National Treasures

First off, note that there are now links to pictures of every day of our honeymoon in our previous entries. The hubby is handling linkage and picture upload, so it doesn't happen at the same time...sorry.

So, when we left off, Matt and I had slept through Sunday, July 23rd. The next day we were both very much in need of clean clothes to get us through the last few days of the honeymoon. The nearest laundromat was 4 miles away in Llanrwst. So, we packed a bag of laundry, got a couple bagged lunches from the innkeepers, and boarded a bus to Llanrwst.

Let me tell you, if you think laundromats in the US are sketchy, dirty, or just not quite right....the one in Llanrwst was pathetic and cramped. The owner was walking around in bandaged bare feet and had sores of some sort on his arms...

So, we sat on a bench outside the laundromat (you couldn't be IN the laundromat...) and ended up with clean clothes. We had figured since we were in Llanrwst we would also go visit Gwydir Castle, which was just accross Afon Conwy from the laundromat. We found a little park just on the other side of the bridge and ate our lunches. I wasn't feeling my greatest, but figured it would pass. We headed over to Gwydir. Gwydir was not anything that I expected. I knew that it was actually a mansion than an actual castle, as it was not meant to defend anything, but I didn't realize that it was a privately owned building, rather than a building of the Welsh Office of historical monuments (Cadw)like the other castles we visited.

The sign outside the gatehouse said, simply "Open During Restoration 10-4:30." We rang the bell at the gatehouse (I was beginning to feel that perhaps we were actually intruding somehow...) and a tall gentleman answered the door (the tiny door in one half of the gate -- not the entire gate, mind you). We stepped through and caught our first glimpse of the place. The gentleman, who sounded English, led us into the house via a door to our left and let us leave our packs in an entry way. I was already fascinated. The outside of the place was completely bare stone. The inside was plastered and there was an enormous wooden staircase from the foyer. I asked if there was a bathroom on the premises and was told I could use the one in that part of the house -- the private section. Now I really felt like we must be intruding and was really confused -- I still didn't understand who owned this place and who this guy was, who appeared to live there...

There was a rather large dog lying on the floor in the hallway in front of the bathroom (oh - and when I asked for the "restroom" the gentleman said something like, "that's a rather nice euphamism." I replied, "yes, I guess more literally I want the 'toilet' as it is referred to here." He said, "well, at least you didn't ask for the 'bathroom.'"). Anyhow...I inquired as to the dog's breed, asking if he was a greyhound (he looked HUGE for a greyhound, though) and was told he was a lurcher, and a rather old one at that. He was 11, his sister 14. So, I relieved myself and then rejoined Matt outside of the house near the gate. We paid our entrance fee and were informed not to touch or sit or take pictures in the house, or open any closed doors, but that we could go anywhere on the grounds and sit and photograph outdoors. The entrance we were to use was pointed out to us, and we began exploring the grounds.

The first thing I did was throw up. I kid you not. I was so embarassed. I had stomach pains and actually threw up from the pain - not actual nausea. Luckily at this point we were off from the house a little...standing under a 400-year-old cedar from Lebanon. I looked at Matt, mortified and said, "I just threw up on a national treasure!" And so our short-lived visit to Gwydir really began...

Gwydir is set up sort of like Plas Mawr - no ropes, a nearly lived-in atmosphere, period furniture, and no security guards standing around. There didn't seem to be a soul around that worked there, actually. After perhaps an hour -- probably less -- my stomach pains were unbearable and I was fearing that I would throw up on a 500-year-old floor if we didn't get out of there...So we headed back to the house to get our packs and buy a book by one of the owners of the house, Judy Corbett. Judy herself ended up walking down the stairs as we came in and we purchased the book and inquired about cabs, since I didn't want to wait perhaps an hour or more for the next bus. She said cabs took awhile to come out that way, but the busses should come pretty frequently right around the corner (nearer to the castle than we'd arrived). Unfortunately, it was unclear whether our return ticket would work from that stop, so we started making our way back accross the bridge to the town of Llanrwst. We must have been a pitiful sight - or at least I must have been. I was shuffling slowly as Matt stopped and took pictures (I couldn't blame him - I wanted to stay and enjoy the amazing scenery but was not keen on any more public ills). I got sick a few more times, and then a car pulled over. It turned out to be Judy Corbett, who offered us a ride back to our B&B, and to show us where the doctor in Betws-y-Coed was (which turned out to be next door to our B&B!). We thanked her profusely and I went and sat in our room until the pains subsided. Matt read to me from Judy's book, "Castles in the Air", and immediately became obsessed with buying a run down building and living in it while we restored it.

