another tsupid tsunami

did you know the words "stupid" and "tsunami" start with the same three letters? weird huh. but you'd never think of that, because they're in different order. in the subject line of this post i have altered the spelling of the word "stupid" to illustrate this phenomenon.

anyways, i'm getting kind of tired of posting pictures, and you're probably tired of seeing them, because i took too long to put them up after i got back. so i won't put up many more, because there are other things to talk about. but since i already built this post, here it is.

after our day tour of Scotland, we took a night train from Edinburgh to Cardiff, Wales. cardiff was a very pleasant place to stay. this is our first view of that fair city. note the Starbucks next to the Pure Rugby store. so you can get your joe after picking up your fave scrum sled. (i just used the words "joe," "fave" and "scrum" in the same sentence. ha!)

then we toured this "museum" of Welsh history where they'd brought old celtic buildings from all over the country to this one place so you can see them all. this, however, is not an ancient welsh building, but a cork tree, which was soft and spongy and oh so huggable.

this IS an old welsh building. it's a farm house from 1620 or something. they painted stuff red back then because they thought the color red scared away evil spirits. but, i was thinking, satan is red in every picture you see. how does that work? :)

this is the stadium close to our hostel. it's build like a giant ship. kinda strange, but whatever. our hostel is kind of behind that tree on the left.

this is natalie waiting patiently at a bus stop. this was right after we toured an old Manor and felt somewhat transported back in time because everyone there was dressed in period clothes, and the whole place seemed just like it hadn't changed for three centuries. read about it in this post.

this is Cardiff Castle and Moat, also close to our hostel. we didn't ever go inside this one, but we walked around it and it was really pretty in the evenings.

this is a little welsh village we drove through on our way to somewhere.

oh, right! that Somewhere is probably Caerphilly Castle, in a town called Caerphilly. (that'd be pronounced carefully - i mean, not that you pronounce it carefully, but like the word carefully. never mind.) this was the best castle of all. it was old and crumbly and rocky. for further information on this and other Wales attractions we saw, read my earlier post about wales (same link as before). in this picture, there is a man walking in a weird way, with weird (tight black) pants on.
this is the inner courtyard of the castle, and natalie next to the well. sadly, the well had been filled in, but i thought it would be neat to throw stuff in it and NOT hear it hit the bottom. but maybe that's how it got filled up in the first place. :}
here's me in the great room. i liked the great room.
i also had the opportunity to be in a grand fireplace without being burned up.

while i was in said fireplace, even though flames were not burning me up, and there weren't any flames at all, i made this face:

this castle was cuddly and huggable too!

natalie on a ruined wall.

we did other cool stuff in wales too. actually this is the only place we stayed two nights (other than london).

anyways. on to more important things, such as eating and wrestling. thanks for reading, friends!

today's tsunami warning level: HIGH

so, scotland.

i took a lot of pictures in scotland. here are many of them. oh, and we're back to center-alignment because the Ireland pictures in left-align had some spacing issues, as you might have noticed.

so un-pause and rewind your mind to the image of natalie and i, having had no sleep the night before, staggering off our shuttle to be greeted with the beautiful skyline of edinburgh. (it's pronounced "edinbruh" or "edinburra" said really fast.) these pictures definitely don't do it justice, but we were duly impressed.
i actually took one this later on, from a turreted, cannon-bespeckled roof on edinburgh castle. but it can better fit in the "edinburgh skyscapes" section of the tour. here are some pictures of the streets we walked down during our search for a hostel...

and here, natalie has a bit of shut-eye as she walks down a "close" (a narrow alley connecting two larger streets).

and, looking the other direction down the close. i really like how dark and tall the buildings are. they're pretty much all like that.here's a guy bagpipe-ing near our hostel. i like how the crowd just walks by...you could take him out and you'd never know he was ever in the picture.

here's natalie being swept off her feet by william wallace. the blue striped face didn't really do it for me, but she liked it.
for some reason there was this church with a red door that said Bedlam on it. i thought it was cool.

we visited Edinburgh Castle. that's the famous one up on the hill for those of you who know your scottish castles. but it's not much how you'd think of a castle. most of it was like a museum, but some parts of it were really neat, like dungeons and siege chambers and dark, ancient looking stuff. that does it for me.
this is a stained glass window inside the oldest standing building in edinburgh. it's St. Margaret's Chapel, which was dedicated in 1090 or so. and it's not magnificent or dramatic. it's rectangle-shaped and really small, with a tiny altar in the front and tiny windows. this window is about a foot and a half high. it was very cool to be there, and even though we visited zillions of chapels and abbeys, it never got old to be where people have been worshiping for centuries.
this is the inside of the chapel. i found this picture on the internet (i only took the window one because i feel weird taking pictures inside churches).
this is the view from a little turret-window on the roof of the castle. that's the scott memorial down there.
this is the roof and matching cannons.

