Visit from a friend

Lindsey's and my friend, Miranda, one of my classmates at Tufts, joined us Tuesday afternoon for a visit in Cardiff. After a bit of confusion in the coordination of our meeting time, we were finally able to meet back up at the hostel after a long day in the lab.

We headed out to the pub for some fish and chips and a few pints of Brains (the local Cardiff brew) - Lindsey stuck with her Strongbow (cider) - and we exchanged stories of our summer adventures so far. We then headed back to O'Neill's, where Lindsey and I have become regulars for a pint or two every night. We were the only pub customers for most of our visit before getting kicked out at closing time well before 11:30 pm, but we had fun taking silly pictures and did get to watch more of the crazy sea gulls as they picked apart the trash bags outside the window.

Yesterday, Lindsey and I were lucky enough to get a reprieve from lab work for the afternoon and headed out to find Miranda after lunch. We met Miranda, and her new friend Florette outside Cardiff Castle and headed to a café in one of the many arcades. Florette is a French student who is also staying at our hostel while she looks for housing in Cardiff, where she will be beginning a graduate program in business this fall. We had a very pleasant lunch and tried some of the locally produced Caerphilly cheese, which I was quite fond of (surprise, surprise).

After some much needed down time at the hostel (and a nap for me), the four of us headed back out for an Italian dinner and some more drinks at the pub - I even tried a British ale that was surprisingly tasty despite it's light appearance. We had a great time talking with Florette and comparing the many differences between French and American cultures, politics and music tastes. Over all, it was a great day.

Unfortunately, Miranda had to leave us this morning, but not before munching on some cheese and onion pasties (which are extremely tasty) and a sausage roll for breakfast. She's off to Holland for a few days to visit friends before heading on to Bangladesh to complete her summer research project studying Nipah virus in bats. We all wished her stay could have been longer, but had a great time during her short visit.

As for us, we've got two more nights here in Cardiff before finally moving on to Kenya on Saturday. Tomorrow night, we'll be attending a goodbye dinner for Muya (our field mentor) at an Iranian restaurant that the lab is having for him before heading back to the field for 6 months (we'll be joining him for the first 5 1/2 weeks). Only two more nights to go... we're very excited!!

~Corynne