United Kingdom Trip Day 5: Cardiff, Wales - London, England

After a night of heavy drinking and an okay sleep in one of the world's worst hostels, I woke up groggy and a tad hungover. Since we were staying in a room for six people, and I was the first one up, I quietly made my way out of the room to not disturb anyone. After brushing my teeth, I sat on one of the handful of staircases in the hostel (the description said there was a lounge area with couches but that was a lie!). I played around on my phone until Audrey joined me shortly thereafter. Across the street was a McDonald's, so we headed over there. Audrey was hungry, and I was in desperate need of coffee. 

After a bit of liquid gold, I felt better and headed back to the hostel to take a shower. Our train was heading back to London around noon, and we wanted to walk down to Cardiff Bay. I wanted to check out the Norwegian Church, and Audrey wanted to see the ocean. While the latter is not exactly possible, it sorta is. See, Cardiff Bay connects to the Bristol Channel, which connects to the Celtic Sea, which connects to the North Atlantic Ocean. 

It was a good 20-minute walk, so we were well on our way to another 20k-step day. The half-marathon that was happening that day made the journey a bit more difficult as certain roads were cordoned off. We also checked out of the hostel and had all our luggage with us. It was times like these that I was ever so grateful to myself for using a backpack suitcase for this trip. For contrast, Keith had to drag two large suitcases behind him, and Audrey had small bags, but like three of them. 

While Audrey got her "ocean" view, the Norwegian Church was off in the distance, mocking me. Well, it wasn't really mocking me, but it was off-limits as the city had completely blocked all access to it, again, due to that damn half-marathon.

We passed Enterprise House both on the way to the Bay and back. Now in use as offices, it was once a "provision curers and bonded store merchants' premises".

Seeing all we could see, we headed back to the train station to wait.

I took a picture of these young gentlemen because they were guzzling all the booze in their possession...in the morning, in a public train station. You'd never see that here! 

A shot of Cardiff Station.

Since we were earlier than we wanted to be, we inquired as to whether we could hop on an earlier train to London that was coming through, and we were told that we could. We got back to London and checked back into our same Airbnb. Keith then settled in for a nap while Audrey and I headed out in search of an ATM and a laundromat. We found both after quite an adventure, and were happy to have clean clothes again.

Now, the night could've ended there, but Keith (who still uses Facebook) was contacted by some good mutual friends of ours that just so happened to be in London at the same damn time! What are the odds!

Since we were staying in the Elephant & Castle neighborhood, I suggested we meet at The Elephant & Castle pub. Established in 1765, this pub was 259 years old when we visited!

The building is old, but incredibly charming with a great ambience. Keith stands at the bar getting us some Inch's Cider.

In town to see an American football game, meeting up with Jeff & Jenny was AWESOME! We got to catch up, have a few drinks, and share some laughs. The bartender "accused" Jeff of being from the same place as Keith & me since our accents were the same. LOL We got a kick out of that. I still can't believe we just happened to all be in London at the same time. What a treat!

We made it an early night, however, as they were heading back to the States while we were off on a big day trip the next day. Stay tuned for the next post to find out all about that!