Music on the Streets of Cardiff

Ok, not just the streets.

In fact, this might be more accurately described as music in the nooks and crannies of Cardiff. It's the music of the side locations, the three knocks and a wink places, and the conjunctions of serendipity: the city's internal rhythms.

The first bit I'm going to show you is the sound of the city park. Let's think of it as the city's lungs. It is in many respects an eye-of-the-storm, and one of the main reasons I saw myself living in Cardiff when it came time to decide whether or not to accept a position in the program. This video of Bute Park is from early October, when it was still unusually sunny and warm. Especially in the past week, the rain has come on and off and transformed the place into the vibrant green of wet grass, the smell of damp leaves, and the sound of the wind rushing through the trees. If you listen carefully, you'll hear activity from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.
I like walking home through the park because it affords 1) some safety from the busy streets and sidewalks next to road shoulders that are much too narrow and 2) some psychological release from any residual tension of the day. Besides the background white nose of the streets, its hard to recall you're at the center of a city.

And, as with all good cities, the streets are teeming with performers, including this group, The Firesides, who were advertising their performance later that night (which I unfortunately couldn't attend).

Amused, I continued on my way (I had errands to run), but the universe conspired to arrest my progress again and make me stop and listen to the city.

Other sounds of Cardiff:

The River! I've finally gotten out on the water!

This is a single-person training boat for rowing. After training on it two weeks ago, I got to go out in a larger 4 person boat today as part of the bow pair (the two people at the bow of the boat), closest to the bow itself. It was extremely windy, and we kept getting blown to the sides of the river!

Add the sound of waves lapping against a boat, the rush of water moved by paddles, droplets falling from oars onto water, and the slide of your seat on the rails to the mental sonograph of Cardiff you've started to construct.

The Docks

The docks where we launch the boats has a large number of ENORMOUS swans. Add bird sounds to your sonograph.

Theater!

Waiting for "The Mousetrap!"

And the theater: there is a lot of activity in the arts in Cardiff, and plenty of opportunity to see performances of all kinds. Finish your sonograph with a round of clapping, just like the one you are doing now for my great accomplishment of getting another post out there (FINALLY).

Special mention to the group I saw perform at a local Cardiff bar/club on Friday (The bar: Gwdihw, welsh for "owl", not sure what the group was), which I liked, and the DJ that followed them, which I was not too sure about. This DJ had a good idea, taking 1920s dancing music and trying to combine it with modern styles, but his choices were very confusing, sometimes on the mark and sometimes faaaaar away. Still, better than the karaoke bar we pointedly avoided!   

Row Row Row Squat Jump

So. Rowing.

In my search for a replacement activity for track and field (10 years in the sport doesn't leave you with a love of down-time), I have found the US approach to sports clubs differs substantially from the UK. More specifically, sports clubs here love to party.

Now, as Cardiff is, admittedly, somewhat of a party town, I cannot begrudge them what they expect from a social group. However, as an American, I was kind of expecting that social groups were not entirely synonymous with sports clubs. You know, something in the name "SPORTs club" may have fed my mis-assessment… This is why, when the Cardiff University Rowing Club decided to hold their "Meet and Greet" in a club, in a dark room that smelled of body odor and sickly sweet overturned alcoholic drinks now forming sticky footprints beneath the feet of, by all estimates, too many people for the fire code, I turned my own feet right around and walked out.

Now.
I had already paid the £30 membership fee, in addition to the £15 Athletic Union fee, so confident was I at the sports fair that rowing would perfectly fill the hole left by the conclusion of my heptathlon training.
Additionally, I have been assured by numerous people of similar mindsets to my own (work, sports, and social-wise), that Crew* is a fantastic sport that, in perfect moments, feels like flying. I loved feeling like I was in flight in the hurdles. I miss that.

*By the way, whenever I use the word "Crew" here, people give me funny looks. They have absolutely no idea to what sport I refer. I keep having to check myself and replace it with "Rowing". Why the difference I wonder? A difference in attitude towards the sport itself? Or a random mutation of language with no ulterior meaning?

With these factors in mind, I gave Rowing one more chance. Were the actual physical training part to agree with me, I might overlook the (ahem) extracurricular social component and participate in the sweaty, painful, hold-on-I'm-gonna-chunder** part, rather than the whoo-hoo, party, I'm-gonna-get-pissed-and-chunder*** part.

**To chunder: to throw up
***To get pissed: to become exorbitantly intoxicated.
Obviously, those involved here must have some desire to "chunder" by one cause or another practically every day, and therefore must organize sports clubs to schedule and achieve this goal.

Surprisingly, this worked!
I attended the first circuit workout on Tuesday, and despite the presence of literally (and I'm using this in the English Major Approved way) 150-200 people.

For the love of Hubble those people love their squat jumps.

ouch.

Anyway- obviously being tortured and forced to do squat jumps and push ups until someone said "when" (partially because I couldn't hear the initial directions over the echo-y gym) makes me happy, because I walked or wobbled out of there with tired muscles and a brain-dead grin.

Its so much easier to work hard when it hurts when you have someone pushing you and some people with whom to compete.

After running about 2.8 miles out and 2.8 miles back to get a sneak peek at the facility we'll be training at on Saturday (we're doing something called "erg". Soooo descriptive. I think it's rowing machines) and avoiding the toga party Wednesday, I came back for another circuit workout today. It wasn't as hard as Tuesday, but that was probably because there were also fewer squat jumps.

No sign of the water yet, but it's such a relief to have some variety in my workouts. I'll be sticking with rowing for a while because if I know something about sports, hard work means you're earning something fantastic.

Meanwhile…

Going to the Library, Gonna find a neuropsychology book!

Working on my degree in finding free food.
Although the Wellcome Trust takes very good care of us, I must study to uphold this time honored tradition.
Also my check hasn't cleared yet. Sigh.
But don't worry those of you who do- it's not like I don't have money to feed myself. I do. Its just this food is FREE!