Judy and her husband Peter (the gentleman who answered the gate upon our arrival at Gwydir) bought the castle in 1994. It leaked, it creaked, it had squaters, some areas were at risk of collapsing, and it flooded horribly in their first week of residence. Yes, residence. The book was really great and Matt and I are both hoping Judy is working on a second book about their experience. It would, indeed, be awfully romantic to restore an old house like that -- I just don't know if I'm brave enough to do it exactly as Judy and Peter have.

That evening Matt went to the local ATM to withdraw enough cash to pay our B&B bill and get us to our next stop, Harlech. The transaction was unsuccessful and we figured I'd head over to talk to the people inside the bank the next morning, as soon as they opened. So, we got up early, had breakfast, and I headed out to the bank while Matt packed up our room. For seemingly no reason, we could not withdraw money with our ATM card....in the end we had to wait until 2PM - when our bank in the US would be open and we could call them and find out what was going on. So, we became sort of homeless for a bit, though our innkeeper, Gavin, refused to let us waste a day of our honeymoon. He offered to have us pay him after we returned to the states and just leave without paying (they don't accept credit cards), but we didn't even have enough cash to catch a train to Harlech, so we were stuck no matter what. So, we headed off on a walk we hadn't been on yet.

We went up to Llyn Elsi (Llyn means lake) in the hills above the village of Betws-y-Coed. It was a pretty good uphill hike and a GORGEOUS view of the lake when we got there. Llyn Elsi looked completely untouched by people - full of gulls, geese, and ducks and surrounded by trees. There were even trees growing on small, rocky islands in the middle of the lake. We found a combination of trails and access roads that led us around the lake, though usually fairly far from the lakeshore. We found a path that led down to the clearing at the shore and sat on a couple rocks there. I thought about dunking my feet in the water -- it was so inviting, as the weather was sooooo hot!

We spotted a few geese in the middle of the lake. "Oh look! One of them is swimming toward us," I said. "I wonder why."

"Maybe he thinks we'll feed him," Matt replied.

"Yeah, I guess people must feed them all the time..."

A few seconds later, I said, "Wow! That thing swims fast! He has a wake, and he's almost here!"

The goose arrived at the shore and looked at us...and it became obvious that this thing was not there to be fed. He was threatened! The goose then flapped its wings and sort of puffed itself up before jumping out of the water onto the shore. It looked at us, I swear with murderous thoughts, opened its mouth to show rows of teeth, and HISSED!

Matt retreated a bit and I crossed behind him to SPRINT up the incline. Matt snapped another picture and then we both found ourselves back on the access road above the lake, looking back to make sure that crazy gander wasn't following us!

We walked the perimeter of the lake and returned to the B&B. We got everything straightened out with the bank, got cash, and finally got on our way to Harlech.

We arrived at our FIVE STAR B&B in Harlech and found that our room was incredibly quaint and romantic. The building is about 600 years old and every room has a short ceiling (perhaps 6 feet tall) with an exposed beam in the middle of it. I was most struck by the fact that little accent lights had been placed on the beam. There was also a broad window on one side of the room (which opened -- thank goodness, since the weather was unseasonably hot our whole trip). The only oddity was that our room apparently had the only emergency exit on the floor. The door to our room even had a lock on the OUTSIDE that was protected by a plastic cover. In an emergency, one was instructed to break the casing and turn the bolt. The emergency exit itself was in the bathroom. I couldn't help but think how horrible it would be to be on the toilet in that room when a fire began on that floor...

We had made reservations at the restaurant downstairs -- the place doesn't bill itself so much as a B&B, but as a "restaurant with rooms." Their menu even recommends reserving a room upstairs if you plan to drink too much. The restaurant was AMAZING. We felt pretty out of our element. We started out in the bar area, which is really more of a lounge near the bar. There were comfortable leather seats, great views of the hills, and cruditees were served as we chose our meal and wine. When we were brought to our table, the wine was already there, and there was a lot of silverware. We've decided that the lots-of-silverware thing doesn't necessarily indicate a nice restaurant in that area -- it's just how they do things. It was pretty scary the first night we were in Wales, though. There were no fewer than 5 forks, 5 spoons, and 3 knives at each of our places that first night. The only thing I remembered was "start from the outside, dessert is on top." We had no idea which glass was for water and which for wine...hopefully it wasn't that big a deal... When we placed our orders, the waitress would put it in with the kitchen then come back and swoop up uneccessary silverware, putting down a steak knife if neccessary. Anyhow, this is much how it was in Harlech, but we were fairly certain, with all the culinary awards hanging about, that we should really be on our best behavior. Then I noticed that the girl bussing the tables, serving the food, and taking dessert orders was wearing a t-shirt with a scissor-cut v-neck, low-cut pants, and flip flops. It was the "flip. flop. flip. flop." sound that put me at ease :-)

The food was incredible, and I got just tipsy enough (on a quarter bottle of wine -- we ordered a half-bottle) to get up to the room and watch an American movie on TV that I would surely never watch in America.

