36 Hours in Oxford and London

After a long week of studying and research I took the weekend to travel to Oxford and London. I had the better part of the day in both places, not near enough time to see one of the great centers for learning in all the world and one of the greatest cities in all Europe, the emerald of the United Kingdom.

Nevertheless, it was fantastic to see a part of each of them. In Oxford I saw a smattering of the 38 colleges, a handful of churches, the Bodleian library, a cross as well as a monument that commemorated figures in history that were martyred because they would not renounce their faith, and I did a mini-walking tour to see some of the places that CS Lewis frequented (Magdalen College, Magdalen Church, the Eagle and Child pub where the "Inklings" which included J.R.R. Tolkein and others met and discussed what they were writing among a few other places).

In London I saw the Westminster Abbey, the Parliament buildings, Big Ben, the changing of the guard at Buckingham palace (picture of me above), St James Park, the British Museum, the British Library, the Thames River, the riverfront with all the street shows, the Sherlock Holmes museum, Regency Park, and sunset among the beautiful flowers at Queen Mary's botanical garden which provided for a great end to the day. It was a gorgeous day with clear blue skies and lots of sun that made the trip all the more pleasant. Thank you Lord! Clearly, the only thing missing was that I went to see all these places by myself. It would have been much better to have some my wife and family along (though I probably wouldn't have gone to so many museums and churches!) Hopefully, some day....

Below are some more pictures and details of my 36 hours in Oxford and London!

Pics from Oxford

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Oxford is a pristine city that exudes learning and academic aspiration throughout its 38 colleges in what has been called "the city of the dreaming spires" (see bottom two pictures). I took a two hour walking tour around the central part of the city (everything is relatively close) and learned more about the history of Oxford that I can even remember. Oxford is the oldest, English-speaking university in the world, founded in the 12th century. During the tour we entered three of the colleges (see 3rd picture with me at Oriel College) as many were closed for different events, one being a graduation day! I'm not sure why they are graduating while school is about to begin here but there were graduates with caps and gowns on all over.

One of the highlights of my time was touring the Bodleian Library, one of the oldest in all of Europe that has in its collection over 8 million books! Every week 1,200 new books enter the library. The agreement with Thomas Bodley, who helped to restore and put the library on the track it continues on back in the 1600's is that out of every new book printed in England, one copy is sent to the library. Unlike a traditional library, one cannot check out books but must have a reader card to be able to enter and read. No pens, food or smoking in the library and to get a reader card among other things one must promise to never take a book out of the library! (2nd picture). During the library tour we saw one part of the library that was used in the library scenes in a couple of Harry Potter films! On one of my trips here to the UK I hope to make use of the library for my research if there are books that are difficult to get a hold of.

On the buildings throughout Oxford one finds gargoyle heads on the downspouts and other, sometimes humorous, monster heads on the buildings. Our tour guide pointed out at one college that the first letter of the images on the building spelled the name of the first female principal of that college. I'm not sure why they are there on the others. At once kind of freaky and at then almost cartoonish at other times, an interesting tradition (first picture).

Pics from London

My first stop after the train station was to jump on the Tube (the name of the subway in London) and head out to Westminster Abbey. I wanted to walk around there first to see if they had an Saturday evening service before heading to Buckingham palace for the changing of the guard ceremony. That's the first picture (top) of my mug with the church in the background. Right around the corner and visible from the church grounds is the clock tower, Big Ben next to the parliament buildings (2nd picture).

After seeing Big Ben, I went towards Buckingham Palace. I cut through St James Park which was blooming with flowers and very beautiful. Coming up on the palace, one sees the Victoria Memorial commemorating Queen Victoria (third picture). I arrived an hour before the ceremony and already the places in front of the iron bar fence were taken. So my pictures are just so-so becaue I had to take them through the bars (fourth picture). The ceremony actually lasted for over an hour complete with two military bands playing music from the musical "Mama Mia" and some other easy listening songs from the 70s. Whatever happened to "God Save the Queen"?

After the ceremony I bolted to the Tube and went to the British Museum (bottom picture). I spent only a few minutes there (it was free!) and looked at some of the exhibits from ancient Greece. Then I walked over to the British Library and perused two of the oldest complete copies of the Bible that exist: Codex Sinaiticus (from the 350s AD) and Codex Alexandrinus (from the 5th century). They were both open to the last chapter of the Gospel of John and I'm proud to say that I could even read some of the Greek. To be able to read a copy of the Scriptures that were more than 1600 years old was incredible - our faith has a long, reliable history.