after staying a night in edinburgh and visiting all the aforementioned sights (plus a lot more), we took a day tour of the Highlands, Glen Coe and Loch Ness. it was about eleven hours in all.

the first cool thing we saw on our tour was a highland cow. they are like hairy versions of texas longhorns. although, have you ever seen a Siberian cow? i'm thinking they look like normal cows. you'd think they'd be shaggy, but they're not, i don't think, even though siberia seems a lot colder than scotland. i guess there's only enough gene-pool to go around.

this is a place called Glen Coe. it's "way better than the pictures." it's this valley with these green sloping mountains on all sides. it was beautiful, stunning, and breathtaking...but not the jagged, rugged kind of stunning. it was peaceful and foggy and it smelled really good.

some tourists taking pictures. glen coe from inside the bus.

here are some other assorted pictures taken from a speeding tour bus. they'd be good, if they were, well, any good. so sad. i did like that it was cloudy/misty most of the time...but i wish we could have stopped every ten feet or so to take pictures. that would be a great bus tour. "alright, everyone buckle up, again!"

there were lots of sheep in scotland. LOTS of them.it was rainy and foggy when we were in St. Augustus (the town next to Loch Ness). here is our umbrella and corresponding view from underneath it.
and this is the mighty (not all that impressive) Loch Ness! no monsters sighted.

this is loch ness again, but with us next to it. the rain stopped for about 20 minutes while we were next to the lake.

ok, back in the city (our bus tour got back around 8 that night). this is the Walter Scott monument. it's almost black in color and is quite stunning, i think. it's right in the middle of the city. this is as close to it as we got. i took this while we were waiting to cross the street to get on a train to Wales.
this might not look like much, but this is our very last view of Scotland. this is the ghetto train station (i can't remember what town it's in) where we waited for our connecting train to Cardiff, which we weren't sure we could even get on because we didn't have reservations. a security guard felt sorry for us and let us sit inside for a little while. the train guy did let us on, but for double the price. grr.

The Monsoon is Down

to keep you entertained whilst i build another picture post, here's another funny conversation that took place recently at our house.

scenario: my sister and my dad are on the computer, and a little MSN-Messenger window pops up.

dad: why are all these people blogging us?

sister: they're not blogging, they just signed into MSN.

dad: MSN? is that a chat room?

sister: heh. and you don't even know what a blog is.

dad: yes i do. it's when people get online and they talk back and forth to each other.

sister (speaking slowly): no dad. you're thinking of chatting. a blog is like an online journal.

dad (smugly): yeah, right. you don't even know what BLOG stands for.

sister: um, it's short for a web....bb...log.

dad: see, it IS the web!! talking back and forth!! i TOLD you!

the first wave

here is the first tsunami of pictures in what looks like it will be a great monsoon of photography. as usual, i'll get the rest up when i can, which could be a long time. :) you know you love me, you know you do!

there is no cropping, tilting, saturating, etc., because i simply haven't had the time. if i find any good ones i'll put them on my photoblog. sometime. hey, do you know the ten commandments of procrastinating? 1,

i'm just putting the ireland pictures up for now, because this is taking a lot longer than i thought. so...for historical accuracy, here's what happened: natalie and i flew into london and katie met us at the airport. the three of us then flew to Cork, ireland. from there we made our way up the southern coast to dublin...


when we arrived in cork, i immediately attempted to communicate with the natives. i asked the shuttle driver (taking us from the airport to the city center) "if you had one day in Cork, what would you do?" the driver replied, "I would leave." we didn't understand his indigenous tongue and promptly decided to stay an entire day. anyways, this is a picture of cork...






...as is this. you can yawn now. well it's kind of a cute little city, like for families of four, etc.














there was one cool thing about cork. they had a very nice cathedral (St. Finbarre's) with quite the history, none of which i can remember. but it was very long, i think.














oh look, and i took a picture of the history! and there it is.


















another view of the outside of the cathedral. i think that dog was born in 1197 and has been haunting the place ever since he died an untimely death shortly afterwards.
















the church people weren't really excited about us taking pictures of the inside, so i don't have very many.

