A Weekend In Cardiff - Ugh!

I returned to Paris on Wednesday the 18th of April as planned and passed the week as normal until it was time to travel again. This weekend it was to be... ugh... the Student Five Nations... ugh... in Cardiff... ugh. This had originally been pencilled in as a rest weekend for me but I was somehow convinced by someone to head over to Cardiff... ugh.

Direct flights to Cardiff were ridiculously were ridiculously expensive. I eventually settled on taking a cheap flight to London Heathrow and then a National Express bus to Cardiff (it was to be approximately 5/6 hours). All this trekking to get to the chavton that is Cardiff but whatever.

The hostel we were staying in was just across the river from the Millenium Stadium. It was somewhat of a dive and after such a long and trying journey to get there I have to admit I was in no form to stay there. The pillow cases were attached to the bed sheet and the mattresses were wrapped in thick plastic. Positioned at the cross-roads of a busy chav estate the soundtrack of the evening was provide by scumbags in their modified Honda Civics parked seemingly right under the window. I barely slept at all.

The fencing the next day was fairly brief but enjoyable. Northern Ireland had failed to get a team together so there were only three matches. I fenced reasonably well in all of them I felt and was fairly happy with how they went. We didn't win any matches but my personal performance was good, so screw the team!

...

That night we started off in a fancy (the fancy) Cardiff bar - Tiger Tiger. A bit of self-service buffet grub went some way towards making up for the ridiculous price of beer... but not quite. I was absolutely exhausted from not getting any sleep the night before and was fading fast after the few beers and some food. I headed back to the hostel fairly early to try and get some sleep.

...

Mercifully my bus the next day wasn't until the afternoon and my flight the evening. So I was able to hang around a bit and relax in the morning before the journey back. I'd plenty of time to get something to eat and hang about with the team.

I'd be back to Dublin soon enough anyway, the Tuesday of that week for the colours.