The Lion, the Witch, and the Little Suburban Oxford Home

It's hot today. Actually hot. Alison and I even crashed on the grass near Christ Church Meadow and the Thames. As a result, the Totally Perfect Lawn here at Lincoln College gets a drink from the sprinkler, above. I never thought I'd say this, but it's warm enough it'll feel good to sit in movie theater air conditioning tonight (Ed, don't fall over). "The Dark Knight" just opened here ("Mamma Mia" opened here a week earlier than in the states, though "DK" and "X-Files" --- !!! --- open one week later than at home), and of course it's selling out like it's selling out all over the world. Ali and I have tickets for the 8 PM showing. For $12 US, we get student rate "standard seats." These are instead of "premium seats" or "super premium seats" (???). I told Alison they're going to hand us each a stool as we walk in the door tonight.

Yesterday, a fellow Loafer organized a bus trip and tour of the C.S. Lewis house in suburban Oxford. Lewis, who taught at both Oxford and Cambridge and was associated in Oxford with a group called The Inklings that included J.R.R. Tolkien, lived in this house with his brother until his death. Joy, his American wife of four years (remember "Shadowlands"?) lived and died in this house.

The house is especially cool for its surrounding gardens. During C.S. Lewis' final days, however, the house wasn't in such great shape. In the early 80's, after Lewis' death (in the same hour as J.F.K., as was Aldous Huxley's), a couple of Americans showed up in Oxford wondering about the location of Lewis' house. They were surprised to find it empty and for sale, totally overrun with foxes (foxes!) and uninhabitable. They bought the house, and developed with a lot of sweat equity a study center for Lewis scholars that opened officially only a few years ago.

The crazy, small-world part of the tour goes like this: The guy who gave our tour, largely responsible for the re-do on the house, does fine arts admission for Seattle Pacific University. He grew up in small town Washington, went to SPU in the 70's, and began work for his alma mater immediately thereafter. After he and I had a "no way!" over the Dexter Avenue proximity, I told him that I grew up in small town Washington, went to UPS, and began work for my alma mater immediately thereafter. What are the odds that this guy gives our tour? He spent every summer in Oxford working on the house since the early 90's. A small detail on our travels yesterday: my first double-decker bus ride was the return trip from Lewis' house.

The weekend ahead (I only have class T-Th, so I'm on the weekend already) promises a lot of fun. It also promises that I'll blog and post pictures next when I'm home, probably Monday sometime. Tomorrow, Alison and I take the train to Bath to see the beautiful town and tour the restored Roman Baths. We ride back in the evening on the train, before turning around and taking another train Saturday morning to London. Ali and I and a couple of her friends from London will hang out together for a bit, before I meet up with Ed's friend from high school, Ellinor, and her longtime partner, Jon. I'll stay over with Jon and Ellinor Saturday night before making my way back from London.

Have great weekends, everyone!

Big Day at the Loaf

Yesterday was a big day, so bear with. It's going to be a long (hopefully fun, definitely photo-rific) post!

First, class. The photo above is of my three classmates (how's that for student-faculty ratio?): Caroline, Scott, and Elizabeth, on the steps at Lady Margaret Hall. I'll keep this next part short because it would be cheesy to discuss in more detail: I talked to Christine, my tutor, after class about my "Moby Dick" paper, on which I got an 'A', and she asked me if I planned to pursue a doctorate. Very exciting. That would have been enough for yesterday. But wait... there's more!

Christine took both of her classes punting from the Lady Margaret Hall boathouse. Here are Christine's two classes assembled (with picnic food) for the adventure.

Christine punted one of the punts while Betsy, a member of Christine's other class, punted the other. One of Christine's sons, Toby, is also in our boat, above.

We pulled over and ate a picnic lunch in the park. During lunch, a baguette-seeking duck jumped into the punt. After lunch, I split from the group so I could catch the Bread Loaf-arranged 2:30 charter bus to London to see "King Lear" at the Globe with the Page to Stage class.