"kneel to pray." the other side of the kneeling-pillow said "stand to think." the clear implication is that thinking is the opposite of praying. we saw the National Youth Choir of Wales perform here that night. ok, that was a very cool thing in cork. they sang pieces of the Requiem and did some cool father-son pieces that were written at different times. er, anachronisms. :)









hey look, a yellow street, let's explore it! (we ended up in someone's backyard or driveway or something.)

















after a few hours of wandering, we decided to give Cork the thumbs down (of course except for the concert that night). we are smiling because it's still funny, then. also, keep in mind that at this point natalie and i had been awake since our first flight left at noon the previous day. well, sort of. anyways, this was our first full 30-hour day.







the next day, we took a rather ill-advised trip to a town called New Ross. our plans to explore the area were dampened when a woman told us we needed a car to get to anywhere cool. she told us to get right to dublin. we learned from our first mistake of not listening to the natives, and indeed got right to dublin.

this picture is the *ahem* river in New Ross, which smelled bad and was full of trash.





in dublin, we all slept in a queen-size bed. it's a long story. i was in the middle. tee hee. this is the ghetto-ey little "yard" outside our hostel/hotel room. in this picture, i have captured the expressions of serenity and peace on katie and natalie's faces. clearly they are inspired by the blissful scenery, and are resolving to be better people for the rest of their lives.





this is us the next day at Dublin Castle. you can see the different sections of it that were built at different times. this castle was cool to walk around but we didn't go inside.
















"look at this guy! he's just reading his paper but little does he know, there's a CASTLE behind him!"











a pretty section of road in dublin. the temple bar is in there somewhere.

for the record, the temple bar wasn't that exciting (although we didn't see much of it), and i also heard that the people who live in dublin won't go near it. it's ONLY tourists.







this is St. Patrick's Cathedral and katie.


















and this is Christ Church Cathedral. it's massive and it has these ruins that are over a thousand years old.











and we all know we can't keep natalie away from those sexy
red heels, even in dublin.

















a typical dublin street. narrow with straight high buildings.


















this is the grand finale to the ireland segment of our trip. natalie and i stayed at the dublin airport that night because the shuttles didn't run that early (katie flew back to england that night). and hey, it saved us some hostel money. neither of us really slept because of our resolute quest for a good soft spot. then we realized that we had neither a clock nor a way to wake up in time for our 0630 flight. we managed by not sleeping at all. we did make a cozy little camp next to the arrivals sign, though. it had a great view of the first floor.

at long, long last

i know i have promised to post pictures from both of my trips this summer, none of which have ever appeared, doubtless leading many of you to doubt that i actually went to these far-off lands. well in this post i will dispel all your skepticism with some well-chosen photography. meaning some of it will even have me in it, to further assure your mind that i didn't get these from some more fortunate traveler's web site.

so, first of all, here are some from my Ecuador trip. later i will post my other trip pictures. sorry this has been a little un-coherent (hehe) and out of order. i'm not going to explain any ecuador stuff again. but here are the pictures, complete without clever or ironic or sarcastic narration, because i'm not capable of any of that.

this is right outside where we worked for the first week. the street is a typical residential street...the government doesn't care enough to keep it up, and neither do the residents. everyone has walls up to keep criminals and dogs and trash and general riffraff out of their yards.

this was taken in a town called Banos (which, strangely, didn't have very good banos). this is a Quechua family who was there for whatever reason. i think they were selling something. that is pretty typical traditional Quechua dress (at least for the quechuas in that area) although i think they generally wear long skirts.

this is right outside our little down-time camp close to the town of Shell. that's the jungle, right there. that tree, there, is a jungle-tree, and that's jungle-fog and a little jungle-dead-end-trail! isn't that amazing? we were in the jungle. this is still so cool.

this is your standard inspirational waterfall. all it needs is some mist and a fragment of a bible verse from the Living translation, and i could sell some calendars and bookmarks. i even probably hopped over this inspirational waterfall. that's not too reverent. (i'm not trying to be funny or cute, really...if it comes across that way, it's because it's like 2am and i'm listening to simon and garfunkel.)

this waterfall is a bit more dramatic. also, it has a cool wood-rope bridge next to it. we stopped next to the road to see it.

the little dialogue my brain goes through each time i look at this picture: oh look, a nice little squirrel, running on the phone wires in a forest. except, it's not a forest, it's a jungle. and it's not a squirrel, it's a monkey!!

