My Silver Jubilee

I found myself in a flurry of mixed emotions this October as I passed the quarter of a century mark. I turned 25 years of age. Yes, I understand it’s young relative to the average age we humans live to this day and age, however, it’s also not young. Alas, this is not an emotional post, but a monumental tale of my celebrations.

Firstly, a brief outline of the trip. Five divergent days in Cardiff (Wales), accompanied by Jonah, D-bo, J-dog and me. Let’s begin.

Wednesday

We set off from North London around midday, with anticipation and J-dog’s obsession of coats and trainers in the boot – no exaggeration.

Not much happened other than overpriced sausage rolls, until the Severn Bridge, where D-bo felt it necessary to wheel-spin and leave England in a cloud of dust behind us. Excitement levels were raised. So much in fact, that Jonah got his Welsh accent going.

“We’re in the valley”
“I’m a Welshman”

Upon arrival, D-bo was devastated to discover that Air B&B’s don’t stock Kellogg’s Frosties, but we promised he could get a full English in the morning instead.

In a ‘student city’ on a Wednesday night, meant one thing. Student night. I would love to tell you how fantastic and exhilarating the night was, although it would be a lie. It was deeply depressing being seven years older than the average person. A safe dinner in the pub across the road was the decided start of the night, where we found ourselves surrounded by two cults of students. In a hasty departure, we settled for a Be At One, in the city centre. There we met a lovely girl and her mother on the way back from a show. They advised local places of interest, one of those being the Pen Y Fan mountain, which we would stupidly climb the next day. I sadly blacked out and went into autopilot mode for the remainder of the night, with mere blurs as memory. Unfortunately, nothing ‘thrilling’ was reported by my fellow companions.

Thursday

Regardless of hangovers the next day, we were all alive and awake early. Yates was the designated safe option for breakfast, where we powered up… for the Pen Y Fan!

Now, although we knew we were going to climb a mountain, it didn’t quite kick in until we started climbing.

Dressed in ‘normal’ jeans and hoody, we very quickly understood we were ill-prepared, not to mention, thirty minutes before climbing we found ourselves in one of Wales’ wonderful fields of sheep, of which I was also on all fours, attempting to clear my stomach of demonic alcohol.

The initial climb was steep but slowly flattened out as the peak came within view.

With just four bottles of water and a chocolate bar between us – kindly donated by good pilgrims on their descent – rationing was harsh. J-dog and I pushed on upwards at the final steps to find the most magnification views, I have seen in a long time. We also discovered it was also the false summit – doh.

The Pen Y Fan peak was a further fifteen minutes’ walk, and with D-bo struggling, he made the brave choice to continue the quest, now assisted by two professional mountaineers, who we had bumped into on the false summit.

The friendly guys walked to the bottom with us, describing their outdoor lifestyle, which only spurs me on, in my own adventure to travel and become less… robotic and more… human… and free.

D-bo got us home safe and we finished the evening with a fine Italian meal in Elgano. Obviously, I ordered my fave… Lasagne… booyah!

Friday

Friday was full of nifty activity. Starting with breakfast at a super nice, chilled out cafe called The Byrds Nest Cafe, and a visit to Cardiff Castle. Not the most impressive of castles, however, it’s history is rich and served some vital roles, even in recent history, such as World War II.

Next was the escape room, AdventureRooms Cardiff! – The Mad Scientist. I won’t go into too much, as we kinda sucked, and pretty much bantered each other more than clue finding.

Compared to the average group, we were about ten minutes off the schedule of completing the escape room, although I have to say, an extremely fun experience and would recommend it to everyone! As we’re now ‘old’ it was only normal to nap before the evening escapades.

Drinks started in The Alchemist, which as you can guess is a scientific-based cocktail bar, with a periodic table as a menu – pretty awesome… and expensive – which is why we moved on.

Recommended to us by a local taxi driver, we ventured onto a bar called, Ten Mill Lane, of which we were spontaneously approached by a magician.

He happened to be very good, though I failed to get his name. I believe he regularly performs at the bar if you’re looking for such an evening.

A few alcoholic beverages later, and a group decision to repeat Wednesday’s dire mistakes, walking around mortal, we spent the remaining hours in the strip club, leaning back, enjoying the view of beautiful women over the rim of my rum and coke.

Saturday

Even as I type this, I realise we crammed a lot into our short stay in Cardiff.

A well-deserved lay-in saw us through to the afternoon, which we prepared for Cardiff vs Fulham in the Premier League. Now, this could be me being a naive fuck, but when I think of stadiums in Cardiff, I think of the Millennium Stadium, or now known as Principality Stadium… So that’s where we initially went to watch the game.

Confused by the lack of people, we were eventually advised by a Principality Stadium Security Operative, that the game is at Cardiff City FC Stadium – makes sense, right? No stress though!

A taxi ride later and we find ourselves enjoying a rather good game of football, finishing 4-2 to Cardiff City.

After the game, we went out for one of our man meals – order whatever you like off the menu, everyone jumps in and eat as much as you can.

A local Tapas restaurant was recommended to us – by one of the dancers, come to think of it – so we visited Bar 44 for our feed.

Sunday

Finally, it’s time to return home. Too soon for some, but desired by others in our small posse. A short stop in Fanny’s Rest Stop Cafe, Newport for a huge fuck-off breakfast and back on the road for a short.

The End

Conclusion

We ate a lot, we drank a lot, we climbed the wrong mountain, we went to the wrong stadium, but overall, we enjoyed it.

Another point I forgot to mention was the encounter with one of the girls from the strip club in McDonald’s, and dutifully bought the girl a breakfast wrap.