Edinburgh feels older than London. I’m not sure which is actually older, as they both started off as little more than camps on the water, but the architecture in this city has an older feel to it. We haven’t seen much of it just yet; we arrived at the train station and took a cab to the Bruntsfield Scottish Youth Hostel, which is where I am now.
Staying in London with Massimo, Dagmar, and little Leonardo was a delight. It was good to meet the face I’d been working with for a while online.
I had a chance to see the British Museum on my own yesterday, which was cool, but my underlying emotion or vibe from it was just how much has been utterly fucking stolen from cultures all around the world. I also went to the Tate Museum of Modern Art, where I was confronted by a security guard and told to put my camera away, as there are no cameras allowed anywhere in the gallery because these works are all newer and therefore are still under copyright. The guard was very polite, and could always retreat under the banner of “just doin’ me job” so I didn’t bother protesting or debating the intricacies of intellectual property and fair use laws. Besides, I’m not precisely sure what the fair use laws in the UK are.
We’re having a good time, though I miss talking to my friends and I really miss working on my music. Ah well. We’ll be home soon, and then I’ll wish we were still here.
Tomorrow we take another train up to Inverness, where we’ll spend the night at a place called (no, I’m not joking) the Ho-Ho-Hostel, and then we’ll be back at this hostel for another night in Edinburgh. After that, we’ll take the train back down to Cornwall, way on the other end of the UK, to stay with some new friends there for the remainder of our trip. Once in Cornwall, I hope to see Tintagel, and possibly some other spots there.
We did manage to see Glastonbury, which was very cool. There were three highlights to Glastonbury itself, the Tor, the Chalice Well, and the ruins of The Glastonbury Abbey, which up until its decommissioning in 1539 when Henry VIII broke away from the Roman Catholic Church was the largest Abbey in Britain; indeed it was so large it was called the second Rome. This part of the trip was probably the closest I’ll get to a spiritual pilgrimage in this lifetime; there is so much history and legend there, and the energy in the place is quite extraordinary. I also get a kick out of the intersection between Christian and Pagan elements there; right across the main High street where the entrance to the ruins are are a half-dozen pagan/witchy shops. Lots of hippies/freaks there, for sure.
I’ve been taking loads of photographs while here, I should have well over 200 by the time I return. I’ll post them, of course, when I get back.
Cheers!