This past week

It has been a while since I have had access to a proper computer, so I have a lot to catch up on. I'll separate days with paragraph breaks, so if you don't want to read about the entire week in one go you can do it with breaks.

I think I left off with Cardiff. It is a nice place, very smaill for a capital city, but there were some really neat things to do there, including the Cardiff Castle, the modern Millenium Centre, where there was a free percussion concert and the Welsh BAFTAs, and the Doctor Who exhibit in the Red Dragon Centre (The Red Dragon is the symbol of Wales and any country with a dragon as its national symbol must be awesome). The next day I went to Caerphilly, a small town an hour away from Cadiff, where there was a really amazing castle, definitely my favorite of the three I saw. It was the first castle built in the UK with a concentric wall design as was extremely well planned out well fortified. It was such an intimidating castle that it was only ever attacked twice. They also have some of the first ever fully working replicas of Medieval siege weaponry, along with a cool video about the building and testing of each of the four siege engines. There was still plenty of time after the castle, so I went to St Fagans, an open air museum reminiscent of Williamsburg, VA, where people live like they did hundreds of years ago. Most intereting was a replica of an old Celtic town, complete with replica huts, tools, and weapons, and a replica Celtic warrior who gave great lesons in Celtic history, tactics, strategy, and even martial arts.

The next day I went up north to Snowdonia National Park to climb Mount Snowdon, the highest peak in Wales (at a tiny 1085 metres), and the first of what I hope will be my climbing of the Three Peaks (the highest peaks in England, Scotland, and Wales). It ws especially cool as this mountain, in Arthurian myth, is said to be the burial mound of Rhita Gawr, a king who wore a cloak made from the beards of the kings he killed, and who was in turn slain by King Arthur. At the base of the mountain is the Lake where Arthur recieved Excalibur, where he returned Excalibur as he lay dying, and where he sailed off to Avalon. Very neat stuff. The climb, which they said should take 6 hours for a round trip, was very easy; it took me an hour and forty five minutes to get to the top. I took a detour to explore the lake on the way down, otherwise that would have taken an hour and a half at the most.

That night I stayed in Caernarvon, a block an a half away from Wales' most famous castl, which I went to see the next day, Wednesday. Unfortunately it was not as impressive as Caerphilly, and I think I am all castled out. In the early afternon I took a train to Manchester and went to the amazing family that was having me for shabbos; they let me stay by the the entire time I am in the north of England! Wednesday was a short day though, as we did not arrive in Manchester until the late afternoon and by te time I got to the Reuben's house (my hosts) it was already almost 7pm.

Early the next morning I took a train to York, which was a really fascinating city. They have one of Europe's largest and most amazing Cathedrals with the largest collection of intact 13th century stained glass (13th century!) in the world. There was a great free tour of the Cathedral, as well as a great free tour of the city itself. York is a walled town, so first I walked the perimeter along the wall, where I passed by Clifford's Tower,and infamous landmark in Jewish history, where hundreds of Jews took their life instead of converting to Christianity after barricading themselves in the tower in 1190. Interestingly, someone came up to me in the street, presumably after he saw my kippa,asked me if I saw the tower, and then, almost apologetically, told me the episode is York's most shameful moment, and how they gow special magen david shaped flowers there and hold special prayer services and everything. After the wall walk was the Cathedral tour, followed by the city tour. The city tour was led by this great old English lady (very English lady) who had more energy than a little kid, a thick accent, and that English grandma persona. It was really fun having her lead the tour, which she did with great skill and humour. Her greatest moment came when she took us to see sme yew trees, asked if there were any French in th tour, and when one volunteered, said "we beat you at Agincourt, and this is why." However, the best episode of the our was when we got to see the procession o the new Lord Mayor. Everyone wsa dresed upi in fancy-dress, very old fashioned robes, musicians played 14th centruy music on 14th century instruments, the Lord Butler (?) carieda massive sword out in front of him, some other official carried a huge gilt scepter, and the arristers all wore funny wigs, and everyone else wore hats that wouldn't look out of place in a Pirates of the Carribean movie! The British love their pomp and circumstance, and I know it is all supposed to be dignified, but to an American for whom crisp suits are culmination of proper dress, it all seemed quite droll in a ridiculous sort of way. The day ended with a tour of the York brewery, possibly the best brewery tour I have yet been on, where we were given different types of malts (the grain) to taste. Up here in Northern England they take their ale very seriously, insist on it being live, and a bit more bitter than elsewhere. The ale was very good.

On friday I spent the day in Manchester, just walking around most of the city and seeing a relly amazing museum, the MOSI (museum of Science and Industry) and two superb exhibits on scientific breakthroughs in Manchester, including rooms devoted to Dalton and Ruthrford, and an amazing exhibit of fabrics and textiles, which a complete working Victorian cotton factory, with machines that did everything from clean the cotton to making threads. It doesn't sound that amazing, but seeing, on a smaller scale, how all these machines worked, the noise that they made, and the insanely dangerous conditions children as young as five years old had to work under, made it a really fascinating and eye opening experience. The rest of the city was alright, nothing to write home about, though it had its nice bits.

Shabbos, on the other hand, was phenomenal. The Reuben completely opened up teir home to me. We went to an oldr couple for the Frdiay night meal. The both of the ae over 80, and it is the only home I have ever seen where everything was homemade. Everything. The challah. The gefilte fish. Even the wine! It was undelievable that, not only did this older couple host 9 people for dinner, they made everything at the table from scratch. They were, as are my hosts and many of the people I am meeting in Manchester, South African, and over shabbos I have heard more South African accents than Mancunian accents. The rest of the company though, was English. We ate lunch by my hosts, with another South African family coming for lunch, and we had Seudah Shlishit by the hosts daughter and son-in-law. It was yet another great shabbos here in England. It is so great being Jewish; wherever you go, the community justs opens up its arms. Speaking of, if you know of anyone in Scotland, I will be there for this coming shabbos.