Big'un Today

Ended up going to London yesterday. We went to see a couple plays at the Globe Theater. And they were great!

Started the day off with leaving Oxford at 8 AM with the other OSAP students on a coach to London. The traffic was awful; it took 3 hours to get to our stopping point in London near Trafalgar Square. 

Lord Nelson, pip pip, cheerio. 

Some kind of cavalry something or another was going on, and that was slowing things down. We had a great guide, though, and he told us all sorts of facts about the various things we passed. Once I got off the coach,  I, of course, had to start off with a shot in front of the Thames.

Fantastic lighting. 

We branched off from the main OSAP group (who was going to see the Churchill war rooms. I'm kinda sad we missed that. But hey, Shakespeare! And, of course, we had to walk by Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. Good... TIMES.  GET IT HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

We walked a good distance and over a couple of bridges to get where we needed, so of course, I had to get another Thames picture. No Parliament building this time.

Just beautiful me. And the Thames. Eh.

We eventually got to the Globe, after crossing several streets with many an impatient driver (drivers are so mean here!). It was smaller than I imagined.

Still cool, though. Any building that is older than the country I am from is pretty cool by law. On the way to the Globe, there were many street performers, one of which blew massive bubbles with a huge bubble blowing device and industrial strength soap. It was cool, and attracted a lot of people. A lot of kids. It was silly, because later on when we were in the Globe, we saw bubbles floating over into the theatre. Here's the inside of the theatre:

We saw two plays: Antony and Cleopatra and Titus Andronicus. Titus was easily the more engaging of the plays, and the bloodier of the two. Antony was at 2 PM, and Titus at 7:15. We saw Antony, which need at 5, then went to find dinner. After stopping for a brief visit with Dr. Snyder in a nearby pub, we ventured on to the Gourmet Burger. Kitchen, where I got the Wellington burger. It had horseradish sauce, mushrooms, and some special mayonnaise on it. It was AWESOME. 

Titus was probably the bloodiest play I'll ever see. Hands chopped off, tongues cut out, peoples' throats slit... Fun stuff. Apparently, people have fainted at this version of the play. In the scene below, two people were being hung upside down to have their throats slit. Very cool play. Very engaging to the audience. Actors kept running through and pushing people out of the way, even touching some peoples' cheeks with fake blood to mess with them. I should have been down there, but I was a nitwit and stayed up in the stands!

Very cool day. Got a selfie with St. Paul's cathedral.

Until next time.

Religion

So it might astound some of you who know me to learn that yesterday, I went to church.

You read that right. Church. I went to Christ Church for the 11:30 service and participatd in eucharist.

I didn't do it under pressure. I didn't do it for a reward. I chose to go to an Anglican Christian service! And it was fun. Very interesting to hear a choir that was in perfect harmony. It was, simply put, beautiful.

At 1 o clock we had a garden party, hosted by the OSAP group. There I met my tutor, Dr. Emily Winkler, who will be teaching me in Arthurian Legend with a focus on Merlin. It will be very exciting. We met a few British students, including Oliver, a student who is studying German, and Robbie, a mathematician. Ollie was great, and 3 of us ended up walking around the Thames River with Ollie discussing theology. Some of the rowing teams were there, rowing up and down the Thames. It was entertaining to watch. It was a beautiful day to be outside; the sun was shining and it was just cool enough to wear a suit without getting too hot. 

The British students took us to a pub chain that is very popular around England, and I had my first Sunday roast. The Yorkshire pudding was fantastic, of course. 

Lazy Saturday

Friday was uneventful. We had our first class. Talked about Shakespeare. Got tricked into drinking sparkling water. You know, the works. Well,  I say it was uneventful, but that night, Drs. Snyder and Anderson invited us over to their flat to treat us to some fine cheeses and sodas. After that they treated us to a dinner at the Folly restaurant, where I had some excellent duck. Interesting thing over here is the meat availability. Duck and lamb are much more widespread over here than in th States, and I am very much OK with that. They brought the check to the table in a book. A William Faulkner book no less. Did they know we were from Mississippi? Who knows.

After that, we went to the Turf Tavern where we were turned away (they closed at 10! On a Friday!). That's where Bill Clinton allegedly smoked pot, but didn't inhale. Right. So we went to the King's Arms instead and had a pint.

Today was a great lazy Saturday. Started off by waking up at 10:20, followed by lazing around the flat until I decided I should actually be productive. So I acquainted myself with the New College and Bodleian libraries. I found my books (yay library skills!), read some of each of them, and left. Dinner consisted of a burger at The Head of the River pub. Afterwards, the Drs. treated us to a play at the local theatre. We saw Tis Pity She's a Whore, a lovely little play ending in a gruesome and gory scene. Game of Thrones still made it look like child's play, though. Once the play was over, we stopped in a nice cream place, grabbed some post-play sugar, and then roamed around the streets of Oxford until we came across a church that had been converted into a bar, the Freud.

I made, of course, an excellent Freudian slip pun, to which everybody groaned.

Philistines. 

Continuing orientation

What do you call a large, flightless bird that does yoga?

An ostretch. I made that up myself today at the Oxford Museum of Natural History while looking at a stuffed ostrich. Wonderful little place next to the Radcliffe Science Library. They have dinosaur tracks in front of the museum. 

I started off the morning with some biscuits. Well, the British call them biscuits. They're actually cookies. But calling them biscuits makes me feel better about my nutritional habits.

Lay off. I'm in England.

I was escorted, along with the other new members of my future college here at Oxford, New College. While it is new, it was built in 1379, and is one of the oldest colleges in Oxford. Here's a picture of one of the quadrants of the college.

I know. It's beautiful. It's like this all around the city. After being inducted and receiving my library card (students can only go to two libraries: the Bodleian, and their own college library), we went further into the college and saw more scenery, like this tree that really reminds me of the scene from The Goblet of Fire where Professor Moody turns Malfoy into a ferret. 

I didn't ask if that's where the scene took place. Don't want to. Be TOO much of a tourist, right?

After the New College tour, we were left on our own until 2, when we were scheduled to listen to a couple more lectures on British customs and culture. So I went down to the covered and open markets and snagged myself a lamb shawarma for £3. It was pretty great. I'll be going back there. 

The evening consisted of another trip to the Eagle and Child pub. I got another beer. And fish n chips. The cask ales here are really strange. They aren't like most beers that people are used to, which are carbonated. Cask ales aren't. They're pressurized by a head pressure that pushes the beer out when the bartender pulls a lever. It might seem like the beer would be flat, but it doesn't taste that way. It just tastes... Right. 

The first days

Here I am. In London. I'll spare you the pictures of how terrible looked getting off the plane. Instead, here I am eating at the Eagle and the Child pub, where Tolkien and C.S. Lewis tended to hang out a lot. You've probably heard their names somewhere sometime. 

It was pretty great. We went on a tour earlier today around Oxford, and a guide showed us some of the colleges of the University, as well as some good pubs and where we'll be spending a good bit of time, the Bodleian Library. It's the second biggest library in the UK. Here's my college, New College. 

It's nestled between two city walls. The walls made it easy to defend the College against creditors trying to settle the debts that Oxford students accrued while not paying for food and clothes. There were riots based on this.

So claimed the tour guide.