Salisbury/Stonehenge/Avebury tour

We woke early Sunday morning and headed to the other side of Oxford to meet up with a tour group called "Cotswald Roaming." We drove through lots of sleepy yet beautiful English towns on the way to our first stop, the town of Salisbury, which has the second tallest cathedral spire in Europe (THE tallest being somewhere in Germany) and the oldest working clock in Europe. It also held one of the four original copies of the Magna Carta.









After lunch and seeing the cathedral, we traveled onward to Stonehenge! Alas, there were way too many tourists milling about to get any fabulous photos. Still pretty awesome.








We then traveled to Avebury, which is actually a LOT larger than Stonehenge but gets quite a bit less press. It's different in that the stones in Stonehenge were all shaped by humans, but the stones in Avebury were chosen for their specific shape and not fashioned at all by humans. It is magnificent, and also different because it is not roped off and surrounded by lots of tourists, but rather surrounded by sheep grazing in the grasses.






There's also a road built right into the middle of the Avebury site. Apparently up until recent decades, there was a ramshackle village (with no electricity or running water!) built around the old stones and farmers were actively trying to destroy them. The government of Britain convinced the village's old inhabitants to move down the road into much nicer government-built accommodation and they found and restored much of the original stones of Avebury. It's an absolutely breathtaking site and we enjoyed frolicking in the fields with the sheep (even if we had to watch where we stepped). We returned to Oxford that evening totally worn out, so decided upon an easy dinner at the Eagle & Child, which has apparently become our regular pub.

It was Norman's last day in town. He left on the bus back to Heathrow the next morning around half past 9. We bid him a bit of a sad goodbye and spent the rest of the day recovering from the whirlwind visit.

I am a visitor here - I am not permanent...

Those of you who are familiar with the Postal Service (the band) will recognize the lyrics in my title. The song is actually about Washington DC, but it seems appropriate for my life right now. I've been a visitor everywhere I've been in the past 6 weeks, and that feeling is not going to dissipate (for me) at all in the next 6 months as I travel onward. Hopefully Nathan will begin to really build a home here while I am gone, but soon, very soon, we will be on different journeys experiencing totally different things. It is a very surreal concept to ponder, as I prepare myself to live a life utterly unknown to me until this point - as I prepare to sink myself into the reality of a population who has lived on the other side of the world from me all of my life.

But this surreality is a gift, and I can only hope that I rise to the challenge of adjusting to it accordingly. This entire year is a gift that I have been looking forward to for so long now, and most of the time it is difficult to believe that this time has actually arrived.

I am relishing my ability to post so often to this blog while I still can. Since my internet access in Kenya is going to be so sparse, I will probably not be able to post here very much when I am there. When I'm able, I will email blog entries to Nathan and he will post them for me.

Anyway, I digress... I should tell you all about this weekend and the end of Norman's (Nathan's dad's) visit. After we returned from Bath on Friday night, we were thinking we would take another day trip out of town on Saturday. That did not happen. We were all feeling tuckered and tried to leave town, but wound up staying in Oxford instead. Not a bad "fall back" plan, however. We visited Christchurch College, which was heavily featured in a lot of the Harry Potter movies. (Although I have not read Harry Potter and have only seen two of the movies, I was still kind of impressed by this fact.) One can see why: it is a grand, grand place - just as nice as many palaces could be.


(the inner courtyard area)


(the ceiling)


(the chapel)


(the dining room... aka Hogwarts Dining Room in the Harry Potter Movies)


All Soul's College is another beautiful college, and is situated on Radcliffe Square next to the famous Radcliffe Camera (which is probably THE most famous building in Oxford - I have posted a few photos of it before):




After hitting a few pubs that afternoon, we caught an awesome sunset in the park next to our flat on the way home.





It was a happy day...

(Norman took this photo)





The following day (Sunday) Nathan, Norman & I got up bright and early (for us) and caught a little tour to Salisbury, Stonehenge & Avebury. I will save that for another post and another day, as we both have to get up early in the morning - Nathan is going to a Personal Rapid Transit Conference in a little English town called Daventry, and I've decided to take the day in London to go exploring by myself.

A crazy photo update!

I've been slacking on the blog posts, but mostly due to being insanely busy. I've got tons of photos to share but don't have the time or the energy to upload them all, so here are a few with some brief explanations.

Last Friday we spent most of the day in London, getting lost. We found Russell Square, with this awesome Victorian building Nathan became completely obsessed with (we'd love to live in the area one day, but were recently told that rents run around £2000/mo for a one bedroom flat. yikes!):








Nathan's father has been in town since Saturday the 15th, so we've been entertaining him (and ourselves) since his arrival. The first several days we spent gallavanting around Oxford (because there's just so much to explore):

(Some of Oxford's famous spires, paired with the Radcliffe Camera)


(The Bridge of Sighs)


Lest you think everything in Oxford is quaint, let me assure it is not. Most of the time it is quite crowded, and I think September is still very much a part of the high tourist season. Last weekend was alumni weekend here, and the town was bustling, to say the least. Here's a portion of the crowd we encountered on Cornmarket Street, one of the main roads in the downtown area here:



Here Nathan and I are at the Eagle & Child Pub, the famous Oxford pub where JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis used to meet and socialize/argue, likely in the very booth they utilized (we were both very tired this particular day as you can probably tell):


Oh oh! One thing I should mention is that we've refreshed Nathan's wardrobe since we arrived here, out of necessity. He needs some decent things to wear for business school. Here he is looking spiffy:



We spent the past two days in Bath. We got a fantastic deal on a wonderful boutique B&B with a lot of character. It was definitely among the fanciest places we've ever stayed, and probably the best value. I was very happy with it.... one of those budget traveler's delights.

