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One part I liked was the computer simulation showing continental drift over the last 250,000,000 years and over the next 250,000,000 years (which was the extent of their predictions, I should note). I also liked that through the eras they indicated where "Wales" was then, that is, where the land in which these rocks, trilobites, dinosaur bones, etc. are now was then. I've often wondered when they talk about the climate in Utah, for example, being different in the past whether that's because Utah was really somewhere else then.
There were several audio-visual presentations (including one on volcanos with very dramatic footage) which were shown once in Welsh, then twice in English, then once in Welsh, and so on. I noticed that the Welsh showings didn't seem to have any attendees, while the English ones almost invariably did.
This got me to thinking about bi-lingualism in Wales. All the official signs are in both Welsh and English. All the museum exhibits are in both languages. Yet a bank that has its name in both English and Welsh will still have its signs advertising mortgages only in English. I get the impression that Welsh is prominent more as a political statement rather than as people's first language. Of course, things may be different in other parts of Wales.
The museum took us until closing time, 5 PM. We walked over to Sandy's on St. Mary Street for dinner, since it looked reasonably priced. It was reasonably priced, but Mark didn't think the food was any good. I suspect that "good" and "reasonably priced" may be conflicting concepts in Britain when it comes to eating out.
August 31, 1995: Nothing is ever simple.
I had made a reservation with Hertz through British Airways, saying we would want the car from about 9 AM on 31 August to about 5 PM on 9 September. However, they made it only until 9 AM on 9 September, possibly because the dealership closes at noon on Saturday and has no provision for after-hour returns. But they failed to convey this to me, so we had been planning on using the car that final day. Well, we quickly re-arranged our schedule (again), and moved some of the castles we were going to do at the end on our seven-day CADW pass to the beginning of the trip.
The car is a Ford Fiesta Automatic, costing US$33/day. It gets about 8 miles to the liter of petrol, and a liter costs slightly more than half a pound. So it's a little more than ten cents a mile for petrol.
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