this is mitchell holding a baby python. i held it too, but i looked bad in my python picture. that sounds like i'm making an i-didn't-actually-hold-the-python joke, but it isn't. :)

juan-phillipe, ben, elissa, and natasha on el trampolino.

this is a billboard at the site where the Inca indians surrendered to the spanish conquistadores in...15-something. right there, where we were. the spaniards told them they'd always be well taken care of. famous last words...

mount chimborazo and assorted rocks.

this is a princess bride-esque scene in the quecha village of Colta.

here's another quecha person. this guy's taking a little siesta after his amazing goal.

a few of our little quechua friends. we played with them on this mountain for a while one afternoon. the guy in the front is enjoying a plantain.
justin taking a high-resolution picture of "the equator." also, in this picture justin does not appear to have eyeballs.

another day at EXACTLY greenwich mean time

just so you can see it: a link to westminster abbey 360-degree views. click on ''panoramic views'' and then click the small links under the map to get a feel for the place. if you care. if not, ride on. :)

so today = another so-so day in london. how sad. i'm in one of the biggest/most famous cities in the world and it bores me.

we leave for home tomorrow. i don't think i've ever been so glad to be going home. not that our trip has been bad at all, but it seems like well over a month when...yesterday was here. and i am having trouble remembering entire days, entire castles, etc.

i don't know how far we walked today in our futile search for good souvenirs. here is our Epiphany of the Day: london is not cultural. it's just like america, only they talk a little differently and have a longer history. ok, a longer and somewhat cooler history. the history seems to be pretty much what sets them apart. on the other hand, in scotland/ireland/wales, we were able to buy very cool stuff that was cultural and cool, because they had these distinct cultures that carried over into the present. here, all the souvenirs are either little statues or keychains of fuzzy-hat guys, big ben, the london eye, and the tower bridge; and a hundred thousand t-shirts and baseball caps that say MIND THE GAP; and of course pens, postcards, shot classes, and red metal telephone booth coin-banks. not exactly the cultural/unique assortment i was looking for. but it is sunday and i think a lot of the cute little stores we wanted to visit were closed. tomorrow morning we're going to The Map Store. probably one of the coolest places i've seen so far (at least from the outside).

things we did do today:

• ate ice cream that was actually frozen whipped cream (so deceptive)
• went to the ''famous'' places called picadilly circus and oxford street which are supposed to be good shopping streets (that means exclusive, expensive stores with clothes and watches and leather stuff, not souvenirs)
  
• probably walked at least five miles, likely more
  
• rode dozens of miles of tube (underground train) which was surprisingly simple
  
• visited harrod's, like the biggest mall in the world or something, quite unimpressive really
  
• walked a LONG way to buckingham palace, only to realize today is one of those ''rare occasions'' when they don't have the changing of the guard ceremony
• took pictures of the weird fuzzy-hat guys anyways
• walked a little ways out onto london bridge, which was incredibly boring and seems to be one of those things that is pretty much just famous for being famous
  
• walked to the tower bridge and walked across it and even went up into the tower

i just want to be home with people i know, where i can drive my own car on my own schedule wherever i want, and go to my own job and wear my other clothes and not pay for internet or sit in a smelly tube car ever again. :)

i have learned a lot so far. it's been such a whirlwind i think many of the lessons probably flew by me as i read a street map or a bus schedule. i guess that's how most of life goes. anyways, i am still really enjoying the compact self-sufficiency and portability my backpack brings. but, it weighs a LOT more now. :)

also, like i said before, england does not seem to be a cultural place at all. i kind of thought it would be this way, but this reinforces my desire to NOT study here or anywhere else that could commonly be confused for home. booooring.

i shall not write again until i am back home. it might be a while. :) once again, many thanks for your prayers, which will also be appreciated tomorrow, as we cross the ocean once more.

officially almost done

last night we traveled to oxford from wales. it was a lovely trip, although very boring and a little frustrating at the end as we weren't sure what to do when we arrived in oxford. but we found katie's dorm just fine. it was really fun to see her, although it's always like a wrinkle in the time-space continuum when you see someone you know from one place, in a totally different place. it's like a strange anachronism.

i like the word anachronism. ana-means not, or against. chron- refers to time. and of course we all know our favorite suffix is probably -ism. i know mine is. i won't even bother explaining it. so, an anachronism is something that is out of its time. and there isn't really a word that means out of space. but that's the closest thing i've got for you right now.

