U.K.

I just got home from the airport, having survived two weeks of the Tube, warm beer, cool weather and driving on the wrong side of the road (the driving, I must admit, almost did me in, but I pulled through). The highlight of the trip was visiting my good friends Meredith and Feike, both in London.

I'm not sorely tempted to relay every gory detail of the trip, but I'll try and convey a taste of what it was like. First, my accommodations. I got a good deal fror $15 a night - near the Tube, single room, didn't have anything stolen, good breakfast, etc. However, it was quite clear that what was advertized as the "Hammersmith Lodge" online did not in fact exist! Rather, the name was a front for the overflow wing of the Premier West Hotel. The PWH itself isn't exactly five-star, and I spent one night in their real rooms. The rest of the time I was in two other rooms in neighboring apartment buildings where PWH owned some of the rooms. No phone, TV, soap, toilet paper, etc. But I had the dumps to myself, so it was cool. Having a key to my own building and room gave a sense of ownership too... they had to pry the keys out of my white-clenched knuckles when I seized up nostalgically while trying to check out.

London is a world-class city on primarily three counts (in my book): sheer size, museums (er, musea?), and parks. They've had to shrink Buckingham Palace a few times to make room for all the musea and parkage. I visited the British Museum, Imperial War Museum, London Transport Museum, National Gallery, Science Museum, and there were a few dozen more I didn't visit. The beauty and santuarial feel of London's urban parks really contrasts with the way parks are even in Boston (which is pretty good by American standards). I loved Regents Park, and also spent time thinking, praying or reading in Battersea Park, Ravenscourt Park, Queen's Garden or something in Croydon, and probably a few more.

I made side trips to Cambridge (the whole town is a park, basically) and South Wales. My Wales trip was great fun and very productive, and it consisted largely of me unleashing one long reeling, punishing hurt on myself for days on end.

On Wednesday, a week ago, I took the train from London to Abergavenny, changing at Newport (Casnewwyd in Welsh Gaelic). I went to the Park Information Office where old doom'n'gloom told me how perilous the park was and how unprepared I was. I bought an OS map and headed on the way he forebodingly pointed me on. It took me up to a canal that runs from Brecon to somewhere near Newport, and I started hiking along it, gamely shouldering my 25-pound, 25-year-old pack. The way was flat, and I walked from 2:00 to almost 9:00 before reaching Pencelli Castle Caravan & Camp Park and dropping my $30 for three nights. My body was sore in a lot of places, and badly chafed in other places. I stretched for 15 minutes and prayed for healing when I went to sleep.

My prayers were sufficiently answered, because I hopped up the next morning with pain only in my foot-muscles and my hips where the pack had dug into me with every step all the previous day. So I strapped on a fanny pack full of water, sardines, crackers, a map and a granola bar (and a camera, which I didn't use), and started up the Brecon Beacons, the highest of which (Pen Y Fan) is the top of South Wales at 2,900 and change. By the time I reached Pen Y Fan (my third peak of the hike), I was spent. The way down I intermittently walked and sat, and held my empty canteen fruitlessly above my panting tongue - those sardines had way too much salt. The descent was short and not too painful, but dumped me five miles from home. I trudged along, even hoping to hitch a ride, and it began to drizzle. Enough to wet me, not enough to make a dent in my overwhelming thirst. I finally reached a village called Llanfrynchan or something, and gulped down water in the public bathroom's sink. The last mile home was a victory lap. But now I was really hurting - my muscles were unionizing in preparation for a strike, I was wracked by sheer fatigue, and chafage had worn right through my skin and drawn blood in the least comfortable quarter.

The next morning I bounced out of bed a little slower, but my ability to recover is real proof that I'm still young (and my ability to unleash that kind of punishment on my body is proof that I'm still foolish). It rained on Friday, so I had good reason to stay in my tent and plow through the second half of "A Walk to Remember" (I'd finished the inimitable "Cry, the Beloved Country" on the train out). The afternoon cleared up nicely, so after an important prayer time I hoofed it 4 miles into Brecon along the canal, and walked around town (including leaving Safeway through an Emergency Exit, which are covered with inviting green stickers in the U.K.) I purchased two books (well five, but I'll get to that) at W.H. Smith: John Grisham's "A Painted House" (don't read it) and Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker" series (four in one volume) (do read them, over and over again).

On Saturday morning, after reading until 1:00am, I got up at 6:30, folded my tent, ate breakfast, and waded through grass up to my hips and the river Usk up to knees and then more grass. I hitchhiked in to Abergavenny, read for an hour in a castle-turned-public-park, and then caught my train back to London.

More will follow, but that's enough for starters.