Cardiff again!!

Well on Friday morning my "little brother" Jake and I hopped on a train, our destination - back to the capital city of Wales. We both had tickets to see Tyler Ward and Boyce Avenue at the University down in Cardiff. We were both really excited for the concert and for the chance to get out of Bangor for a few days and explore on our own a little more. We got to Cardiff around 11 Friday morning and began our quest to find our hostel. We got a little turned around, mostly because we didn't have a map and well just weren't really sure where exactly the hostel was. So we got through the City Centre and headed in the direction we thought our hostel was in. Turns out we were just a block away at one point in time but we weren't sure so we kept on walking and ended up in a very residential part of the city. We found a lot of random places like the YMCA and some other places and after about 15 minutes of walking around Jake remembered that he had internet on his phone ... so we looked the hostel up and after a bit managed to find our way there. We got our room and all checked in and then headed back out to explore the city. We walked through Bute Park next to the castle and had a really good time just talking and enjoying the park. We left the park and just kept walking. We found the Civic Centre of Cardiff which is where the City Hall is and there are some Uni buildings there as well. And then we realized that we were right by the National Museum of Wales, the one I mentioned in my other Cardiff blog with all of the amazing paintings! So since it's free we decided to go in and actually look at the rest of the museum. It was very cool they have exhibits on the rocks of Wales and how Wales was formed and the ancient animals that inhabited the area back to the dinosaurs. But then of course we had to go back and look at all of the wonderful paintings once again. After the museum we headed back to the hostel to get ready for the concert! They opened doors at 6:30 and since they've been playing to sold out houses we wanted to get there by at least 5:30 to get in line. We made it there just after 5:30 but much to our dismay it was raining ... and continued to rain harder and harder and my little umbrella was not quite doing the trick of keeping us dry. After about a half an hour a security guard came and told all of us in line that we could go wait in the university pub and they would let us know when they were opening doors ... so instead of getting absolutely soaked thats what we did. We got into the venue and got right up to the rail of the stage. I was literally feet away from Tyler Ward and Boyce Avenue. It was the most amazing concert I've been to in awhile!! We headed back to the uni pub after and had a few more drinks before calling it a night and heading back to the hostel. The next day we got up and had breakfast and checked out of the hostel and headed back down to the city centre. We had decided to get on one of those bus tours that take you all over the city since we had some extra time and didn't really know what to do with it. We got on the bus and it took us everywhere. It was so cool to see some of the buildings that we hadn't gotten to see the first time we were there and learn more of the history of Cardiff. The bus then took us down to Cardiff Bay where we got off for a bit to explore more. We went inside Millennium Centre which is the home of the Welsh National Opera and the BBC Orchestra and other amazing groups. We couldn't go see the stage because there was a performance going on but just getting to go inside the building was so amazing!!! We hopped back on the bus and went back to the city centre where we had just enough time to stop in a pub and watch the end of the Wales vs. Norway football match (which we found out later was actually in Millennium Stadium and we probably could have gotten tickets to it :( ... ) and headed to the train.

It was such an amazing trip and I'm really kind of in love with the city of Cardiff now. I could definitely see myself going back to Cardiff or even living in Cardiff for awhile.