A month's worth of blog!

Hello from Oxford!



Thanks for stopping by every day in the past month waiting for me to fill you in on what I've been doing. Don't worry my silence, I am in fact still alive!

I've had a very busy month (though it seems it's been much longer than that), getting used to life in Oxford.

First, the basics of England:
The food? Excellent. Lots of foreign food, like kebabs (sort of like gyros), lots of vegetarian options, and lots of great sandwiches.
Oxford? Very busy, very touristy. Especially on Saturdays.
The weather? Very cloudy, but not very much rain. It's actually just starting to get rather cold, so my opportunities to take photos are more and more limited every day, since there's no blue sky out there.
The stores? All close at about 5 p.m.! Except for pubs and restaurants.
The women? The older ones look like James Spader. The rest smell like those scented markers everyone used in first grade.

My first chance to really get out and take photos was my tour of Oxford Castle, which dates back to the Saxon period. The Normans turned it into a prison, and it was heavily involved in the civil war between Stephen of Blois and his cousin Matilda fought in the 12th-century, often called "The Anarchy" or "The Nineteen-Year Winter". It remained a prison, shockingly, up until 1996. Some photos:

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(Click the thumbnail to see a larger version)

The highlight of the tour was definitely seeing the crypt where Geoffrey of Monmouth, author of "Historia Regum Britanniae" - History of the Kings of Britain is said to have written from time to time.

My next photo-taking opportunity was at my college, Regent's Park. It's a small school (I believe the smallest college at Oxford, actually), and it's not particularly old compared to some of the others, but it's still much older than Macalester is. Some pictures of the dining hall and quad:

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The full set from my first days in England, including photos of both Oxford Castle and Regent's Park can be found here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davish/sets/72157622768141156/

Remember to get the full-resolution photos (they're massive!) if you see a good wallpaper or something. You can put a check in the mail for

My last opportunity for taking photos before my tutorials started was a brief tour around the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, right next to the Bodleian Library (which is sort of like the UK's equivalent of the Library of Congress). I got to walk to the top of the tower, take some photos of the Bodleian, All Souls' College (the most prestigious college at Oxford), and a lot of the rest of Oxford:

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After walking down from the tower, I got to go down to the church and take some pictures of the apse (front of the church, where meetings and classes were held in the Middle Ages), and the nave, where services are held:

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The stained glass was especially impressive, as it was absolutely massive. The ceiling was extremely ornate as well. Latin was everywhere, so it was a good opportunity to practice that. Full set here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davish/sets/72157622768119086/

Most of my time since taking these photos has been spent working for my tutorials. The amount of work required is pretty staggering. I write one essay a week for my tutorial on the Crusades and translate about three pages of Geoffrey of Monmouth from Latin to English every other week for my other tutorial. This is actually a bit less work than most students have to do, since my Latin goes by a bit quicker than would reading and writing a second essay. I'll find out what that's like next term, when I'll be taking a tutorial on Early Modern (1500-1800) Spain and its New World colonies every week, and a tutorial on Rome from 241-146BC every other week. It'll be a lot of fun, like this term, but probably even more work.

What spare time I do get is typically spent hanging out at either the pub with my friends or in the Junior Common Room (the college lounge for undergraduates), where alcohol is even cheaper and table football (foosball) is free. I will only say about the pub scene that English hard cider is the most wonderful thing in the world. Truly it is sent from on high.

I'll have some photos of miscellaneous Oxford things, like my brief walk around Christ Church College before I got kicked out, soon enough.

Stay tuned!