Cardiff, Floods & Coffee

We had 4 weeks off from uni over Christmas (which was awesome) and since it was quite a long break I decided to meet up with one of my uni friends, Ellie, in Cardiff (she lives near Bristol). However, we typically planned to meet up the morning after the night when the West was hit by masses of rain and train tracks were either flooded or broken. Thus, it was a bit of an adventure getting to the capital but after a short car ride, an hour on a bus, another hour on another bus, and a 40 minute train journey (yaay for living in the middle of nowhere) I eventually made it (getting home wasn't quite that easy)! First stop was Coffee Barker down Castle Arcade. If you ever get a chance to go to Cardiff I urge you to go down the little arcades and away from the big shopping centres for a bit. They have some jewels down there. Cool vintage clothes shops in the form of A Vintage Affair down Morgan's Arcade (along with others across the city) and the oldest record shop in the world is also situated down Morgan's Arcade - Spiller Records. Morgan's Arcade seems to have everything you need because on our little trip to Cardiff I picked up my new skateboard from Route One which is also placed down the busy arcade. Now back to Coffee Barker... Every time I make a trip to Cardiff I have to have a coffee or a milkshake here (they are insane). It's an awesome place to chill on their super comfortable sofas, have a chat with friends, play board games or do some work. I can honestly say that I had the nicest latte that I have ever had in Coffee Barker. Starbucks who?! So yeah, the next time you're visiting the Capital city of Wales steer away from Topshop, River Island and Hollister and venture down those little arcades, who knows what you'll find.