French Frog in Oxford

Today we took the train from Paddington Station to Oxford and spent the entire day. We toured the Bodleian Library, and even got to go down into the basement and see the stacks there. Once upon a time all the books were kept on the second floor or higher because of the rising damp between the rivers of Oxford. It wasn't until someone figured out how to stop the dampness from creeping up that books could be put downstairs. Today there is a tunnel under the street from one part of the library to another, and books are sent across on a conveyor belt. Our guide told us that there has been at least one murder in the stacks -- investigated by none other than Detective Morse. Later on we went to the Oxford Central Library to have a look 'round there. This is the fourth busiest library in England.

Our emphasis for today was unusual signs, and we discovered quite a few, as you will see from our Facebook postings. We weren't quite sure what some of them meant, but we had fun taking photos of them anyway.

I was looking for a church with a cemetery for some graveyard shots, and I located a number of headstones in front of the Aldgate Church. On my way back to our rendezvous point, I stumbled upon a full-fledged cemetery right in the center of town. Later on, when we visited C. S. Lewis' church, there was another cemetery outside, where he was buried. This was truly a library and cemetery day.


The Eagle and Child Pub where C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkein spent time. We dined here. I ordered whichever fish and chips tasted least like fish, and the barman eventually settled on the pollack. During the afternoon we toured Lewis' house, the Kilns, and saw his typewriter, his map of Narnia, and the rooms in which he spent much of his time, and the church he attended. The wonderful woman who gave us a tour of the church was also a school librarian!



Paddington Station

French Frog in C. S. Lewis' Garden at the Kilns

A sign on a street corner in Oxford. I was advised by a local lady that there are unusual street names all over the city, including Logic Lane and this one. I saw one sign for Catte Street, which was rather ironic because the very next sign I saw, on the side of a rubbish container, said, "Litter."

Five headstones at the Aldgate Church. While I was taking this photo, a lady who works at the church, who was sitting outside having her lunch, invited me to come inside and have a look 'round the interior. It was quite a lovely and peaceful place, far from the ostentation of Westminster Abbey or St. Paul's.



French Frog Dining at the Eagle and Child. He loves French fries.

This was a sign at the Bodleian Library. Let us hope that it does not portend what it seems to proclaim.

French Frog Fell in Love with Laurie's Bag

Art, Cars, and Tales from Two Crypts

French Frog having lunch in the crypt



French Frog Outside the National Gallery

Today was filled with adventures, as we hustled to Trafalgar Square to attempt to photograph moving vehicles. Unfortunately, most of the traffic was going pretty slowly. The bicycles seemed to be going faster than the cars. But we managed to get some good shots. After an hour or so, we went across the square to the National Gallery and spent an hour or two exploring the many famous paintings there.

And there are many: Monet's The Water Lily Pond; Van Gogh's Sunflowers; Botticelli's Venus and Mars; Degas' After the Bath; Cezanne's Bathers; Henri Rousseau's Surprised!, a tiger creeping through the bushes, to name just a few. Almost the first paintings we looked at were a set by William Hogarth entitled Marriage A-la-Mode. These were among my favorites. The paintings tell the story of an arranged marriage between a poor viscount and a wealthy young lady. The first scene is of the scheming fathers arranging the deal. Next comes a portrait of the young couple. She appears quite bored, and he has a young lady's cap sticking out of his pocket in a telltale sign of infidelity. A further scene is of the viscount and his young prostitute seeking the services of a quack doctor to help them deal with their syphillis symptoms. Then we see the unfortunate wife caught by her husband in a scandalously compromising situation with the lawyer who arranged the marriage, Silvertongue. The solicitor murders her husband and then flees the room through a window in his night attire. In the final scene the guilt stricken wife poisons herself and dies while her greedy father pries her rings off her fingers. This is a fine commentary on the morals of the upper class in Hogarth's day. In another of his paintings, called The Graham Children, four children cavort in the foreground while a cat very closely watches a caged bird in the background. Another painting relevant to what we learned at the Tower of London was The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, by Paul Delaroche. She was one of the unfortunate victims beheaded at the Tower, and the painting shows her bravely kneeling over the executioner's block while a cleric prays in the background and the executioner waits patiently with his axe.

