Mind the Gap

June 30-July 6: Oxford Week 2

My second week in Oxford has flown by! Everyone has settled well into a daily routine, and I am continuing to enjoy being in such a peaceful, beautiful environment. Classes are going well, and since this semester is only six weeks we will be having midterms very soon. In ethics we’ve switched from issues dealing with procreativity to issues concerning healthcare, which is something I enjoy debating because of my job at Vascular Surgical for the past couple of summers. In Jane Austen we just finished Pride and Prejudice, and it is definitely in the running for one of my favorite books of all time. What can I say, I’m a sucker for a happy ending!

It’s strange to be on a college campus and not have dozens of extracurricular activities to take up time in the evening. Time that would usually be spent in meetings, in chapter, or at practice is now ours to do with it what we want. There are several grass tennis courts on campus that people play on throughout the day, and I’ve heard that there is a soccer team in the works. Apparently it’s tradition for the GT Oxford students to play a game against the UGA Oxford students at the end of the summer. Several friends and I have been meeting to run in the evenings. We are horribly out of shape, but we’ve managed to run twenty minutes or so every night this week. The weather here is perfect for running, in the evenings it’s usually about 60 degrees with a slight breeze. There is a trail that circles the perimeter of campus we like to run, it goes past the lake with all the tired ducks, and then behind the tennis courts where we say hi to everyone playing tennis. Lately we’ve been doing abs after running…its pretty intense!

We had our first Bible Study this week, and almost twenty people came! We met in the living room of one of the dorms here, its great to have such a great meeting space in someone’s room. Someone donated a guitar to the Oxford Program at the beginning of the week, so Molly was able to sing some worship songs before we started. We are keeping everything very low key; we read a chapter in 1 John every week and then have an open forum for discussion. It’s been a great way to get to know other people on the trip.

This weekend was incredible! Twelve of us spent two days in London seeing everything there is to see. I felt like we were back on the road again, we got up super early and went to bed super late both days. Day one began with breakfast at the dining hall—it was our last meal of the week and we are not ones to skip a free breakfast! We left campus around 8:30, and were on the bus by 8:45. Several bus companies offer student travel packages, and we were able to save a little money by purchasing 12 one-ways to London and splitting the cost between all of us. The ride was very comfortable, and having been trained to sleep whenever we ride on buses, the whole group was out in a matter of minutes. Everyone woke up as we entered London, and we were able to get off right at Victoria Station, right in the middle of everything.

Our first sightseeing destination was the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. It was very different from what I had imagined. The palace itself looked more like a royal office complex than a royal home. Everything still looked very elegant though, and watching the different bands march into the premise was neat…it brought me back to my days in band! There uniforms were the stereotypical red with fuzzy black hats, and they played a variety of entertaining music, including the Beatles and soundtrack to the Incredibles! It was all very entertaining. Afterwards, we headed into St. John’s park for lunch, which we packed to save a little money. London is SUPER expensive!

We walked to Westminster Abbey next, and then Big Ben and Parliament. There was a group of people picketing outside the gates with signs about 9/11 and 7/7…it was interesting to see that people everywhere can disagree with their governments. We crossed the Thames and rode the London Eye next…also a really cool experience. The structure doesn’t really fit in with any of the surroundings at all, but it’s a great way to see the city. We took a ton of pictures, needless to say. From the Eye we continued to walk along the river. There were lots of street performers and random booths everywhere, including a huge used book collection under one of the bridges. We took a picture next to the bridge that is in Love Actually (of course!) and then stopped to take pictures next to the Globe Theatre. By the time we got to London Bridge (which is actually really ugly and completely made of concrete, by the way…) we were exhausted from walking and chilled for a little right outside Tower Bridge. We had great views of both the bridge and the Tower of London. We rode the metro back over towards where the bus stop was, and went into Harrod’s for a little while. We definitely didn’t get anything…everything was way out of our price range. I did find a dress that cost 10,000 pounds—over $20,000! It was just as much fun to look at the people that shopped there as is was to look at everything in the store. There were many different nationalities there, and we assumed they were all princes and princesses. Whether or not we were correct is up for debate, but they all had drivers with Bentley’s waiting outside the department store for them…

After Harrod’s we ate Fish n’ Chips at a pub for dinner. We ran into the parents of a Georgia Tech student there, and they were excited to talk to us for a little bit. You never know who is around and watching you…that’s for sure!