Bath is incredibly beautiful but very touristy. To escape a lot of the tourism, the first day we spent about an hour walking along the canal, which had numerous hand-cranked lochs for the many boats that travel through.



The houses along the canal are beautiful but not ostentatious like much of the rest of Bath...





Here are some of my two favorite dorks enjoying themselves on this particular walk:



We broke down and took one of those tacky open-top tourist buses. We had less than two full days there and so wanted to make sure we saw the highlights of the town. The bus tour helped even though it rained on the open top a bit. Here's one of the famous views of Bath, of Pulteny Bridge:




This morning we visited the beautiful Bath Abbey built in the 16th century (I loved its ceiling!):








And of course we couldn't leave the city without visiting the famous Roman baths. Too bad they're not open to the public for bathing - due to the lead pipes and something about a strange bacteria growing in the water (?!):






Now we're back home in Oxford for the evening. We've got a tour set up on Sunday to visit Stonehenge, and tomorrow we may head into London, depending on our energy level.

I hope to write up a more substantive update on the past couple of weeks sometime next week after Norman leaves. Things are not going to get less hectic, though, as the starting date for Nathan's program draws more near and preparations for my Kenya departure kick into high gear (I leave a week from this Sunday).

Photography from the Christchurch meadow

Nathan here now, with apologies for the infrequency of my posts. I'm trying to sink into Oxford in a kind of subconscious, subliminal sort of way. Periodically it hits me that I actually live here now, but mostly I'm just putting one foot in front of the other: opening a bank account, finding the best places to buy trousers or fennel seed or any number of other things. But everyday life takes place against a backdrop of occasionally quite staggering beauty.

I think I'll like my year here. A lot.

Our graveyard intrigue

The last blog entry I posted (just a few moments ago, though I back-dated it) was written by me on Thursday and Friday while I did not have internet access. We got internet access at our flat on Monday, just yesterday. But the university seems extremely paranoid that wireless presents a major security risk, so we are plugged in with old-fashioned ethernet cables. It is also nigh-impossible to find wireless anywhere around town. I suppose we will make do. ;)

Our first several days here, I was slacking on the photo-taking. I'd been an incessant photo-snapping tourist for three weeks and I needed break. Plus, I figured, this is our new home and I will be here for quite a while (relatively speaking), and thus I felt less compelled to snap photos. However, yesterday was an exceptionally beautiful, warm day and we spent most of it gallavanting around town on foot with camera in tow. I haven't found the perfect bicycle yet, and I may just have to wait until I come back from Kenya, but Nathan did break down and purchase one for himself. (Understandably, as fairly soon he will be riding it everywhere.) Everyone here commutes by bike, and it is impossible to really survive here for long without one. In the meanwhile, we've been walking wherever we need to go, and it usually amounts to 6-7 miles or more per day. We're avoiding the buses, because they're totally confusing and the service is rather poor. Plus, it's beautiful out lately and the best way to really get to know a city is on foot.

We haven't taken many photos of the "Dreaming Spires" that make Oxford so famous, because frankly they are a dime a dozen here. We've been saving our photo-snapping for more unusual sites, and those brief moments when the light comes out to play.











Yesterday we made a great find: an old graveyard in the St. Cross-Holywell Church by Linacre College. It was an old graveyard, and many of the headstones were so old that they were completely illegible. The stones became legible once they reached death dates in the 1700s.



What was particular intriguing about this graveyard is that several parts of it were obviously completely covered up with several feet of ivy (for perhaps many decades) that had only been cleared recently, and several parts of it had yet to be cleared. Many of the headstones were covered and tangled up with at least three feet of ivy above their tops. We're not sure why, but some of the headstones had been incredibly well-preserved (perhaps by the ivy?), and some headstones with death dates from the 1860s looked not to be more than 10 years old but apparently were.








Nathan insisted on doing a photo shoot in the graveyard, but the light was a bit unpredictable:



We spent at least an hour wandering around in this magical graveyard. We definitely intend to go back. Fortunately we both have the same morbid interest in the beauty that is old cemeteries, and Oxford is chock full of them. I was hoping that someone in Oxford would be offering tours of all the old Oxford graveyards, but a google search hasn't pulled up anything of that sort.

