24 February, 1999. Wales, U.K..

My friend Owen (a.k.a. Bill, a.k.a. Saer-san) and his family met me as I got off the train from Paddington Station. For the next three days I'd basically get a personal tour guide, folk historian, and driver in Owen's dad, Roy. Meanwhile Owen and his brother Dafydd ("Dah-vith") showed me Cardiff-by-night where we found plenty of live music and cold (by British standards) beer.

I wish I could remember--or had journal entries to remember for me--all the fascinating history and folklore that Owen and Roy shared with me about their land. But I was too dazzled to stop and write any of it down.  You taste the land just by looking--but it's even more flavorful to hear the tales of castle ruins with bold stories from the times of King Arthur.

The coolest thing about the ruins in Wales is that no one has made a tourist stop out of them; no one charges admission; they're not behind glass. Battered towers sit on the lush lawns of a modern park. Stone monuments, thousands of years old, stand in a farmer's pasture. You can walk right up to most of them and touch them.  There's a cool sensation in touching a stone placed there hundreds or thousands of years ago. You feel the cold, solid stability of something that has watched kingdoms rise and fall.

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