From Cardiff With Love!

We spent the morning on our tiny little coach bus, driving from Bala to our first destination. It was the longest bus ride we've had thus far (usually it's around 40 minutes from one stop to the next--Wales really isn't that big--but this one was four hours long. I entertained myself by reading Pride and Prejudice the whole time. :) We visited another mine today, though this one was for coal rather than slate. Wales has three main resources: slate, water, and wool. Coal used to be on the list, but they've stopped mining for it because it's no longer profitable. If I have learned anything this week, it is that I am SO glad that I do not have to mine to survive. People did it because they had no other choice. If they didn't mine, they didn't get the benefits from the government that fed their families. And it wasn't just the men. Entire families had jobs down there. You went into it knowing that it was going to kill you too. Even if you were lucky enough not to be killed in some kind of accident, you eventually contracted black lung (coal dust on the lungs) and were dead by 30. But it kept your kids fed.  This mine was called Big Pit. When it closed down, all the workers up and left, so it is still pretty much in the condition that it was back then. Before going down they gave us each a hard hat and a headlamp, battery pack, and gas mask (though we didn't have to wear the gas mask--it was just there because it was on every miner's belt. Plus I think it's the law that you have to have one if you go down there.)

We all piled into an elevator and descended 300 feet. The whole time all I could think about was the Hunger Games and how Katniss's father died in an explosion in a coal mine. Cheerful thought, I know. This was the first and least severe of the many fears I faced in that mine: old elevators. Going down there reaffirmed something else for me: I can get claustrophobic, especially in spaces where I can't fit on all sides without touching the walls. The ceilings in the mine were low enough in places that I had to stoop down to walk through. Add to that the constant nagging thought that I was under several tons of earth and stone and would be crushed instantly if it all fell on me. This was much worse than the slate mines because it was small, cramped, and old. The slate mines were old, but the caverns were huge and the walkways easily passable. The worst part of the tour was in the lowest part of the mine, where they were actually cutting the coal out. The ceiling was too short for me to stand up straight in and the tour stopped for a few minutes to talk about the process of mining. (They used a giant chainsaw and put the broken pieces of coal onto a conveyor belt.) I don't know how men that were taller than me managed it, though it was possible that they spent much more time sitting down than I did. 

They actually kept horses down in the mine. We saw all of the stalls. These horses were in charge of pulling the carts. They were brought there when they were four months old and often never saw the sunlight again. Eventually the horses were granted a week's vacation once in their lifetimes, but they had to be gradually readjusted to sunlight after so long in the darkness and they put up a huge fight when they had to go back down. Speaking of darkness, it is pitch black down there. You turn out all the lights and you cannot see a thing. We were standing at a split in the road with a wooden door in one direction and a long corridor in the other. I was right next to the long dark corridor and it was making me nervous with the lights on. When we turned them all off to experience the darkness, I was supremely more uncomfortable than I would have been had I had four solid walls around me or had I been surrounded by people on all sides. I guess my fear of the dark intensifies when I know I'm not boxed in. When the mine was operating, The youngest child was left at the wooden gate in this blackness in order to open and shut it for the the mine carts. I can't even imagine being a small child left alone in the darkness.

There are still gases that they have to check for twice a day: methane at the top of every chamber and black gas at the bottom. You do so using an old fashioned lantern. If the flame turns blue and burns higher, there is methane. If the flame is smothered, there is black gas. But there has been so little coal left that the amount of gas is minimal. (And good thing, too! Our tour guide made sparks in the tunnel on purpose to show us how explosions happened!) Because of the gas, we weren't allowed to bring anything down there that ran on dry cell batteries. They confiscated phones, watches, and cameras (all of which I had on me) so that the dry cell batteries wouldn't create sparks. I don't think we were in any danger, but it's the law still when going down in the mines.

There were these delicate little white mushrooms growing all over the place. I thought they were spider egg sacs at first, but they had stalks connecting them to the walls and ceilings. They were creepy. And, last on my list of mentionable things about Big Pit, at the end of the tour we came to a divided road again and stopped to talk about questions. The guide pointed his light in the direction of the machinery down one of the hallways and I noticed that there was a mist on the floor. Of course this grabbed my attention (I love mysterious misty things), so I spent the rest of the time trying to see it again without the guide's light (mine was too dim). The next time that corridor was lit up, the mist was completely gone. Even now i think it's possible that I imagined the mist, but I don't know.

After the doom and gloom of Big Pit, we stopped briefly at an actual "fairy tale" castle, meaning some guy in the 1800s remade it so that it was more fairytale than defensive fort. It was beautiful! Being me, I was soon labeling rooms to fit into the various Disney princess stories. There was a long stairway that led to a bedroom over the kitchen that reminded me of Cinderella, a room with a spindle-like contraption for Sleeping Beauty, an endlessly tall tower for Rapunzel, and a couple of dungeons for Snow White's evil stepmother. I think I am addicted to spiral staircases. And castles.

And last, but certainly not least, we wound up in Cardiff. After checking into the hotel and getting all of our stuff situated, a handful of friends and I set out on the one thing I wanted to do in Cardiff more than anything else: find the Millennium Centre and take a dozen pictures. Let me explain the significance of this building to anyone who isn't a Whovian: The Doctor returns to Cardiff every now and again to "recharge" his space/time ship ("TARDIS") and whenever he's there, they inevitably show this sweeping shot of the Millennium Centre. I now have a picture in front of this building and I am quite pleased with myself. (ACTUALLY, Doctor Who is filmed mostly in Cardiff, so if you know where to look you can find a bunch of places that showed up in the series. I don't know where to look, unfortunately. But that's fine with me! The Millennium Centre was enough for now. :) )

 Tomorrow's church (in Cardiff! Sorry, I'm just really thrilled to be here. Besides the whole country of Ireland, this is the first major location that I've been waiting to see!) and then Monday's my birthday. Perhaps I will celebrate by getting fish and chips somewhere. I think our plan now is to go to Tintern Abbey on Monday, which is just fine with me, as I've loved the religious sites the very most so far. No internet tonight, sorry. I'll post this at the next available opportunity. Good night, all!