18 and Lost ! - A Day in Cardiff

by Abhishek Todmal (India)

A leap into the unknown United Kingdom

As I made my way towards the bus stop, in the early hours of a chilly Sunday morning, I recall a moment where I said to myself, "Wow, you're about to step onto that bus and embark on an adventure. You've always wanted to be part of an adventure story. This is it !". I'd always liked the idea of travelling alone. The mystique and sense of it ; imagining myself slugging along with a backpack, making friends of locals who owned little quaint cafes in the quietest parts of picturesque Italian towns, the fleeting hello's you received from the guy selling flowers on the cobbled streets of Antwerp, I'd lived it all in my head. It was time for me to go and live it out for real now. I was 18. I had never traveled alone, barring the flight I had taken to The U.K, where I was enrolled for my higher studies. Even then, I had people I knew coming along on the flight, people I knew from back home. This was me on my own, fighting for myself, for the very first time. As you can imagine, I was more excited than nervous. This was not everyone's cup of tea though. I'd been told that in multiple different way's when I'd asked a few friends if they wanted to tag along with me. "It's going to be fun. You should go" "Thanks for the offer, I'm studying for my exams" "NO". I decided that these people were either perhaps really against the idea of having fun, or else they just hated me. Fast forward a few hours, I'd embarked from the station in Nottingham. Cardiff, an odd 170 miles away. I couldn't sit still on that bus. I was like a kid who'd been given access to an "All -you- can- ride Adventure Park". Not that such a thing exists. Shamefully. I will spare you the descriptions of me twisting and turning with sheer restlessness the entire bus ride. It doesn't make compelling reading. Instead, I can however paint you a picture of how I almost got lost and contemplated living on the streets that night. After getting off the bus, I got a map to the entire city and just randomly picked spots I thought "sounded" interesting and set off. I had half a day to see an entire city. Doable. At least that's what an 18 year old with an insatiable appetite for adventure would think. I walked and walked more, taking pictures of everything from people to monuments to random ice cream cones I bought along the way. It was better than I expected. I walked along aimlessly, forgetting completely that I had a map on me. I saw some of the "traditional" sights one was supposed to see in Cardiff. The Bay, the Wales Millennium Center, the Principality stadium and a few more sights. Come evening, I realized I was spent and thought now would be a good time to look at the map. The map. Right. Where was I again ? I had no idea. I'd wandered off onto a part of town that I've now been told was really not that welcoming. I walked into a random law office and asked them how I could get back to the Bay where my bus would depart from in half an hour. They looked at each other as if to say "How has this bloke ended up here ?". Eventually, I got directions. I ran. They'd told me I'd need an hour if I was fast. I had to channel my inner athlete. Whilst running along the road I thought to myself, "I might have to spend the night here if I dont make it" because I don't have any money for a bus. I didn't have a way of reaching our organizer. I HAD to make it. It was nerve wrecking. I was an 18 year old running along in Cardiff with a bus to catch. The bus was just revving its engines as I made it. I hopped on and thought to myself how I'd finally got the adventure I'd signed up for. "If only I'd had more time".