Milkshakes, Harry Potter, and Farewell to Oxford

Oxford week was such a busy week - but so much fun!  I had an absolutely wonderful time exploring the city and experiencing the Oxford community.  Our week there went by so fast, though I am glad to have roommates again!  A brief synopsis of the week (I'll try not to make it too lengthy):

Oxford University
Botanic Gardens

Tuesday:  I started out the day with a stop at Primark, the discount clothing store of the UK.  Despite the absolutely fabulous prices (e.g. 5 GBP for a dress!), I only bought some accessories.  Still, it was definitely fun to have a morning of shopping and looking around the city - I haven't legitimately shopped in such a long time!  After my 4 hours of class that day, our whole program went out for Indian food.  The dish I had wasn't bad, but still was not my favorite kind of food either.  However, the naan was amazing! hahaha :)

Christ Church Tower designed
by Christopher Wren

Wednesday:  A day of adventures!  Both my roommate Anna, and I don't have class on Wednesdays, so we took this opportunity to explore.  Destination #1 was the climbing to the top of the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin.  We took some breathtaking pictures of the city from the top of the tower!  Our second stop was the Oxford University Botanic Gardens.  Sadly, the flowers/trees outside of the greenhouses were not yet in bloom, but the gardens on a whole were still beautiful to look at!  They have entire greenhouses dedicated to specific regions of plant-life (palm house, arid house, insectivorous house, etc), which was really interesting to see. I've posted a whole bunch of pictures of the different gardens on facebook, if you want to see more than the limited number I can put up here!  To end our busy morning, we grabbed milkshakes and did some window shopping.  My milkshake tasted exactly like Momma's lemon poke-cake, which made me miss home!  So, it's become a goal of mine to make poke-cake before I leave the UK.  This may prove to be slightly difficult, since JELL-O is not a commonly found brand here, nor is Cool Whip. hahaha :)

The Great Hall from Harry Potter!

After lunch, we met up with others from our programme to tour Christ Church College, the alma mater of our programme director (as well as a lot of really famous brits:  John Locke, Lewis Carroll, Albert Einstein, William Penn, etc.).  This college is also the home of specific Harry Potter filming sites, which we were all very excited to see!  The staircase in the foyer is the one used to lead up to the Great Hall in the first movie, and the dining hall of Christ Church is the filming site of the Great Hall in all eight of the movies.  After our tour, we went out for cream tea, something I've been meaning to do since the beginning of the semester, and it was just as yummy as I'd remembered!  To end this very exciting and busy day, a group of us went over to the Eagle & Child, the favorite pub of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, for dinner! :)

Thursday:  In comparison with the day before, this day was relatively uneventful!  In honor of our last day in Oxford, our programme held a formal dinner in the dining hall of University College.  Everyone got dressed up in their "smart" outfits, and joined our tutors and the staff for dinner!  It was such a wonderful evening - I really enjoyed getting to talk with my tutors outside of class.  And after the formal dinner, we all went down to the University Bar for more mingling and discussion!  This evening was definitely one of the major highlights of the week!

Friday:  Sorry this has become such a long post!  We left Oxford this morning to go to Blenheim Palace, the residence of the 11th Duke of Marlborough, and birthplace to Winston Churchill.  The palace was surrounded by acres of beautiful grounds, the most notable of which are the "pleasure gardens."  These consist of a butterfly garden, a hedge maze, and playgrounds for children.  It was a lovely day to walk around the grounds - such a wonderful way to end our week-long trip!

Blenheim Palace

One of the most pleasant things about this past week was our wonderful weather.  It's been close to 60-degrees all week, and while that may seem a bit chilly to Virginia standards, it was a wonderful blessing to us!  It's starting to feel like spring here - the trees are blooming (and hence, the allergies are also starting....haha), flowers have been planted, and the sun has been out almost every day!  It's been such a nice break from the typical rainy/overcast British day - and we've been enjoying every moment of it!  Looking ahead, I only have one week of class left before Spring Break!  Jessica and Margaret Ann are coming to visit me in Bath on Thursday, and then we all depart for Paris and Rome on Saturday!  It's crazy to think that we're already at spring break - the semester is going by so fast!

Oh Hello, Oxford!

The inside of the main quad
of University College

Saturday morning marked the beginning of our programme's residential week at University College, Oxford (aka "Univ").  We all get to stay in single rooms during this week, so I am currently in a MASSIVE room that has a large common room with a side bedroom.  It's weird having all of this space to myself though.  My flatmates and I are scattered across the college, and I miss having them around!  This college is comprised of two quads and couple other courtyards all surrounded by residential and academic rooms.  It really is phenomenal being in Oxford - I can't believe I'm here!

