The valleys

cardiff is situated on the southeastern edge of wales, on the sea. north of it there are small mountains (huge in davis standards...) which create a nice network of valleys. now since i have arrived here i have been hearing about the valleys. for one, there is a definite stereotype of the valley people - and its slightly different than like 'the valley' in l.a.... the stereotypes say that the valley people are the ones who descend on cardiff every weekend and get smashedly drunk. they are the uneducated, ignorant fools that cause fights. half of the teenage girls there are pushing baby carts (ok, this stereotype is somewhat rooted in reality, the valley and wales in general have one of the highest (i think second) teenage pregnancy rates in europe). anyway, not a pretty picture do the people of cardiff have of the valley folk.
a bit of history, and some geography - the valley used to be a prime mining area. before WW2, they housed the world's highest concentration of mineral, metal, coal mines. now these mines closed, some before WW2, hastened by the great depression (or whatever they call it here...) and then during the war some were opened, yet heavily bombed. and then over time, more closed, with margaret thatcher really pushing some buttons against the miners when she tried to squash a strike. anyway, almost all of them are closed to actual mining. there are many museums and mines that you can go down to, and see what it was like (one is called the Big Pit, i am totally going to that one!!!). and there are rusty factories left and some other abandoned industrial buildings.
so this is the impression i have of the valleys from travel guides and locals. ready? here we go... (yeah, i know you can see these before, but still...)




doesn't exactly carry the written stories image... amazingly green. amazingly lush. soft hills with sharp cuts of the actual valleys, filled with large neighborhoods of villages that became towns. its not suburbia in any way, there are definitely rusty factories and beat up old buildings. it doesn't seem as if the hand of the government that sprinkles money on some areas has been generous with this part. the people i saw definitely had that roughness edge to them. cut up dirty t's. tattoos of the non-surfer, chinese letters variety (try not perfectly done scorpions, probably carved in a mid-drunkness state). definitely lots of teenage mothers pushing baby carts. and generally, a rougher look, i mean that's just the best word.
so at the end, you get this beautiful surrounding soft green hills, beautiful trees, white dotted prairies (the white dots = sheep...) and the roughness of what used to be mine towns, moving towards the 21st century (at 20th century speed, at best...). very interesting.

some Welsh beauty

all right, so this will be the first installment of what i am hoping will be many trip reviews of Wales. and this one, will be a photo entry more than anything else.
let me introduce this by saying that since i have arrived, people have been telling me that the beaches here are beautiful. so beautiful that one of them won the best beach in europe award. so i nod, and i smile, and i say wow, but inside i am thinking, whatever, there is no way anything here compares to california. these brits must be crazy. anyways, so a week and a half ago i decided that i needed to see some green, some fresh non-city air. so i managed to get my only friend with a car to drive me, herself (susanne) and claire (the irish) to Gower, the lower southwestern corner of Wales that happens to be a peninsula. its not far, but it would be far via public transport as the nearest city is the relatively famous Swansea, but after that - its the Gower peninsula which is still very farm-ish and even though it enjoys a good amount of tourism, still has maintained its old school charm. we arrived in an area that was full of grass, speckled with cow crap (for good measure...) and berries. everywhere - blackberries. and they were yum. so i trailed behind the girls as we walked towards the cliffs, making sure that i'll enjoy a good berry-ache that evening. the trail was quite easy and full of very pasty british folks walking athletically, or at least pretending. when we reached the cliffs - the horizon that opened in front of us was incredible. the water was this crystalline blue, the greenness of the cliffs mixed with the brown bronze of the rocks and the yellow-orangeness of the sand. it was quite beautiful.





(remark: while i look pretty cool down there on the edge of the cliff, if i can say so myself (which i will - in fact, already did!!!), in truth, i only went down there because a runaway clementine decided to roll down the cliffs and got stuffed by a welsh bush)

following the cliffs to the right of the pictures, which was east, led us to a beach called 'three cliffs bay'. if you look closely, you can kind of see a dragon. and i mean kind of. but still.
the water = very cold. the sand = very soft. the tan = what tan?




and of course, every spot in wales has some old castle that has remained from sometime ago and some legend associated with it (the one for this one had to do with a fairy princess marrying a commoner, who then proceeded to get drunk and him and his friends saw lights coming to the party and ambushed them, thinking they were enemies, but of course it was the fairy contingency, so the fairy king said that they will be covered with sand from then and on)


from there we went on to rhossili beach (sounds italian, admit it!!!). this is on the eastern edge of the peninsula, kind of close to ireland - though you can't see ireland from there. and this is where the surfing happens. again, i was quite dubious - and as opposed to the beaches, i remain at least somewhat dubious. the waves i saw would be the equivalent of bathtub waves. seriously. a rubber duckie would not be threatened by these.
anyway, so the size was small, but as they say... the shape was beautiful and the break clean and long. so i can see that if there were some bigger waves, that would be quite a good beach to surf on.
the southern edge of the beach is cut by cliffs which extend far into the sea. the end of this extension is called worm head - and i can kind of see the worm head from the game worms... though no body shared this sentiment with me, i'll hold down the fort. its actually kind of cool to hike there as there are only certain hours in which you can cross to worm head - other times the tide is too strong and its dangerous. supposedly, people die there every year.







