blisters, wind burns, and hostels :)

hola familia!
Things are going well in England. I finally have a few minutes of good internet, so I'll do my best to let you all in on my adventures. This past week has been full of English countryside! We spent three nights in Grassmere, Wordsworth's hometown. It has probably been my favourite place so far. There are so many little baby lambs romping around the green fields. I thought i'd seen green before this trip, but i'm learning that i really hadn't. The intensity of the vegetation's greenosity (haha, i'm making up words) continues to take my breath away daily...or maybe it's the steepness of the trail testing my lungs. hehe. While in Grassmere, we had a poetry reading at wordsworth's grave and toured Dove cottage and Rydale Mount, the two houses at which he mainly lived and wrote his best poetry. I've picked up sketching in my journal and i've been playing around with chalk and pastel mediums. It's been a fun way to capture the surrounding landscape and history. We, of course, carried out a pagan ritual of playing penny whistles while wading in the river near wordsworth's grave. A drunk man nearby thought we were a group of traveling minstrels and he asked us if we played requests. we said, "sure, why not." he then, very swankily asked us if we knew who the beatles were and if we'd play one of their songs. Three of us were wearing black, and he dubbed us the group's "bouncers" or body guards. I guess i'm picking up on a lot of new talents and hobbies here. I am now a pagan saint, an artist, a musician, and a bouncer. I wonder what occupations lay in store next week.
The past few days were pretty exhausting. I'm not going to lie, they tested my endurance. We hiked 15 miles on tuesday and 20 miles on wednesday across the moors. Although it was relatively all "flat land" the trail was full of hills and valleys. I have loads of beautiful blisters. Mom, i'm learning that i inherited your feet-they blister in all the same places. :) After walking 20 miles across the moors in the wind and rain (woah is me! Oy! jk, the weather was quite pleasant, really) we toured Haworth, the little town the Bronte sisters lived in. They have a massive graveyard with layers and layers of coffins stacked on top of each other. There is hardly any dirt left to cover the coffins. There are said to be 45,000 bodies buried in a plot of roughly a 1/2 acre. Lots of dead bodies, lots of gravestones, and lots of funerals...all in front of the bronte's house. No wonder they are catagorized as Romantic-gothics, eh?
Still no serious sun burning. I'm really thinking that my genes were engineered for this place.
We'll be spending the next few days in Warwick (pronounced warick) and then we'll be heading to stratford on monday to see King Lear (with Ian McKellen-aka Gandolf!)Othello, and some other modern play that's supposed to be neat.
Anywho, i'd better get off and share the computer lovin'.
Thanks for all the emails and comments. I love and miss you all.
oh, and for my birthday, i've decided that i want a baby lamb. He'd be so cute romping and bleating around my apartment. Sigh.
Cheers,
Evelyn

Oh...and I'll explain the pictures.
The first was taken on top of a sort of "cliffs of despair" type place. The rock was a type of lime stone that had been worn away over the years. we could hop about from rock to rock, each having deep crevices in between. It was quite the magical place. The second in me and Ann at an old church near Wordworth's second home. We found a string telephone behind some steps and revisited our choldhoods.
The thrid is a hot picture of me in my shorts and bandana overlooking the lush countryside of grassmere, wordsworth's home valley (i loved it-can you tell?)
The last was on the banks of a little river in Keswick where little baby ducklings were swimming about...daniel, i thought of you. Did you know british ducks like eating bread too? Fancy that.

Anywho, i'll try to post more pictures later...maybe when i don't look so frumpy and granola-ish. hehe.

Please wish Kristy and Sarah happy birthday for me!

Love love,
ev