Euro Trip Part 3 of Many

~~A different side note: If you don't watch Doctor Who, this may not be as interesting to you. Go watch Doctor Who and come back. And sorry if you've seen these pictures already on Troy's facebook.~~

Day Trips Part 1
There were a couple countries we went to that we could only stay 1 day for.

Cardiff (Wales)
We went to Cardiff to take the Doctor Who Cardiff Tour. They film one of our favorite TV shows in Cardiff: Doctor Who! When we returned from our trip, we started watching Torchwood, which takes place in Cardiff. It's a lot of fun to see on the show different buildings we walked past/saw.

Wales has two official languages: English and Welsh.

How are you supposed to say "Llwybr"??! There aren't any vowels!

This was where we met up for the Doctor Who Cardiff Tour: right smack dab in front of Cardiff Castle!

Troy, hanging out in front of Cardiff Castle.

In the wedding episode (where the Doctor is trying to get Donna back to her wedding after she was transported to his TARDIS), the Doctor needs money. So he uses his sonic screwdriver to get money out of the nearest ATM and money comes spewing out. According to our tour guide, these were some of the money notes that were used. Hee hee. (For those who don't watch the show, this is the guy who played the 10th Doctor - David Tennant.)

This is part of our tour. We walked around the city, and had the bus drop us off at different parts of the city to see specific sites/buildings that were used in different episodes. The tour guide held up still shots from different episodes (as pictured here).

This is a cyberman. They are one of the bad guys in Doctor Who.

And this is a cyberman dressed as a templar statue in a church in Cardiff! No one knows who put it there, which makes it that much more awesome... or creepy? Is this how the cyberman invasion on Earth will begin??

Here is the tour guide explaining how the show made us viewers believe Cardiff was London....

...By adding red "Underground" signs. That's it. And it worked!

This is the church that Van Gogh painted in the Van Gogh episode (with the weird blind alien monster thing roaming around the town).

This was nearby, we walked past it on our way to a different set location. It's a very nice tribute to those who lost their lives during the attacks in WWII.

Troy re-enacting the Doctor walking out of this archway.

Part of our group re-enacting the scene where the townspeople stop what they're doing to take pictures on their phones of the alien activity in the sky. (One of the first Amy Pond/Rory episodes.)

We also walked past a building that looked like pistachio ice cream! (Laura's favorite flavor.)

Sarah Jane's house.

The street that Donna and her family moved to during the alternate episode, when she had that weird beetle thing on her back, redirecting her choices throughout life. (The episode is called "Turn Left".)

"Blink" is one of our favorite episodes of Doctor Who. And then we saw a store named Blink! We didn't go in, though, no time during the tour. Any guesses on what's inside?

This Dalek. Oh, this Dalek. There was a thrift/novelty store in a small, crowded alley way that was selling this Dalek. We wanted to pose with the Doctor's arch-nemesis. However, just as we were getting ready to pose, a slow-moving, dawdling family wandered by and got in our way. We waited a few minutes for them to pass. They didn't. Then they went in the store, and were all around in the way. So we left with the intention to come back after dinner to pose with the Dalek. When we returned, the store was closed! And all their stuff was inside. So all we got was this shot. Le sigh.

This pillar was decorated for a food festival that had just happened, but it's also featured in Doctor Who, and is one of the main locations in Torchwood.

In the same courtyard as the pillar, is the opera house. Also seen quite a bit in Torchwood.

This is the location of the entrance to the Torchwood office that fans have decorated. Many fans were devestated that one of the supporting characters (Ianto) died. So they wrote poems, letters, drew pictures, etc. dedicated to him.

For example.

Part of our Cardiff wanderings, once the 4-hour tour was over.

Apparently their social care is not so good.

Laura found a little hiding spot.

As we were taking pictures of this angle of the castle, a biker passed by, smiled and said, "Cheese!" He passed by too quickly to be in the picture, unfortunately.

Stonehenge-esque. Apparently, the UK has lots of stone circles like this. It's thought that people used them as a way to track time/seasons, as well as for religious stuff during ancient times. Clearly, we are very educated on the subject.

Crazy face. More Olympic stuff, in Cardiff.

Crazy face. Also, if you zoom in to the top of the dome, you can see a dragon statue!

Only the Angels can enter there.

They held some of the soccer games here for the Olympics.

Cardiff was a nice city to walk around. It was a little frustrating, though, because a lot of places closed early, around 5pm. We had planned to tour the Cardiff Castle once the tour was over, but when it ended, we were starving. So we ate, and then went to check out the castle (after being disappointed by the Dalek store being closed) and found that it was closed. Boo! So we wandered, and found a pound store (like a dollar store, but everything was like 1.62 dollars), and we were able to get a few needed things (umbrella, WD40 for my broken-wheeled suitcase, and a few beach mats for the BT London Live arena so we wouldn't have to sit on bark).