Visiting University Church of Saint Mary the Virgin (Among Other Things)

On Sunday, I had the pleasure of visiting one of the most famous churches in Oxford, University Church of Saint Mary the Virgin.  You may have seen it decorating postcards or on the cover of some travelogue; I was lucky enough to go inside for a real service.

As services go, it was very warm and inviting.  It was Church of England, of course, and very similar to the Church's sister branch in the United States, the Episcopal Church. We went through the liturgy (closely detailed in the bulletin, and easy for American evangelicals like us to follow along) and took communion. (In this church tradition, real wine is served, which surprised several of the people who came along with us.) Afterwards, we spoke with the interim priest, who was very eager for us to plug in with their "college ministry"—I put that in quotes because I don't really know what they call it.

On the whole, it was a beautiful service. Afterwards, we grabbed some tea and/or coffee from their refreshments table and spoke with several of the attendees.  

Perhaps the most unnerving thing about this was that the coffee table was situated on top of ancient, flat gravestones. In fact, this comprised most of the flooring in the church; the gravestones ranged in age from the early 1600s to the late 1800s.  It was odd to think that we were using items as somber as gravestones for something as pedestrian as flooring.

After we finished our coffee, we wandered around the church a little bit before setting out for lunch. At this point, I was tempted to take pictures of the church, but I decided to enjoy the moment instead.  The place felt holy, especially after attending the service, and turning it into a tourist destination felt wrong to me.

So instead, have some pictures I found on Google. They are far better than any of the ones I would have taken.

The inner hall, where prayers are held.

The view of the church from the balcony, where I sat.  Ahead, where the piano is sitting in this picture, was where the clergy stood and administered the Eucharist.

Outside, though, I had fewer restraints.  With all of the tourists around, I felt a little better taking a photo of my own:

In addition, this church courtyard opened up into a great view of the Bodleian Library.  Although I had taken pictures before, these are much better, so I'll share them with you here:

The side of the Bodleian Library, with the beautiful Hertford College to the right.

After stopping here for a few moments, we went on a quest to find something to eat.  While walking down Queen Street, I halted to take a picture of the open doorway into Queen's College, and also took a photo of St. Mary's church tower:

We ended up at a nice place called The Rose. I got the soup of the day; it was spelled Kalli Flower on the board, but I'm pretty sure it was cauliflower soup.  Either way, it was delicious, and relatively inexpensive.  Afterward, we wandered into an antique shop, where everything was pretty but also ridiculously overpriced.

The rest of the day mostly consisted of me catching up on my Greek homework, and writing these engrossing blog posts for you to read. Monday, however, was much more busy; and so wonderful for me personally that I'm going to devote an extra-long post to it.

Hint: it almost made me cry.

But you'll have to wait to find out why.

Ten Miles of Rain, Hail, and Dead Writers

Last Saturday is when I got a real taste of Oxford. Among other things, I walked ten miles (part of that in the rain), conversed with a custodian at Christ Church College, and paid homage to some of the wonderful writers that came before me.

First things first: we stopped and got coffee at the Brew, a coffee shop on North Parade.  North Parade Avenue is the loveliest street in North Oxford, in my opinion; tightly packed, it has several shops, the aforementioned On the Hoof sandwich store, and a pub called The Gardener's Arms.

Photo cred: Google (this is one area where I don't like taking my own pictures)

This particular Saturday was the local market—after getting an Americano at the Brew (ironic), I browsed through the local products and ended up getting three French apricots.  They were delicious.

Picture taken shortly before devouring.

After everyone was finished, our study abroad coordinator and resident faculty, the excellent and admirable Jacqueline Morrison, sent us off on a scavenger hunt. Our guide: three pages of directions and hints, taking us through most of west-central Oxford.  I was put in a group with three other folks, and we headed off to explore Oxford.

Our path took us right through the heart of Oxford, eventually leading us to Christ Church College.

The bells were ringing as we were walking down Park Street, just north of Keble College.

The Martyrs' Monument on the corner of St. Giles.

Christ Church College, Tom Gate.

Ibid.

There, at Christ Church, we had a question about the scavenger hunt trivia—it mentioned a "Great Tom" Bell, so we stopped in at Tom Gate.  We waited around for awhile as one of the custodians chatted at length with a visitor, but finally we were able to speak with him.  He was amiable and had a very pleasant smile as he instructed us on the history of the "Great Tom" Bell, which had been moved over to Christ Church over 500 years ago.  He told us that it always rang on "Oxford time," which was five minutes ahead of Greenwich—and at five past nine every day, it rang 101 times. 

He also told us a funny anecdote about Queen Elizabeth II's birthday last year.  She had come to visit Oxford for her birthday, and in her honor, the bell was supposed to ring 100 times. The bellringers apparently didn't get the memo, however, so they rang the bell for an hour straight.