After dinner we were very full and very tired so we decided to head home for the evening. We caught the bus home without a problem and got back on campus a little before midnight. It was a great first day in London!

Day two of our London experience proved to be even more exciting! We planned to get up and be headed out by 7:30am, and when we woke up to pouring rain we were all really disappointed. We decided to keep our original plans and just plan for rain, so we left as planned and caught the 8:00am bus. We arrived in the city a little after 9:00am and went straight to the metro to buy day passes. The tube was very easy to figure out, and we made all the way across the city to the Tower of London in no time at all.

There were hardly any people at the Tower because of the rain, so we were able to get tickets pretty quickly. We went straight to see the crown jewels, which were absolutely incredible. They had a scepter with a 535 karat diamond on display! The actually crowns were bordered on both sides by a moving sidewalk, so you only had a brief glimpse at them. It was incredible to see!

We spent a couple more hours taking various tours throughout the complex. The “beefeaters” gave hour long tours explaining some of the history of the place, and they were great at telling interesting stories; I definitely learned a lot. I never realized that people still live in the Tower of London, but there is actually a small community that still lives within the walls and maintain everything. Who knew?

After the Tower we got back on the metro and went to Trafalgar Square, which we quickly noticed was the main headquarters for the Gay Pride Festival that was going on all throughout London. I have never felt more out of place in my entire life, that’s for sure! It was quite the experience, and something that I will distinctly remember for a long time. We wanted to see the Piccadilly Circus area, and as we walked in that general direction we stumbled across the gay pride parade, which was hilarious and very entertaining. I had to go buy train tickets for a friend, which required me crossing over the parade route. That clearly was not an option, so I had to walk several blocks until I found a metro that let me cross under the road. After I got the tickets the parade had basically finished, so instead of walking all those extra blocks I decided just to try and cross the street where people were following behind the parade. You can guess the people I was walking next to…I very quickly figured out that I stuck out like a sore thumb, but I couldn’t get to the other side of the street because of the large number of people and the barricades that hadn’t yet been removed. So yes, for a short period of time, I was in the London Gay Pride Parade 2008. Not to many people I know can say that…

I was incredibly happy to get back with the group and after a brief pause to exchange crazy stories we headed over to Covent Gardens, a cool street market area of London. From there we took the metro to Portobello Road, and saw Notting Hill and George Orwell’s house. The whole area was very trendy and a really cool place to shop around and people watch. We then took the metro to King’s Cross and took pictures at platform 9 ¾, which they have cleverly labeled and decorated with half of a luggage cart, so it looks like you are actually going into the brick wall. Definitely an important photo op!

We decided to visit Chinatown for dinner, and found an all-you-can eat buffet with decent food. We were absolutely starved and each ate our weight in Chinese food. It was a strange buffet because there were rules associated with the meal: you couldn’t leave any food on your plate and you only had 45 minutes to eat. We were up for the challenge, though, and managed to stuff ourselves quickly and efficiently without leaving any leftovers. Don’t doubt the willpower of starved college kids who are on a budget!

After dinner we could barely move, so we decided to call it a night. By the time we got to the bus stop it was almost 11, and we didn’t get into Oxford until well after midnight. It was a long, tiring, day, but a lot of fun!

Sunday was a much needed chill day. We went back to St. Aldate’s Church in the morning, and then spent the rest of the day reading and working on homework. The weather was cold and rainy most of the day, so it was perfect for resting and recovering from two crazy days. Next week is Ireland…and we are already very excited. This coming week is midterms for both classes. I’m not expecting them to be too hard, but it’s crazy to thing that we’ve reached that point in the semester. It seems like yesterday we were just pulling into Oxford…