London Skies

from my Journal April 21:

I'm losing track of the days. I forgot what I did yesterday or if the day before yesterday is today. It is a blessing, though, to have the days blend a little, for Time to let loose and not be so strict and pressing. In the Lake District, time goes slow if you want to linger a little longer at a pub or it moves right by you in an instant if you want it to be bed-time. I made mine early last night, about 10:30, so waking up at 6:30 to catch the fog over a glassy Derwent Water was welcomed. On my way out, I could only finish a half cup of my bitter, instant coffee until I couldn't feel my mouth anymore, kind of like the after-cigar cotton mouth. I smoked last night, bumming a puff or two from Mark's Havana and Robin's old-man pipe stuffed with "The Best Blend" tobacco. We sat around and french inhaled and then, when the smoke stopped, proceeded to session the picnic table with our intense freestyle walking antics. A few heads poked out of the hostel's self-serve kitchen to clap and gawk ar our stunts. Among them, Dr. Reinsma smiled with his usual child-like adoration and curiosity. He soon found his way outside to have a closer look. I asked him if he wanted to join us. He said "well, it's quite late," looking down the drive to the water as if internally calculating how far we could get along the lake trail before it got too dark. Anticipating his thoughts, I said kinda laughing, "no, right here, we don't go anywhere." Mark launched up to the table top with a styly but akward 180 to heel stall makeyourbodystiffasaboardthing. Dr. Reinsma got excited. I think his mustache wiggled. I told him to give it a shot and I slowly demonstrated a "beginner's grab" on the lower bench seat. Cautiously and focused he approached the bench, stepped up with his right leg, bent his left knee, and raising his foot up to his reaching right hand, stuck the grab like a natural. After the word spread, Yoshi couldn't believe it: our white shaggy-haired mustachio professor in a crane-like poise on a picnic table. He wished I would have taken a picture, but this deserved even more praise and attention, "I'll write it down in my journal."

A coach bus scooped us up from the Havod Arms and took us to Holyhead in order to catch the ferry for Dublin. The bus-ride was long, but after a short bathroom stop my attitude was transformed. Drew bought me a coloring book and some colored pencils which instantly lifted my spirits, but nearly getting hit by a car a second later made me feel like it's just good to be alive, even if I'm stuck on a bus with the beautiful heavy scent of bus-stall hovering. (I hurriedly ran across the street to get a sweet new hat, yea, but I left the book and pencils in the shop, crap). The "Cruise-ferry" as they called it, brought us to Dublin fresh from a nap and energetic with instant coffee (that's all they got here, but it's kinda good). We made it to our apartments, ran out to get some Indian food, and spent the rest of the night fighting sweaty Irish at the Bleeding Horse (a pleasant pub name), ecstatic with our first Guiness's-in-Dublin. Yes, they taste better here, and after a tour of the Guiness Storehouse I know, well, I guess I know where it comes from. But, regardless, the Black Gold is good.

Kreeger and I left early the next morning for Galway via train (West Coast). I expected a beautiful ride through rolling green hills and old stone castle ruins, but we pretty much just saw flatness and once in awhile a mound of garbage. I guess the Irish dump all their old lawn chairs, broken bikes, ripped car seats, and garbage bags over the fence on the track banks. Galway was cold and sunny, then cold and rainy, then kinda warm and sunny, then cloudy--all within the two hours we spent there. We ate at Finnegan's, a little section of old brick in the midst of the newer shops, for lunch...dang good. After a wander around, we hopped a bus for the country to the "birthplace of traditional irish music," Doolin. We entered a full bus, but ended up being the last two on it an hour and half later. We were suprised, after expecting to discover a lively town with pubs and music everywhere, when the driver stopped outiside a sad little strip of shops behind farms of sheep and horses. We said "no, we're actually going all the way to Doolin," he said sharply in his thick accent, "This is Doolin." Drew says the place smelt like EZ cheez. We dumped our gear at the hostel and headed for the only place to go, Gus O'Connors. We sat at the bar and before we knew it the Irish blokes came to the bar, one after the other, to grab a Guiness and proceed to tuning their instruments. Soon 9 musicians were circled around a round table playing their country's heart with laughing eyes. We couldn't have asked for a more incredible night. Here we were, in Ireland, the heart of the country in a place that smells like cheese, in a dark Irish pub, no tourists, only farmers and some travellers, listening to accordians, bazouki's, flutes, bagpipes, penny whistles, and bellowing Irishmen holding their glasses high. We slept well and content.

The next morning we walked four miles to the Cliffs of Moher. I have no words really to give you, they were unbelievable. Even though the place is a tourist Mecca complete with paved walkways and info signs, the Cliffs are untouched and "couldn't be bothered" by all the camera's and souvenirs. Drew and I sat on a sandstone ledge that stuck out to a point over the atlantic about 650ft. We sat, as it's called in Doolin, on Europe's window ledge and looked at our home from the other side of the pond. Incredible to say the very least. And then my recently made dream came true: we flew a kite over the rocky cliffs, catching the furious wind from the ocean. Well, we didn't really fly it, we tried though, it would kind of float for a second and then dive, but we did it. The kite, the only one we could find, was all the colors of the rainbow, and Drew and I, without shame, ran with it smiling. Yea, people stared. Anyway, no time left, will write soon.

