Springtime in Oxford

The House where Tolkien
wrote The Lord of the Rings

Yes, yet another post on Oxford!  But I promise this one won't be as long as the last few! :)  Today, I spent the day walking the streets of the old city with my "Worlds Beyond Oxford:  Lewis, Tolkien, and Pullman" class.  It was such a beautiful day - perfect for a walking tour!  The southern UK seems to have learned the meaning of spring since I got back from Spring Break.  It's been wonderfully warm (well comparatively! haha) and sunny, and the trees finally have leaves on them!

The Kilns

We started out our day at Oxford with a walking tour focusing on the locations of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Philip Pullman.  We got to see some very famous sites, like Exeter College (the undergraduate home of Tolkien and Pullman), Magdalen College (the undergraduate home of Lewis and Andrew Lloyd Webber!), the houses where Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, etc.  We also learned some "succulent bits of knowledge" along the way.  For example, apparently the poet Percy Byssche Shelley was notorious for swapping babies.  He would legitimately take babies out of their carriages and switch them!  And mothers knew it was him, and so would go to his college, Univ, and complain that they didn't have the right baby!

The Narnia Window at
The Holy Trinity Church

After our tour we went to the Eagle & Child (Lewis & Tolkien's favorite pub) for lunch, and then drove over to the Kilns, the home of C.S. Lewis!  We ended the day with a visit to Lewis's church and gravesite.
It's kind of sad to think that this was my last study trip of the semester.  I've had so much fun getting to explore various parts of England in connection to my studies!  However, the next few weekends are still very busy.  I'm SUPER EXCITED for my parents and grandparents to visit this upcoming week, and then we are all traveling up to St. Andrews to see Jessica for Easter weekend!

Ciao Bella

After a crazy week of travel and sightseeing, I have finally arrived back in Bath!  It felt so good to sleep in my own bed last night, though now the task at hand is shaking this cold that has been following me throughout my travels!  It's really strange to go away for Spring Break.  I've always thought of break as a time to go home and relax/rejuvenate for the rest of the semester. But when you are an abroad students, break is a time for more travel, and then returning to your homebase and studies.  Because there is so much to talk about, I'll just point out the highlights of my trip - I've already posted pictures on facebook, so you can check those out too!

Eiffel Tower!

Saturday April 2 - We woke up not-so-bright, but very early (I believe my alarm went off at 3:30 am) for our 5 am taxi to the Bristol Airport.  Margaret Ann, Jessica, and I landed safely around 9:30 at Charles de Gaulle, and took a bus into the city of Paris.  After checking in to our hotel, we wandered the surrounding area before meeting up with Cathy for lunch!  We then walked down the Champs Elysees and saw the Arc D'Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower!  We took an elevator to the 2nd floor of the Tower (the top was closed due to crowding issues), and took some awesome pictures of the city!  Our day ended with a much-needed nap, a crepe & strawberries with nutella/speculoos dinner, and a beautiful walk along the Seine.

Margaret Ann and I
in the Paris Opera

Sunday April 3 - the only "rainy" day we had on our entire trip!  We toured the Paris Opera in the morning, and I was constantly reminded of one of my favorite musicals, The Phantom of the Opera. :)  We then walked down to the Louvre, and spent a couple of hours wandering the galleries.  That evening, we metro-ed out to Cathy's foyer, and went out to a nice French dinner in Elysia.  And of course, we stopped at a crepe stand for our dessert!

Jess and Marge found
the cutest mugs!

Monday April 4 - Our original first destination was the Musee D'Orsay, but when we got over to the museum, we learned that it's closed on Mondays.  Lame.  So we continued our walk to Notre Dame, and then spend some time souvenir-shopping!  After a quick lunch, we walked to the Bastille, a monument in honor of the location of the Bastille prison.  From there we tried to find the Maison de Victor Hugo, but had no luck.  :(  So that remains on the list of things to do during my next visit to Paris.  After a quick rest, we then took our longest walk up to the Moulin Rouge, and then back down again to our hotel.  We bought wine, baguettes, and cheese for dinner, and picnicked back in our room.

San Pietro

Tuesday April 5 - Another early morning of travel.  Our flight out of Beauvais was delayed about 45 minutes, but somehow we still arrived in Rome 10-15 minutes before our scheduled arrival time?  I'm convinced that RyanAir and EasyJet build in copious amounts of time into their flight schedules.  We finally arrived at our hotel (seriously right next door to San Pietro, or St. Peter's Bascilica) around 12:30-1 pm, and set out to explore the Vatican around 2pm.  After a quick gelatto snack, we walked around St. Peter's and then the Vatican Museums.  The Vatican Museums are actually rather hard to find - we had to ask the Vatican guards for directions twice (it's the only part of the Vatican that you can enter, so there is a very specific entrance) before we finally found it!  Part of the Vatican Museums include the Sistene Chapel, which I definitely took a couple of illegal pictures of! :)  There is such a rich history of art displayed in the Vatican Museums, it is really spectacular.

Toasting to Spring Break!

Wednesday April 6 - We started bright and early out at Palantino (Palantine Hill) and Foro Romano (the Roman Forum).  We then moved over to the Colosseum, followed by gelatto by Trajan's Column.  We wandered the city for a while until dinner time (it's actually really easy to walk around Rome - everything is much closer together than the map would have you believe).  Margaret Ann's dad was so sweet and treated us to a nice Italian dinner - THANK YOU SO MUCH MR. HAZELTON!  It was such a perfect ending to the day. :)

At the Trevi Fountain

Thursday April 7 - Though the day was sprinkled with shopping ventures, the major sites we hit were the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, and the Pantheon.  Of these three, the Trevi Fountain was definitely my favorite.  It is an absolutely beautiful spot, though often flooded with tourists.  We tried to walk along the Tiber, but quickly gave up this endeavor.  If you ever go to Rome, do not try walking along the River.  The Tiber is extremely dirty and nauseatingly smelly.  I don't know if this was a result of the heat we experienced in Rome or not, but I would not recommend it hahaha.  Once again we had an Italian dinner - and our waiter let us watch our pizza being made in the kitchen!  It was so cool to see them make real Italian pizza! :)

At the Vatican Museums

Some final thoughts before I wrap up - I know this is getting quite lengthy!  Rome and Paris were very different experiences.  Paris was a very posh city - very clean and safe-feeling.  Despite its being a big city, there seemed to be very little crime, and very few impoverished persons.  Rome on the other hand is a much more grungy city.  Pickpocketing is much more prevalent, and so tourists have to be much more aware of their surroundings.  There is also a large network of con-men/women who specifically target English speakers.  They usually try to get you to take their "exclusive tour" of a building/area/museum, saying that you won't have to wait in line to get in to said site.  There are also many more street vendors that are rather in-your-face about selling knock-offs.  They will try to push sunglasses, roses, jewelry, into your hands so that you buy it from them.  The very apparent presence of such people really showed how economically different Rome is from Paris.

The Paris Opera

Another thing I noticed about Rome is how much the three of us stood out with our blonde hair and fair skin.  Just by looking at us, Italian vendors could instantly tell that we spoke English.  And actually what I found to be very interesting, is when we didn't respond to their attempts to sell us things, they assumed that we were German.  There were actually a fair number of German-speaking tourists in Rome while we were there, interestingly enough!

With these differences in mind, I can't say whether I liked one city more than the other.  I liked the feeling of Paris - it felt very posh, stylish, and just pretty.  But, I liked the history behind the sights we saw, and the actual points of interest better in Rome.  So really, it's a toss-up for me; they were just very different experiences!

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! :)