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Published: October 5th 2006
What is this?!?
This was one of many statues/busts/gargoyles surrounding a building on Oxford campus. I have no idea what this is supposed to be...but it is definitely weird.Okay, I’m finally back to blogging today. I think that I was kind of “blogged out” after posting 3 blogs in about 12 days while we toured mainland Europe. Now, after being back in London for a week or so, I’ve noticed a few things about London that I really didn’t notice as much when we first got here from the States. First, young people in London
really dress weird. I guess that I just assumed all of these “progressive” Europeans dressed weird, but we didn’t see the same “Cyndi Lauper look-alikes” in Paris, Germany, or other parts of Europe. Second, the food in Britain really does deserve its bad reputation. While we enjoyed most of the food on our trip (except for that nasty raw beef!), when we pass by British cafes here, we really aren’t tempted to go eat. For example, just Tuesday, after visiting St. Paul’s Cathedral, we walked by a little café/deli nearby and Gretchen wanted to look at the “pastry” menu. Instead of tarts and other fruit pastries, the pastry menu had things like
steak pie,
kidney pie,,
steak & kidney pie, and
black pudding. GROSS! (For those of you who don’t know, “black pudding” is
Couryard of Christ Church, Oxford
Each college at Oxford (kind of similar to a fraternity/sorority/dorm, etc) has its own church, dorms, dining room, etc. This is the courtyard at Christ Church. also called “blood pudding,” as Gretchen’s dad learned a little too late.) Thankfully we can find more traditional foods at the grocery stores here, and there are Italian, Indian, and other good
non-British restaurants all around. The third thing I've noticed is that the Beatles' song
Penny Lane has been pretty much stuck in my head for approximately the past 6 weeks--I guess deep down that's what I most associate with London or something...
After we got back last Tuesday night from our trip across the Continent, I had to go back to class on Wednesday and Thursday. I also spent time on Wednesday and Thursday to make the rest of our hotel reservations for our trip to Austria and Italy, which we leave for on Friday, 13 October. Then Gretchen and I made hotel reservations for when we go back to Paris in early November with Gretchen’s sister and her husband. Instead of flying to France this time, we’ve decided to take a train through the Chunnel. It’s a 2 hour and 30 minute trip under the English Channel, and we leave from downtown London and arrive in downtown Paris. We don’t have to mess with getting to
Welcome to Hogwarts
This is the dining room at Christ Church, Oxford. You may recognize this room as the room where they filmed the Sorting of the Hats in the first Harry Potter movie. This picture is for my mom, who is an avid Harry Potter fan. an airport, arriving 2 hours early, or trying to avoid Attila, who works at London’s Stansted Airport. So I think this will be a much better option for us.
On Saturday Gretchen and I took a daytrip with some of my classmates to Oxford University and to Blenheim Palace. On our way to Oxford, we passed through Henley, which is the home of the famous Henley Regatta. The countryside in that area is breathtaking—rolling green hills and lots of open farmland. Oxford, as you probably know, is the oldest university in Britain (although apparently there is a huge ongoing dispute with Cambridge regarding some technicality by which Cambridge claims it is older) and the third oldest university in the world. At any rate, Oxford has been around since the late 11th Century, which makes it far older than any school in the US (with the possible exception of the MARB Building at BYU).
One of the interesting things about Oxford—which I didn’t know beforehand—is that “college” means something different there than what it usually means in the States. In the States we use “college” to either refer to an entire university (eg, “Where did you go to college?”)
