Camera lights and Roman Remains

The Roman remains at Verulanium - once an old theatre. Boudicca burned it down on way to Chester, I think. It was awesome. Also part of our field trip yesterday.

The magnificent altar at St. Albans - used to be Benedictine, but thanks to our pals Harry Tudor and Oliver Cromwell and the Dissolution of the Monasteries...it is now Church of England.

Here I am in front of St. Alban's Cathedral (1750 years old and Norman-Gothic) in the town of ...St. Albans. It was a sunny/rainy day as you can see by the warring clouds. St. Albans is about an hour and a half away from Oxford, south of London, I think.

This is a view from the base of Broad Street, which turns off Carfax (the old Saxon crossroads) and Magdalen street which eventually leads to Wycliffe. This is my favorite Street in Oxford. Blackwell's is there, coffeeshops, Oxford shops, Balliol College is up there on the left and you might be able to see the cupola of the Sheldonian Theatre (its blue against the clouds) and beyond that, the Bodleian.

This is the monument built for the martyrs Latimer, Cranmer and...one other...who were burnt to death by Bloody Mary in Broad Street, Oxford. There is a bronze cross on the cobblestones on Broad Street which is supposed to commemorate the spot.

This is Wycliffe Hall - a Christian private hall - not college, still a full member of Oxford University. It's Victorian, as you can see. A good forty minutes walk through meadows and swamp from the vine, and ten minutes fast walk to the city centre.

Here's a photo from Tuesday night, the night of the filming. We had to wait until it was quite dark for the filming to begin...and for us to get chased out.

This, as you may remember, was the Infirmary...where is Madam Pomfrey

Some things to say

First of all, the bomb-scare in London was not near us. We were at St. Albans for the day and though that's closer than Oxford to London I think, its been a week since we were there, praise God. What a scary thing.

Secondly, England has a new prime minister, as I'm sure you all know: the Scottish Gordon Brown. I bought a paper to commemorate the important event. I can't believe Tony Blair stepped down; I don't know anything about British politics but apparently Britain is very glad about all that.

I am in the midst of all my papers. I have four: two for each seminar (Literature in the Christian tradition, and Oxford Fantasists). For the first seminar, I think I will be doing a book report on Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South and then a paper on salvific themes in literature by way of W. Somerset Maugham's The Painted Veil. For Oxford Fantasists I may write a short paper on the role of women in the Chronicles of Narnia, and secondly, the notion of sacrifice when entering other worlds (and indeed in the Christian Story) by means of several texts. I'm excited about doing them but only have two more weeks! Justine is panicked and constantly working and I am urging her to relax but she is a dedicated, smart young woman. She, in fact, is going to London tomorrow for a seminar, so she'll get to relax then.

I, instead, am going to go to the Bodleian libraries and try to do some reading/writing, walk around town (and perhaps visit the famous Ashmolean museum). At the Bod, there is a library called the Duke Humphrey's room and it was the one they used for Harry Potter and it houses all these original manuscripts and very very important old books that a weakling undergraduate like me would never get the clearance to view. But I have heard it is breathtaking. There is also a Dante/Petrarch exhibit and I have heard rumours that a very leaves out of the pages of the Divine Comedy are there...we'll have to see.

Well, I'll write next to post some more photos. Some lovely ones of Broad Street in Oxford (my favorite street) and St. Albans, which we visited today. Oh, and there's this guy here - Rob - he talks EXACTLY like Patrick. Justine and I can't listen to him without thinking of Patrick. I couldn't believe that there are two of them :) (Not exactly, Patrick, don't worry).

Even here there are two married couples, and at least two boys that I know of about to propose when they return home. Can't even escape from it at Oxford. Bah, humbug!

Do you recognise this Hall?

Pictures of a dreary, lovely day

The enchanted gateway to Merton private gardens - only for students. I'll post more later.

Lovely English garden on ther Merton grounds opposite the fields where Justine saw her first cricket game. The air smelled sweet and heady with flowers and pollen.

This is one is for the parents: that's my childhood friend Nathan Rose and I on the Merton grounds.

This is the Merton Common Room for Graduates (Gryffindor?) It was really cool and probably from the seventeenth century.

This is the Radcliffe Camera - part of the library. It has a beautiful reading room where we sat yesterday. It was the focus point of the filming, also. It was a really fun night - though we were chased out unexpectedly along with everyone else before the filming, we were able to sneak around in corners to see the camera move down it's ramp, a fire truck wetting the cobblestones, and a bunch of extras (guards in blue uniforms) moving around and talking to us (just a bit). No Nicole or Daniel, but it was a fun night. This guy named Sam sat with us - he was British-American and applying for Oxford this fall. At the beginning he was nonchalant, but after a while he was excitedly trying to find us the best viewpoint. We made friends with people around us and got to be a part of the general hype - seeing all the lights turn on and hearing walkie talkies blare instructions.

