UK is OK!!

Our trip around the globe begins at the Globe. Shakespeare's Globe that is--it's in a cool artsy burrough called Southwark across the Thames by the HMS Belfast.

So here's happy Soren on the Tube with his journal in tow. He's like my own personal Gulliver.
Above is the best example I found of Tudor half-timber architecture--it's so textbook, I think I shed a tear when I saw it. Not one but two jettys! (Medieval owners were taxed based on the sq ft of the base of the building so to get more bang for the buck, the upper floors were cantilevered out as much as possible.) I saw this at my spiritual home, Oxford--*sigh*--I want to move there with you Becky when our kids are grown and our husbands knock off. We'll study and be brilliant and wear wool tights and ride our bikes around and live in a little row house with a bright blue door and geraniums in front and take the shuttle to London to shop at Harrod's once a month.

OK I also want to live here, at the British Museum. I take a good photo, huh.

Above is the Great Torc. Torcs were worn by freeborn Celts. I would love to get a peek at the man that wore this beast. Roll over Soren Kirkegaard, I found a new pin-up boy.
Cauldron found at the Sutton Hoo archeological site. It's a new dig. Lots of good scholarship coming from this discovery.
Soren loves this pic of him with all the cool arms at the Tower of London. Sorry the lighting wasn't better. But since it was built in the 1070's AD I guess we can be forgiving.

Westminster Abbey cloisters--I could live here. Please let me live here. I know--I would make a good nun for about, hmm, an hour. And then I would get kicked out for voicing some unpopular opinion or taking off my garments, I mean my hairshirt, or for not going to church, I mean Matins, or for not observing the fast, I mean the feast, or for having Celtic pin-up boys.

Westminster is also where Isaac Newton, Darwin, Dickens, Handel, Jane Austen etc etc etc etc were burried. Queen Elizabeth I and Mary are buried in the same vault. I wonder what they would think of that idea.

Windsor Castle above.

Stonehenge. And for my sake, since I can hardly believe I was there, another reminder:

The lintels on the top are estimated at 80 tons. They are TONGUE and GROOVED onto the two posts. We're talking 5,000 yrs ago. We're talking 600 people taking a year to move the first batch of stones over land AND water. Brits know how to build things that last. What things people can do when they decide to cooperate!

Anne Boleyn, some of her relatives, and some Scottish rebels were excecuted near this site at Tower of London. Does keeping the peace always mean having to rip someone else's apart? Such are my questions to Soren.

The large suit is 6'9" (John Gaunt). The small suit was made for a young Duke of Gloucester. I am glad I don't have to see Soren go to battle in one of these. Hoping war will loose its appeal to humanity by the time he sees 18. Whaddya think my chances are? Judging by the Brits' pride in their massive military accomplishments through the centuries, I say my chances stink to high heaven. But I waxed all patriotic when I heard them sing Jerusalem, Pomp and Circumstance and Auld Lang Syne at the close of the last summer Prom of the season.

Well, we are in Scotland now. I will post again when I get a chance. It's expensive to find service eventhough I have all the right equipment. We had a video conference with Cyler and Ellery today before Cyler leaves for Ghana. It's a weird feeling having your heart flung around the planet like this. But it's good to stretch and move out of the comfort zone too. Love and miss you all.