After the British Library I went back to Westminster Abbey, the church where kings and queens are crowned, and arrived just in time to get in for the Evensong Saturday service (which as free and not 15 pounds that you pay if you go to see visit the museum on your own). It was wonderful with the glorious ornate ceiling and monuments everywhere to famous people buried somewhere underneath, among them Winston Churchill but the one who grabbed my attention was that of the great English statesman and Christian activist, William Wilberforce. Unfortunately, half way through the service, one of the older choir members had a medical emergency that was so serious that they stopped the service in order for the paramedics and ambulance to treat and take them to the hospital. One interesting note, the service was full of people like me who did not want to pay the 15 pound entrance fee, and so there were people from all over the world: noticeably from the Middle East, India, China and Japan. They were clueless about the liturgy (I am in good practice going to the chapel service at the Anglican college I am at daily). During the times for silent pray I asked the Lord to speak to them, to reveal His Son to them, that this service would be a step in their pilgrimage toward believing in Him. With the unplanned medical emergency of that poor person, I'm sure I was not the only one thinking about mortality and the hereafter.

Studying

I haven't put up anything new on the blog because my week has been spent in study, study, study. I've been getting ready for a meeting with my supervisor to look over the research that I've done over the past couple of weeks. The concentrated time to focus on reading, writing and studying has been good. But I sure do miss Carey and the kids as well as just time to veg. Fortunately, through Skype we've been able to keep in touch almost daily and sometimes with a video feed. Seeing the fam is makes it seem like we're not so far away from each other, but an image actually makes me a little more homesick after we talk. This weekend I'm going to travel to a couple of places so I should at least have some pictures up.

Half Day trip to Cardiff

Today I took the bus for an hour over to the country of Wales and to the capital city of Cardiff. Wales is right next to Bristol and though the bus was full of people and a bit stuffy, it was a good little trip. Cardiff Castle lies smack dab in the middle of the modern city of Cardiff. Though probably not the most impressive castle, it was the first British castle I've ever visited and it had all the components that I would have hoped for: castle, moat, high walls, battlements, towers, etc. It only lacked some knights and a few jousting tournaments. I'm sure they get around doing that at some time in the year though! Another beautiful sunny fall day that made the excursion well worth it.

Well, back to the books! There are more photos below!

More Cardiff Castle Shots

Here are some other shots of the castle grounds. The top one is of the both the castle and the keep. The middle is the keep which has the moat around it and was one of the oldest structures in the castle grounds. The bottom is of the castle, the center part of it was built around 1423 and then was expanded and extensively remodeled in the 1500's and the 1700's.

Castle interior

Flash photography was not allowed inside the castle so many of the pictures I took with Hannah's little camera didn't turn out well. Most of the rooms were very richly decorated and what I thought was cools was all the cool fireplaces and mantels. Here's a mantel I'd love to have over the fireplace in my house! Very King Arthur-ish (who by the way is supposably buried an Glastonbury Abbey down the road from Bristol)!

The Missing Link

I stopped by the National History Museum of Wales and caught the Welsh perspective. There wasn't a display about a Creator anywhere (not that I've every seen one in any other national history museum. There was book cover that I thought summed it up.

English or Cymraeg?

The Welsh have two official languages: English and Cymraeg (Welsh). So every sign is in both languages - makes for twice as many signs and since the alphabet is pretty much the same you need to find the words that DON'T look like gibberish to you. Here's some street signs I ran into.

Jane Austen Festival

This week was also the "Jane Austen Festival" in Bath. One of the cities claims to fame is that Jane Austen lived there for some years and wrote a few of her books manuscripts in that setting. People were dressed in Victorian attire. Brought back memories of how I thought it would have been back in 10th grade when I read "Jane Eyre" in high school!

Hourly prayer at Bath Abbey

The priest read some Scripture and said a few prayers while the tourists paused and watched. The stain glass windows in the church was fabulous. The central one alone had over 50 something scenes from the life and ministry of Christ. The great thing about the inscriptions here in the stain glass is that they are not in Latin nor Spanish nor Italian, but English!

New friends

Here are some chaps I met at the Roman Bath excavation: somewhat delusional stone masons who were hard at work but stopped to pose for the tourists.

