cornwall & wales trip day 2

day 2. land's end.st michael's mount.cream tea in okehampton.moors.

that morning we drove to land's end, which is literally the end of the land, the southwestern tip of britain. the view was pretty cool, and a little further down the path i encountered three ponies and a particularly mean pig. the ponies were the sweetest things; i fed them grass.
we drove to a shore and took a boat (my first boat ride if you don't count ferries) to st michael's mount, an island with an old castle and gorgeous gardens. to be honest, i'm not too clear on the history of this place. apparently it's been passed down through generations of this family, and was used as a fortress during some wars...anyway, it was pretty.
i've never experienced the concept of tides before, so it was pretty surreal when a bridge emerged on which we were to cross back to the mainland. there were people playing fetch with their black labs on the beach; this is one of my favorite images. dogs have such beautiful energy and they express this best when they can roam free.
we stopped in okehampton for some pretty intense biscuits with cream and jam, and ended up at what is quite possibly the worst hostel imaginable. it reeked and in the morning the water was turned off, so i couldn't take a shower. the night before we explored the moors around the hostel, so in the morning my socks and shoes smelled of rotten fish as i hung them to dry over a furnace that probably hasn't worked since 1922.

cornwall & wales trip day 1

day 1. tintagel castle in cornwell.

tintagel castle is pretty much the most gorgeous place in the world. the greenest grass, the bluest ocean, and what's left of a medieval castle. we went there because it's where king arthur was supposedly born, which is why the castle was built there in the 13th century.
it was a six hour drive to cornwell, which is on the southwestern tip of the country. we crawled out of the bus and emerged into this paradise...then we drove to land's end youth hostel (in the middle of nowhere), wandered around cornfields and wet plains, and met steve, who has been walking around the country since july. literally, he's a guy in his 60s who's been walking 6 days a week on a journey from the northeast corner of the country to the southwest, so we met him at the hostel on his last night. steveslongwalk.org.
the town around the castle reminded me of salem, in that its entire culture revolves around the historical event for which it is known. everywhere we walked, it was either king arthur's cafe or merlin's book shop or king arthur's car park.
that night we all sat outside on picnic tables to look at the stars. i haven't seen that many stars since....i don't know when, but it was absolutely beautiful. the sky was so dark and the stars were so bright.
i'm not a huge fan of taking pictures of buildings and landscapes, but everything was just so beautiful i couldn't help myself.

all the world's a stage

day 14. st. paul's cathedral.london museum.globe theater: as you like it

'All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages'

this is water

day 11. nothing.
day 12. trafalgar square. national gallery. national portrait gallery. covent garden.















since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all the flowers. Don't cry
- the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

and death i think is no parenthesis

ee cummings

please, sir

day 9. hampstead heath.
day 10. tate britain.charles dickens museum.




hampstead heath is ...beautiful. that's about it.


my two favorites at the tate britain were the following. these aren't my pictures; when i took one i got yelled at.















harry bates' pandora and john everett millais' ophelia.


'Oliver Twist has asked for more!'

again?

day 7. walk from bloomsbury to kensington gardens.peter pan, marble arch. pubpubpubpub.
day 8. tower of london.

someday i'll have better lighting and will get a brilliant picture of his shadow...

'The difference between him and the other boys at such a time was that they knew it was make-believe; while to him make-believe and true were exactly the same thing.'jmb





the guard at tower of london. the most amazing thing about them is how they move their feet.















so the tower of london is a great big castle, about 1000 years old.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGLN1kREJ2Q&feature=related

^amazing video of the coronation of queen elizabeth II. the crown jewels are at the tower of london; they're pretty ridiculous.

my very favorite part of the tower of london was seeing the words and names carved into the walls of prison cells. one man, thomas wyllinger, about whom i find nothing on the internet, wrote in 1573: 'my heart is yours till death,' and carved a heart and skeleton and such; the picture did not come out well.

londonlondonlondon

day 5. portuguese restaurant.hookah, aka 'hubble bubble'.
day 6. globe theatre: love's labour's lost.

dead tired.


the current globe theater is a reproduction built in about the same place as the two originals. we bought pennytickets, which today are much more expensive, but still only bought us a place to stand.