A TikTok star, who mistakenly said Wales was a part of England has spoken about her "magical" trip here - after she was personally invited to visit by First Minister Mark Drakeford. Pavlina Sudrich, who has more than 200,000 followers on TikTok, comes from the remote city of Whitehorse in the northwest Canadian territory of Yukon.
In a video posted on her account last year, a slip-of-the-tongue led her to being criticised by many of her Welsh followers. The TikTok star, who is an avid hunter, often uses the platform to capture life in one of the remotest places in North America.
In the video, which was posted in November, she demonstrated how she kept warm in the territory's cold weather. She talked about an item she had recently bought called a Cosymajig, which is a type of sling for a hot water bottle or heat pack, and mistakenly said that the product was created in "Wales, England".
Read more: The woman from remotest Canada whose mistake has seen her turn up in Wales
But her followers were quick to correct Pavlina for her error, with some comparing it to mistakenly saying that Canada was in the USA and others encouraging her to buy a map to find that Wales was its own country and different to England. In another video posted soon after, Pavlina apologised to her Welsh followers and even went as far as saying her apology in Welsh.
In her apology video, she also suggested that First Minister Mark Drakeford and Tourism Wales should invite her to Wales to "experience first hand what the country had to offer". And as a result, the Welsh First Minister did in fact respond to Pavlina's request.
Speaking to WalesOnline, Pavlina explained that she arrived in Wales on Tuesday, February 7. According to Pavlina, it has been a "non-stop adventure" since she's arrived here, having so far visited Cardiff Castle and the Senedd, as well as hike up Pen Y Fan in the Brecon Beacons.
Her upcoming plans include attending a football match in Wrexham and visiting the likes of Welsh towns such as Conwy, Aberystwyth and Lampeter - the latter of which is where the creator of Cosymajig, Belinda Knott, is based.
"Everybody I have met have been so wonderful," she said. "Everybody has been trying to teach me a new Welsh word and I have been practising. It's coming together and I was excited to learn that two L's makes a 'll' sound.
"It's early days, but the highlight of the trip so far has been the attitude of the Welsh people. They've been incredibly open, kind and welcoming. Everywhere I go - for example we went on a hike to Buckland Hill in Bwlch yesterday, as soon as someone found out I was there, a lot of people in Brecon reached out and invited me for tea and invited me to meet their mum. So I'm actually meeting up with someone soon that has invited me for dinner. It's so lovely."
Although Pavlina has been in awe of the Welsh language and people's generosity, she also explained that she felt there was a lot of similarities between Wales and the Yukon. She said: "I think the Welsh feel like the Yukon in the fact that we are both from a beautiful but underrepresented part of the world. And so when someone is willing to make that journey, just the opening of people's hearts and homes has been incredible."
She added: "The thing I noticed right away when I mentioned this trip was the number of Welsh-Yukoners - there are so many connections between Wales and the Yukon. There had to be something there in terms of what is inspiring that transference and commonality.
"So far what I've observed is a group of people that are immensely proud - that applies to both the people of Wales and Yukon. People that are so influenced by their geography, for example walking up Pen-Y-Fan and seeing that it was not ideal condition but people were out there and embracing it. There's a real heartiness and spirit there, as well as toughness to the Welsh people that I see in Yukoners as well.
"There is so many similarities in histories as well. The Yukon went through devolution in 2003 and similarly going through a process of devolving power from the federal government. And on top of that, there's a language revitalisation efforts - in the Yukon we have eight indigenous languages. It so great to see the effort that's been put into revitalising the language here in Wales as well."
The error it seems has turned into a positive journey for Pavlina. According to the Yukoner, she wasn't expecting such an outcome. She said: "I made a small error and I thought at the time it wasn't accurate, but didn't think it was worth doing a second take.
"I posted that video and that demonstrated how little I appreciated what that meant to Welsh people. It's more than a border, it's a long history and a lot of work for a long time to maintain that Welsh identity and autonomy. I was immediately surprised by the response and then realised that there was something there that I needed to understand.
"When I learnt a bit more about the Welsh effort to preserve language and culture - I suddenly understood, to a certain extent from a Canadian perspective. I've said it before and I'll say it forever, the response of the Welsh in the face of that error to not punish or close off, but instead throw their arms wide and say 'come and learn, and you'll be very welcomed'. I was really humbled."
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