July 1st and 2nd

We mostly did a lot of driving yesterday. Our hostile in Cardiff’s name is Nomad, and the sign on their water heater says not to touch the “water eater.” By the time we got to Cardiff, almost everything was closed. So we went and found some pizza (at a kebab and pizza place run by some Persians, and it was some of the best, although sketchiest, pizza of my life) and wandered around until we got bored since everything was closing. Even though Cardiff is a relatively big city, everything closes at like 6, except the grocery store which closes at like 8. It’s really weird. Also, people aren’t up early in the morning. Or out very much on Sundays. At least in the part of Europe. London will probably be different.

We went into England for most of today’s adventures. We went to Benbow’s farm, where many of the early English saints were baptized by Wilford Woodruff in the pond in the backyard. Then we went to the oldest LDS chapel (in the world, not just England) and a hill nearby where the apostles would go to pray and have meetings since there was no temple here yet. I’m not sure how they got anything accomplished, though, because it was so windy up the hill that I couldn’t even hear myself think.

I’ve been learning a lot of things on this trip, about myself, about the people around me, about cultures and things like that. But one thing that I should be learning but haven’t been is directions. Since we are almost always in big groups, I let someone else take the lead and trust they will get us to where we need to go and back safely. If they led us in a big circle, I probably wouldn’t even know it and I would think it was the quickest way directly back. I need to change that. I need to practice learning where I am and remembering landmarks and being able to find my way around by myself. I’ll get to work on that. Maybe… tomorrow.