Gretchen Made This Guy Laugh
This picture was taken inside the dining hall at Christ Church college at Oxford. The guy in the black derby hat was a sort of proctor, whose job, from what I could observe, is to make sure that nobody actually sits in these chairs. At any rate, he just stands there with a very serious look on his face. But Gretchen made a comment to our friend, Mahari, that this man overheard. He started cracking up...it was the funniest thing! I guess you had to be there. But just visualize in your mind this guy laughing hysterically. or to refer to the particular program/discipline within a larger university system (eg, “I graduated with a degree in Economics from the Social Sciences college at BYU.”). Well, Oxford University has about 40 different colleges—the most famous of which is probably Christ Church—but the term “college” here is not used as we use the term in the States. Instead, a “college” at Oxford is probably more similar to a fraternity/sorority in the US (except I believe all of the colleges are now coed). Each college at Oxford University typically has its own dorms, athletic facilities, social halls, cafeterias, etc. And the students within a particular college will be enrolled in a wide variety of academic disciplines—art, biology, literature, history, etc. And now looking back at my first sentence in this paragraph, you’re probably thinking
“That’s one of the more interesting things there?!?” Okay… Well, at Oxford we basically just visited Christ Church College. We toured the college’s chapel—which was beautiful—and its dining hall, which is where they filmed some scenes from the Harry Potter movie(s)—most notably the
Sorting of the Hats scenes.
Because it was raining a lot on Saturday, rather than walk around the rest of the campus,
Married in a Kilt
There was a wedding going on at one of the chapels at Oxford. I'm not sure why I stopped to take a picture, except that the guy was wearing a kilt, which is interesting. The "Just Married" cars around here all do that white ribbon thing on the front. I probably shouldn't say this, but it kind of reminds me of that green swimsuit the guy wears in that new Borat movie that's coming out soon... Gretchen and I headed to an Italian restaurant (called
Ask, which is a small chain here), with a couple of other students—JJ (who is a fellow BYU alum), Velia (who is from Mexico), Lisa (from St. John’s Law School), and Mahari (from Georgetown Law School)—and ate a long lunch. Then we ventured back out into the rain to buy the traditional Oxford sweatshirts for souvenirs.
From Oxford, we went to Blenheim Palace, which is the home where Winston Churchill was
accidentally born. (Apparently he was born a couple of weeks premature.) Blenheim Palace is the only “palace” not owned by the royal family. Essentially, it was given to the first Duke of Marlborough (who was an ancestor of Winston Churchill) in the early 1700s as a gift from a grateful nation after he had won an important military victory over the French. The house was pretty nice! After touring the house, Gretchen and I walked around the massive estate, which has rolling hills, its own man-made lake, waterfalls, rose gardens, monuments, and plenty of other neat stuff. The rest of our weekend was occupied by General Conference, which comes on 7 hours later here than in Salt Lake City.
Bridge at Blenheim
This is a bridge that crosses the man-made lake at Blenheim. The estate is HUGE. On Monday Gretchen and I headed to the Tower Bridge. When we got there, we thought we might just walk across the bridge and take pictures from the outside rather than pay the admission charge to take the full tour inside. The funniest thing—I thought—was that when we asked the lady at the booth what the tour consisted of, she said that we would be able to go see the engine room (it’s a drawbridge) and we would get to watch a couple of video presentations—one on the building of the bridge and the second on what the bridge is used for. C’MON!
What the bridge is used for?!? I would imagine it’s used for crossing the river—do people really need a video for that? Well, we did eventually decide to pay the admission fee so that we could walk between the towers across the top part of the bridge (above where the cars cross). From up there we were able to take some pretty neat pictures of the city.
On Tuesday we went to St. Paul’s Cathedral, which was designed by Christopher Wren in the late 1600s and finally completed in 1708. The Cathedral was amazing! Unfortunately,
Blenheim Palace
Blenheim Palace is the only "palace" in England that is not owned by the Royal Family. It was given to the Duke of Marlborough as a gift in return for defeating the French. It is also the ancestral home of Winston Churchill. He was born here. we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside, so I can’t post any. But it was really nice—light colored stone, large arches, a huge dome (second only in size to the dome at St. Peter’s in the Vatican!), and lots of paintings and intricate mosaics. The highlight for me was climbing the 550 stairs to the very top of the dome, where we were able step out on the ledge outside of the dome (there is a rail to keep you from falling) and enjoy an AMAZING view of London and the surrounding area! Getting up there was interesting. Not only are there tons of stairs, but at various points on the way up the stairs are metal, wood, or concrete; many of the stairs are crooked or very shallow; sometimes the stairway is only about two feet wide; sometimes the head clearance is only about 5 feet, and it’s easy to get dizzy—especially on the spiral staircase at the very top. On the way up, we stopped at the Whispering Gallery (which is 259 steps up—about 100 feet above the cathedral floor), at the base of the dome. In the Whispering Gallery, Gretchen and I were able to stand on
Gretchen at Blenheim
This is a picture of Gretchen, with the Blenheim Estate in the background. She is standing in the rose garden on the estate, but you can't see any roses because they are behind me. Because of all the rain, the roses looked pretty much dead, so you're not missing anything. opposite sides of the dome (107 feet away from each other) and hear each other perfectly! It’s an amazing acoustic effect.