We arrived with about three hours to explore. A group of us walked over to St. Paul's Cathedral. Here are the steps made famous in the "Mary Poppins" pigeon-feeding scene.

Ed sent recommendations for some of his favorite historic pubs, so we first found Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street, the street famous for Sweeney Todd's, uh, entrepreneurship. At some point, Thackeray, Twain, Dickens, and Samuel Johnson each visited Y.O.C.C. Samuel Johnson's house is right around the corner.

Alison and I walked next to Blackfriar's Pub, another of Ed's recommendations, for a look inside. This is a gorgeous place, not far from Tate Modern and the Globe.

Walking back, here's Alison crossing the Thames via Millennium Bridge (in front of Tate Modern).

Alison and I bought food earlier in the day so we could picnic before "King Lear" and pocket most of the 14 pounds The Loaf provided for dinner. We relaxed on the plaza in front of Tate Modern, ate our dinner, read, and talked to a sweet-but-cuckoo young art student assembling a tent she made out of found umbrellas.

Next: Ali and me before "King Lear." My mouth looks funny because I'm hiding a giant piece of gummy candy behind my teeth.

As "King Lear" began, musicians performed on stage. I snapped a couple of photos at the beginning and end of the show, during Globe-approved photo time.

The stage looked slightly different for this production (marble-y columns, no floaty moon balloon).

I had never read "King Lear." I had never seen "King Lear." "King Lear" is IN-tense. The mostly solid production ran about 3.5 hours, and moved along at a pretty speedy clip (so speedy, in fact, that the play's great lines were sometimes hard to understand). Like last time, just seeing a play at the Globe is a pretty incredible experience. Here's a shot of Lear himself, during curtain call, surrounded by at least a couple people who were dead on the stage minutes before.

When I got to breakfast this morning, I found a postcard from Mom and Dad! Thanks, you guys! This is the great postcard with a picture of a TV dinner on the front. I love it, and it's on my wall.

In about two hours, I take off with three other Loafers to tour C.S. Lewis' house. Another student arranged the tour, and you know how I am about the literary tourism...

Have a great day!

High Table...with Bottom

The high table dinners come fast and tasty here at the Loaf. No sooner do they clear the silver from one high table dinner, and it's time for another. Tonight's pre-high table guest was Joe Dixon, the actor who played Bottom in the production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" we saw in Stratford. Funny and extremely thoughtful about his work, Dixon answered our questions for about an hour. He described the character of Bottom as "enthusiastic" and "innocent," two qualities clearly present in his great performance with the RSC. Afterward, we headed out to the lawn (again, this is the quad where you can stand on the grass) for a reception before dinner.

Here I am with my friend Annie, whom I knew from her admission days at Bowdoin and my admission days at Puget Sound. After the reception, we found seats at dinner and enjoyed four courses of tastiness: 1) gazpacho, 2) small pieces of breaded fish with a little pile of pesto noodles, 3) extremely ginger-y chicken with rice and grilled tomato, and 4) strawberry floofy dessert.

On the short walk home across the quad, I snapped this picture of tonight's sky. The light was weirdly glowy and striking tonight, the afterburn of a genuinely sunny, pretty day. The weather only improves as we move toward the weekend, topping out in the (hold on to your knickers, Oxfordians!) high seventies.

In other news, I finished "Edgar Huntly" this morning. I understand entirely why we read it for class, but it really is a narrative nightmare. I started Edith Wharton's "The Age of Innocence" for a paper I'm writing for the end of the session that formerly focused only on Wharton's "The House of Mirth" and "Ethan Frome" (plus a bunch of fun research goodies dug-up at the Bodleian). Now, I'm loving the Wharton so much, I can't stay away. Alison and I got train tickets for a day trip to Bath on Friday. Saturday and Sunday of this weekend, I'll travel down to London with Ali, then stay over with Ed's high school friend, Ellinor, and her partner, Jon, who live in London.

