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Brian Jensen

Expat. Diarist. Theorist. Delusionist.

Tuesday, December 11, 2001

Cornwall. It took us 1.5 hours to travel the six miles down Cromwell Road to the A4. I was pretty much out of a roadtrip frame of mind by that time. But there was adventure ahead. Kirsten and I stopped in a Moto in Reading and I got behind the wheel for the first time in England. It's terrifying. I felt 15 again, sitting next to my father panicked about where to look or turn. The biggest problem with driving wasn't staying in the left lane or turning left into roads but trying to remember that there is a whole half of a car on your left side. It's impossible to know the distance between your car and other things on the left hand side. I almost removed a couple of mirrors! But Kirsten was patient and kind. Add to that problem the fac tthat I was driving a stick shift with the gear on the left, that the English drive 90+ mph down the motorway, that is was rainy and foggy and nighttime, and that they have roundabouts, and you get an idea of the terror I felt.

Trethurffe Manor was lovely. An enormous rambling country manor in the rambling Cornish countryside. It pissed rain, but we got out to the Eden Project (bio-domes where they replicate various world climates and vegetations -- steaming jungle and dry mediterranean fields.) We visited the seaside, including Mount St. Michael, a 13th century monastery on an islet and St. Ives, quite near the Western-most point of the British Isles. We ate -- haggis, pheasant, an enormous Martha Stewart recipe Thanksgiving dinner (I made whilst drinking champagne -- surprisingly, very good) and drank three cases of wine. We played silly parlor games and watched as our Md stuffed ten raw brussel sprouts into his mouth. (I thought I was going to pee my pants with laughter.) I'll post the pictures soon.

  photos

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