two years two months two days

Thanks to Genia's help, December won't get away with just one post on this blog. To prove that there are a gazillion  (well, perhaps not that many, I'll give you that)   reasons to visit Wales and to learn Welsh   (insert-random-link-here) , here's someone else's view on the subject: meet Genia, my friend from Yr Almaen who's really fond of Harri Potter and Cymru (most unnecessary caption of the year - but, c'mon, now you know some Welsh words!) 1.       Why Wales? I was looking at the options available in my university’s student exchange programme and being part of a degree where UK universities are the most popular I decided to look into not so well known and after thinking about it for a bit I decided to apply for a spot at Cardiff Metropolitan University and two Irish schools whose names I already forgot. So I guess, you could call it fate, should you believe in that kind of thing, but the second I got off my coach in Cardiff a l...

A little over two and a half years ago, I was searching for accommodation in Cardiff when I came upon this jewel of a hostel , across from the river Taff and the Millennium Stadium , as it was then called. The Riverhouse Backpackers is run by siblings Abi and Charlie , who do such a great job that, not long after its opening in 2007, it was considered the best hostel in the UK - and fourth best in the world . No wonder the awards kept coming , since the place is indisputably well-maintained (the few problems I found there during my most recent stay - and, let’s be reasonable, nine weeks are a long time, long enough for little things, trifles, to happen despite how much effort we put into avoiding them - were all due to other guests and promptly solved when the matter was brought to the attention of either management or other staff) and the service leaves nothing to want for. Safe, calm surroundings (well, more than a bit livelier when the stadium hosts a boisterous event, like Beyoncé...

I’m back to working, well, part-time and doing all sorts of ELT-related jobs, from teaching a few of the school’s one-to-one students and filling in for colleagues to fulfilling Cambridge English speaking examiner duties like examining kids and attending meetings. I’ve also been trying to move into another flat for over a month now, wasting time and money on bureaucracy and putting a lot of effort, physical effort, into taking most of my stuff to what’s soon, all being well, going to be my new place - on foot, in suitcases and rucksacks of various sizes (well, let me give credit where it’s due and add that my father, besides helping me with the whole process in various ways, spent over a week in my current flat and carried more rucksacks and dragged more suitcases than I did - and he’s nearly 70, and I really love him). I believe all this has kept me away from Wales and from Welsh, that is, from writing about the country and studying the language. I equally believe I haven’t don...

Today I had a shower. Ces i g awod heddiw , I think - I think that’s correct, linguistically, I mean. Showers are no big news around here ( I was reading about bullet journals the other day and was very surprised to see ‘have a shower’ as a personal hygiene goal for one’s day - like, it shouldn’t be a goal, it should be a reality?... Well, but I suppose that, if you're depressed...), but this one reminded me of, of course, Wales. Bar of soap gone (scent of guava flower, L’Occitane - one of the very few things I can, or rather could, afford to buy from them -, its Brazilian line, really worth one’s money, trust me), I remembered I had one (actually, many, I have many) from Cardiff and went searching for it. I was taken back to the city the moment its aroma reached my nostrils (all bruised inside due to a crisis of rhinitis and a cold or something of the kind). I’m not joking (or aiming to write a poor woman’s version of Proust’s gustatory epiphany - and he mentions the Celts!.....

It’s surprising how many people from the course I’m still in touch with. I chat with Genia on whatsapp and\or on facebook messenger daily ( diolch am dy gymorth di gyda fy nosbarth i, BTW - if that’s any accurate), Liz and I also have a few nice little conversations every once in a while (I’ve just sent her pictures of the flat I’ll hopefully be moving into next week), Ren’s always a joy to talk to, despite the fact that she’s often lost somewhere on the globe and hard to track down (she shared cool photographs of Chinese terracotta warriors with me some time ago), Charles might be silently reading the mostly nonsensical messages Genia and I, and sometimes Ren too, exchange on our messenger group, Matt has been following the blog ( diolch yn fawr !...), Phil and I jokingly became husband and wife ( gwr a gwraig , can’t use accents on ws here with this keyboard configuration) for an imaginary Welsh soap opera with a great soundtrack , and even Ioan, who’s wisely not on facebook or ...

This is going to be an annoyingly bilingual post (I can only dream of the day there’ll be trilingual texts here too - a blog about learning Welsh in Wales with posts in the language, yay!). Esta vai ser uma postagem irritantemente bilíngue (só posso sonhar com o dia em que haverá textos trilíngues aqui também - um blog sobre aprender galês no País de Gales com postagens no idioma, ê!). It was inspired by a few brief conversations I had yesterday about my stay in Wales - BTW, it has just given me an idea for another post of the same type. Ele foi inspirado por algumas conversas rápidas que tive ontem sobre a minha estada no País de Gales - e, aliás, acabou de me dar uma ideia para outra postagem do mesmo tipo. To make reading easier, I’m going to try and use short sentences and not many real paragraphs - so, shall we? Para facilitar a leitura, vou tentar usar frases curtas e não muitos parágrafos de verdade - então vamos? Q: What’s the population of Wales? P: Qual é a popul...