Destination Anywhere - The Wrap-Up

Said to the man at the railroad station

I want a ticket, just for one.....

The best and the confounding of my Sabbatical...I enjoyed the mix of languages... getting locked out of my hi-tech hotel and having to find another hotel entirely...running to meet trains....trying to remember which currency to use for this particular country...asking endless questions about train names and destinations....simple cappuccinos that one lingers over for an hour and nobody hassles you...the eternal hunt for wifi, which is easy to come by these days...surprises like when your RR car suddenly is shunted onto an ocean going ferry... Good times....but here is a mix of experiences over the past four weeks with no discernible theme.
My wrap-up

Here's the thing....I found that a cappuccino a day...especially in the morning...gave me a place to go to and enough caffeine to start my day plus not too much to keep me awake at night. Rule of thumb....small cappucino's in Copenhagen but they seemed to get bigger as I journeyed through Western Europe and then in Windsor England I had a "medium" that was the size of a "Big Gulp"...go figure.

No idea what was up here. We stayed in a neighborhood that, by night looked like a 1940's Noir Film...lots of shadows and seemingly shady characters and shut-up shops. By day it was alive and well.....and this woman, right across the street from our apartment...stood outside for two straight afternoons....I assume more....but I couldn't stay in my apartment all day waiting to see. I would assume .....that this is what she does. She seemed to know everyone.

Best Cemetery. That would have to be a toss up between this one in Ireland and Greyfriars in Edinburgh, Scotland. Let's give it to Ireland....this one was about a thousand years old....I think...no matter...it was pretty cool.

Where so these circular steps go?? Sligo Abbey was a tourist draw...at least it was to us. I had never heard of Sligo until about 3 hours before we arrived there in NW Ireland. I had never heard of Sligo Abbey until about 8 minutes before we arrived there. I liked it. No roof. No windows. But a killer cloister and that is always tops in my book.

And when you servants return from your day off (which you probably got every month or so)....please don't burden the owners of the estate with them actually seeing you come and go. We got the best tour of a British Estate in Ireland...by an Irishman. He held nothing back and had few good words for the Brits and the Empire and the treatment of the Irish. It would kind of be like Richard Nixon giving his opinion of the Washington Post during Watergate. No love was lost.

The photo above shows the partially underground entrance and exit for the working staff...out of sight of the estate owners.

Drive, then drive some more. Coninue some more miles out to the edge of Ireland, north of Sligo. Keep driving, dodge some cars on hairpin turns, dodge the tour buses. Then park the car and walk a mile or more. Gaze. And then consider that you have to backtrack the way you came.

The Lighthouse on the NE Corner of Scotland....A lighthouse is something that performs a function....like warning ships away from the dangerous shores, but this one had some unintended geometric and artistic merits within its interior staircase.l

If I could bring back one design to my hometown.....It would be the design of the Round Tower in Copenhagen. It was ostensibly to gaze at the stars but its sheer artistic beauty is beyond compare.

Props to Dublin, Ireland....This area is called Temple Bar....not to be confused with the bar called Temple Bar....nor the uncountable number of bars in Temple Bar. I can see the revelry and all....but I think it's highly overrated. Fun, but overrated.

This was either, The New Old Church or the Old New Church....I forget....I could look it up but it was in Inverness in the NW corner of Scotland...it had a genuine first issue King James Bible and they displayed it like they had won the Church Basketball League trophy.

Let's face it....Edinburgh is grey though the buildings and houses are all stone-brown...and grey. I imagine it's rather grey even on a sunny day but I saw it only in rain...and grey skies. So.....it was a shock and delight to turn the corner and encounter Victoria Street and Victoria Terrace.(Though I tend to believe that half of everything that is nailed down in the former British Colonies or Commonwealth....is named after Victoria. I liked these houses.

You presume correctly....this is Dr. David Livingstone the famous Scottish Missionary/Explorer. He explored the Aftican Continent. Livingstone campaigned against slavery. He was the first European to record seeing Victoria Falls....which he conveniently named for a distant Queen in a distant country that had no particular interest in the area at the time. The locals called it "Mosi-o-Tunya" "the smoke that thunders". Nevertheless...he tramped many years before.... near the mission school where I taught in Zambia. The hills around the school are named for him. And one of the four administrative houses at the Zambian boarding school was named for him....and I was a part of that house. He died in Zambia and legend has it that his heart is buried under a tree in Northern Zambia....his body was carted back to Westminster Abbey and years ago...I stood on top of it. Here's a statue to one of Scotland's (and my) Favorite Sons.

Any church with an EXTERIOR set of steps at the very top of their church spire.....wins my admiration....Copenhagen.

You have got to be kidding me....two elephants in the back of the church....holding up the structure for the organ pipes? The Jack Hannah award ... for outstanding decoration of a church interior. I stumbled across this in Copenhagen.

The Young Ambassadors Program met for Round Two in Unna, Germany. I was able to coordinate my travels to meet Andreas and Frank and Carola as we met with 11 candidates and many of their parents. I knew a number of the parents since they had other children in Rount One of the program over the past couple years. It was also great to meet up with a half dozen of the Alumni Ambassadors whom I have gotten to know over the past three years.

Most astounding visual sight from 10 miles away...though this is take from only a couple hundred yards away. Mont St. Michel in France. I drove right past this on a cloudy rainy afternoon but was able to see it from afar when I came back later in the day.

It was stunning....though I will be honest....the tourist-trinket-glut in the town is less than awe-inspiring. Still, it was a thrill to see as I approached it.

Go read, "All the Light You Cannot See" and then go try to imagine its devastation in the WWII bombing raids. Another tourist trap in the 21st Century...but I am glad to have seen the rebuilt old city of St. Malo, France.

Omaha Beach, Normandy, France...Site of D-Day. Nothing more needs to be said.

Never heard of this church in Cherbourg, never read about it, never saw if from afar. And so it was more of a "find" because it was unexpected. I cannot decide whether to be thrilled ...about finding this gem...or bummed...because it appears so worn down and uncared for.

Somewhere my ancestor, Richmond Terrell is smiling....knowing that one of his future ancestors...came to visit. I imagine he was underfoot as I walked all through the graveyard around the church. He died in the late 1600's and the earliest grave I found was the late 1700's....so I guess they doubled-up on the grave-space. (More on this later...in another blog or sermon)

"The Long Walk" in Windsor...It begins at Windsor Castle and ends "with the statue of somebody or other"...I quote my hotel receptionist. "I livehere and I don't even know." She said. "King Somebody" she helpfully added.

It used to be the private hunting ground of Windsor Castle and dates from the 13th Century.

I walked it...it was delightful....along the way I found a pub named...The Windsor Castle. I stopped for a pint and toasted Henry VIII.

For the record...the statue at the end of the walk is King George (of course it is a George...every third Royal male child is seemingly named George)...George III and he is mounted on a horse.

The walk is....awesome! (Thank you Royals for letting us commoners inhabit your world.)