Camminare: Cae Mabon: Part the First. In which three Smithies successfully arrive at (or at least near) Mt. Snowden and eat Welsh cakes on a train.

Two weekends ago I went to Wales.

"Went" does not really properly convey the process of getting from Florence to a little place called Cae Mabon in the middle of the mountains of Northern Wales. My travel plan looked like this:

Thursday afternoon:
Bus from my math class to the nearest train station.
Train from Florence to Pisa (just over an hour). Check in to hostel for the night.

Friday:
- 5:05 am shuttle to the Pisa airport (where, incidentally, I ran into the wonderful couple who rented out a room to my Dad when he was here. Turns out they were on the same flight to Dublin!)

- Flight from Pisa to Dublin.

- Hang around for several hours in Dublin airport, meet up with Gwen.

- Flight from Dublin to Birmingham

- Air rail (one of those raised tram thingies. This one had triumphant music playing inside that made it seem much more impressive than it actually was. Also made us feel like we ought to be in a commercial: "AIR RAIL: Fast. Convenient. Safe." Also, there was a button at the platform so that, should you arrive in the wee hours of the morning, you could--that's right--call your VERY OWN personal air rail to come and pick you up within minutes. I was impressed.) from the Birmingham Airport to the Birmingham Airport Train Station.

- Elevator down to the track. And back up again. And back down again. (This was partly because we needed lunch and a bathroom, but I also enjoyed the GIANT elevator buttons and the voice-over that politely reminded you not only what floor you were getting on at, but also where you were going).

- Train from Birmingham to Shrewsbury (in which we ate surprisingly good train station food involving hummus. Also the snack cart did in fact go by, just like in Harry Potter, only sans Chocolate Frogs. Only it wasn't actually that exciting. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it was really just an ordinary metal rolling cart like they have on airplanes, with soda and chips. We didn't buy something off the cart after all, since we'd just eaten lunch and weren't particularly hungry).

- Meet up with Maggie at train station and hasty dash to catch second train, from Shrewsbury to Bangor (in which we talked and ate the Welsh cakes Maggie brought, only without tea because this time the cart didn't go by).

At this point we were supposed to meet up with someone named Casper so we could all share a taxi, only we had no idea what he looked like or even how old he was, so we stood awkwardly around trying to make eye contact with people without actually doing so in case they weren't him. After a while Maggie made a sign that said CASPER, and we stood around awkwardly with that for a while. We even asked one guy who looked kind of lost. Then we gave up and found a taxi, and thank goodness Maggie knows how to pronounce Welsh names and knew the trick about postal codes, because otherwise we never would have been able to explain to the driver (who had a lovely Welsh accent but, it turned out, didn't actually speak any Welsh) where it was we wanted to go.

He drove us up winding mountain roads, and dropped us off at the sign for Cae Mabon, and we thanked him and went hiking merrily down the long driveway through the woods, under an arch with the Green Man on it, down another hill, along past beehives and a bee sculpture, through a gate, and down another hill before finally emerging in the midst Cae Mabon's cluster of what can only be described as Hobbit Houses, where we were warmly welcomed, introduced to our hobbit house and hobbit housemate (who was not a hobbit but a friendly young Welsh-Irish woman named Orla, who is spending the summer going from one singing workshop to the next as preparation to starting a new choir--yes, that's right, she got to do this as part of her JOB!), and fed dinner.

And the amazing thing is that it all went off without a hitch, aside from missing Casper. (Apparently he had asked several short blond women if they were me without success before it got too awkward and he gave up and took a taxi. The funny thing is that we did see each other at the station, but by then he didn't want to ask anyone else, and we hadn't worked out how to go about asking people yet, so no one said anything, and then he disappeared). And that was just the way there. The way back involved a different set of train stations and a ferry from Holyhead to Dublin, and a double-decker bus. I had (I kid you not) a spreadsheet printed out with all the connections and reservation numbers and times so that I could keep everything straight.

(Part the Second to follow.) In the meantime, here are some more pictures: