Pictures part 2

Here's another batch of pictures. This one is me in Viking gear dancing with Sarah.

This is York Cathedral-more of the inside later.

This is Wood Henge, cousin of Stone Henge.

This is the Knowth burial ground where Wood Henge lives.

A window at Chester Cathedral-more windows later.

Dr. Aarnes is king of the Welsh castle.

Isn't it always?


An overexposed shot of me making a wish at the Giant's Causeway.

A giant Irish deer...creepy.
More pictures later. Hope these help.

A taste of things to come.

So it looks like this is all I can upload at the moment...frustrating. Here are some wall murals from Belfast, Laura Ann, Murdock and Harrison engaging in mortal kombat, and Meredith and I being cute. In any event, I'll try again in the next few days. Sorry.

Pictures soon...I promise

So I'm in Stratford Upon Avon now, ready to begin 2 weeks of intensive Shakespeare study...and it's been like 3 weeks since I put any pictures on the blog. In any event, I will be putting them up in the next few days-I just wanted to let you know that I've taken roughly 600 pictures since the start of the trip, and you'll get to see them VERY soon :-)
cheers,
kmf 09/06

Text update part 2

So I'm in scenic downtown Bath now, at the end of our tour of the United Kingdom. It's been so calming and amazing to get away from everything (well, almost everything-the trip hasn't been without drama and tears, but what is?) and I feel like the new direction my life has taken has really been confirmed by this trip. Hopefully it will only get better :-) I will try to do pictures after this post, but I wanted to at least keep the text up to date.
Cambridge/Oxford: After York we visited the 2 great universities, and even though my presentation was at one of them, I wasn't as blown away as I had expected, but they were both really fun cities...I'm not going to lie, I've been having lots of fun in ways I never would have expected, but I guess these experiences are all about change.
Bath: Here we are at the last stop, Bath. This is a great city, and the Roman baths were neat to see. Although of more note is the Abbey...
Cathedrals: I've been to the following: Chester Cathedral, York Minster, Durham Cathedral, King's College Chapel, St. Giles, and Bath Abbey, and it's been spiritually calming and beautiful at the same time. What wasn't either of those things was the hilarious Viking "roller coaster" we rode in York...it was pretty bad, but there's a GREAT picture of me in viking gear for you to see, when I get it online. Also my kilt. That's right, I have a kilt. Don't you wish you had one? I did, until I bought it. Boom.
The last thing I wanted to say was that I've met some VERY awesome people...these are folks I would have never imagined meeting and knowing, and I thank God that I went on this trip to see the sites and create some truly strong friendships...not to mention growing and changing with the AMAZING friends already here :-)
I'll try to get pictures up soon-sorry about the lack of them.
I miss you all. You'll hear from me again in Stratford. Peace.
kmf 09/06

Still here

Yes, I'm still here. I've got a lot to say about my adventures in Ireland and the move to the UK, but it's pretty hot in this room, so it'll have to wait for tomorrow. But the pictures won't upload, so I'll tell you a little more.
Belfast: It was really interesting to see a city torn apart by civil strife, with a tour given by an expert working with the University in Belfast. We got to look at the detailed and VERY complicated interplay between the loyalists and the republicans in Ireland. It was a big change from the rustic peace of the Republic of Ireland, but it was an amazing place.
Dublin: Dublin was also quite different...it was the largest city we've been to so far on the trip, and from a drunken teen rampage to all the museums, it was quite a place. Perhaps the highlight for me was getting to see the jail where revolutionary prisoners were held in the morning, only to see the movie The Wind that Shakes the Barley that night, which was filmed in the jail. After spending so much time discussing Ireland's fight for independence, it was really moving to see a movie about the movement at the heart of Ireland. However, that was the end of our stay in Ireland, and by 7 am we were on a boat to Great Britain. Wales lasted maybe 3 hours for us, before we went on to Chester, which is probably my favorite stop so far. Free internet, a GORGEOUS cathedral, and peace and quiet were all welcome-that and a triple with Murdock, Ned, and myself, which needless to say was hilarious.
Edinburgh: Ah, Edinburgh. What an awesome city. Seeing a music service at St. Giles cathedral, seeing Scotland's crown jewels, drinking a little too much, exploring the town, and seeing another movie (this time it was Terry Gilliam's Tideland, which wasn't as good...it was disturbing), it was just an awesome place. I stayed busy and rocked out. Now we've moved on to the city of York, and from there it's time for Cambridge, where I get to present about Trinity College. I'll try to get pictures up soon. Talk to you soon.

On the Tour, part 1

Crosses-heck yeah.

Murdock is emo. Sarah is mocking him.

Isaac and I are too tall.

The group at the Aran Islands

That's a long way down.

Yeah, that should be me.

Hayley and Elizabeth on the ferry.

Ned and Harrison are breaking the law.

The first view.

These are the first rocks I've seen in Ireland. You'll see more. LOTS more.

Alright, now I have stable internet access, so I'll go over the first few days of the trip.

The plane trip: so I was clearly unprepared for how stressed I would be on the plane. 8 1/2 hours of no sleep and uneasiness was clearly rough to deal with, but we made it. God be praised.

Seamus McCarthy: We got on the bus as soon as we landed and met our bus driver Seamus. Besides winking at the ladies and cursing at odd times, he's basically the coolest (and most brutal) bus driver I've ever had. On the subject of brutality-every driver in Ireland is brutal-just brutal. They're fast and don't seem to mind if you die, but that's ok.

Galway, aka Asheville: Galway was the first city, and it was VERY much like downtown Verona, or Asheville. We had a good time exploring the city at night, and the sites during the day. We saw the Aran Islands on the second day of the trip, and it was just so serene and beautiful-that's when it hit me that I was really in Ireland. The next day we visited an Irish monastery and I took a little under 100 pictures of the high crosses there. It was pretty overwhelming to me, since I've admired Irish crosses for so long and never seen them-wow, in a word. To those of you who enjoy Yeats and Lady Gregory, we saw the home and grave of Yeats and the home of Lady Gregory, both of which were quite nice. However, Yeats wrote some mundane and hilarious stuff (my wife has painted the ceiling...I smell dinner). The next day I managed to get a rosary made of Connemara marble from the Abbey there, basically completing my Irish quest for crosses. A lot of the specific sites are a blur, but hopefully the pictures explain themselves. We're in Belfast right now, which is fascinating, but I'm excited to move on to Dublin and then Britain. I hope all is well with classes starting, and I'll try to post again/call soon.

I'm here.

Yes, it's true. I am here. However, consistent internet access seems impossible to find, and as it's 1 euro for 8 minutes, I find myself unable to post until rates improve. Don't worry though-you'll here from me soon.

kmf 09/06