Cardiff Re-visited

It had to be one of the more spontaneous decisions I have made since arriving here, but on Friday night a classmate from my training class asked me to go away on a weekend break with her. Without thinking too much, I agreed on visiting Cardiff with her. It was a city that I once visited when I did my internship term, but it was in the middle of winter. I heard Wales is quite nice during the summer months, so I decided to go see for myself.

Leaving bright and early on Saturday morning, we took a train into Cardiff Central. I quickly remembered the directions to the hostel I stayed at the last time, and booked us beds in a communal room. The first tourist sighting was the Cardiff Castle, and after going through the tour a second time around, now I have a much better appreciation for the artifacts left from centuries ago. (it is also because since then, I have visited many other castles/palaces and learnt how to appreciate them more)

After strolling through the Queen Street Arcade (shopping mall to us North Americans), we took a local bus to Cardiff Bay - the one tourist area I did not visit last time due to time constraints. There actually wasn't too much to see: Water, some buildings, some boats. Felt like I was back in Toronto near Habourfront. The atmosphere was nice though. We ended up sitting in a coffee shop right by the bay, sipping cappuccino and chatting away.. well, also being inside REALLY helps to stay away from the sporadic rain fall every 15 minutes. Dinner at a small local pub was a nice touch, and the rest of the night was drinking and talking about everything under the sun..

Sunday morning was a downer because it rained rather heavily throughout the city. Apparently I was snoring really loud (my Europe trip friends would DEFINITELY attest to that), and my classmate only got a few hours of sleep. SORRY! If there was anything I could have done to stop it I would, but it's not like I can control it. The whole day was just a combination of getting soaked, having a traditional Welsh breakfast (now I have had all three: Englsh, Welsh, and Scottish), catching the train back to London, and chilling at Borders for the remainder of the afternoon.

Found this rather interesting book:

Inside the book, they mentioned something I debated with a few people on numerous occasions.

State-dependent learning.. mmm.. does it really work?