Saturday, June 13, 2009

Day 21, "The day I walked seven miles to Canterbury"

This morning we took a bus ride to the ruins of a Roman fort dating back to the third century AD. It's now some stone walls and foundations. It is probably the spot at which St. Augustine landed when he came to England. We then walked part of what would have been his route to Canterbury (we took the bus to another spot and walked the last seven miles of the route). Unfortunately the area was a full on assault to my allergies. Aside form not being able to breathe the walk was great. We started at 11:30 and got back to Canterbury at 3:00, just in time for evensong (for some reason on weekends evensong is at 3:15).
After dinner twelve of us went out to the Thomas Becket for a drink. One of the ladies from Namibia came with us but didn't really understand where we were going. When we got there and she realized what it was she left upset that a bar was named after a saint. I never really thought about that connection and how wrong it can seem to someone not familiar with things such as that happening. Thinking about it there definitely is something not completely right with it but at the same time I don't think I really find it offensive. It might be the context of this exact pub how it is just a street over from the Cathedral, but it just doesn't seem wrong in this case. I do see how in other cases it could be very inappropriate though.

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