6/13/16, “Of
Castles and Dragons”
Nottingham,
England, United Kingdom
If someone
writes a story (or movie or video game) of castles and dragons, and it’s
halfway decent, I will probably read it (or watch it or play it). In fact, all three of my favorite book series
are of castles and dragons. Add in
famous swords and villages with stone houses, and I’m hooked. Those three series are, Lord of the Rings
(and the associated works of Middle Earth), A Song of Ice and Fire (the source
for the TV Series “A Game of Thones”), and, of course, Harry Potter. Each series has famous castles (Minas Tirith
and Helm’s Deep, Winterfell and the Red Keep, Hogwarts and Durmstrang), dragons
(Smaug, Drogon, and too many too count in Harry Potter), swords (Narsil,
Longclaw, and the Sword of Gryffindor), and villages with stone houses (the
Shire, King’s Landing, and Hogsmeade).
I
love the familiarity, and I wish I could have lived in such an age and
location. Today, as I traversed through
Wales, I got to experience it all. I set
foot today in a millennium-old castle in the land whose flag is a dragon. I drove through the villages with stone
houses, and I wound up at the home of Robin Hood. It was as legendary of an experience as
imaginable. It made me long for my
favorite fantasy series. However, all
was not well. I fucked up. I fucked up big time, and it prevented me from
fully enjoying the experience. Now,
however, sitting in front of the statue of Robin Hood, with two pints of
English ale in me, I am relaxed.
When I
travel, I usually bring my A-Game. This
trip, I have been bringing my C-Game at best.
It has cost me big time. I had my
list of the all the WHS I wanted to see, and I will miss a great deal of
them. I missed out on an important
souvenir this afternoon, and I had to cut two WHS from today’s adventures. I overslept.
I intended to push back my schedule by two hours, but I wound up pushing
it back by five hours. It fucked
everything up. Big time. I had planned to be able to fix it tomorrow,
but that is no longer an option, either.
The net cost of the fuck up was another trip to Britain at a future date,
which isn’t a big deal, since I intend to travel here with some frequency over
the course of the next decade, but it was still annoying.
I went to sleep soon after I closed last
night, and I woke up to watch Game of Thrones with my mother. My plan was to watch the episode and then
discuss the episode with my friend back home, via Facebook Messenger, until it
was sunrise in Cardiff, and then I’d drive to Caernarfon castle to get there
when they opened. It would be a rough
day of driving, but it was doable, and it would be epic. Well, he was watching the Tony’s, so he would
not be watching Game of Thrones until later.
I smoked a Davidoff during the episode, which was a boring episode, with
not much to discuss, so I went to bed after I watched it and told him to
message me afterwards.
I then went to
sleep. I woke up to his message and we
discussed it a bit until I fell asleep again.
It was now 6:30 AM, and I had only had a few hours of intermittent
sleep. I had originally planned to be on
the road at 5:30 AM, now pushing it back to 7:30 AM. That didn’t happen. I figured, if I cut out Liverpool, I could
push it back until 9 AM. It was 10 AM by
the time I left the hotel. I fucked
up. Big time. That was when the souvenir shops opened last
night.
It was over a 4-hour drive to the
castle, and that meant it would be 2:30 PM by the time I got there, which meant
I’d be rushed to get to the rest of my sites, and I’d even have sacrifice an
additional WHS in England, perhaps saving it for tomorrow. I figured I’d wake up at 5 AM tomorrow and
make up for what I missed today. That
was a very bad plan.
I lit up an Aroma
de Cuba and was on the road. Around
noon, now smoking a Joya de Nicaragua, I stopped at a roadside food truck for a
spot of tea. He asked where I was
from. When I told him that I was from
New York, I finally got to have the conversation I had been waiting all trip to
have. “Trump or Clinton?” “Trump.”
“Alright!” “Should Brexit
happen?” “I think we should go.” “I agree.”
That was it. That was the
conversation. I couldn’t have scripted
it together. I asked him to fry me up
some bacon, and we chatted for twenty minutes, about various American and
British political issues, as I ate my bacon and drank my tea. We shared very similar views.
I wanted to move to Wales at this point, and
my drive through the countryside only enhanced that desire. Eventually, after also smoking a Fuente, I
came to the castle, and I was very tight on time, now, figuring the souvenir
shops in Nottingham would close at 8 PM.
It was also raining a bit, so I didn’t want to walk around the castle,
too much, as marvelous as it was.
The
castle, King Edward’s Castle at Gwynnedd, also known as Caernarfon Castle, was
almost a millennium old. I lit up an
Hoyo de Monterrey and took some ceremonial pictures at the castle before
picking up my souvenirs and heading to the next site, the Pontcysyllte
Aqueduct. It wasn’t even in my GPS, so I
didn’t expect there to be a souvenir shop.
Turns out, there was, and it closed at 5 PM, just before I arrived. FUCK!!!
I could have had pins from every WHS in Wales. Oh well.
I lit up a Cohiba and announced, “Wales Complete. Northern Island, Scotland, and England,
you’re next,” or something to that effect.
I then learned that I was taking a picture at the canal, not the
aqueduct, so I kept walking to the aqueduct.
I took my ceremonial pictures there and repeated, “Wales Complete.” I had done it up right, and now it was time
to return to England.
The driving was
fast, and I had an Aging Room after I finished my Cohiba. I managed to get to my hotel with time to
spare before 8 PM. One problem. It turned out Nottingham didn’t really have
traditional souvenir shops. All they had
was the shop in the castle, which had been closed for quite some time and would
not open until 10 AM. I left my car and
luggage at the hotel and walked around the city, hoping to find something.
I took a picture of the Robin Hood statue and
found the perfect place for dinner, but I couldn’t find any souvenir shops,
even ones that were closed. I will have
to figure out if I can rearrange my schedule for tomorrow and see what a future
trip to London and Manchester would look like.
I can’t leave Nottingham without a Robin Hood souvenir, now, can I? After I settled into the hotel, I went back
to the pub, for what turned out to be the highlight of the day.
It was called Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem Inn,
and it was established in 1189, the oldest pub in England. When I walked in, I heard a group of locals
in the Ward Room talking about Brexit. I
sat down with them and effortlessly joined the conversation. I got two pints of their house ale, along
with pub favorites of a sausage roll and beef and ale pie. It was delicious, and the conversation
lively. We were discussing British
politics in the same place where people had been for almost 900 years, ever
since the bloody Crusades (no pun intended).
After my meal, I headed back to the castle and found a spot in front of
the Robin Hood statue, protected by a tree from the rain, where I sat down, lit
up my Castello, and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so
that I can get back to my hotel room and publish it before I replan my day
tomorrow (and any future trips to Britain) and see if I can somehow salvage the
last day of this trip. This was supposed
to be one of the best trips of my life.
So far, it has been extremely disappointing. However, if tomorrow is good, it’ll make up
for the rest.
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