just in case you didn't come here for a linguistics lesson, here's what happened today and yesterday. after we got to katie's dorm she showed us around parts of Oxford. we took lots of awesome pictures, which isn't saying much since i think the plentiful architecture makes it almost impossible to take a bad picture. i will post some of these later.

after our mini-tour, we went to this pub with katie's oxford program friends. they were supposedly having a disco but the place was really stupid and small and loud and smoky. so natalie, katie and i, and a couple more girls, ended up at a nice little bar with a couple of cute guys. hehe. that doesn't sound like me. here, bars and pubs and clubs are a completely accepted aspect of culture, far more so than in the US, at least the part of it i'm from. i mean, the part of it from which i am. :) so when i say ''we went in this bar'' it doesn't really have the connotation amongst christians here that it *might* at home.

anyways, we had a lot of fun and the guys were complete gentlemen and they were very intelligent. one guy was from italy and wasn't as proficient in his english. but it was fun trying to communicate, especially when the light bulbs come on quite dramatically and everyone has a good laugh. there was also plenty of culture-, language- and accent-mocking going on. we learned a lot about stereotypes of americans in england and how most english people have never been to scotland. what?? it was a fun evening and after we all returneth to the dorm, we talked and made fun of ireland some more. hehe.

this morning natalie and i took a bus to london. it wasn't quite two hours. we had quite the afternoon, for, thou recallest oure right honorable strategie of fynding travelle brochures, and decyding upon a hostell, when we do arrive atte our good destynation? well, that didn't work out so well in london. they don't like tourists and we asked three people before someone was able to direct us to a tourism information center. long story short, we wore the heavy burden of our backpacks until nearly six in the evening. i don't even want to guess how many miles we walked. once again, the confusion was not our fault. but fear not, for amidst our wanderings, we stumbled across westminster abbey. which must be nothing less than divine providence, for the abbey was pretty much the one place i REALLY wanted to see in london, and we accidentally found it. so i went inside by myself (natalie wasn't very excited but i think she just wanted to go hang out with the hippies in the antiwar demonstration going on outside).

i don't know how much you know about the abbey. but just in case you've never heard of it, it's world famous and it's been there in some form or another since 1066. pretty much every royal person in England since that time has been crowned there. i can't even begin to tell you how beautiful and rich it is. the audio tour plays choir music and i am not a teary person but....yeah. :) i spent almost two hours inside and could have spent a lot more.

i hope to tell you more about the abbey later, but the internet cafe is about to close so it will have to wait. oh, we did find a hotel, finally, and are planning plenty of shopping tomorrow, last-hurrah-style. :)

oh, and while i was waiting in line for the abbey, i heard Big Ben chime two pm. :) it was beautiful. also there was a massinormous anti-war demonstration going on right outside the abbey. oh yeah, that's the one i think natalie went to while i was busy being pious and ponderous in the abbey. curiouser and curiouser.

i will be very glad to be home.

ME

a pleasant day in wales

today was our first day to relax somewhat. yes, it was a full day, but we slept until like 8.00 and took in two very pleasant attractions. first we visited a place called Caerphilly Castle. this one definitely took the prize for coolest castle so far. true, we've only been inside a couple, but when you think ''medieval castle'' you probably think of this one. features of Caerphilly Castle include, but are not limited to, the following:

a moat
concentric defense structure :)
it was built in the 1500's and is still mostly like it was then
it has some ruined/fallen walls, some crooked ones, and some perfectly intact ones
lots of outer walls and watch towers
you can climb on it and explore it
acres of green picnic-ready grass around the moat
no overly zealous tour guides telling you NOT TO TOUCH ANYTHING
nothing that says NO PHOTOGRAPHY
windy circular stairways that you can go on
no gold/velvet/plush/delicate stuff behind red silk ropes
a very impressive Great Hall with fireplaces bigger than people

that was this morning. the afternoon was spent at a place called Llancaiach Fawr. (we still have no idea how to pronounce it.) it's an old mansion circa 1540 that has been fully refurnished (with the servants and everything) to appear like it did during the civil war of 17-something. everyone was in character as servants, cook butcher, recordkeeper, etc. their heavy welsh accents and medieval-english vocabularies made it hard to understand and it seemed really cheesy at first. but they took us through the manor and explained what each room was for, as well as a lot of the actual history of the place and of Welsh life in general. we learned a lot and the people were really funny. what a family-friendly attraction (except for a few of the jokes...we didn't get all of them). :)

i really like the language here. it's europe's oldest living language and it sounds old and mysterous. it reminds of me of the language in Lord of the Rings. for example, mae mynediad i'r digwyddiadau wedi ei gynnwys yng nghost y mynediad os ni nodir fel arall simply means admission to events is included unless otherwise stated. i just like to look at it. and it's quite the experience to hear someone speak it. all the road signs and brochures are in both languages.