But, first things first! Tomorrow, I have class. Afterward, my tutor arranged for her two Bread Loaf classes to go punting from Lady Margaret Hall, the college where her classes meet. We'll all bring lunch stuff to share and head out in the boats. Very cool. I leave from the punting a little early to meet the bus headed to London for "King Lear" (with the Page to Stage class) at the Globe. Alison and I are going to bring picnic stuff for dinner so we can pocket the 14 pounds Bread Loaf gives us for dinner money and have more time at Tate Modern before the play. We arrive home late tomorrow night from the Globe, so I'll likely post an update sometime Wednesday. Take care, all! Have a good day!

Christ Church AM and PM

First, I received a card yesterday from Ed! So cool! Ed always closes his cards with a little drawing of a salmon I'm sure he'd be glad to draw for you on a cocktail napkin next time you see him.

Today, Sunday, was bookended by Christ Church College and its cathedral (the photo above is not of the cathedral per se, but of the tower marking the entrance to Christ Church College). This morning, before breakfast, I walked a forty-minute loop that took me around Christ Church Meadow, bordered on one side by the Thames and its canal boats. The second half of the walk consisted largely of an extremely leafy, green, serene path back to campus. I'll walk a similar route tomorrow and actually take along my camera for photos.

The local Bread Loaf director offered a tip that a great way to see the inside of Christ Church Cathedral (a stunner, let me tell you) is to attend Evensong, the mostly-sung Sunday night choral service. (Here's Lena and Ali awaiting entrance to Evensong.)


So, yes, you're roped in for a church service. On the other hand, it really is cool to see the space used for its intended purpose. (I limited my photos to the courtyard just outside. Click the Christ Church link at bottom for an idea of its ceiling and stained glass windows. The cathedral also includes monuments to John Locke and W.H. Auden, among others, who were former students at Christ Church College.)

To give you a sense of the service, which was Anglican, the congregation sat on two sides of the nave (the long, narrow, central section of the cathedral), facing one another. We sat near the door (opposite the altar end), facing other attendees, and choir sat in two halves, facing one another, right next to us. Apparently, the summer choir is the Christ Church JV team, which says something about the strength of its choirs in general, because they sounded great.

The service lasted about forty minutes. Highlights: the enormous, vaulted ceilings, the patterns of colored light that glowed through the different stained glass windows and on to the walls, the mostly-sung service, the talented choir, and the message about how world leaders should act with integrity. (Uh, amen to that!) I'm back now in my room, finishing "Edgar Huntly" after dinner. Have a great rest of the weekend and week ahead, everyone!

Lena's Birthday! (Part Two)

The birthday fun continued last night, as eleven of us went out for Lena's birthday dinner at a sort of pan-Latin America restaurant (everything from ceviche to enchiladas to paella to yummy Brazillian coconut-milk curries). I ordered something Brazillian that started with an X, but sounded like "Chim-Chim," Speed Racer's chimp sidekick. Whatever it is, Chim-Chim is tasteee.

Just in case you're wondering, Chim-Chim (okay, Xinxim) looks like this. It's peanutty, limey, coconutty creaminess over rice. What's not to love?

Today, Lena's high school friend Stephanie (living in London), Stephanie's boyfriend Tommy (he's Finnish --- Kaijsa, I told him the story of our boat ride to Helsinki), Lena's longtime friend, Ilja, and I picnicked in the University of Oxford botanical garden, bordered on two sides by the Thames (scene of the punting).

The. Botanical. Garden. Is. Gorgeous. (And so was the weather! It actually felt like summer!)

We shopped at awesome-awesome-awesome Marks & Spencer Simply Foods beforehand (remember, this is the mythical love child if Ikea and Metropolitan Market get it on) and shared spicy red pepper hummus, wheat pitas, baguettes, camembert cheese, prosciutto, strawberries, and (get this) roquefort + bacon potato chips (okay, "crisps" to the locals).

Here I am, layered-up, for any weather change. Washington State trained me well!

It's now a bright-ish, windy, showery, patches-of-sun kind of erratic weather evening, and I'm staying in to make tracks on Charles Brockden Brown's "Edgar Huntly."

More tomorrow!

