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Happy St. David’s Day! (for those who don’t understand Welsh)

Welsh Flag, sadly devoid of any reference to Bale

What the hell am I talking about, you ask? It’s simple, really.  St. David’s day is the Welsh equivalent of St. Patrick’s Day. The difference being that the festivities don’t take place in Boston, Chicago or Ireland; they take place in Wales.  For those of you who are confused about my use of the word “Wales” without an “h,” or who can’t figure out why one would hold festivities inside a marine mammal, a geography lesson may be in order.

Wales is not, in fact, a misspelling of “whales.”  It is, in actuality, a country in the United Kingdom.  It shares a border with England, but is not Scotland, and covers an area roughly the size of Wales. It is also the birthplace of Thundersquee!’s boyfriend, Christian Bale.

In order to help acquaint you with this largely unknown and sleepy little country, I have prepared a map of Wales that highlights its areas of interest along with its notable contributions to the world.

Note: I also highlighted two of Scotland’s contributions. I would have added more, but wasn’t sure how to depict a propensity toward deep-frying and drunken violence.

This map is not intended to be thorough, but–well, no, never mind, it pretty much is.  I mean I haven’t included castles or historic ruins, but honestly, what’s ancient history when compared to Tom Jones (besides possibly younger)?  Oh, and I forgot to add Anthony Hopkins to the map, but beyond that…

I suppose there are a few other notable things.  For instance, Wales has its own language.  It’s called, fascinatingly enough, Welsh.  Although, in Welsh it’s called Cymraeg (pronounced, rather disgustingly, a lot like “cum rag”).  So if you’re driving around England and the road signs suddenly include words with seemingly way too many L’s and Y’s, you’re probably in Wales.

This leads to another point of interest.  Most people in Wales don’t speak Welsh.  It is a dying language and the country is trying to save it.  In order to aid this effort they have implemented bilingual road signs, and they are working on getting other signs translated as well.  This often leads to unintentional hilarity (or embarrassment) because the sign makers generally don’t speak the language, and often times the people who order the signs don’t either.  Here’s a famous example:

The top part of the sign is obvious, but the part in Welsh says “I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated…”  Why?  Because the sign makers sent an email to someone asking for a Welsh translation and that’s the reply they got.

Another interesting thing about Wales is it’s pretty.  Seriously, like really fucking pretty.  Don’t believe me?  Check this out:

And that’s the ugly part of Wales.  Look at these photos if you want to see the prettier parts.

I can’t think of anything else remotely interesting about Wales, so I hope this helps reconcile the marine mammal conundrum.  If nothing else, you now know about St. David’s Day and have one more reason to drink yourself blind today.  Then again, why should you need a reason?

Oh, one last thing. I should probably explain the existence of the giant sheep on my map.  There are a LOT of sheep in Wales.  In fact, the Welsh have a reputation for being sheep shaggers.  This is largely a stereotype unfairly foisted upon them by English people jealous because affordable housing still exists in Wales, and I would  like to take this opportunity to dispel this myth.  The Welsh are most definitely not sheep shaggers.  That would be New Zealanders.