The adventure of Cardiff Castle!!!

Welcome! Here I tell the tale of how how four people, Imogen, Elese, Carlos and Myself (Rosanna) came to explore the spectacular city of Cardiff and Cardiff Castle. AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! I'd just like to let you know that this is the 3RD!!! time I've typed this email. I've accidentally deleted a whole page of typing TWICE. Feeling intense frustration here! Ok, I'm going to try again. Eliese and I had planned to meet at breakfast on Monday morning and then head into Cardiff together to look around Cardiff Castle. I accindentally slept in a bit that morning and was feeling a little guilty when I headed up to the dining room but I couldn't find Eliese there anyway. As I ate breakfast I sat with some friends of mine and, when I mentioned Eliese and My plans, Imogen and Carlos both asked if they could come a long aswell. I said sure and we decided to meet at the lobby in half an hour. As I still hadn't found Eliese yet so Imogen and I went to her cabin and found that she had only just, literally, rolled out of bed. She was cool with the arrangments so half an hour later we all headed off to Cardiff. It took us about 1 hour to get to Cardiff. Half an hour of walking and half and hour of Carlos taking photos of us with every single object that looked remotely interesting =D. I should probably take a moment to introduce my friends to you: Eliese is from South Australia, Adelaide and is 18, Imogen is from South Africa and is 20 and I have no idea how old Carlos is but he's middle aged and from Colombia. Carlos is a typical South American, loud, outgoing and lots of fun once you get used to him. Back to the story: Once we arrived in Cardiff we stopped at a money shop so that Eliese could get some money out (it didn't work much to her frustration) and then we had a look at a souvenier shop that was near the castle. After doing our shopping we decided to have lunch at Subway before looking at the castle. Subway is soooo much cheaper in wales than back home which is weird because Ireland was tons more expensive. After lunch we had a look at the Castle's gift shop, bought our essential (as apposed to "premium") tour tickets and headed into the castle. Our tickets included all of the castle grounds, some rooms in the main house and a personal audio guide. We picked up our audio guides and then explored the tunnels inside the castle's outer wall. They are really cool! We then headed out through a gate rebuilt in the roman style and listened to to corrosponding audio guide while we sat on the grass and enjoyed the sunshine. We then headed back towards the main gate and explored the wall section called the black tower. It was a guard tower but it was also supposed to have held the castle's two dugeons as well. It was now used as a military museum and Imogen got very exicted when she found an exhibit that showed some items from South Africa. From there we headed over to the keep which is like a small, round fort that is surrounded by a 6 metre moat and sits on top of a 12 metre high mound. We climb over a hundred steps to get to the top of the look out tower but the view and the tower were worth it. After we climbed down we just sat on the grass, soaked up the sun and listened to the audio guides whose places we could see but didn't want to walk over to. I know that sounds lazy but we really enjoyed it. After a while we decided to head over to the main house, which is built into the perimeter wall. It looks very grand and impressive from the outside but it was nothing to compare with the inside. The inside decor was absolutely STUNNING. The walls were covered with rick coloured and patterned wall paper, the widows were decorated with stained glass (each window held a picture that told a story, many of them from the bible) , the furniture was all finely turned or carved, The Fireplace mantles were magnificent but the ceilings just blew you away. I'm was sooo amazed that someone could pack so much intricate design and magnificent workmanship into a place that most people don't usually look at. But then again we all looked at these ceilings. I could go on and on but I don't have the time right now so I hope the pictures sufice. They don't really do the castle justice. One of the things I will mention is a specific doorway into the library. This doorway was really three double door archs that had lots of little monkeys carved into the woodwork. The funny thing was that monkeys were carved to look like the Charles Darwin cross monkey cartoons that were displayed in the newspapers of the time. The doorway was a mockery of evolution and it's owners must have been bible believing Christians. Once we were finished in the main house we heade over to the info centre, turned our audio guide sets in and watched a short movie about Cardiff Castle. After the movie we had another quick look at the gift shop and then went for a walk down the main street of Cardiff. We nearly got lost arguing about which was the right way to go back to the ship. We eventually decided to follow Carlos and just blame him if we got lost. We stopped to grab a rollo McFlurry and then powered back to the ship because Imogen wanted to be back on time to say goodbye to a good friend who was leaving that day. It was really good timing because as we were walking down a street we met Imogen friend coming up the street as she was leaving. Imogen got to say goodbye even though it was a close call. Sidenote: please pray that God will really lift Imogen up with the assurance that he loves her exactly as she is, even if she doesn't love herself. She is such a beautiful girl, in body but especially in spirit. Once we got back to the ship we had dinner and then I went and had a shower. That evening at 6:50 I was in the lobby to be picked up for the Tavistock soup kitchen that I has signed up for. This was a soup kitchen that is run every Monday by some local Christians for the homeless people of Cardiff. They serve them a hot meal, sit down and chat with them and try to bring the saving love of Christ into their lives. I didn't really know what I was getting myself into but I really felt that God wanted me to go so I signed up. It was a bit akward at first but once I got over the intial challenge of starting a conversation the rest came naturally. One thing I noticed about the welsh (and the europeans in general) is that they are much more touchy, feelly people whilst us Aussies are more stand offish. Whilst I haven't had any problems with this at all it does take a bit of getting used to and patience when the person who is talking to you always postion their face 10 cms away from yours especially when their breath smells like stale alcohol. Yuk! But through the grace of God I endured and I feel that he really worked through me that evening. I came away with more experience and learning tucked under my belt and also with a real sense of ecouragement and purpose. Needless to say when I got back to the ship I was pretty tired so I headed down to my cabin and got ready for bed.

God bless,
Rosanna xoxoxo