A Whale of a Time in Wales

Day 2: The title of this post is courtesy of my dad.  He got a kick out of it and loves Moby Dick, so of course he had to do a play off on whales.  He was really disappointed that we weren't actually going to see whales while we were visiting Wales.  Instead we went to Conwy in Northern Wales and went to the Conwy Castle.  The castle was built between 1283 and 1289 by King Edward I.  It was considered one of his key fortresses.  It is also considered the most magnificent of all of Edward's Welsh fortresses.  It was super windy outside so it was kind of crazy while we were walking around.  It was beautiful though and probably one of my favorite things we have done while I have been in Europe. Some of that may be in part due to my mother.  She made us laugh the whole time because she was screaming and holding on to the railing because she thought she was going to be blown away. These two pictures and video might help illustrate this a little bit...

Simon laughing at mom

Her hair helps demonstrate how windy it was

Video of mom and the wind

Since all we really did was walk around to see different parts of the castle, there is not much to write about.  Here are the pictures from the trip:

Conwy Castle

Conwy

Simon, Dad, and Mom- Simon towers over them

Me and Simon

Simon on the castle guard

Mom and Dad with the castle guard

Castle

Mom and Dad by the Southwest Tower

View from the tower

Another view from the tower

At the top of the tower

Mom, me, and Dad in the baking quarters (overn behind us)

The Ghost of King Edward I

Bridge

Them being crazy

The lean

After we spent some time in the castle and gift shop we went across the street to a Knight Shop where they sold swords, armor, shields, etc.  Mom bought a letter opener that had a dragon on it and says "Barbarian."  Haha.

Mom with a knight

Mom and my crazy dad

Some small knights in the shop

Shields

Simon also took some video of the trip, but we didn't realize the sound was off.  Here is one clip that I think really shows how beautiful Conwy was.

We ended the day by going to my bishop's house for dinner, they live in Wales.  His wife Haley made a full English dinner with a spread of crackers and cheese as well.  The food was delicious and we enjoyed spending time with them and their two children, Kiera and Luke.  They were so nice for having us over while my parents were in town.