Oxford

I spent Wednesday in Oxford with my roommate Liz. We had tried to go there a few weeks before but we never did. Yesterday was our last chance to go. Oxford is only an hour train ride out of London so we thought that we would just spend a few hours around lunchtime in the town. When we got there, we walked around the city center for a little while and ended up at the Eagle and Child Pub. That pub is a famous meeting place of the Inklings who were a group of writers that taught or lived around Oxford. C. S Lewis, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia, and J.R. R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings, were members of the group. Liz is a huge fan of C.S. Lewis so she had been begging to go to Oxford just to see the pub. We also are fans of the Harry Potter series which is filmed largely in the colleges Oxford so we wanted to go see those places as well.

While we were at the pub, Liz and I sampled some of the local ales and beers on tap and sat in the booth were the Inklings would usually sit. We met an older couple who live in Boston who are also huge C.S. Lewis fans and Liz got to talking to them about the books. A while later, they came back and told us that they had an private tour scheduled of C.S. Lewis's house and asked if we would like to come as well. Liz and I had looked up possibly seeing his house when we were researching Oxford and found out that it is closed to the public (and also 3 miles outside the city of Oxford) so we obviously assumed that we wouldn't be able to see it.

We took the couple up on their offer and met them a few hours later outside his house. It was really easy to get to. We just had to take a bus for a little while and it dropped us a block from his street. It was a beautiful quaint little home that was built in the 1920s I believe. Just outside the house is a nature preserve named after Lewis (it was on his original property) so Liz and I explored that until it was time for the tour.

The tour was great and I learned a lot about Lewis. I am planning on reading more of his books this summer. We got to see all of the rooms and hear the history that went on in each one. Lewis was a devout Christian and all of his books have a spiritual message so the house is owned by a Christian organization. Liz and I ended up spending over 2 hours at the tour.

In Oxford, we also walked around some of the colleges but didn't go in any. We visited the beautiful Christ Church where the great hall and hospital scenes of Harry Potter are filmed. We also visited the Bodlein Library where the library from Hogwarts is located. I also got to see the bridge that Jay Gatsby mentions in the Great Gatsby (at least I think I found the right one).

Oxford was beautiful and I can see why so many people are drawn to it. We only planned to spend a few hours in the town but after the tour, we didn't get back to London until 8pm. It was a great day.

Three Days of Rain

My roommate Liz and I got great seats to see the play Three Days of Rain at the Apollo Theater in Picadilly Circus. We had heard that James McAvoy was in it and really wanted to see him on stage.

Our seats to the show were awesome. We were in the stalls only 10 rows from the stage. I loved the play. The story was very moving and well written and the acting was amazing. It was pretty cool because they had actual rain fall on the stage. The main part of the stage was the setting of an apartment in New York and then the front of the stage was outside on the street. They would walk around there and the rain would fall on them. I really enjoyed seeing this show!

Liz and I had heard that James sometimes comes out afterwards and signs autographs so we waited around for a while, but he did not come out.

Velkommen to Norway, Jah

Last week, a friend in the program, Emily, and I went to Oslo for the weekend. We had been looking for something to do and found a great deal on a flight out there on RyanAir.

When we landed, it was snowing. We seemed to forget that it was winter in Norway in March. We had been looking at pictures of the country and everything is colorful and green. RyanAir lists another airport which is 2 hours outside of Oslo as Oslo even though it is not. So when we got to the small airport, we had to figure out the buses and trains and see which was the best way to get into the city. It ended up being a bus. We didn't get into Oslo until later.

We got to the hotel around 9 at night. The hotel was wonderful. Because it was winter and also because Oslo is so expensive anyways, the hotel ended up being the same price as a hostel. We chose the hotel obviously and are so glad we did. It had an elevator where you manually open the door. We didn't realize this until we had been standing for about 10 minutes waiting for it. That night, we were starving but we didn't see anything open on the way to the hotel. So we went to McDonald's for dinner.

The next morning, the hotel had an amazing breakfast for us. There was so much food (and so much food that we had never heard of). We then went on a boat cruise on the fjord. It was a lot of fun (even though it was cold). It dropped us off in an area with a lot of museums. We ended up going to the Norwegian folk museum. It had preserved villages from all over the country. We had a great time there.



We spent the rest of the day wandering around our hotel area. Our hotel was in a very posh shopping area so there was plenty to see.
The Royal Palace (It looks like Bascom Hall at UW Madison)-
Parliament -
The Opera House -


That night, I came down with a bad bug so I spent the evening and night trying to get healthy so Emily and I could have fun on our last day in Norway.

Sunday, I was feeling better. We ended up walking all over the city and stopping at various places along the way. It was a great day. Oslo is a great city. It is small and warm and everyone we ran into was very nice. They all spoke English so it made traveling around super easy. One thing that we loved about Oslo was the slow pace. We could walk as slow as we wanted because the city was so sleepy. Right when we got back to London, we had to rush around in order to keep up with the fast pace. That is one thing that really bothers me about London. Everyone is in a rush.

We left Oslo Monday morning. Even though it was cold and snowy, Norway was beautiful.

This Past week

I spent the past week doing all sorts of random things. I visited many museums - The Science Museum, Natural History Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, and British Museum. The museums here are amazing and my favorite so far is the British. It is mostly ancient art and has sculptures from the Parthenon and other Greek and Roman temples. It also has a huge Egyptian exhibit and houses the Rosetta Stone. I'm going to try to make it back soon to see the exhibits I missed. I have studied most of the pieces in my art history class I took last spring at Madison. I am so glad I took that class and am looking into taking another one.

One of my friends visited this week on a spring break trip hosted by the naval academy. I hung out with him a lot and also with the rest of his program. They were all a lot of fun. We mostly went out to dinner and to pubs every night. Tuesday, he took me along to see Wicked. It was great, but a little strange to hear the characters speaking in British accents. Friday, I gave them a tour of Parliament and then went with them to Cambridge to see some of the schools. We didn't do a whole lot, but it was beautiful.

At work, I got to sit in on a House of Commons debate that my MP was speaking in. It was held in Westminster Hall, which is a room similar to the House of Commons chamber. My MP was speaking about audio description, which describes what is happening in tv shows and movies so visually impaired people can enjoy the same thing. While it was pretty boring, it was cool to sit in the room while this was happening.

Today, I spent most of the day relaxing on our balcony doing homework and enjoying the beautiful spring weather we have here in London right now. Tomorrow I hope to walk around London and go to some more museums or something. That is all that is new in London.

Beautiful Day

It is beautiful out in London today. The sun is shining and it really feels like Spring. I am about to go get dressed so I can go and enjoy it instead of staying inside working on homework...