Today we went to Wales to see Conwy Castle.  As much as I enjoyed seeing Lancaster Castle, Conwy was more like what I expect when I think of a castle.  It is really the ruins of a castle: most of the roof is gone, some of the staircases have collapsed, and parts of the walls are crumbling.  And yet, this does not take away from its majestic beauty.  Standing atop one of its many towers, you can easily imagine the battles such a fortress has probably seen. 

The town of Conwy is charming.  My group went into the Smallest House in Britain.  I can't believe a man over six feet tall could live in such a tiny space!  It's extremely cramped, even for someone as short as I am.  I don't usually get claustrophobic, but I think I would if I had to stay in that place for very long.  

I had my ear tuned to listen for the differences between Welsh and English accents, but I couldn't hear any differences.  Maybe if I had had more time, or went somewhere further away from the English border, I could have.  I was also disappointed because I didn't get to hear anyone speak Welsh today.  But it was interesting just to see all the signs in Welsh.  It looks like such a difficult language, and this is coming from someone who's taking Chinese and Spanish at the same time.   

One thing did kind of bother me in Conwy, though.  As I was walking through the different shops, I kept seeing what looked like dolls in blackface.  They were all over the place.  Finally I asked one of the shopkeepers about them, and she said, or rather whispered, that they were from a show she used to watch as a kid, called The Black and White Minstrel Show.  She said they call them "golliwogs."  She clearly seemed uncomfortable with the whole conversation, so I'm sure she realized how the dolls could be seen as racist.  I was surprised, then, that she sold them in her shop at all.  I was surprised to see them, period.  If a shop back home in the U.S. sold dolls like that, people would object.  I'm not in anyway trying to suggest that the Welsh are racist, but I've never understood why people make or sell things that they know will probably offend other people.  I guess that it has to do with how small the black population is in Britain when compared to the U.S.  I read somewhere that only two percent of people in the U.K. are black.  This is probably also why you can buy Song of the South in the U.K., but not in the U.S.  For those of you who don't know, Song of the South is the only Disney movie that was never released in the U.S., due to its racist connotations (one of the characters is a "happy slave").  You can still buy it here, but only on VHS.  I asked a woman at the Disney store (in Chester), and she said that Disney has never and has no intention of ever releasing it on DVD.