Happy Birthday, Lena! (Part One)

Today is Lena's thirtieth birthday! This is a picture of Lena today in a punt on the Thames. We'll get to that part in a minute.

The celebration started last night as a crowd gathered in Heather B.'s room (next door to mine). Pictured here (clockwise from left) are Heather B., Heather's visiting friend Mike (in England this summer on an National Endowment for the Humanities grant), Steve (friend of all of ours from past summers; his partner lives in London and works for the British Museum), Heather L., Lena, and Alison.

Lena's longtime friend Ilja came to visit from Berlin for Lena's 30th. This afternoon, Lena, Ilja and I walked down to Magdalen Bridge to hire a "punt" (boat) for a trip on the Thames.

Here's a definition of punting, as described at the punting ticket booth: “The long and narrow pole-propelled punt originated on the Thames as a work vessel made of oak for ferrying, dredging, fishing, and light river transport. However, as the river trade declined in the mid-1800’s, some riverside residences built lighter, mahogany versions for pleasure cruising. Today’s punt measures 25 feet in length and will accommodate up to four seated passengers and the punter, who stands at the rear wielding the 16 foot pole.” Lena wields the ol' pole in this photo.

Basically, punting is funny, and awkward, and sometimes frustrating. And funny.

Lest you wonder, "Whaaa? They're sitting in the boat someone pushes with a pole...?", this photo of one of the many baggy-pants'd high schoolers (Oxford is overrun in the summertime with high school kids taking language classes) giving the "bumper boats" a whirl should help clarify. To their credit, the high school kids punting (and probably swearing in fifteen different languages) are enthusiastic, pretty good at it, and somehow don't kill one another or fall in the water.

Lena demonstrated excellent effort in punting, and launched us on our two-hour tour. Ilja took over and continued the journey admirably. I took pictures. It's almost impossible to capture the green of the Thames and its surroundings in the summertime, but the photo above comes pretty darned close. I mean, it is just SO GREEN.

Smart ducks (Oxford educated ducks, I guess) swim up to the punts hoping you have some crusty bread for them. We did not. (We did go for cream tea afterward, which is of no use to this duck.)

Above, another view of the jaw-droppingly gorgeous punting route.

Now, we're resting up back and Lincoln College before a crowd of us (I think we're up to twelve) meets at 9 PM for late dinner at a Latin American restaurant about ten minutes away on foot.

I'll take plenty of pictures there, and post them sometime tomorrow.

Have a great Friday, all!

Melanie

Magic waffles!

Breakfast here is a pretty standard affair: Wait in line in a charming, stony hallway, grab tray, grab juice, grab pastry, find a place at the table, spill hot coffee all over because the pots and the pouring are kind of awkward (user error notwithstanding).

This morning, I stood in line for breakfast and stretched my neck to check for anything new on the breakfast scene. Knowing this was unlikely, I turned to Alison and said, "I'm not sure why I check... it's not like there's going to be anything new." Alison: "Yeah, it's not like it's suddenly going to be WAFFLES or something." And then, like a vision, what was sitting on the counter amid the usual muesli and yogurt and canned fruit? Waffles!

(Here, in the story, I go to the Bodleian and finish my "Moby Dick" paper. Yes!)

Fast forward to lunch. We stand in line. We tell someone the story of the waffles. Everyone jokes about Ali mentioning her dream meal as she crosses the threshold into the kitchen (or, at minimum, mentioning a winning lottery ticket). Someone mentions curry. And... *PRESTO!* What's for lunch!? Thai green curry with chicken!

Some days, Bread Loaf is full of Christmas Miracles.

Today was another uneventful photo day as cameras aren't allowed in the Bod and I finished my paper there before lunch. Then Lena put her awesome English teacher pen all over it, and I re-finished my paper just now. Speaking of Lena, tomorrow is her 30th birthday, so there will definitely be photos of birthday fun as it unfolds through the day and evening.

Maybe someone will say "Birthday shoes for Lena!" and a pair will magically appear.

Hey, stranger things have happened.

Love to all,
Melanie