And while the seagulls are crying

This morning I woke up early early early, ate breakfast, packed a sack lunch and boarded a coach with the 40 other students in my program. We drove for about three hours to Dover, where we visited the secret underground tunnels at the Dover castle. They were used during the Napoleonic wars and then were refortified and significantly expanded during World War II. They go so deep underground, and they reenact the way the lights would flicker when the bombs would fall.

The castle is amazing. It's so old, so historic, and towers over the city, overlooking the English Channel. It's unlike seeing the ocean from any other place in the world. Instead of a strip of endless sand that meets the beach, it's a series of grassy hills that end in tall white cliffs, allowing you to see an unobstructed view of the ocean. The green grass contrasts beautifully with the light blue water and hazy gray clouds.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=41377718&id=17812842&comments&alert&ref=notif&notif_t=photo_comment_tagged

While I was there I listened to The Decemberists song "We Both Go Down Together." It was so cool to listen to that it there. From my personal "reading" of the song, it seems a lot like a modern day response to Matthew Arnold's poem Dover Beach. Instead of holding to love as the only source of hope in a changing world, Colin Meloy's characters jump to their deaths because not even their love could be accepted. It was so cool to hear it and look out on the ocean, see the seagulls circling above me, feel the cool sea breeze on my face. One of the coolest experiences I've had here.

We went to the Canterbury Cathedral and it was one of the most mind blowing buildings I have ever seen in my life. It is so much taller than I could have imagined and the ribbed vaulting makes it look like it reaches up up up all the way to the heavens.

I'm out of time, but here's a link to a picture of me in front of some ruins at St. Augustine's Cathedral in Canterbury.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?pid=41377727&op=1&view=all&subj=17814602&id=17812842&ref=notif&notif_t=photo_tag

Oh, and to finish the night off I played cards with my entourage for four hours. Got third place.

Also, I am afraid that the London Centre is haunted. But I don't want to talk about it because it just makes me scare myself.

I'll post pictures for real soon. I've been taking a lot, the bandwidth is just terrible here so it's going to be more of a project than I originally hoped.