Today I headed to the "Detroit of Wales," as described by a gentleman I met in St. Peter's Church yesterday. The town that earns this lovely title is Port Talbot. I've never been to Detroit, so I can't attest to the comparison, but I think it's certainly an exaggeration. Port Talbot seemed much more like New Haven, Connecticut to me, with a mixture of affluent portions, residential areas, and purely urban sectors. Sadly, there is much less to do in Port Talbot than there is in New Haven.
I came to Port Talbot to visit the Margam Stones Museum, a small museum with ancient and medieval stones from around Wales. I made my way from my hotel, towards the museum, with the trusty help of Google Maps. Twenty minutes later, I found myself standing outside a video rental store (that was shockingly still open!). After walking confusedly around the block, I asked the woman working in the store and she had never heard of the museum. She recommended I head towards the Margam Country Park, around 3 miles down the road.
I decided to see if Apple Maps would have better luck and it did! The Margam Stones Museum popped up and I started my quest again. Another twenty minutes of power-walking, and I was at the location of the museum...supposedly. Once again, the map had led me to the wrong location. I was able to figure out where the actual museum was by exploring the map on my app, but it was still about a mile and a half away. At that point, there was no chance I could make it to the museum before their last entry. Sadly, I had missed what I had come to Port Talbot for. I may try to go tomorrow morning, but I probably won't have time to head out again. So I took around 7 mile walk today, searching for a museum that is very hard to find.
My mother put it best thought: "You've done remarkably well so far in getting to everything you meant to see, using all modes of transportation. If you miss this one you are still scoring high." And many of the pieces in the museum are online, so I'm not totally out of luck.
Since I spent most of my day power-walking around Port Talbot, I didn't end up taking pictures of anything I saw. So I decided to dedicate the pictures to an important aspect of the trip: how I keep myself entertained when I'm not doing research.
Here are the two guidebooks I am using for my travels, published by Lonely Planet and Rough Guides. I'm not going to comment on their quality, as they I have not been using them as thoroughly nor as intended (they're not really designed for touring Roman Wales), so it would be unfair to give a review. They are handy to have in a pinch and do give some fun facts. I think if I was just exploring Wales, they would be great resources. Right now they mainly just give me tiny bits of information on the towns I'm heading to next.
There has been no better way to pass the time on the many train rides I've had than knitting. I started this cowl before I left for the trip, but hadn't done much. Now I'm pretty proud of my progress and I'm around halfway done. Although I get some strange looks, I also get a lot of smiles when I whip out my knitting. And it's nice to do something productive while stuck on a train!
My real winning combo is knitting while listening to some of my favorite podcasts. I was able to get a replacement cushion for my earbud, so my music and podcasts were back in business. I have a lot of podcasts I love, but some of my favorites are those in which people come on stage and tell a true story from their life. An hour long episode of The Moth, a podcast in this vein, got me through my long walk back after my failed attempt at finding the museum today.
I've also been keeping a journal since I've been on my trip, writing an entry everyday (or the next morning when I forget). I've never really kept a travel journal before, and really only started this one at the request of my boyfriend. The idea is that we will both write entries once we are traveling together in Bath and London. As I want to keep the contents a surprise for him, I can't say much else at the moment!
Finally, having non-academic reading has a been a lovely addition to the trip. I talked about how much I loved "The City and the Pillar" by Gore Vidal in multiple earlier posts. I also have along one of my favorite collections of short stories. The collection was a text in my freshman year English class in high school and has a wonderful collection of diverse and beautiful stories. Still a collection I can always get lost in.
So although I've been focused on going from town to town, seeing Roman site after Roman site, I've found a bit of time to unwind and do somethings that aren't quite in the sphere of the ancient world!
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