Thoughts at the Twilight of Summer.

First of all. If anyone I know reads this please post a response. It'd be great to know who's still hanging on out there!

Well. One week to go. Tomorrow I await the arrival of a new fridge and, if it arrives early enough, I'll head into school and start preparing for this year. Whew. 8 weeks almost gone.

It's been a strange and wonderful summer. Since I stayed here Gen and I decided we'd try and go something every weekend we could. Gen has did a show in July and had some weekends occupied so we didn't get moving on this until August but it's been great. We have been to Brighton York, Edinburgh, and Brecon (Wales). We were going to go to Cornwall but we decided against it due to the expense and the fact that I have to start teaching on the following Monday. We will, however, be going to Stratford in two weekends. We'll be taking a show and staying overnight.

It's been a bit of a weird summer. I've spent loads of time in state of complete inactivity. I watched 9 hours of The Wire Season 3 in one day last week. I looked for a job - albeit half heartedly. I bought a guitar and got back into that...though now I sense that will fall by the wayside as my teaching takes over my life again. I worked at Abel and Cole for a week and a half answering emails. It's cool company actually. They deliver organic produce and organic goods to your house. They're a really ethical company and they treat their customers and employees well. That was good. I volunteered at a green charity...for a day (because I got the Abel and Cole job as soon as I volunteered). Then we had the aforementioned weekends.

Now as for the trips here's what I've learned:

Brecon, Wales

It's a whole other country! I did not know that. Well I did know that before I went there but I didn't know that before I came to Britain. I thought it was something along the lines of Quebec - a different culture but the same country. Technically it is a separate country. But there's no real customs to clear....or border security... It has it's own government sort of. I don't know. Scotland and Wales are separate countries but the same at the same time. They send people to British Parliament...they have their own governments... it's all very muddy. Definitely a different country though! Don't say anything different or they'll rugby tackle you to death.

And it's beautiful. It's very rural. Driving through Wales is a breathtaking experience at times. Lush green mountains with sheep grazing everywhere. There are more sheep in Wales that people. For real!

The people there seem nice and friendly. They like to shout a lot in the toilets. Some of the funniest things I heard at the Jazz festival I heard in the toilets. It rains like crazy in Wales. Poured the entire time we were there. Apparently Brecon is bad because it's in a valley so they get tons of relief precipitation. Also learned that Brecon is one amazingly beautiful town.

We went up with Dan (friend of Gen and I) and stayed at his parents house. He grew up on a farm there. It might be the greatest most quaintest farm house ever. We had a great time on Sunday trekking through the fields in the pouring rain. Almost got stampeded by a herd of cows. Wandered up through the woods and spent half an hour falling down on the side of a 45 degree angle hill in the sopping mud. Dodged some more cows. Great fun.

Just in case people don't believe me when I say it roads here get claustrophobic...here's a video of driving through Wales!

York

Wow. I knew this country had history but the more you look around the more astounding it becomes. York was AMAZING and steeped in so much history it wasn't even funny. Originally named Jorvik by the Danes it became a major trading city when the Vikings took over. Eventually the Saxons (who came over from Germany) took over and had a hard time wrapping their tongues around the word Jorvic so it became York.

It was England's second city after London for centuries. The middle of York is still surrounded by the medieval walls that William Wallace (ie. Braveheart) overcame during his time. The entire inner city still looks like a city from the medieval times and there are monuments, plaques, museums and displays everywhere. There is also the Abbey Museum Park which has the remains of an ancient abbey in it. Incredibly impressive park. There's York Minster which is an INCREDIBLE church. By the way - a minster is the first church set up in an area. York Minster was originally a wooden hut or something.

Anyway, it was great. Did I mention it's only a 2 hour train ride from London. And that's over halfway to Scotland! How did so much happen in such a tiny place?

Edinburgh (or Edin-brah)

Astounding. Go to my Flickr page and check out the pictures. This city is the most impressive I have seen outside of London. In some ways it's more impressive than London. It's much smaller - only 460,000 people I was shocked to hear - but it has this fantastic castle on a hill - in fact it's is partially carved out of the rock I think. The castle is only part of the picture though as impressive building shoot into the sky from atop this massive hill. They have the most incredible monument there to a WRITER of all things. Walter Scott. He wrote a book called Rob Roy which, I have just discovered through the pages of Wikipedia, is actually NOT the book the hollywood movie was based on. Nevertheless an impressive monument to a writer...there's something cool about that! The Scots seem to be bigtime into the arts. Lots of funding and whatnot apparently.

Also - the Edinburgh Fringe is nuts. 300 venues! The city was packed to the gunnels. It also runs all of August so there must be 1000's of shows. I didn't actually get to look into the history of the city much as we drove up on Friday night, arrived at 2:30 - didn't get to sleep until 4:00 - took in some shows on Saturday - stayed up until 3:00 got up and saw another show - ate a lot and tried not to fall asleep. I would love to go back. I could see living there actually. It's also amazing because it's surrounded by mountains. Beautiful.

We took in 3 shows while we were there. One with two guys completely naked for the whole show, one musical, and one staging of a Tom Waits album with a 14 piece orchestra. I think the naked show and the Waits show were equally good. Naked show was funny. Even funnier because the actors were Dan's friend and we crashed at their house on Friday.

On a side note we drove there in 8 hours and that's most of the country. Crazy! How did so much happen in such a small place I once again ask you!

And now...

Now there is the teaching coming one. God help me! Hopefully this year goes well!

Looking forward to Christmas and my return to Canada. Another 2 years here max. and then we'll be back.