Lion Statue at Trafalgar Square

The spiral staircase at St. Paul's

Our afternoon was spent hanging out in two different crypts. We had lunch at the Cafe in the Crypt at the church of St.-Martin-in-the-Fields. The brick arches of the ceiling and the coolness of the underground room lent a certain eeriness to a delicious lunch. Two members of our group also tried the brass rubbing that can be done there. Then we headed to St. Paul's Cathedral, designed by famous architect Christopher Wren. Incredibly, he had no formal training as an architect, but was completely self-taught. St. Paul's was bombed a number of times during World War II, but luckily came through the war reasonably intact. We finished our tour downstairs in the crypt, where Christopher Wren, Admiral Nelson, and the Duke of Wellington are buried. Today the front steps of the church seem to be a preferred destination for the lunch crowd from the nearby offices. Also among the diners were numerous pigeons. It is here that the bird lady from Mary Poppins offered people the chance to feed the birds for tuppence a bag.

The Sound of Silence - Salisbury and Stonehenge

Stonehenge


Salisbury flowers

Such a beautiful variety of wildlife

Today was a day away from the crush of humanity that is London. We took a bus to Stoneheng and Salisbury. We each had our own seat on the bus, so we could stretch out and relax. The weather at Stonehenge was cool and a bit windy, as it is situated atop the Salisbury plain. The closest town is Salisbury itself. Our guide explained that while the chalk that makes up the ground here is very good for raising horses, because it is very porous and creates a springy grass surface, it is not so good for building towns because it doesn't hold enough water for a population to live on. All the water drains to the bottom of the hills, creating springs, and the towns follow suit.

Salisbury Cathedral

The Druidic influence at Stonehenge

Next we went to the city of Salisbury, which only has about sixty thousand residents. Its streets are lined with flowers, and its river, along which we walked, is inhabited by a large number of ducks, swans, and other waterfowl. The older part of the city still gives one an idea of what this town must have been like a few hundred years ago. There are little tea shops in abundance. However, the highlight of the city is Salisbury Cathedral. Where Westminster Abbey bears a strong French influence, with flying buttresses and light, wide windows, Salisbury's church is in the English Gothic style, with heavy walls and narrow window arches. Because it does not suffer from the congestion of Westminster Abbey, it felt very welcoming. I spent some time in the quiet cloister garden, looking at the flowers, then enjoyed a leisurely lunch of bangers and new potatoes in the cathedral cafe. Well rested after our sojourn in this delightful town, we headed back to London.

A View at Eye Level and From the Eye

Today we visited Westminster Abbey to practice taking pictures of buildings. We spent some time taking shots of the exterior of the building. Then we went inside for a tour of the church itself. It is filled with ornate carvings and gold. Quite a lot of famous people are buried there, including Elizabeth I, Edward the Confessor, Rudyard Kipling, and Lewis Carroll, to name a few. Later in the day we visited the London Eye, which is like riding in a giant bubble high atop the City. We got some great photos and all took pictures of our mascots. Later in the evening we headed across town to see Wicked, the story of Oz before Dorothy's arrival. The singing and costumes were magnificent, and there were hundreds of people there. We had a wonderful time.

Exploring Underground and Pub Crawling

We began the morning with a bus tour of London. We saw many of the imposing buildings in the financial district, some of the expensive homes around Grosvenor Square, the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, and St. Paul's Cathedral, just to name a few. Our guide was able to answer every question posed to him without a second's hesitation. Since it was Sunday, we didn't even have to fight the traffic.
Since we had the afternoon free, I grabbed my Oyster card (which is used to get around on the Underground) and headed for Whitechapel. I wanted to visit Hanbury Street, where one of Jack the Ripper's victims, Annie Chapman, met her demise. Today it is a thriving commercial and market area. I found not one, but two, flea markets, the first in Petticoat Lane and the second at the Old Spitalfields Market. The latter is a sort of open air/covered market all at once. It has a roof, but the sides are open to the street. Inside this establishment were tables with every imaginable item, pastries, salads, books, jewelry, knickknacks, clothes, etc. While I hadn't intended to do any shopping, I couldn't help coming away with a bag of goodies. I did walk the length of Hanbury Street, but it was far from being the isolated, spooky area it must have been in 1888. There were cars and people everywhere. There were one or two dark alleys, but it took a little searching to find them. I stopped at the Ten Bells Pub, which several of Jacks victims frequented. It was renamed the Jack the Ripper Pub for a time, but when women's rights groups protested, it became the Ten Bells again. There are several posters on the wall in the stairwell dedicated to the Ripper's crimes.
After leaving Whitechapel, I took a tube ride back to Picadilly Circus and stopped at the John Snow Pub. This pub commemmorates Dr.Snow's discovery that the cholera epidemic of 1854 was being spread through contaminated water from the Broad Street Pump. A replica of the pump, minus the handle he had removed to halt the spread of the disease, is across the street from the pub. Once I entered the pub, the barmaid was kind enough to take me upstairs to show me a replica of the pump handle itself.
On my way back to the flat, I passed a perfume store with a large crowd around the front. Inside was a young man who was offering to give everyone in the crowd free perfume. He was even flinging samples among the bystanders and spritzing those closest to him with perfume.
London is certainly an amazing city. There are so many people from so many places. And the tube is a marvel. One can go just about anywhere in London in a few minutes just by hopping on the Underground. I can't wait to see what new discoveries tomorrow will bring.

