I’ve just come back from Cardiff where I spent the weekend with my husband’s family. You might just expect a stiff breeze and lots of sheep when going to Wales, but actually there was loads of stuff going on there… And I realised again that even after 4 years of living in the UK, there are still many of aspects of British culture that I have to learn about. Here are two of them:
- Doctor Who – We arrived in Cardiff late on Friday night and when we got to my brother-in-law’s house in a residential area just outside Cardiff, we thought the aliens had landed right then and there. It turned out that the BBC was filming the new Doctor Who episodes right in front of his house. They had installed huge floodlights which lit up the whole street and loads of people were watching the shoot. I have to admit that I have not watched a single episode of the show in my life and therefore didn’t get too excited about seeing the actors in the distance. I am absolutely not a sci-fi fan, but just out of curiosity, I will watch a few episodes… maybe it will grip me just as much as it has the rest of the nation.
- Rugby – The Welsh national sport which I know nothing about (even though a South-African friend of mine tried to explain the rules to me a few weeks ago). Anyway… unbeknown to me, Cardiff was hosting the France – New Zealand world cup quarter final that weekend. It didn’t take long to notice that there was something in the air… The city centre was flooded with French people covered in blue-white-red and singing the Marseillaise. They far outnumbered a few people (as it later turned out – appropriately) dressed in black T-shirts carrying inflatable kiwis.