After unloading our suitcases into our respective rooms on Saturday, we all met for a general overview meeting and lunch.  We also went on a brief tour of the college and the surrounding city.  Oxford is a much bigger city than Bath, and I really like the feel of it.  The individual colleges are like little oases in the city - each one is walled and gated, so the inside is very quiet and peaceful.  That evening, our programme held a disco, so we all went to the University Bar for games and dancing!

Punting!

Sunday was also quite a busy day.  A handful of us ASE students went to a Choral Matins service at the cathedral at Christ Church College, which was quite an interesting experience.  I had never been to an almost-entirely sung service before.  The cathedral  itself was gorgeous, and I hope I can go back and take some pictures sometime this week.  In the afternoon, our entire programme went to the river for punting!  Punting is kind of like gondola-ing, with a flatter/shallower boat.  I did not end up punting myself, but I did do a good deal of navigating and steering with the boat's paddle (it's hard to steer with the punting pole)....putting my limited experience with canoeing to good use!  My roommate Anna turned out to be quite the pro punter....we got off to a rough start (taking about 30 minutes to get out of the main starting areas!), but will her at the helm, we were soon passing other boats.  We were delayed slightly by sabotaging efforts (made especially by those in Linley House), but in the end, we made up for a lot of lost ground!  And the weather for punting was perfect!  It's been really sunny here, and I even got a little sunburned out on the river! :)

We finally caught up to our group!

After our wonderful punting adventure, we went to the Oxford "college wear" stores, where I bought some spirit wear!  I am particularly partial to sweatshirts, so of course I purchased a Oxford University sweatshirt! :)  Our evening concluded with imitation-Mexican food (I am totally craving Chipotle - it is definitely going to be one of the first restaurant foods I eat when I get home!), and a viewing of the movie Shadowlands about C.S. Lewis.

Elysia & Katie during our punting trip

Today was mostly dedicated to class and reading....and dealing with the woes of my laptop.  After 2 hours of me trying to figure it out, and 5 hours in the IT Clinic (yes, they call it a "clinic" here), I am finally able to access the internet!  As frustrating as that experience was, I am glad that it happened here where I have access to IT support, instead of Bath, where there are no free computer services.
So that's the first half of my Oxford Adventure!  I'll try to update again on Friday with the rest of the week's events! :)

O love that will not let me go

O love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in thee.  I give thee back the life I owe, that in thine ocean depths its flow, may richer, fuller be.

After attending the Parish Communion service at Bath Abbey this morning, I just want to take some time to reflect on the religious life here in Bath.  This is the second service I've attended during my stay here, the first of which was an informal evening service at the Abbey.  After this first experience,  I was struck by how little Jesus was mentioned during the process of worship.  We sang, and listened to a "sermon," but there was really no mention of Jesus's great sacrifice for us, or really any logical reference to biblical passages.  Despite this disappointing first experience, I decided to give the Abbey another chance and attend one of the formal morning masses.
Today's service was very liturgical, a quality I'm fairly used to in a worship service.  There were hymns, responsive readings, etc. and I actually noticed a great deal of similarities in their liturgy and the one that we use at MPC.  However, the sermon still left me feeling undernourished, with no mention of God's saving grace.  His love was discussed a good deal, but not His sacrifice, which really means that they are only telling half of the story.  Communion, or the Eucharist as they call it in their order of worship, is observed every week, and it amazed me how severely ritualistic it was.  Again, no mention of why we partake in communion or the saving grace of Christ.  I decided it was best not to partake in the serving of the Eucharist this morning, but rather spent my time in prayer that the church in Britain may experience the joyous love of Jesus and, in turn, express that joy towards others.
I confess that I have not really felt homesick during my time in Bath, but today I was struck by how much I truly miss my church families both at MPC and Grace Covenant.  I miss the strength of faith and whole-hearted devotion to worship that members of these congregations are not afraid to show.  I miss the loud and joyous singing and the occasional yells of "Amen!" during the sermon.  But most of all, I miss sermons that actually feed the congregation with the words of Christ, always pointing back to the Gospel.  Even as I write this now, I have tears in my eyes - I really wish that the people in the British congregations would be able to experience the kind of church-life I've known since birth.  I feel like I've taken so much for granted, never truly realizing how blessed I am to be able to attend churches like Grace and McLean.
Sorry this is such a long post, but before I wrap up I want to talk a little bit about Lent.  Lent is a widely practiced tradition here in Bath, and for the first time in my life, I've decided to give something up for this six-week period.  What am I giving up?  Chocolate.  I know it is probably the most cliche food to eradicate from my diet, but I had an epiphany about this last week.  As noted in one of my previous entries, my flat in general goes through a lot of chocolate (mainly nutella and dark chocolate digestives), and I've found that when I'm stressed or bored or feeling snacky, it is the first substance I go to in order to calm my nerves or even just my tummy.  And then I thought, what if I prayed instead of turning to food in these times?  So I decided that, since Lent conveniently fell around the time of my epiphany, I would give up eating chocolate as a way of continuing to grow in my relationship with Christ, and learning to rely on Him more and more each day.


