Last gasps of spring break- Pembrokeshire

Yeah, I never talked about Ireland or Pembrokeshire, I should do that, as much for my benefit as yours.

I took a beautiful train ride out to Haverfordwest passing many a field and beach on the way, plus a few customary castles. Tristan picked me up at the station, and drove us back to Solva. It's a really pretty drive, with this one spot where you come over a hill crest and suddenly everything opens up below you. And by everything I mean Newgale beach, and ocean and sea cliffs on either side. It's truly breathtaking. I couldn't do more than just stare at it all as Tris beamed proudly beside me. We stopped on Newgale and took a VERY windy stroll along the stones. After being blown to bits we headed to his place.

Solva is a really pretty little village, built around a natural harbour, Tristan's house is on top of the hill and the views from pretty much every window in his house is amazing. Nothing but ocean, islands, and cliffs. I met his parents (very nice) and moved into a bedroom. They've recently converted everything into a B&B, so the room was immaculate, with a great view of the stars through the skylight over the bed at night, and a huge stretch of coastline out any window by day.

I had forgotten my raincoat. Since I was to spend the next week in Ireland and Pembrokeshire, some of the rainiest places, that wasn't the best call. It rained most of that first day. Whoops. Ed and Phil showed up to meet me and hang out, and we ended up playing a ridiculous game of scrabble. We bummed around awhile, and eventually the rain let up. We headed down to a beach, and ran around getting wet for at least an hour. The guys through around an Aussie rules rugby ball while I poked around in some sea caves and waded as far as my borrowed boots would let me. It was a lot of fun. Then it was back for an incredible dinner. I think that was the night we went down to the pub. It was a strange night apparently. Half was an 18th birthday party, so it was teeming with highschoolers, the other half a bunch of older men getting their beards shaved off for charity. The bunch of us were jammed awkwardly in the middle with a very drunken lech who kept saying some pretty incredible things. Needless to say, we finished our 1 pint and left, with much apologies from the guys.

The next day, the rain had cleared, and we walked over to Tris' grandmother's, who is quite the accomplished artist. I really enjoyed looking at her work. We then headed for a walk on the cliff path. All the pictures I had seen from John and the groups hiking trip were accurate of the beauty out there. I saw the shipwreck, the iron age fort (mound of dirt), and rolling hills, thus named for their very soft grass that allows you to throw yourself down them uninjured. We spent awhile clambering over rocks and lounging in the sun, the prefect vacation. Eventually we got a grumpy call from Ed, as we were late for surfing. We headed home to find everyone waiting for us. I borrowed a wetsuit of Zoe's and nervously followed Tris to the car. Honestly, for my first time surfing, I didn't do too badly. I only really wiped out once, and managed to get to my knees most of the time. It was a lot of fun, except that Tris and I got caught up in a rip current/strong longshore current and ended up a bit further offshore than we intended. Not an easy swim back with surf boards in tow. But we made it fine. The guys were freezing by that time (I wasn't), something about the Irish Sea in April I guess, but we called it a day. Rolled a giant tire down the beach which was amusing.

We called it an early night, as we were up in the wee hours to catch our ferry to Rosslare.