In Oxford this week Sunday, Monday and Tuesday they were shooting a movie in Radcliffe Square in the city centre - The Golden Compass. Starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig and so everyone's star antennae were out. It's a book assigned for our fantasy class so we've been watching as the lights have come out and the cranes and the barriers and the people with walkie talkies. It's right around the Bodleian library, which is where we often are. Last night in fact, two friends and I went to the Square to wait to see if we could watch the filming and catch a glimpse of Nicole.

Some of that rolling English countryside - well, in this picture it's flat...

Big Ben and Parliament.

Below: Westminster Abbey in the (rare) sunlight.

It is a Dark and Stormy Night

Hello; I've been trying for ages to try and post some pictures but this sight is having some issues with it. It is a Monday and today was our first day of classes at Wycliffe Hall, which is a small College just off the road that leads down to Oxford Central which is in all about an eight minute walk which is NOTHING to the amount that we've been walking every day - at least an hour and a half to get around to Wycliffe Hall and back to the Vines. It's good exercise. It has, however, also been raining like the dickens here and we've had to carry around an umbrella wherever we go and just whip it out. No one is very bothered on the streets, little umbrellas just pop up everywhere. Actually, yesterday there was the most rain in fifty years!
I've learned much about the University and today a tourist asked me for directions, the name of the building behind us and the way to get to the Museum and I was able to help her so I must be doing something right! Apparently, that which is known of as Oxford University is made up of about thirty individual colleges (I could be wrong on the number) that function like the USA. The University is like the Supreme Court and Washington D.C and all the other colleges are like States. The most beautiful are generally these three: Merton (one of the oldest), Magdalen (pronounced "Maudlin" if you remember) and Christ Church. Merton is where Tolkien was a master and was built in the mid thirteenth century. Magdalen is where Lewis lived and Christ Church was funded by Henry VIII and is very elite, rich and is where they filmed Harry Potter.
On Sunday Justine and I attended a church with a friend from home, Nathan. It was his church - St. Aldates - a very charismatic Anglican church which was an interesting mix. The music was lovely and there was some good attention to Trinitarian worship. After church we headed off to G & D's the famous Oxford ice cream shop where the three of us chatted, and then Nathan (a graduate at Merton) offered to show us around. We bought some things and then he took us to the Merton Common Room (which only Merton students can use) where we had lunch. It was such a priviledge (sorry if that's spelled wrong). We also went around the Merton and Magdalen gardens, as well as browsed around Christ Church. Justine and I attended Evensong at Christ Church along with many of the other students at the program.
This morning we had a lecture on monasticism and the Desert Fathers by a woman named Sister Benedicta Ward who has written 8 books about them and translated their sayings for Penguin Classics. Later there was a lecture on Celtic Christianity by Dr. Mark Atherton who edited a translation of Hildegard von Bingen! It was a fascinating lecture; ah, those Celts. I also had my first Literature in the Christian Tradition class with an Oxford professor named Santha Bhattacharji and she is marvellous. We are working on Chaucer and also Spenser as of today but will be rapidly moving on.
Everyone is in their rooms reading and being generally scholastic - comes from being with a bunch of smart people wanting to go to Oxford and buy books! Everyone here just loves them and we all are dorks about hanging around the big Oxford bookstore Blackwells (which literally has six miles of bookshelves and is over five floors). Things are indeed expensive here and I am reserving my shopping for the second hand bookstores and things like meals and outings.
We get three class trips on Fridays for our Christianity in the British Isles lectures: the first one is St. Albans, the second is Hampton Court (where Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII and all that good stuff took place) and the third is Glastonbury (lots of Arthur legends about that place; also rumored to be the place Joseph of Arimathea brought the cup of Christ). Can't wait.
Close by is also Blenheim Palace, which is now a World Heritage site, the birthplace of Winston Churchill and the place used for Pemberley both in the BBC version Pride and Prejudice and the recent one with Keira Knightely. I will write more when I post the photos. Hope I haven't overwhelmed all of you. Miss you much. Wish you were here. I think I want to live here all of my life, it's that achingly beautiful.

Pictures Continued

Hee hee.

A view on the inside of the Globe - we stood on the floor. :)

We saw this play at the Globe...

The outside of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.

The Tower of London from the walk along the Thames.

The pictures of the Tudor cottages contain the old Queen's house in which Anne Boleyn stayed before her execution.

Pictures of London

A Yeoman like the man who took our tour.