Much love to my families at McLean Pres, Grace Covenant, and RUF - I miss you all so much.

O cross that liftest up my head, I dare not ask to fly from thee.  I lay in dust life's glory dead, and from the ground there blossoms red, life that shall endless be.

Lost in Austen

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife"

The Steventon Church

This week's adventure was to the home country of Jane Austen!  Needless to say, I more than a little excited for this trip!  We started with visiting her hometown of Steventon, where her father was vicar until 1800.  Her house is no longer standing, but we were able to walk around the small village church where she attended.  We then moved on to Chawton, where she spent the later part of her life (1809-1817).  The Manor House, once owned by Austen's brother,  Edward Knight, is now the Chawton House Library, an extensive collection of early women writers.  Our class not only was able to tour the house, but we also had time to look at the collection.  From there we walked down to the Austen's cottage in Chawton, which has been turned into a museum about Austen's family and career.  Our final stop of the day was Winchester, the burial place of Austen.  We toured the cathedral (one of the largest in England!), and of course took lots of pictures! :)  I loved seeing all of the Austen memorabilia and souvenirs,  and even indulged myself in a few little purchases at the gift shop. :)

Chawton House Library

This week, I was also able to see Steph, one of my friends from W&M.  Steph and I have been in RUF Small Groups together since we were freshmen, and so it was really wonderful to catch up with her for a grand total of...23 hours!  She is studying abroad in Lyon, and so she's been touring England on her mid-semester break.

The Austen Cottage in Chawton

Speaking of William & Mary, I've been thinking a lot about the upcoming year.  We were just assigned time slots for the housing lottery, and the course schedule is up online already!  It's very weird to think that I only have a year left at W&M.  And, I'm taking my last English class next semester!  I feel so attached to the school - to the people, activities, and really just the environment, that it will be hard to leave!  But, I've decided that I'm not going to say the word "senior" until I am actually on campus for my final year - I still have two-thirds of a semester and a whole summer to get through! :)

A Walk on the Moors

"Little girl, a memory without blot or contamination must be an exquisite treasure — an inexhaustible source of pure refreshment: is it not?" - Mr. Rochester

My Class and Tutor

Wycoller Hall

This weekend I had the pleasure of rambling the moors surrounding Haworth - the "Bronte land" of England.  On Friday, I traveled with my Nineteenth-Century Women Novelists class first to see Wycoller Hall (the inspiration for the secluded Ferndean Manor in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre), where we had a picnic lunch and a nice walk around the countryside.  We then drove over to Haworth, and toured the local church and the Bronte Parsonage Museum.  The entirety of Haworth is devoted to the tourism that comes from the Brontes - most shops have some sort of Bronte-related words in their names, etc.  But the town is still very cute to see nonetheless.  Dinner was followed by a viewing of the Lawrence Olivier version of Wuthering Heights and a walk down to the local pub, The Bronte Hotel (they are really original about their names in Haworth haha).

Outside the Bronte Parsonage Museum

The next morning, we embarked on a six-to-seven mile hike around the moors.  Putting the cold, wet, and muddy aspect of this venture aside, the walk was magnificent!  The fields are covered in heather (which sadly was not in bloom), and there are sheep EVERYWHERE (which always makes me think of the board-game Settlers of Catan).  We explored the ruins of Top Withens, the supposed inspiration of Wuthering Heights (the building in reality bears no resemblance to the one described in the novel), as well as waterfalls and hills.

Top Withens

Bronte Falls and the Moors

After a five hour bus ride back into Bath, the second half of my weekend began!  Tasha, my best friend from high school, and her friend Natalie came to spend a couple of days with me over their spring break!  It was wonderful to see them, and I finally got to do some of the more touristy things I've been wanting to see!  We walked around the Roman Baths (the main tourist attraction in Bath), the Art Museum, the Abbey, and went up to the Circus.
This past weekend was definitely a great break from the school work and paper-writing that has been the norm for us ASE students.  I loved having some class-bonding time and getting to see a wonderful friend from home! :)