The Tower of London

The Tower of London has been many things to England over the years since the white tower was built in the 1200's. It has been a palace, a prison, a home for the Crown Jewels, an execution site, and a major tourist attraction. The photo on the right is of the Traitor's Gate, through which prisoners were brought into the Tower from the Thames. Some of the famous celebrities who entered through this gate were Ann Boleyn, Sir Thomas More, and Catherine Howard. As they passed by London Bridge on the way in, they could view the heads of anyone who had been recently executed, as they were displayed from London Bridge. Alas, the executioner's block is now behind glass, and no photos are allowed, but it is well worth a look. Also on the premises is an impressive collection of Henry VIII's armor and weapons.

A Day of Orientation

, Today was a day of getting acquainted with our surroundings. First we had a meeting where we heard from school staff members about the ground rules and programs here at the Study Center. Then we met with the two officers pictured above, who introduced themselves as Fred and Ebiye. They gave us some tips on how to stay safe. Even though London is one of the safest cities in the world, we still need to watch out for pickpockets and ATM scams. Later in the afternoon we had a walking tour of the area to learn about all the best restaurants. We're only a block away from the British Museum. The building we're staying in, the London Study Center for FSU, is 300 years old, and there is supposed to be a ghost here somewhere on the premises. Our flat has two bedrooms, a kitchen, living room, and two baths, and is on two floors. We have a library, three computer labs, a lecture hall, classrooms, and all of London to explore.

We have arrived!

After a perfectly on-time flight from Fort Lauderdale to Atlanta, I caught a second flight to London's Gatwick Airport. Once on the ground, I was met by the London FSU crew, who were waiting in the wings for our arrival. During our coach trip to the London Study Center, we saw a number of places of interest, including Big Ben, Parliament, and the London Eye (which didn't even exist the last time I was in London). After getting our room assignments, we visited the library to get our Internet wireless connection. Later this afternoon we have a welcome get-together to meet everyone. There are six of us in our apartment, but luckily we have two baths and a separate shower. The temperature is pleasant, and life is good.

Gun Control in England

I've been practicing my digital photography and helping my sister with her homework at the same time. She was doing a paper on the NRA and wanted to show what the police in this country are up against. The bullet on the left is a .40 caliber bullet such as a police officer would use in his regulation Glock. The one in the middle is a 7.62 mm bullet for an AK-47. The one on the right is a .50 caliber bullet for a Barrett military rifle. While it is meant for battle conditions, it is becoming popular for street use over here.

Gun control in Britain is very strict. It is illegal to own a handgun or assault weapon there. Bans have become tighter over time, as they have had several unfortunate incidents where large numbers of people were killed with firearms, including an incident in Dunblane, Scotland, where 16 children were killed in a school shooting. Possession of a firearm carries a stiff jail sentence, minimum five years for an adult. Gun licenses may be issued for hunting or if your job requires it, but even most policemen in England still don't carry guns. There are strict application guidelines, including approval by your doctor, a face-to-face interview with a Firearms Enquiriy Officer, and an inspection of your house. This is one of the cultural differences between England and the United States. The British are strong supporters of gun control in the interest of public safety. According to an article in the Washington Post, there were three times as many shooting deaths in Washington D.C. in 2006 as in all of England.

Education Broadens Your Horizons

Like travel, education definitely can broaden a person's horizons beyond the everyday. As I have been practicing digital photography for my upcoming class, I have twice walked around the lake behind our city hall building to take pictures of the scenery and wildlife. I have twice seen a family of moorhens and watched the male valiantly try to distract me from watching his little family. This heron obligingly posed to have his picture taken right next to the library. I have gotten out of the house and experienced nature as a result of my studies.

I have marched out into fields and marshes to collect insects for an entomology class, scooped up a dead rat from the road for zoology, and rejoiced upon slipping in a patch of algae I needed as a sample for botany. My sister and I love to visit cemeteries to look at the headstones. After our botany class, we realized that we were wandering through the cemetery in Micanopy (near Gainesville) studying not the tombstones, but the lichen growing on them. We have examined paintings by Bosch and Botticelli at the Prado Museum in Spain after studying them in class, and taken classes on the Holocaust after visiting Auschwitz in Poland. Education can lead to travel, and travel is always an education. The two go hand in hand. I can think of no better ways to expand one's life experience than these.