We woke up at 10am today. We decided to skip breakfast so we could get going faster. We drove to Tesco to buy ice for the cooler. While there we grabbed some cheap store bought blueberry muffins. We also stocked up on various kitchen items we need to cook our own dinners. Items like pots, cooking utensils, scissors, measuring spoons and cup, and a plastic utensil set to replace the our broken forks and misplaced knives. All our shopping took quite some time. Finally we finished and headed back to the car. When Davin turned on the car he got a real shock. The car suddenly bucked forward towards the car parked in front of it. Davin frantically scrambled for the break. I got out of the car to make sure he didn’t hit the other car and saw that he only had about 1cm left between them. Close call. (After a second occurrence, Davin figured out the bucking forward was caused by turning the car on when the clutch wasn’t in.)
Disaster averted, we headed to St Fagan’s: National Museum of Welsh Life. We ate the muffins in the car on the way, they were typically disgusting store bought muffins. Yuck! We arrived at St. Fagan’s around 12:30pm. We figured that we had until 3pm to see the museum. Then we had to move on to the next museum. I actually had no idea what to expect from this museum. I only knew it was about Wales and most importantly entry was FREE! Yay. :) It turned out to be an outdoor museum on 100 acres of land where historic buildings have been moved and restored to their original glory. It was actually pretty interesting. We saw old farmhouses (I pet a pig and took pictures of turkeys!), recreations of ancient Celtic huts, a Tannery, a Church, stores, houses, a woolen mill, and finally a huge manor house which they called a castle. My favorite building was a row of six small houses which had each been furnished for a different period in time. As you moved one to the next you jumped forward 25-50 years in time. There was an impressive attention to detail even down to the type of cobblestones that lined the front walk.
We had to rush through the last bit of the museum. We were walking fast and covered a LOT of ground in the 2.5 hours we were there. By 3pm we were both tired and starving. We jumped in the car and headed for our next stop: The National Roman Legion Museum. I made us turkey and cheese sandwiches for lunch while we were driving, and we ate them in the car. This is becoming a daily ritual for us! We arrived at the museum at 4pm. It became apparent to me when we arrived that there was more to see than just the National Legion Museum. There was also a Roman bath to visit and the remains of a Roman fortress. (All FREEEEE!!!!) To see it all in time, we skimmed the information in the Legion museum. It was fairly straightforward. When the Roman Empire extended to Britain, the Second Legion of Augustus was stationed in Caerleon in a huge fortress. There were about 5,000 men in the legion.
Next, we visited the Fortress baths which all the men in the legion would have used. We arrived at 4:30pm on the dot and barely were allowed inside (last entry was at 4:30pm, a half hour before closing). We didn’t need to read most of the signs because the information was much the same as at the Roman baths of Bath.
We left the outdoor sites for last. Unlike the museums, they didn’t close at 5pm. A short walk from the Roman baths, we came to the remains of the Fortress’ Amphitheater. It was pretty neat because we were able to walk down into the center of the Amphitheater and pretend to be Gladiators ourselves. It would have been an amazing sight when it was at the height of its splendor.
Nearby we saw the remains of the Fortress Barracks. These rooms could house 5,500 men. Today only the Roman bath, Amphitheater, and Barracks ruins remain. The rest of the fortress was dismantled long ago and the city has grown up in its place. However, we could imagine that the massive scale of the original Fortress would have been an impressive sight to behold.
Around 6pm, we headed back to the apartment. We stopped at Tesco for dinner supplies. I called Scott and told him the sad news about our internet not working. I’ll be unable to text him for awhile. Then I called Mom for some recipes but settled on canned goods that simply needed to be heated. We don’t want to have to buy an entire spice kitchen in order to cook our meals. We bought some canned Ravioli, and picked out some jars of pasta sauce. I chose two pasta sauces designed by Chef Ramsay who we’ve been watching on various reality TV shows since arriving in Britain. I thought it would be amusing to eat his sauce and the ingredients looked better than the alternatives.
Back at the apartment, we made pasta and warmed up one of Ramsay’s sauces in our bathroom made kitchen. With a bit of parmesan cheese it actually made a decent tasting dinner. After dinner, I relaxed in our bathtub. We don’t know how long til we will have a bathtub again! Davin took a bath next of course! Meanwhile, I watched two episodes of Voyager and wrote the blog entry for yesterday. We finally went to bed at 1:30am, the latest time yet!! So much for getting to bed earlier.
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