Saturday Outing to Bath

After locking myself up in a study all week with books and a laptop, I left the writing aside today and took a short trip to the neighboring town of Bath. As the name suggests, this city is known for hot, mineral water baths. Although there is very little seismic activity in the UK, this city is one of the few places where thermally heated water comes up to the surface. The town was founded around 2,000 years ago by the Romans who believed the waters to be sacred and somewhat medicinal. Over the course of centuries they built bathhouses and temples in this location. Later on the Christian missionaries came and constructed an abbey on part of this ground, most likely tearing down the pagan temple in the process. The baths remained though in one form or another for centuries as people came to be relieved of their suffering from arthritis, rheumatism, skins diseases and a whole litany of ailments.

The abbey is now beautiful cathedral built close to if not on top of the Roman temple to the god Minerva. I have read of other early missionary efforts in Britain with similar circumstances - Christian missionaries (usually monks) enter an area and begin to instruct the people and eventually the pagan worship places are destroyed or dismantled and a church or monastery is put in its place as a new place to worship God and to serve as a base of mission. I have read Celtic literature that talks about "sacred space" and that the people recognized that a certain spot, even though occupied by a temple or sacred place for another religion, was somehow sacred and thus a natural place to put a Christian church. Needless to say, it would also be a bold statement about the victory of the Christian God over the god or gods that inhabited that space before. To read more go to: http://www.bathabbey.org/visitors.htm. They have prayer on the hour and get up in the pulpit while the tourists are milling around and give a few verses of Scripture, prayers for the city, tourists, and peace and then the Lord's prayer. A pretty good way to proclaim the gospel and instruct people about the God for whom the cathedral was built.

The pictures are of the main entrance of Bath Abbey, the Roman Baths that have been excavated, and yours truly at Bath, but I didn't bathe there, did you see the color of that water?

Sunday Church Service

Today I attended Cairns Road Baptist Church with some new friends. The service had a warm, family feel to it as well as an air of celebration as two high school aged boys were baptized. One reminded me so much of Jake, our sophomore, tall and lanky. The service centered around the baptism of these young men and what it meant that they were making a public demonstration that they were followers of Jesus.

Two things struck me about the baptism of these two "lads". One was that they seemed to be from different socio-economic levels. Though good friends, one young man talked about growing up in a single-parent home and recounted when God provided for daily needs when there was not any money. He testified to how he had seen God's faithfulness to his family in this way. The other boy talked more about those who had influenced his life and personal growth and did not mention situations. The other part that struck me was one of the pastor's questions that he asked the boys before baptizing them. There were three: one ask them if they believed in the Triune God, the second whether they had decided to follow Jesus and the third, and I remember the pastor saying that this was "very important", that they would stand and work for social justice and resist evil both individually and as a part of the Christian community. Growing up Baptist, I had never heard the third question before. This church definitely sees a major part of following Christ as aligning oneself with good in issues of justice in society. No mention of personal devotions and "Jesus and me," rather representing Jesus out there in the culture. Interesting.

After the service I spoke with at least three people and all of them knew of and/or had been influence by Agape (Campus Crusade in Europe). I was pleasantly surprised. Of course all of them had gone to the university. I didn't take my camera today and now I wish I had for the baptisms to show the kids. Seeing them reminded me of baptizing Jake and Jonny - being a part of your children taking steps towards following Jesus is one of the greatest joys!

Saturday Afternoon Exploring Bristol

The weather continues to be warm and so this afternoon I took off to explore downtown Bristol. Besides stopping in a few stores along the way (Barnes and Noble, a used book store, supermarket, etc.) it was mainly a downhill walk. At the used bookstore I scored a three year old travel guide book for Britain and Ireland for 1.50 pounds (around $2.55), who says everything is so expensive here. Actually many things you can count on costing twice what they cost in the U.S.

Along the way I saw some old church buildings - Baptist, Methodist, and Church of England. I walked up the hill to the University of Bristol and it happened to be the weekend back for the students. One of the pictures I've included here is of one of their principle buildings - it looks a little like a cross between a church and a tower. Again, everything has such a long history here. I stopped at the main Cathedral (a church has been setting on that spot for over 1,000 years and some of the oldest part of the structure dates back to 1140 CE. It just so happened that it was time for the Saturday Choral Evensong Worship service. The choir sang beautifully though I could not tell if it was always in English, and the OT reading was from Exodus 19:1-8 (incidentally, I will be looking at Ex. 19:6 this next week in my research) and John 20:1-18 about the resurrection of Jesus. The prayer time was a long pastoral prayer for the city, nation, poor, the attenders of the service, and for prayer requests that people had written and left before. Before a young ordinand, who looked like Orlando Bloom in "Pirates of the Caribbean" with the long hair in a pony tail and dressed in an all black robe came and told me there was not photography to be take, I took a shot of the inside of the cathedral and the tomb cut out of the wall of Abbot William Hunt, 1473-1481. His curacy predates Columbus discovering the Americas by 11 years!

