Swansea’s Side Streets Aren’t for the Fainthearted (or the Well-Rested)
okay so i woke up to that absurd weather again. checked the app and it's sitting at 5.13 degrees out there right now, which is basically a frozen nod to the previous days. i swear the wind here has more personality than my ex. walked down the dock where all the tour buses are parked and this_one little train just chugged by, sounding like it forgot how to stop. don’t ask me why i’m still here. it’s not even that cold outside-maybe i’m just mauvaise'Académie of real life.
saw this park with a playground that looks like it belongs to a squirrel’s imagination. the swings are rusty, the slides are… questionable. a kid once told me the slides are for ‘emergency gremlins only.’ who knows? i’m starting to believe him. under a tree, a woman in a flower-patterned onesie was yelling at a seagull. it threw something at her, she chased it. typical. lack of personal space in places like these is basically a national sport.
i heard that from a guy outside a pub. he was probably drunk, but his take on the local market was gold. someone told me that the fish stalls sell so much cod it’s probably the government’s secret stash. i’m skeptical but also kind of hope it’s true. last time i checked, the prices were cheaper than my last ex’s coffee habit. if you get bored, bristol’s pubs or cardiff’s chaos are just a short drive away. don’t believe me? check yelp. they’ll tell you all about the time a tourist tried to rent a canal boat and ended up in a duck farm. weird but kinda true.
‘the vibe here is like someone spilled coffee on a record and pretended it was modern art,’
someone shouted that at a cafe. i don’t know if they meant it as a compliment. probably not. but the words stuck. the coffee place itself is okay. the barista knows my name now. i think. or maybe i’m imagining things. either way, they were nice. probably because i showed up covered in seaweed from the dock. that happened. don’t ask.
‘if you’re loud here, the walls will judge you,’
another person warned me at a bookstore. they were holding a dog. a very large dog. the dog agreed by barking in a shakespearean tone. it wasfrage. maybe the walls are judging us all.
saw this random illustrator sketching a seagull with a tiny umbrella. plot twist? maybe the seagull was born under a storm. or maybe it’s just here to steal my flip-flops. either way, the sketch was good. didn’t even need to ask for it. gave it to me. probably ignored my screaming. classic.
‘don’t buy the ‘local’ honey. it’s just sugar water,’
a vendor yelled at me. i’m still debating if that’s a rumor or just their thing. maybe it’s a tax scam. either way, i bought the maple syrup instead. cheaper and less suspicious.
images:
i checked a few tripadvisor reviews for sudanese markets. one said the spices were ‘so strong they could give ghosts a headache.’ another warned about the fish stalls being ‘too fresh, you’ll regret it later.’ i’m fine. i’ll take the headache. the fish smelled like regret but also lemon. good call.
have you seen the local café with the chalkboard menu? it changes daily based on what the owner’s cat ate. today it’s ‘gingerbread latte’ because the cat ‘liked cinnamon.’ tomorrow might be ‘mushroom soup’ because it saw a rat. that’s the kind of life philosophy that works here. if you’re a coffee snob, there’s a place where they roast beans in a car engine. smells like exhaust and bitterness. check it out. it’s on tripadvisor. probably.
overall, Swansea is a city that asks if you’re ready for the weird. the weather, the neighbors, the market rumors-they all fit. if you hate surprises, leave. but if you’re here, embrace the 94% humidity and the fact that your umbrella might not work. i’ll leave you with this: the locals say the best part is when it rains. not because it’s pretty, but because everyone bands together to complain about it. solidarity, right?