Soaking up some Rift Energy

Growing up, my grandfather and I had a Saturday night ritual.  We would usually have either pizza or tacos for dinner and then we would tune to PBS to watch the adventures of Doctor Who, his companions, and especially his tin dog K-9.  The image and sounds of that big blue police box, the TARDIS, dematerializing were ingrained in my psyche.  When I heard a few years ago that the BBC had started making Doctor Who again, Sara and I immediately became devoted fans (aka Whovians).

Wales Millenium Center

When we started planning this trip to the UK, we couldn’t resist planning a side trip to Cardiff, Wales (where the show is made) to see our favorite sites from the show and to make our pilgrimage to the Doctor Who Experience (a museum of sorts).  To pull off our plan we had to make sure Mom wouldn’t be totally bored during our “Who” junket, so we assigned her homework on “British Culture” (to watch the show on Netflix). Luckily she also became hooked! :-)

 

Torchwood Shrine on the Cardiff Docks

Today we arrived in Cardiff (or Caerdydd as the Welsh spell it) and decided to head down to the Wales Millennium Center.  This was the home base for a Doctor Who spinoff series called Torchwood, and the location of a rift in time and space that recurs across all the Doctor Who Universe.  After seeing the iconic front of the Millennium Center, we started to walk around the waterfront looking for a place to eat.  By chance I happened to glance over the rail down toward a lower boardwalk and caught a glimpse of the word torchwood on a banner down below.  I ran down to investigate and discovered an impromptu shrine immortalizing Ianto Jones, a member of the Torchwood cast who’s character was died a couple of years ago.  There were literally hundreds of pictures, poems, handwritten and typed notes about the character.  While looking at this we realized that this shrine was posted in the location of the secret entrance to the Torchwood Institute in the show.

Daleks

Wednesday morning we finally went to the Doctor Who Experience. For those of you who understand such things, we got to: walk through the door of the TARDIS and walk around the control room, snag photos with Daleks and Captain Jack, look at props and clothing from all eleven doctors and companions, and even meet K-9 Mark I.  We had a great time! 

Sara in the TARDIS!

~Shawn