After the service I went down to the floating harbor. The Avon River flows through the city and the tidal changes causes it to rise and fall. It was a pretty cool place on a warm Saturday afternoon and there were a lot of people out. There were ferries that would take people up and down the harbor. I decided to walk and ended up at the museum of the SS Great Britain, the first screw propeller ship. Before catching a ferry across the river to catch a bus back to the school, I spotted this pirate ship that takes people up and down the river, and they even let you dress like pirates! Ho, ho, ho!

Today was "Induction Day" for all new postgraduate research students. Basically what that meant is that we were given an introduction to being research students: pitfalls, how to grow spiritually and retain your sanity, generally good advice, regulations, and a lot of helpful information. One of the great parts of this time was that it was held in a small church out in a rural area that has 12 people on its roles. (picture). For the third day in a row the sun was shinning and the sky was blue, much to the surprise of my British hosts. After a very wet summer here maybe summer has finally come?

My kids keep asking about my teacher and my classes, well here's picture of those who are doing postgraduate research work so I guess that they would be part of the same "class" I am in and the professors shown would be the teachers (how can I ever help them understand that I got to a school where I'm not taking any classes and consequently do not have teachers - they must think I'm loony).

2nd Day in the UK

According to my new English friends I have been blessed with two consecutive days of sun - I guess the weather here is usually more damp and cloudy. After getting accustomed to sunny, Colorado days I'm glad to have good weather on my first few days. I'm also glad because I walked to an area of the city called Clifton today to meet my supervisor for the first time. It was a good visit and I'm looking forward to working with him. His name is Steve Finamore and he is the principle of the Bristol Baptist College, one of the older "free", Christian training schools in all the world. The plaque at the door of the school attests to that as it records that the institution was founded in 1679. Everything is much older here than in the US. In fact, so much so that they even put signs on the street to alert drivers to "elderly people crossings". A nice gentleman was willing to pose for me : 0 )

Do you recognize the tree (pic above)? No, I didn't take an overnight flight back to Chile, but it is the national tree of Chile, called an Araucania, or in English a "monkey puzzle tree." It was right next door to the Baptist college. Finally, as I walked from the Baptist College I went through an area called Clifton Downs where there was a number of English prep schools. The high school age students were all dress in coat and ties with fancy black dress shoes. The little ones were also wearing coats and ties and girls skirts - kind of a Hogwarts look without the capes. I did see a field there where they must play quiddich, but someone suggested to me that it might be where they play rugby. Anyway, Jake and Jonny, how would you like to wear uniforms like that to school instead of sweats and shorts? Well, I guess you both did wear those type of uniforms when you went to St. Johns and Wessex in Concepcion.

I miss you family!

First Day in the UK

After flying and waiting in airports for 15 hours, I arrived in London suffering from the typical bone-weariness of attempting to catch at least 15 minutes of consecutive sleep in economy class. However, a sweet surprise was waiting for me at a kiosk as I made my way to the bus terminal - HOBNOBS! As the label says, these are "roasty oaty biscuits" covered with milk chocolate on one side. I was introduced to Hobnobs years ago when we were living in Russia. I've gotten a hold of them on rare occasion since, but now that I'm in the land where they originated, I'll be doing some Hobnobbing (not to mention getting some good fiber : )

I caught my bus for Bristol and traveled through some beautiful, rolling green hills. At one moment I thought I caught a glance of Harry Potter's uncle's house. As I rolled into Bristol after two hours I noticed immediately the mix of the old and the new - old buildings, walls, cathedrals, etc. Before arriving to the city we passed the cutoff to the old Roman town of Bath located close by where the Romans built public baths that had medicinal qualities at the turn of the 1st millennium. Everything is much older here than in the US when it comes to structures, buildings, etc.

With the seven hour time difference I am feeling a bit exhausted. But before signing off tonight I accepted an invitation to watch the England vs. Croatia World Cup qualifying match. Needless to to say, the English remind me of the Chileans and Argentinians (as well as most other nations in the world when it comes to soccer) in their passion to see their team win - and they did 5 to 1.
I met some great people who are studying, teaching and working here and look forward to rubbing shoulders with them as I pursue postgraduate research. All and all, for a travel day it was a great one, though I miss my family. To them: XXooxOxooX