The next morning, Matt wanted us up at the crack of dawn. Ok, 7AM. I insisted he take the first shower, and after that I said I wanted to sleep for 15 more minutes. So, he decided to go "scout" the town and come back in 15 minutes. 15 minutes later I woke up on my own and took a shower. 25 minutes after THAT Matt came in after running back from the coast. Seems he lost track of time. No surprise. I think he took more photos in those 40 minutes than he did during most entire days of the trip!

We then took off for Harlech castle, which turned out to be our favorite of any of the English castles we saw.

Castell Harlech is in amazing shape, considering it is over 700 years old. In sections, the plaster was still in tact! In many places the stone work around windows and doors seemed in almost mint condition. Every castle we saw allowed us to use our imaginations to re-construct them. Harlech teased us with even more details. We're still trying to figure out what the purpose of a particular hole in the wall was...Any medieval castle experts want to correspond on the matter?

Unfortunately we had to cut our trip to Harlech short because of the timetable for busses and trains to Manchester, where we would spend our last night. So, after storming the castle, we grabbed lunch and headed to the bus stop. Between the bus and the trains, we re-traced our steps from the entire honeymoon, except for Betws-y-Coed. We didn't go through Beaumaris, but we eyed the Isle of Anglesey as we went through Caernarfon to Bangor.

We finally arrived in Manchester at about 7PM that evening. As an aside, because it's just too strange not to mention - we asked for walking directions to our hotel at a diner of sorts. It turned out the guy we asked had WORKED at our hotel not that long ago! We finally made it to our hotel. Or should I say hellaciously hot funhouse. There was not a right angle in the entire place. The carpet was every possible color in some sort of large print. Our window faced an office building and did not seem air permeable, even when wide open. There was no breeze, and the room felt like we were breathing the same air as the last 100 occupants. We went and found a nearby restaurant (a fairly authentically Italian pizzeria), had dinner, and headed back to the sweltering heat of our room. We eventually soaked our hand towels in cold water and slept with them on our heads and necks!

The next morning we had breakfast and headed for the airport. Let me say here that absolutely none of our flights this trip went as scheduled. Our flight from Indy to Newark was cancelled, which resulted in our being re-routed to fly through Indy to Newark, then on to Manchester. In the end, between the change of itinerary and a delay from Cleveland to Newark, we ran onto our international flight after they re-opened the cabin door, delayed the flight to get our baggage on, and even neglected to check our tickets. At least our baggage went with us, right? Turned out, that was probably just because we were 40th in line for take off and would be late anyway. I still cheered when they announced they were just waiting to load the luggage for "the passengers that just joined us." I thought the woman next to me would have our heads...

So, the trip from Manchester...oh joy. Well, the flight from Manchester took of late, but not so late that we were worried. We got into Newark and were put in a holding pattern because traffic in Newark was backed up. Ok, we still had over an hour to clear customs and make our flight.

We ended up running to catch our Indy flight, though this time we walked straight on and they didn't have to re-open the cabin! Now the fun really began...We sat on that hot, a/c-lacking plane for 4 hours while they waited for weather in PA to clear. They even re-fueled us on the tarmac...

Finally, we went back to the terminal so everyone could eat (the pilot had apparently been negotiating to have our flight catered on the tarmac so we didn't have to go back to the terminal. I'm glad that the airline was cheap and sent us to the terminal for dinner - I'm sure that's what happened. We both just wanted air conditioning, as did everyone else on the flight.) After about 2.5 hours in the airport, during which our flight was not even listed on any of the informational boards in the terminal, our flight was finally boarded again. We spent another 1.5 hours in line for take off and got in to Indianapolis 8 hours after we were supposed to.

We had arranged a ride back from the airport with our friends John and Delene Churchill and were hopeful they had not stuck around, since they both needed to work the next morning. The downside of the fact that they did leave is that we thought we'd be spending the night at the airport until the next shuttle to Bloomington arrived 5 hours after we landed. No sense getting a hotel room for such a short amount of time, and it seemed crazy to pay for a cab for the 1.5 hour drive! Luckily, we discovered a late-night car hire service and a fellow IU student who had been travelling from Columbo, Sri Lanka for the past 24-plus hours. The three of us arrived back in Bloomington sometime around 4AM.

Bright and early the next morning Matt and I were up. Construction on the house outside our bedroom window once again commenced around 8AM. Oh well. Our bodies had no clue what was going on, and we were anxious to pick up the dog, as we'd missed him during our trip.

So, that basically concludes Part I of The HoneyMonth. Now we are pretty much literally digging out of random wedding fall out. The best part, of course, is the gifts and notes from friends and family. I'm also beginning to figure out what all I need to do, and in what order, to make my name change as smooth as possible. Our marriage certificate is here, so it's off to the social security office tomorrow!

Enjoy! I'll ask Matt to post pics with this entry sometime today.

Love,
Brea