Friday, December 4, 2009

The West


breaking through the outer membrane of the city via bus once again, we were eventually placed back into london for a few days surrounding halloween. ushering in november, with the days getting shorter and shorter, we browsed even more museums (national portrait gallery. what a hefty endeavor. among other things, in that gallery is housed an incredible history of this little island, via portraits of its kings/queens/important religous people and its all for free. why is this so novel?..), but the most prominent memory from this point in time comes in the form of a film. on halloween, melissa and i watched a pirated version of lars von triers new work on a laptop screen. it left melissa speechless for a good ten to fifteen minutes afterword...misogynist? egoist? a whole slew of bad words? genius? im not sure what to think anymore. i just want to watch breaking the waves again...thanks to missing ireland (as has been said), we made our way to brighton. because of brighton, we were then lead to the far, indeed, the very end of the south west of england. cornwall is a magical land of palm trees and moderate climate...in england. the bus ride out was quite grueling and left us in penzance a good ten minutes too late to catch the bus out to st. just, where our couchsurfing host resides. due to the fact that cornwall serves mainly as a summer time attraction, visiting at the beginning of november does not bode well for trying to navigate the peninsula via public transport. waiting a good two hours for the next bus, we found some curry (which i proceeded to partially spill onto my crotch) and sat by the ocean. we found our way to st. just and settled in nicely.
(curry crotch and achy bus sleep)

the next day held exploring lands end minus the tourists (due to the gale force winds and rain, that eventually gave way to epic clouds and little snippets/blessings of sunshine among the sheer cliffs and craggy outcroppings).




(crush you! little house)

riding buses among the extremely tiny lanes of this extremity of england (it was incredible watching the double decker buses navigate within inches of buildings/other cars, continuing unscathed), making our way down the coast to the glorious confines of the minack theatre.




(Rowena Cade, the BA creator of the minack)

enjoying the end of the island to its fullest, we soon found our way a bit east to falmouth, into the home of more loving couchsurfing friends. welcoming us with open arms, our hosts (ingo and sharmilla) also presented us with a large home made indian feast the first night (along with various meads and ciders of the land, also sharing delicousness the rest of the time spent with them, morning and night). they also shared (seemingly) bottomless kindness and knowledge of their adopted portion of england with us.
(melissa, myself, blade of bourboun, sharmilla holding ingo).

the day(s. i hesitate calling it days because time wise it wasnt much more than one, maybe one and a half, but emotion/knowledge/amazing-wise, the time spent in falmouth could have been weeks. months even) we spent held the eden project and st. just and at least one pasty a day. actually, the whole time in cornwall, we consumed one of these tasties a day (and most places had vegan ones too!)
(tasty pasty)

(eden project!)

(me learning about the central valley. poor immigrant labour!)

having a good month or so between then and now, it seems that cornwall has had the most impact on us both. not really sure what to attribute that to, just the overall experience of the environment and people and history of this small jetty into the atlantic ocean has rooted itself deeply into our memories as an amazing/inspirational/beautiful/extremely positive place. thanks to missing out on ireland we've now covered the south and far west of england. stay tuned to see where else this lead us...

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