Geography trip to Wales

Once again another Geography trip. However this, unlike its predecessor was to a different country. Arguably. For the anti climax is: Wales. No where new basically. It was still an exciting prospect, a long weekend in the mountains and Monday at Cadbury world (seemingly arbitrarily). With fairly high prospects it looked to be a good trip. But reality turned out to be stark as always...

A normal day in Cardiff

The trip began a little too early in the morning for my liking. This was however expected. A six hour journey awaited. Normally for such lengthy ventures a coach is used. But thanks to the Geography department's annual budget of £54.30 this was out of a question. Instead we went in minibus. Thankfully it was not The Phoenix but a fairly new bus. Unfortunately though Mr Flynn was not present, due to waiting for Paddy and Daisy Flynn to hatch. Instead Mr Mariot, a student dude came as well as Professor Fyfe, Mr Evans and Mr Nelson. I ended up on the quieter of the two buses (the lads were on the other). The journey went fairly smoothly, unlike the Boscastle trip we were not stuck behind a holiday cottage for half an hour in the lanes.

The locals weren't pleased when we
arrived in Wales...

The "Charming" city of Birmingham was a major stop on the way. The reason for this was so we could learn about city redevelopment in the CBD. In reality, however it was a two hour shopping trip. The highlight in the car park was a group of half a dozen girls spying through a railing in the chance Justin Beiber would go past (he was in Birmingham that day). There was mild hysteria when they thought they saw him, but it turned out to be Samuel Bealing esquire, a common mistake. Time spend in Birmingham revolved around trying to find a suitable place to eat with Xennor Moussa May and Frederick Taylor. It was rather busy and lunch was fairly mundane. Here I must compliment McDonald's on their speedy service, within ten seconds on entering I had successfully been served medium fries and decreased my life expectancy by eight minutes. Back to the bus. The Justin Bealing fans were still there.

I can not recall the rest of the journey to the hotel in explicit detail. Upon leaving Birmingham an unnamed teacher got lost, "Shit, I've gone the wrong way", but that was expected after a certain trip to Boscastle. Upon arriving in Wales, one expected to see a multitude of woollen mammals, however the stereotype was broken by a lack of sheep and a plentitiude of bovine beasts. It looked a bit old fashioned, almost a second world country like Spain with run down houses and peasants with rakes. That's about it. Oh and it was cloudy.

Well it beats year 8 camp...

After many days of travelling in Wales we reached our destination. Through the trees appeared a 20th century stone manor. it looked acceptable, although probably had bad heating and wild Gastly. However as we drew closer more of the property was revealed, appearing in the form of badly assembled wooden thingys. Low expectations became even lower. Oh and the name of the place was something in Arabic, I couldn't pronounce it and thus never bothered to learn its true name.

Instead of there being room keys we were presented with a pass-code for the door thing. This proved to be a bad move later on. Upon entering the room, outrage ensued. Four bunk-beds were upsetting enough (rooms of four at most at been the maximum on previous trips). The room had no on-suite either which breached EU residential health standards. (It was still legal ((Albeit dubious)) upon consultation however, as Wales is a constituent country answering to Brussels via Westminster and not directly). Curtains were also missing and the beds weren't cleaned properly (no details needed). I hope you're reading this, Doctor Fyfe.

No lentils luckily

Later that evening we went down for an evening meal. Twas Fish and Chips. Fine for most of us, but there was no vegetarian option (the EU health commission would have a great day here). Sorry Head Chef Lewis, but fish is not a vegetable. I'm not bringing Cassie here in future. Whilst on the topic, the McDonald's Veggie Burger thing is not suitable for vegetarians. Makes you wonder... Back in Wales Xennor Houdini May was unhappy due to chips being the only option. A while alter we went for an "evening session" with our guide person for the weekend. He seemed nice enough, although a bit alternative, always wearing a woollen rasta hat and sun classes indoors, with a penchant for Turkish Dance music. What actually happened in the evening session I forget, although Matt, the guide person tried teaching us some Welsh. This idea was flawed for several reasons. 1.) He was an English lad, as were all the staff so there was no reason to speak it. 2.) No one actually speaks Welsh in Wales 3.) It's Welsh and 4.) No one could be bothered.

I think I had a rant about the room earlier so I won't repeat that. The first night wasn't inadequate; the pillaging  
and plundering came later. I think we got up rather early at an unorthodox time. As Thomas Malthus (Banksy) says, it's the "People who get up early in the morning who cause war, death and famine". Anyway back in Wales at Sinn Féin youth hostel we had breakfast. I avoided a cooked breakfast and just had toast. Right, rant time. The toaster was both at the same time under-enthusiastic and over-enthusiastic. The sod only half toasted bread so you had to put it in twice. Just to add to its maliciousness, once it had half cooked your bread it launched it out at high speeds, cunningly aiming for the floor. At this time of day we also made our lunch. The sandwich filling variety was greater than expected- as in it wasn't just ham and cheese. During the next two days I found myself living of tuna sandwiches. Plus banana and some sort of cake supplied by Sinn Feín.