On our way home, we stopped for Happy Hour at a place called Kazbar, which is a pretty famous little spot in Oxford. They serve tapas and interesting foofy drinks from around the world. I took my revenge by turning the camera on Nathan (unfortunately the light wasn't great and they turned out grainy, but the expression on Nathan's face is still worth seeing):






Today Nathan is finishing up some administrative financial aid paperwork for his program, and we're going to apply for a British bank account (which is a difficult feat, as I understand it). Tomorrow we're off on a daytrip to London. Saturday Nathan's father, Norman, arrives for a 10-day visit. So far we've got trips tentatively planned to Bath and Stonehenge. In the meanwhile I'm enjoying the slower pace we've established and our little ventures around town.

Our first days

We arrived at Heathrow at few minutes before 7 on Thursday morning after a somewhat rough 6 ½ hour red-eye flight, and about three hours of sleep. The line to get through customs was like nothing either of us had ever seen. At least 300 people were queued up (bear with me as I attempt to switch over to British English), and likely many, many more. However, it only took us about 45 minutes to get through the queue, which wasn’t fun, but could have been far worse. It took nearly two hours for us to get through the airport and to the central bus terminal, where we caught our 8:50 bus to Oxford. I didn’t anticipate it would take quite so long to get through the airport process. Here we are, looking tired and ragged on the bus (as you can see, it was definitely a bright and sunny morning):




We got to the downtown Oxford bus terminal around 10am, and stumbled into a nearby coffeeshop with all five of our VERY heavy suitcases. We next caught a taxi to Linacre College (Nathan’s college), where we retrieved the keys to our room. The taxi took us to our room, which is in a large college flat (with six bedrooms, I believe, two large communal kitchens, and a few communal showers and toilets). We are essentially living in a dorm, which is an entirely new experience for both of us. It is relatively empty, however, and the nice couple currently living above us (a Brit and an American) is moving out in just over a week as they are graduating and relocating to London. Once we arrived, I spent over an hour unpacking almost everything in our suitcases, because I was just that sick of living out of our suitcases. Nathan crashed hard around noon, and I joined him about 30 minutes later. We woke up at about 2pm, and forced ourselves to get dressed and go explore the city on foot. Here is a sign on a pub called The Hobgoblin very near our flat, which we both cackled about (we have yet to pay it a visit):



Nathan will be moving again on the 30th, as I will be leaving for Kenya and we’ll no longer need the more expensive double room we’re presently occupying. He is moving into Linacre College’s main building, into a smaller room with a single bed.

Here's the front entrance to Linacre's main building (FAR less ostentatious than many of the older colleges):



He’ll have access to all the main college amenities, however, including a gym, library, an incredibly large communal kitchen (he’s sure to become popular by working his magic there), lots of common space for socializing, and the cafeteria. The business school is about a mile away – a short cycling distance. Linacre is one of the newer colleges in Oxford (formed in the 60s), and is much more egalitarian in nature and far less formal than many of the older colleges. Also, it is a college only for graduate students so the population tends to be more mature than many of the others. One of the reasons Nathan chose it is because the older colleges (such as Magdalen) only allow families of certain noble descent (or whatever) to occupy certain parts of the dining room, whilst at Linacre the faculty, students, AND staff (such as the cleaners) all eat in a main dining space together. Essentially Linacre is the hippy college of Oxford. They have a few certificates near their reception area declaring them a “Fair Trade College” as well as one stating that they have successfully reduced their carbon emissions by a certain amount in the last year. They also allegedly have the best vegetarian fare out of all the colleges. All in all I think it is a perfect choice.

In January, our cats will be joining Nathan. He’ll be looking for pet-friendly accommodation (which is much more difficult to find here than in the states… it is also legal here for a landlord to not allow children – I believe it is illegal to state that in the US) all throughout fall term to move into in late December/early January. He’ll need to look for a few months to find the right place, so the timing works out pretty well. Since both of us will be moving around a lot, we’ve decided to have all our mail sent directly to the college, so as not to utterly confound our friends, family, and bill collectors who wish to send us mail with lots of address changes.

Our first few days here have been all about running errands, obtaining essentials and sundries (we’ve had to pare down our belongings a great deal, and even more so in our travels throughout the US the past several weeks), and getting to know the town. Our current flat is located on Iffley Road, a few blocks from Cowley Road, which I’ve been lead to believe is the most happening part of town. And it is indeed bustling! There is a long row of shops, restaurants, and great take-away (what they call take out) food. Our first night here we found a fabulous Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi restaurant on Cowley just a few blocks from our flat, with vegetarian meals as cheap as £4.30 (nearly $9… but the cheapest I’ve ever seen in these parts). Even though our flat is a bit far in terms of walking distance from both Linacre College and the business school, I am happy with the location and all of the fabulous amenities. I almost feel like we live in a city (Oxford is only about 100,000, so more on the town side than the city side of the urban spectrum, in my opinion).

We got UK cell phones on Friday, and will hopefully be getting bicycles this weekend so that we can explore a much wider expanse of the town. (There is bus service, but we’re not familiar with it at all, and most people have told us to just cycle around town instead of relying on public transit.) In the meanwhile we’ve been walking everywhere, often with lots of bags and boxes in our hands from various shops (and thus have been receiving smug comments from sidewalk pub patrons).

The other night we cooked in the common kitchen in our flat in the presence of a Malaysian, a Dutch person, a Brit, and us two Americans. The diversity amazes me everywhere I go in this town.