After going up and down the stairs to the top of St. Paul’s, we went down beneath the cathedral into the crypts where several historical figures are buried, including Admiral Lord Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, and Sir Christopher Wren himself. There is a neat plaque above Wren’s tomb (the tomb itself is relatively plain) that is written in Latin. The English translation of the plaque is:
Beneath lies buried the founder of this church and city, Christopher Wren, who lived more than 90 years, not for himself but for the public good. Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you. I thought that was a neat epitaph because the cathedral is really amazing!
Last night Gretchen and I went to the theatre again—she got some amazing tickets to see
Phantom of the Opera—we sat in the third row. I saw the musical once in Austin in an off-Broadway production, and it was entertaining. I had to leave early to M.C. a “beauty pageant.” (I was the Spanish Club President in high school, and for years
WOW!
I have to be careful with my wording so that this doesn't sound like coveting...
I WANT THIS!
I don't know how many hundreds of acres comprise the Blenheim Estate, but the grounds are just amazing. the Spanish Club had sponsored the
Miss Año Nuevo Pageant, which was a “beauty pageant” with a bunch of the guys from the high school dressed in drag. And this was at ultra-conservative Georgetown High School! At any rate, to get out of competing in this pageant, I elected to M.C. the event.) Wow, that was a nice tangent…The play was really good. We both agreed that we liked
Les Miserables better, but the actors in
Phantom did an excellent job—especially the actress who played Christine. I guess it comes down to the fact that the storyline in
Phantom doesn’t compare to the storyline in
Les Mis. We still want to go see
Evita (the actress who plays Eva Peron is actually Argentine!) and
Mamma Mia!, but that will have to wait for a while because we have a really busy schedule for the next few weeks. We also just got tickets to see
The Sound of Music, which opens on 3 November. So we are enjoying the theatre! (And yes, Leanne, I got a playbill for you last night.)
Before the play last night, Gretchen and I decided to grab a quick dinner somewhere near the theatre because
Does this look strange to anyone?
I know *I* look strange...that's nothing new. But this tree is growing sideways! I didn’t have much time between when my classes got out and when the show started. Instead of looking for recommendations like we usually do here, we threw caution to the wind and just decided to chance it. Well, you win some; you lose some. We lost that one last night. For some reason Mexican food was sounding really good to both of us—and although we knew better than to look for Mexican food in London, we still did it. I don’t know the name of the place we ate, but it was pretty bad. I had a “fiesta chicken sandwich” or something—it tasted like something that they had purchased at a Chili’s (The New Golf Course) in Dallas last week, sent to London via parcel post, and then microwaved for me. Actually, it wasn’t that bad…but Gretchen’s meal was! She ordered a “fajitadilla” (basically a chicken fajita quesadilla). The only way that I can describe her fajitadilla is to say that it tasted to me just like an order of cheap onion rings from Dairy Queen or something. Particularly in times like those, it is important not to think about the unfavorable exchange rate when paying the bill.
Blenheim Palace Estate
Gretchen took this picture of the lake on Blenheim Palace Estate. Unfortunately the camera didn't capture how beautiful of a sight it was--but the water was sparkling across the water... Well, that’s all I’ll write for now. In the next blog I’ll get to tell you about our upcoming trip to Wales, where Gretchen and I are going horseback-riding through Brecon Beacons National Park. Until then…cheers!
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Mark K
non-member comment
dining with a gherkin
I don't think I could eat in a dining room with an erotic pickle looming ominously through the window.