Cheers.

It's hard to write about the last 3 days in London. They have been hectic, as expected, but quiet moments of prayer and overwhelming awe have forced their way into my non-stop schedule. The anxious shuffling of crowds on the street are silenced by the majesty of St. Paul's dome, or by the almost arrogant wisdom of Big Ben, or by the qued pointed roofs that make me wish I was a chimney sweep in Mary Poppins, or by the lit towers of Westminster Abbey. The history within the beautiful buildings and the stories within the pubs give me the sense that I'm part of something, part of the place that so many of my favorite authors have written about and lived in. I just had a pint in a favorite pub of Virginia Woolf's, walked the streets where Karl Marx thought, stepped over the graves of Charles Dickens and Samuel Johnson, and ran up and down the steps of where John Donne went to mass every Sunday.

I've toured museums, stared at the crown jewels, walked Soho at night, but one of the most incredible experiences was in a back, slightly hidden nave at Westminster Abbey. We walked in the huge, dark wooden doors just after Big Ben struck 8:00am. There was no one at all in the church, except for an old man with white hair in a large bright red robe. He signalled for us to follow him, and led us to the rear of the church and through a small side door. There we sat, only about ten of us, and took part in the liturgical communion of the Anglican church, led by the priest of Westminster. We rose, and sat, and rose, and sat, and said "and also with a you" for about fifteen minutes, but then we surrounded the alter in a half circle, prayed, and recieved the sacrament in one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen. The ceremony was so deeply rooted in tradition, so respectful, so silent and cautious, that it felt like I was undergoing this sacred experience for the first time. The priest's eyes were so kind, but so fearful of the Lord. I felt a little ashamed for I feel like I have forgotten how powerful and holy our God is. But at Westminster, I was reminded.

Tomorrow morning we board the bus for Wales, to the middle of nowhere.

Please leave me a message whenever you get a chance, or email me: kramen1@spu.edu or nhkramer@hotmail.com. I'll write soon, from Wales.

Cheers.

To spare everyone from the dreaded mass email, all updates, thoughts, pictures, and adventures will be inadvertently spilled in a travel blog. I hope you all will check it as often as I can update it. Hopefully this works.

Anyway, Minnetonka is beautiful now with about a foot of blanketing snow, but London is too close--home just seems like a transition city in route for upcoming glory.

Take care, and thank you all so much for your prayers. I'll write next from London.

Not that many of you have actually checked this blog, but for the two or so of you who do, I'm sorry for leaving you in the dark as to my adventures in Wales and Ireland...I have excuses. In Wales, our group took over a small hotel in the middle of the hills (no town, no internet, no people) next to Devil's Bridge, a stone archway built-over three different times: the first constructed by the Roman's circa a long time ago, the second in the 17th century, and the third in the last fifty years? Anyway, it is beautiful and tall and old and we climbed it. In fact, Drew, Joe, and I rediscovered the glory of being twelve and pretty much climbed everything from trailhead bathrooms to Cathedrals. We even devoted a whole afternoon to exploring the woods and river banks behind the Havod Arms Hotel, skipping rocks, climbing trees, and swinging from old rusty cables. Wales was undoubtedly a place of rest, study, beauty, inspiration, and quiet--a much needed escape from the constant scrambling in London. And, after spending an hour in the hotel pub with some old Welsh guys and hitching a ride into town from another, it seems that they would all agree that the hills of Wales beat out any place in Great Britian, or, even though most of them have never left the island, any other place in the world.

As expected, travelling with a group of thirty people has been rather trying, especially on travel days. When we enter a new city, get off the bus, and waddle over the streets with our bright colored wheely bags, I feel like a drop of water that breaks free from the American tourist puddle (I often try to hang back a little), but I'm soon sucked back and morphed into one pool-of-SPU and continue to flow with the group over streets and sidewalks as we frantically search for our hotel. It's good though. I need get over my need to be the experienced,independent, and mysterious traveller, because I'm not. I'm just as American and curly haired and flared jeaned and tennis-shoed and white-teethed and clean as all of us Yanks are. But more importantly, I'm really learning that these two months are much more about the people I am travelling with than anything else. I am not only being taught patience, but I am learning to live with a constant heart of service especially in the moments when all thirty of us are tired and hungry, and to just enjoy the conversations and moments spent with this eccentric, overly-emotional, oddly artistic, consistently intense, and incredibly entertaining group of English Majors. Mountains, Georgian architecture, local music, pubs, and museums are all inspiring, but the people are what truly bring life to this trip. I know this all seems obvious, but I'm learning this in a new way and I anticipate a lifelong lesson to stem from it.

Right-O, enough for now, but I'll try to force myself to return to this sterile cafe soon and write about my adventures in Ireland. Again, thank you all for your prayers. I continually think back to our last night when you all surrounded Drew, Joe, and I and prayed for us. I have prayed for friends like you all my life. Blessings.

Cheers.