the rather unpleasant part of our day was spending probably five hours either on buses or at bus stations. oh the horrors of public transportation and infinitely confusing bus schedules. :)

the towns here are so lovely. the streets are clean and 'tidy' and the houses are all made of stone and the people are very willing to help us. a lot of people have just come up to (you'd almost think we look/sound foreign) and offered guidance to bus stations, hostels, etc. also, most people smile as if by default. this seems like such a pleasant, happy area. several older couples have started conversations with us and are (almost annoyingly) eager to divulge the treasures their country has to offer. it seems to be a shame that this very proud but unpretentious people, with their unique and distinct history and language, can't even claim Wales as a sovereign nation. no, i don't know a whole lot about it. but i think they should be.

that's today's news. thanks again for your prayers and thoughts.
MOI

oh, give me a home...

well, frequenters of my little corner of cyberspace, here i am, finally, communicating to you from a secure undisclosed location deep in the heart of Cardiff, Wales! sorry you haven't heard from me like i promised. but time being the insanely precious commodity it is here, blogging is normally the last thing on my mind (at least, the last thing next to ''clean clothes would be nice''). so in the interests of said precious commodity, i'll just share some observations and thoughts about the trip so far.

so far we've been in seven airports and two foreign countries (four countries if you still think Scotland and Wales are real countries). we've talked with people from all over the globe...canada, australia, russia, the middle east, france, norway, chicago, germany, and of course the bonny scots, irish, british and welsh.

i kind of like living out of my little backpack. i didn't take one of those insanely large ones because even though it'd be nice to be able to sleep in it like a snail, i like to be able to travel standing up and not lying on my back with my arms and legs wiggling around like a centipede. anyways, i like it because i never have to be without anything. if i need it, it's right there. No 'i left it at home' or 'it's still in my car.' it's total, utter self-reliance. which is tiring. also, we have been to spontaneous and beyond...which is also exhausting unless you plan it right. :)

some impressions of where we've been so far...

ireland in general: let's just say we don't blame our ancestors for LEAVING ireland. (no really, i know there's good stuff to see, we just missed it...ALL...and managed to spend plenty of money in the process.) people=not friendly, and not customer oriented at ALL. (are they communists?!?)
dublin: a fun city, lots of night life and loud people from all over the globe...very energetic but full of the super-commercialized irish culture. which doesn't feel like real culture at all.
airports: no fun to sleep in, even with a nice sheet set. especially if someone already took those nice cushy cafe booths or that nice dark corner under the stairs. i still hate airports.
edinburgh: so full of history and stuff to learn, you don't know where to start. it's overwhelming, and you have bagpipe guys and William Wallace wandering around raising money for cancer research. a beautiful city, with a lot of different layers of history within it and the inspiration for a lot of famous literature.
scotland in general: very, very friendly and helpful. i could listen to them talk forever. they are not too fond of the english for obvious reasons, and their country pride seemed a lot more genuine and less garish than that of the irish. the tour we took of the Highlands was awesome...with giant green mountains, clear lochs, and fog-shrouded castles perched on the mountainsides.
the mostly deserted ghetto bus station in Scotland where we spent an hour and a half in the rain waiting for our connecting train that we didn't even have tickets for and we hoped they'd let us on anyways, while trying not to stare at a couple making out: i don't want to talk about it.
hostels: no bad experiences so far, except for sharing a queen bed between the three of us.
airplanes: kind of fun, really, especially when you sit next to a cool british woman who gives you her phone number in case you run into trouble in London. and the food was even good.
wales: the people here are very friendly and very beautiful....the kids especially, with their fair skin and clear features, are quite lovely. the country itself is pretty but not so remarkable so far, with most of it reminding me of midwestern US.

well friends, foes and countrymen, thanks for reading. the weird computer i'm on doesn't have a USB, so pictures will have to wait. i should be back on the precious banks of the mother country in six short (but oh so long) days. in between now and then: London sometime, maybe oxford sometime. who knows. :) your prayers for our safety and wisdom are very much appreciated!
cheers
ME