Soon we were on our way to a river, where we would be doing activities such as recording river depth, velocity and bed-load size/shape. "Hang on!", you budding geographers may say, "We did this in year 9 at the River Lemon, and at GSCE, how is this different?". In short- it's not. In fact in is exactly the same as the River Lemon trip done previously (just without Sam Tudor stealing my Wellington boots). So why did we bother spending £830 each just for a weekend in Wales when we could have just gone to the River Lemon. Beats me. Actually, thinking about it, there may be an obvious answer. Cadbury world. I'll explain this theory later.

Oli Bragg enjoys interpretive dance

Anyway... We did the usual geography stuff of measuring and looking at rocks. Nothing of interest happened. Mr Mariot had a clandestine method of resolving group issues, but I won't go into that. I don't think it rained, and the day was going just geogtastic (yes spell checker, that is a real word) until matt decided it would be fun to do interpretive dance showing a river process. Hmmmm... Although amusing, none of the "performances" resembled the river process in the slightest way. The day's activities ended up in the usual way, with results being 10% accurate, 24% sort of right, and 66% completely made up. Some things never change.

Back at the Sinn Feín lodge another meal was planned. The chef that evening resembled a pirate ship's cook. A large fellow, with a hearty expression and a wooden leg. Whilst queuing I noticed he had the dubious hobby of taking pictures of one of the younger female cooks. That night we had lamb sausages and mashed potato, much to Xennor Oswald May's disgust- in his youth Xennor had been marooned on an island with nothing but King Edward potatoes. This was followed by another evening session, but I forget what that was about so it probably wasn't that interesting or worth having a rant about.

That evening the troubles began, albeit not for my room. Shrieking and gunshots were heard across the hallway. Apparently one room had ransacked another, and Sam Bealing had been assaulted and possibly killed. There was also a certain incident involving certain magazines, a door handle and a teacher's room, but I won't go into that for obvious reasons to those who were there. God, this post is getting long.

What Geography field trips have become...

Day 2/3. Off to some valley/corrie place. Unlike the day before, where we were busy working hard, this was just a walk around a corrie. Nothing much happened, apart from several people almost dying as we climbed around the mountain side. Someone's water bottle was lost over the cliff at one point (as in was kicked off by a malicious hoodlum) but that was all. I was hoping after the interpretive river dance stiff the day before, nothing similar would re-occur. I was wrong. This time it was a game similar to Simon Says (you know, the one from nursery school) but with actions that represented glacial landforms and processes. I joined the "standing at the back refusing to take part and look undignified" club, with the likes of Xennor Boserup May and Sam Bealing. Some people were getting well into it however, with a tense showdown between Alex Billings and Freddie Tyler.

It's hard to get a good nights sleep
when violent yobs are in the room
opposite.

Back at Clan Na Gael yet another meal awaited. Xennor Rory May was hoping that as potatoes had been present that last two days, they would not reappear, and hoped for pasta instead. It turned out to be roast chicken and potatoes. Yay... The chicken had bones init too. Urgh, savages. I'm not sure why they just served English food, I'm sure Wales is not a state devoid of culture and food. Another evening session followed. I remember we were given computers for some reason and had to make a power point. Of course, everyone just ended up trying to get onto Facebook. Later that evening threats off violence, plunder and pilgrimage  were given to our room, resulting in Mr Evans patrolling the corridor with a shotgun for most of the night. That night it was quiet for some unknown reason.

Finally this post reaches Monday. No one had to be sacrificed to the pillagers the previous night (unfortunately) due to the stalwart watch and keen gaze of Mr Evans and Nelson. Monday had the main purpose of the trip for the staff, and the most likely reason why we actually went to Wales and not Newton Abbot- Cadbury world. Conveniently we went on the same day they were giving away free Crunchies away- a coincidence, Doctor Fyfe- I think not. There's not much to say about Cadbury world, the history section had historical inaccuracies, the Gorilla from the advert campaign was there, (although had been shot and stuffed) and there was a thrilling roller coaster. Not bad, but little to do with geography. I wonder why certain history teaches raised questions about the trip? I couldn't think why. This post may actually be finished.

We won't be coming back!

Was the trip a useful experience and helpful to As Geography? Ummm.... It was useful, but wasn't actually useful, if you know what I mean. Although we did coursework style stuff, in the exam I, as most other people did, made coursework stuff up, such as experiments with dog-biscuits. Was it however an enjoyable trip and experience? Ummm.... Well it beat year 8 camp... Just.  Sorry Doctor Fyfe if this post went against your favourite aphorism, "if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all" but everything in this blog post is almost true. I doubt I'll be returning to Wales any time soon (And Wales does not speak so highly about me). Overall, and I don't use this phrase often, it was the holiday from hell.