The only round dome of the White Tower. All the others are square; all carrying the royal standard.

On the tube to go to Victoria Station from Heathrow.

The Tower of London...we saw it draw up to let a ship through.

Apology

Sorry; I just realised how many times I said the word magical. Can't help it; it's true.

The Vines, Pullens Lane

I'm here in Oxford and what a couple of days it has been. Yesterday Justine and I arrived at Heathrow at 8am with only 3 and a half hours of sleep under our belts. We bought all day tube passes and flew straight away to Westminster to drop off our luggage and then head to the Thames area. After pasties and a quick visit to the Globe we went to the Tower of London by way of gorgeous London Bridge.

The Tower of London (I've wanted to see it since I was twelve) exceeded expectation by a marvelous yeoman tour by a man named Ken McGrath who spun a web of nasty execution stories and the like. We saw the green where Anne Boleyn (among others) was executed and saw the White Tower which Edward the Conqueror built. We sat (our legs ached) in a chapel built in 1105.

We walked back to the Globe Theatre just in time to see the second half of Othello. We had purchased groundling tickets and so stood right in front of the stage. Our legs ached but the experience was priceless. Not only were the actors world-class but there were pidgeons in the rafters, and a troupe of musicians playing a drum, therabo, lute, viola de gamba and sackbutt (woot Music History! I recognized them all). At the end of the play all the cast danced all over the stage and it was magical.

We then went to the British Museum and saw the Rosetta Stone for Free! By the time we had returned to our hostel, we fell into bed and quickly asleep.



This morning we had a trip to Westminster Abbey and identified the graves of Chaucer, Vaughn Williams, Jane Austen, Elizabeth I and many others. Saw Parliament, the London Eye and also Buckingham Palace (we missed the Queen by like 10 minutes...boo for us). The Coach to Oxford was heavenly and we saw sheeps and fields of lavender and it was everything I imagined. The walk to the Vines from the road (ten minutes minimum just like The Holiday) was magical and we are staying in a renovated large Victorian brick cottage. There are ravens outside. My roommates Sarah, Kim and Claire and lovely girls and I'm excited to get to know them better.

Justine and I (after orientation) took a stroll down to Oxford central (thirty minutes) and found that all coffee shops were closed (everything here closes early). But we stood on the bridge over the river and saw Magdalen College (pronounced "Maudlin"; home of CS Lewis) through the gates and the cobblestones and all those spires and cathedrals...I've never seen anything more magical. We saw all these boys and girls very fancily dressed and discovered later they were undergrads having just finished exams. Apparently it's a tradition that when beginning exams one wears a white carnation in one's button hole, half-way done one wears a pink carnation and when all done one wears a red carnation. I am going to start that tradition at home. Justine and I had coffee at a place called Cafe Nero - the only one open - and I had a mocha (haven't had one since Australia). We talked about animal rights and environmentalism and she has a view which I haven't discussed much; she being the daughter of a farmer.
There was this one street we walked on, a pedestrian street, named Cornmarket or something, which had people walking all over. The sunlight fell on many couples and families and friends all smiling and chattering to each other in a variety of dialects and accents and languages. It was golden. It was a Friday afternoon and in my mind everyone was off to dance on the green fields (although it was more likely an outing to a pub).
It is late - nearly midnight and I am not in the least bit tired. Everyone else is asleep. Jet lag has got me. Hope to sleep some soon. Tomorrow is a proper tour of Oxford. Sunday is free and I hope to use my new Book of Common Prayer (care of Kristin). Monday classes begin - with a lecture on Anglo-Saxon Christianity (endlessly thrilling!). I apologise for my liberal use of parenthesis. I will post the pictures soon - am having some issues with my computer (there is a lack of outlets for me - Alas). Good night.

One more day!

Tomorrow at 6pm we leave for the Magical (United) Kingdom. Today's duties include:
a) a haircut
b) flat black shoes
c) wiffle ball
d) packing
e) more packing
It's hard to believe I'll be on the plane in just about thirty hours!

T-Minus Three Weeks and Counting

Har har. Am marvelous.

Hello all, this is just a site I set up for the trip my friend Justine and I will take in three weeks to the United Kingdom for a four week course at Wycliff Hall, Oxford University. I thought that instead of making copious amounts of e-mails and failing miserably and disappointing everybody, I would instead set up a travel journal and invite you to see pictures of places we visit, with little annecdotes of how it is going along. I hope to be keeping a journal and a camera with me at all times, I will endeavour not to look like a tourist, and I pledge to be brave and tireless in my efforts to become Suddenly British. I sure hope this works. I suppose, unless I'm antsy, the next entry will be from London or Oxford around June 21/22.