Cardiff

Cardiff is a funky place. The first experience I had was in the tourist office, with an unbelievably nice fellow who worked there. I cannot stress how nice he was. It was kind of not normal. He was jumping through hoops to help us at the slightest hints, calling people and looking things up and constantly smiling and saying please before and after every sentence and just nice in a very surreal way. Everyone else here, middle aged and above, was the same way, very very nice and itching to share their culture, history, and language. Weird language too, but awesome. Walking around the parks however, and observing the Youth, you get the feeling that you are in a kind of country hicktown. Droves of disenchanted youth sitting around in the parks drinking and smoking and drinking, talking and looking like they might be from some backwater place like Frederick.
Cardiff, the capital of Wales, is a very nice city, small, quaint and modern at the same time, with a wacky newage cultural center and an old castle that used to be a roman garrison. Overall a very fun city.