Cardiff is Blue
Blue is my favourite colour.
On the first day of meeting allowed, I walked from city centre to Cathays to see my friend.
Once past the museum, you will see many buildings lying alongside the thin road with tiny, synchronized windows and lots of red and white. That are student accommodations managed by Cardiff University. That is where my memorybook of the UK starts.
22 years and 2 months old, I sat in the uni bus with people I didn’t know about and kind of couldn’t understand about, feeling like a new born baby again. The only thing I was familiar with, was the song playing from my headphones — Towers from Little Mix.
Going through this road that is not thin anymore — because I get used to all the lanes here — this song started playing in my head, and I started seeing the 4pm sunlights spilled on the rocky walls above shop signs: First above red Costa, then above some shops I can’t recognise, then above the green Subway.
Cardiff is so quiet. No one speaks. Everything is waking up from a nap. Yes, that is the vibe. Blue sky, orange lights, white something.
I am so used to being alone, even back home. The first couple of days here, weather is amazing. As amazing as today, even if it’s March now.
Streets turned loud from quiet. Sky turned bright from calm. I walked from Queen Street to Cathays, from Lidl to Cathays. Everything was new, I was taking it slowly. Was it scary? No. I knew I was walking with my pace, and it was a pace that the city liked. With his permission, the rest was there to explore.
On the way back to my flat, I stopped under the sun, looked at the wave tattoo on my right arm: Something was connecting, I felt safe in a brand new city, alone.
“Welcome to Cardiff Uni” treasure hunt is something all schools fancy. It is something my american flatmates would always brought up over a coffee chat. It is like a slogan that connected the flat and the uni.
“Oh god, the TREASURE HUNT.” We said it, everybody started laughing, in flat 6, in between the green walls.
It is what showed me another side of Cardiff.
Cinemas, Uni pubs, KFC, BBC next to my school building… When this cute city wakes up, it became creative and outgoing.
Today is Tuesday, sunny as it should be — although it’s not classic Welsh weather to many of my Welsh friends.
Alright, I have a filter on seeing this city.
I walked along the river. People ran past me. Guys sat on the green and drank. Youngs after school, riding bikes, like the whole city is a park.
Do they own the world. They own this moment.
This moment is golden blue, like this city. Blue is my favourite colour.
