Jason's Daily Notes

Woke up in Porthmadog, Wales. I slept pretty well (but I always sleep well when I travel, and generally most other beds are better than mine in my flat in London). My mom, uncle, and I went downstairs to get breakfast. We were the only guests staying in the hotel that night. My uncle and I each ordered a full English breakfast, with my mom getting some fried fish thing. The workers were just cleaning up the pub and getting ready for the day. By 11:00, we were out of the hotel and on our way.

We drove south, stopping by  Harlech Castle. The weather was not cooperating, however: It was foggy, drizzly, windy, and chilly. In such conditions, it was nearly impossible to enjoy the good views of North Wales. Nevertheless, we parked the car, walked over to the castle, and took some pictures. [Note, at this time, several parts of the UK were under flood warnings as heavy rain pelted the region.]

We continued the drive, with rain showers sputtering on and off the whole way. We bypassed Aberystwyth, only stopping for petrol. My uncle was still pretty uncomfortable driving, especially starting and stopping in a busy area. Driving on the opposite side of the narrow country roads was also difficult: The car tended to drift over to the left side, and so I constantly had to yell that we were about to hit the curb or go off the road! Additionally, we wanted to get all our driving done before nightfall, which came very early, around 16:00.

We drove a bit through the interior of Wales, which was hilly but not too noteworthy nonetheless. We were soon in South Wales, on the M4, arriving at our hotel in the small town of Neath by 15:30. The hotel was in the town centre, but luckily there was a car park just for hotel guests a block away. We checked in and moved our stuff into our second-floor room. The room was spacious, with three single beds, one for each of us. We settled in, watching some TV (US X Factor) for a little bit. I also took the time to organize/ my entire email inbox, archiving emails from several years ago!

We were soon hungry, however, so we walked around the town center at 18:00. Everything was already closed, and it was dark and quiet. Rain continued to shower down, so I had to shield my camera from getting rain drops in the lens. We walked around and found another castle overlooking the Morrisons parking lot! (The castle was closed, though.) Eventually we settled on having dinner at the restaurant connected to the hotel. But all the tables were reserved! We just sat in the pub and ate there, while watching Liverpool win 4-0 against Fulham. I had the most amazing burger - it is definitely in the top 5 burgers I have ever had, if not the best ever! It was just the patty, with cheddar on relatively plain bread, but wow, it was delicious. I'll credit it to the restaurant using only Welsh ingredients. Also, I ordered Tatrs and Caws (taters and caws?), which was basically potatoes drenched in a creamy cheese onion sauce. Amazing! My uncle had a steak and my mom had some chicken, neither of which was that great.

Full of beer and food, we settled in to our room and fell asleep relatively early.