franny
bananafish

since my return from a vacation full of beautiful. the irish countryside, road trip to the cliffs of moher culminating in galway was breathtaking. how gorgeous can landscapes get? apparently more... the trip from dublin to holyhead wales via ferry and onto a trainride to london was filled with gorgeous scenery. day trips to bath and stratford upon avon.... heaven. i could never leave this part of the planet had i been born there. london city was an adventure filled with sublime moments like walking into the beautiful St. Martin's in the Field church and finding a group of folks playing Bach's joy of man's desiring...i had to sit and listen and enjoy the moment. or mistakenly finding south kensington train station that is surrounded by little eateries and shops, or walking along lost and seeing a gorgeously lit up massive building during the evening (which turned out to be the museum of natural history)...

dublin was filled with fun: musical pub crawl was such a good time filled with guinness and laughter and lots of foot stomping music/song. the james joyce centre's quiet suprise of door #7 on eccles street in the "backyard" loved that semi-hidden space. kilmainham gaol was sombre, sobering to the turbulent past of ireland...

then there was inverness.. what can i say? if i could package the beauty of the scottish highlands to bring along with me, i would have. i've only photos of beautiful wildness of the land... rain or shine, train trips or bus rides, the scenery/landscape made my heart happy. the train ride from inverness to kyle of lochalsh was a spur of the moment trip..a suggestion by the b&b owner. it did not disappoint. i walked the bridge over to isle of skye. even the rain is beautiful here. some of the most goorgeous photos i've taken were at on the ferry traveling lochness to urquhart castle, culloden battlefield and clava cairns. there isn't a public transportation so i walked from the battlefield to the cairns (about a 2 mile walk) and passed a stable, sheep in pasture, a roman viaduct, and quiet small roads and bridges with gurgling brooks below.

i did not want to leave. the morning bus ride to the airport in inverness was a sort of magical one, the landscape was misty, sun was muted, and i could see history...land of the past, who were those that walked this land? whose footsteps does mine mirror? what kind of lives did they have, what did they think about? were they content? sometimes, i envy their simple way of life, while it must have been filled with hardships, it was true, honest, and devoid of the massive junk we carry around today (inside ourselves and out).

this trip made me long for a simpler/probably harder way of life. i envy the wide open spaces, the wildness of the land that they had free of development.

i hope to go back one day to see more.
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same time next year it'll be: paris and amsterdam