so, more beautiful than california? why get into comparisons. but pretty for sure, no?

some more firsts

some anecdotes from the past week. (i have lots of stories and photos but will save them till the next blog)

keys. so after about three weeks here, i have now received an office key. i know, i know, you are impressed with the british (welsh) efficiency, but hold on for a sec.
every day, the porter had to walk with me upstairs and open my office door for me. com'on, that's respect. and then in the evening, the second porter (there are two of them and they switch shifts once a week, so i've learned...) would go upstairs and lock my office door. i mean, that's service, right? and well, maybe they got tired of this a bit, so eventually the computer guy, who here is responsible for office keys as well for a very valid and logical reason, which i haven't figured out yet, decided that as an incoming postdoc, from the united states nevertheless - i do not deserve such regal treatment. so he came upstairs with a screw driver and a different lock in his hand and took out the actual lock in my door and replaced it with a different one. one that turned out to be unlocked by the key to the copy room. but shhh, let's keep this secret to ourselves, hee hee, only you know that the key to the copy room also opens your office, and hence anyone in the building with sufficient access can essentially get into your office, hee hee, but the joke is on them.
right.
so two days ago, mike the computer guy, comes upstairs again with a different lock in his hand and... well, i now have two keys. one for my old lock, and the copy room still, and one for my new lock... and of course the next day i proceed to lock myself out. of my home though... impressive efficiency here so far with regards to these things...

accents. accents. so much to say about accents. the welsh accent is more musical than the english one. it goes up and down and in a way is more cheerful, less proper. or maybe that's just in my head.
i have gotten a lot better at understanding the different accents of the british empire, and parts which the rest of the world considers the british empire (i.e. ireland). still, its quite hard at time. so the accents in descending order of difficulty:
scottish (ay = yes... chub him in the fuds = ahh, i am not translating that...) > yoga lady who spoke a form of english (i think) but had a microphone close to her mouth that muffled her words (i just looked at jo the entire time and did what she did. she was quite amused that i couldn't understand a word this woman said... ah jo, so little do you know) > irish > english (these vary amongst regions and classes, couldn't really tell identify them yet, but can definitely tell that they are different) > welsh (supposedly northern welsh is very different) > russian (most common accent/language spoken in the math department, sto?) > german (second most common accent in math dep, they speak american english for the most part though)
and if you ask me to imitate a welsh accent, i still can't do it. but they say wales by really opening their mouth on the W, a bit like as if from your lips open for a whistle, you reach back with your lips to scratch the back of your jaw. that's how the mouth moves anyway. then there is an H sound in there, so it's like whaaayles (and yes, i know this makes some of you very happy (i.e. canad) that they pronounce it in a way similar to whale). meanwhile, their language - i am learning a good number of things. gemma who has welsh roots has been teaching me a bit - the double LL is pronounced CL, with the C a bit dirty, kind of like a scratching the throat sound. the vowels? oy, the vowels. well, the Y is an 'A' as in car. the U is 'I' (let's have it with the 'put U and I together...) as in sink. so CYMRU (which is wales in welsh is pronounced CAMRI, with the I at the end trailing into an E a bit...). two DD are 'F', but in a more 'TH' kind of pronunciation...


anyway, i am planning on taking welsh lessons so eventually, in you know, three years maybe, i'll be able to truly pronounce things and then hope to 1) teach how to pronounce some of these crazy words 2) imitate a welsh accent...

social life. well - this past week and a half have been much more difficult. the excitement of the newness has drifted a bit. and now most days are filled mostly with office and white board, and then home, both of which for the time being are alone. so it's a bit empty. but i am finding fun things to do - found a yoga class with an impervious accent, a meditation class in a room with a giant wooden buddha, looking for ceramics class... so things will eventually pick up. i am optimistic! :)

meanwhile - tonight is new year's (jewish new year's... anyone know the name of the 'jewish' calendar? the 'christian' one is the gregorian...) and i am going to go to a welsh synagogue. and tomorrow i am invited to the falafel guy's place for a party. so that hopefully will be fun! and meanwhile - happy new year, whether or not you celebrate it! hope that this year brings happiness, health and peace to all. and if it happens to also bring you to wales - merry merriness!!!

address, house warming, farmer's market and... RSS Feed!!!

