners) and J* got the cutest ever shirt with flying v guitars all over it, and I managed to get a new memory card for my camera (yay!), and then we all piled on a bus and went to Mumbles.

Mumbles. Named after a couple of islands, that look a bit like breasts. "Mammelles", as the French say. Oh my.

Mumbles. Sure, that's how we spell it. But how do the Welsh spell it? Mwmbwls. That's right. Apparently that's okay, though, as 'w' is a vowel. Or something. Hrm.

Right. So we went to a lovely place called Verdi's, which had a great view of Swansea Bay, and had the most fabulous hazelnut ice cream ever, and a really good chicken sandwich with sundried tomato and pesto and mozzarella - and TOO MUCH CHICKEN in it, who'd have thought? We were met there by some more Bowlies in for the meetup, and eventually there were 16 of us sitting around a few tables on the patio, just chatting away and generally getting to know each other. We dispersed finally, so we could all get back to our respective bases of operations in anticipation of the evening's festivities.

The original gang of us went back to W's house, where a couple more who hadn't made it to Verdi's met us, and eventually J* and I had to shift ourselves so we could get food and get changed. Of course, we took forever to figure out what the hell we were going to eat - in the end, settling for some less than inspiring falafel - and walked back to the bed & breakfast, got changed and all prettified, and then went out to the club - Inferno.

It should be said here that I had some misgivings about the venue - as we ate our falafel, we sat across from the club, and the people going in the doors did not appear to be indie-type folks. In fact, they were all black-leather-jacket types. So when we finally got there, we were happy to go through the leather-clad crowds, past the pool table, down a hall, around a corner - and into our own room, with our own music and our own silliness!

The evening turned into a smashing success, with 20 of us in the end, and a few different deejays over the course of the evening, plus some leather-types who wandered in and asked if we had any Megadeath (!) before realizing we weren't going to be able to help them and wandering out again. I'd thought we might be leaving early, but we ended up closing the place down, yay! Had a drink, chatted and danced with people I'd never met or only just met that afternoon, including a fella who wasn't yet a Bowlie - but was by the next night!

J* and I walked back to the bed & breakfast with Pah, who was staying just down the road - we knew Pah already, he'd come to stay with me for a week the previous summer, and he's a nice fella, if a little odd. We got to bed, wearily, around 2ish.

And, yes, there are some pix of Swansea, Mwmbwls and Inferno, and new friends, on my Flickr page, with updates coming soon...

1 comment:

  1. Thanks! My memories of the entire trip are growing wobbly...

    ReplyDelete

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