12 September 2012 - London, Cardiff & Merthyr Tydfil

I left for Starbucks in the morning before 8am to meet Maxeen. I don’t know how long we both had stood there before I recognized her maybe 15 meters to my left. I had been there for about 7 minutes. Chai tea latte and the croissant were excellent. But they were nothing compared to the joy I felt when seeing “Maxi” after almost two years. And if I value something above food, that’s really saying something.

They have a habit at Starbucks to write down the customer’s name on the mug. Sounds like a nice service, right? The problem is  that they get the names wrong most of the time. This time Maxeen ended up “Maxi” and Maria turned into “B”. It also could’ve been “13” which would’ve been fine. But why “B”?

After the breakfast I walked back to the Ebury House Hotel. I picked my bags and we left for the Victoria Coach Station which was literally just around the corner. The bus was 10 minutes late but it took us to Cardiff through some mist, rain but mostly sunshine. Susanna said she saw a wooden house by the M4 highway. It would’ve been the first sighting of a wooden house. I’m not sure if I believe her though… ;)

In Cardiff we had to walk quite a bit to the train station. I was starting to feel blisters in my hands. If my bag didn’t have wheels I probably would’ve tossed it in London already. The guy who sold me our train tickets looked at me funny and laughed when I said that the plan is to stay in Merthyr Tydfil until December. (I can't pronounce the town for sh*t.) It was quite worrying to be honest. Were we going to a Welsh township?

Merthyr is about an hour ride on train from Cardiff so quite far but it is a city, thank goodness! We walked from the train station to the bus station. There we were feeling extremely confused as the non-existing signs were quite uninformative. But we found ourselves on the right bus and heading towards Prince Charles Hospital.

At the hospital we found out that, against the email confirmation we had received, there were no rooms booked for us. Luckily the porters were very nice and we ended up getting three keys. I’m one floor above Hanna and Susanna who both have rooms in the same flat. We try to sort out tomorrow if there’s any way ­we could move to a same flat. It would make cooking and grocery shopping somewhat easier.

The food at the hospital’s canteen was just half-decent ((Where are all the veggies?!)) so we took the bus back down to town later in the evening. We spent about an hour and a half at Tesco and bought all kinds of handy things – a peeler for example. We need to head back tomorrow for duvets, a pillow, hand disinfectant, kitchen towels etc. The rooms are so flipping cold! And there are only pretty much two sheets which should function as a blanket. And I can’t find my gloves anywhere…

11 September 2012 - A good day to fly?

First day done and I was quite tired by the end of it, must admit.

I managed to pack my bags over two hours before I was picked up from home. That was some sort of record for me. Usually I’m just closing my bag as I’m supposed to leave home. But all went better than I had expected. I didn’t go to school which ended up being an extremely wise decision considering that the teacher was an hour late and all they did was browse through PowerPoint presentations.

Self-service baggage drop, I’ve now tried that. We were picked from the queue and asked to try it. The trick was that they filmed us doing it and asked some questions afterwards. It was pretty simple. The machine was very helpful and since I still have my luggage in one piece and with me here in London, I would say it worked better than I had expected. But like I told the guy holding his iPhone 4 on my face, it would not have been the first time by bag goes on a detour without my permission. Sooner or later it always finds its way back to me.

Maija came to meet me at Helsinki-Vantaa and brought me a card and a rye bread ultimate snack. Maija’s cards are always awesome. Getting a card from Maija is something everyone should experience at least once in their life! Well, since we had difficulties to say the final ‘see you during Christmas time’ - we tried maybe 4 times before succeeding – I ended up just going through the security and passport control and rushing straight to the gate and into the bus and eventually into the plane. I had no time to do any shopping at the airport which meant that I had no time to buy anything to drink either. This proved to be a very bad thing.

You can buy stuff while flying but I find it a strange thought that I would pay for anything they offer to eat on planes. I understand that I do pay for it anyway when flying more expensive airlines. It’s just a matter of principle, that’s all. BUT they have free WiFi on Norwegian airplanes! I was so stoked. It took quite a while before my laptop connected but it did eventually and I managed to check my Facebook in the air! I was a little disappointed that, even though I updated my status, it didn’t tag me anywhere. Swedish airspace for example…

The flight went fine nevertheless. We got our bags at Gatwick and found the train station very quickly. The Gatwick Express is very easy way to travel between the airport and London Victoria. From the train station we walked to our hotel. It wasn’t that far away but it’s not nice walking with 30 kg extra on you.

We walked down to a pub nearby and ordered some supper. I had a chicken and mushroom pie. It was tasty but after three bites I was full… Sorry. I meant that after three bites I had reached my elegant sufficiency. Oh man, I’m soo thirsty.

Leaving for Wales

Matka Walesiin alkaa noin kahden tunnin kuluttua. Yritän päivittää blogiani niin usein kuin kykenen. Nähdään joulun aikoihin, Suomi! :)

Journey to Wales starts in about 2 hours. I'm going to try and update my blog as often as I can. See you during Christmas time, Finland! :)