i am feeling pictorial, feeling graphic (well, that's not a good description ;) but not wordy)- so this one will be mostly pictures...
i really like my flat. and it has gotten the most positive reviews - though everyone says that the single room is just a tad bit small... though the bedrooms i have seen here are quite large typically, so in comparison it is small - but its definitely livable.
i hosted a house warming party saturday night, which was attended by about half the people i know in cardiff (that's either impressive, or pathetic, so i'll let you decide...). more interestingly is the collection of nationalities. there is a small international group that i have joined that consists of two polish girls, a belarussian lady, a peruvian guy (my new drinking buddy!), a sri lankan dude, a french guy (he has left meanwhile... no comment), and now me. and from the mathS department, there were three germans that came and an irish (if you are from ireland, no matter boy, girl, lamb, sheep - they call you irish) - and then we had to throw in the random english person, and indian lady that is friends of the flat owners and has my house keys. and that was essentially my party... and i made out with a bounty of alcohol at the end of the evening which is always nice!!! (of course, like any good party, it had to be broken up... by the downstairs neighbors. hmm. talk about first impressions, not going so well with them so far...)


sunday i went to the farmer's market here, well the larger one which is in what used to be an overrun area known as riverside. the farmer's market was a a historical first in the U.K. as it took what used to be a pretty bad area and made it much nicer. its not a large farmer's market, in davis terms, nor does it have much fruit and vegetables (i counted four stalls). it does have lots of ready food - lamb-burgers, persian food, egyptian food, cheese and non-prepared meat, olives. anyway, it was cute and nice. gemma was my guide - a very sweet girl i met at noelle's place (the girl from the flat that i went to visit). she explained things to me, recommended the french bread, the goat cheese and told me about bike trails. enough said.





noelle (on the left) met us for a cup of tea later on.

finally - my address is
51 Connaught Road
Flat 2
Cardiff United Kingdom
CF24 3PU

my phone number 07835 953 734 (44 is the country code i think, and i think you do not need to dial the 0...)
and, and, AND - i have advanced technologically to the point that i have managed to allow an RSS Feed!!! and i will not discuss the narcissistic nature of a person who puts an RSS on their own blog... oh forget it.

my house

well, before i get to the title of this post, let me just say that saturday was an incredible day here. and i know, you are now thinking, what could have possibly happened to make it an incredible day? did you meet a beautiful girl hillel? well, i did meet some girls, i think, on saturday, but nothing that dramatic.
maybe now you are thinking - hmm, some incredible food place? ehh, no. those are far and in between so far here - though i have found two good pakistani places which i am quite happy about.
so what else could it be? got another guess? let's hear it.
nope. that's not it either.
one last one? no? that's it? ok, fine i'll tell you. saturday, was incredible here because - it didn't rain! for the whole day!!! the entire day, no rain! not one single drop of water falling from the sky!!! and yes, in case you are wondering - the entire country stopped still! a national holiday was declared and everyone came out into the streets and danced the night away with a pint of Welsh beer (Brains) and pery (Welsh pear cider). anyway, i now must tell a story. so the English have obviously imperialized (almost) the entire world, and would they leave their little neighbors to the East alone? of course not. so often, very often, they crossed the Welsh border on their way to conquer the little Welsh land, full of lambs and leeks. yet every time the soldiers crossed the border, from grey England, into green Wales - the skies would immediately begin pouring. they would cross back into England where it was dry, and then again - a foot into the Wales border - and wham, rain. due to this the English soldiers decided that the Welsh king was a magician (there is some history there as Merlin, king Arthur's wizard, is based on a Welsh figure called Myrddin Emrys. have fun trying to pronounce that...)
anyway, just to finish that story - i want to mention that it has rained every single day i have been here (except for saturday, except for saturday!!!) but it has also been sunny essentially every day (minus two). so, the following weather forecast is quite accurate...



ok, now house. note that i haven't said home. that will take sometime for sure. but for now its nice. its very nice no longer having to live out of a bag and to be able to use a kitchen. the kitchen at the other place was just nasty. so after cleaning it every time i wanted to make a sandwich, i got a bit sick of it. i also realized that yes, i brought too much stuff. for instance - too many books. ok that may be excusable. but too many shoes? that's not like me. and too many nice shirts, like buttons and stuff? strange, very strange. this was the byproduct of not knowing how to dress in europe and well, too many nice clothes being gifted to me. and that's my excuse.
so i still haven't said much about my place. well, let me start by saying that my room = orange. yipe. orange.

and right next to it is the guest room, equipped with a sofa-bed, a desk, a closet and .... - a Winnie the Pooh lamp!!! yipe, you know you want to come visit.

from there, a very narrow and yellow hall leads to the front door. right above it - there is an excitement! yes, excitement! this excitement is a small door in the ceiling, that when opened shows a folded ladder, that when unfolded leads into a very large attic!!! large enough for a family to live in!!! ok, now that's not that nice of a reference considering the history of people hiding in attics. but the attic is cool. trust me.

the hall turns to the right, where immediately on your right there is the bathroom, nice compact and simple. then a couple of stairs up and another narrow hall on your left,


which will lead you into the living room - a very large, spacious and well lit living room. definitely one of the selling points of the place. right before it, on the right, the kitchen invites you in (hopefully with a variety of yummie aromas and sizzling sounds).



the building houses four apartments. it probably was a big house that was divided into four - i say this based on the narrow hall in my place. here it is from the outside, 51 Connaught...

one day, home... hopefully soon.