After that, we continued on the scavenger hunt.  One of the items on the list was the birthplace of Dorothy Sayers, a famous mystery writer (and a favorite of mine).  As evidenced by the picture, I was very excited.

A lovely little street in west-central Oxford

Another little street—the narrow byways of this city are my favorite.

There are old stone fences everywhere.  It can be a little overwhelming to be constantly surrounded by ancient things.

This was where the going got tough: we were supposed to find our way to Greyfriars, but the road was closed because of construction.  We ended up wandering down to Thames Street just as it began to rain; we stood under the trees and consulted with our map.  (Two of us had no rain coats, myself included, so we began to get a little damp.)  With complete confidence, I said that we could go over a block and get right to where we needed to go.  Little did I know that this street was also blocked off—but, covering up the map and the scavenger hunt pamphlet with a rain-coat, we hurried up Thames Street in pursuit of a street that no longer existed.

The rain began to get heavier as we realized what we had done wrong.  And as we went to consult with the map again, we discovered a grievous problem: both the map and the pamphlet had disappeared somewhere along the line, and we were also lost.

Luckily one of our other members had a second map, but a more immediate problem confronted us. It was beginning to rain harder, and little bits of hail were falling.  We hurried to the nearest shelter, which was a Royal Mail depot, and watched as the hail turned from tiny little pieces of ice to large, almost dime-sized bruisers.  

Hail!  This is my view from outside the Royal Mail office.

One Englishwoman who was also taking refuge from the storm told us that she'd never seen such hail before in England—it was apparently quite unusual.

After the storm had passed, we used the map to determine where we were.  As it turned out, we were way off course—and without a scavenger hunt pamphlet, we couldn't continue to our next item on the list.  Eventually, we decided to just head back to the house.

On the way, we found several very nice sites, including a picturesque bridge over the Castle Mill Stream.

As we headed back to the city center, we passed the Ashmolean, the famous and extensive museum. 

We ended up making quite a trip. If you look at the map below, we walked everything that is highlighted in black Sharpie; our unfortunate detour on Thames Street was is long curve on the bottom left.

On the way, we passed by the Oxford Oratory. Although I had passed it several times before, I stopped to take a picture—one of my favorite poets, and one of my three favorite English poets of all time, was once the curate of the church. If you have not read the work of Gerard Manley Hopkins, you should.  He's a passionate, deeply religious, and extremely talented poet.

After getting back to the house, I took off my shoes (a big relief) and then chilled out for awhile.

But I didn't rest long before I was asked if I wanted to go to MooMoo's, a shake shop in the Covered Market, way back into town.  Of course, I did what any sane person would have done in my position.

I said, absolutely!

And so I put my shoes back on and headed right back into central Oxford, where we grabbed some delicious milkshakes.  Oh, and did I mention that it was still raining?

The milkshake was well worth the trip, however. Afterwards, we took our milkshakes and decided to wander around Oxford a little more. We went to the mysterious secret circle, a little public garden that is tucked right beside the construction on Greyfriars Street. There, Raiden (an English major friend of mine) found a reusable grocery bag lying around and claimed it as his own.

A nearby weeping willow.

Then, seeing a slightly bemused couple who looked like they really wanted to stand around romantically in this beautiful garden, we took our leave of the circle and headed down the path.  Eventually, we ended up at the bridge I had mentioned earlier. This time, we decided to go up into the adjacent Oxford Castle and have a look around.

The courtyard was beautiful.

Next, we wandered back in the direction of the house, seeing the sights on the way.  However, when the opportunity came to take a really cool (and slightly sketchy) detour, we took it. We headed down Bulwarks Lane. 

We got back on to the street, and proceeded normally from there. I did stop to take a picture of the Saxon Tower, however.  Right on the northern edge of Oxford's city center, the Saxon Tower is one of the oldest buildings; it was constructed in 1040, 26 years before the Norman invasion of Britain.  It's hard to believe that I was seeing something that was nearly a thousand years old, but was definitely beautiful.

By the time I got back to the house that evening, my feet were throbbing; according to my step calculator, which I'm using for my Walking for Fitness class, I walked around 10 miles that day.  Quite a hike! There's the updated map below:

Due to the size of this post, the adventures of Sunday will have to wait until tomorrow.  And today (Monday) deserves a post all to its own.  For today is the day I made one of my English-major pilgrimages, a tribute to one of the greatest writers to ever live.

But that—that is a story for another day.  Stay tuned.

First days at Oxford

As Bilbo did before me, I sit down at this table and ask, "Where to begin?"

I think the easiest place to begin is with an excuse. You may have noticed that I arrived in England on Thursday. You may have noticed (as my dad did) that not a single word has been posted on this blog since that time. The explanation is very simple: I discovered that I had a Greek assignment due on Friday.

While I was able to get the deadline fudged a little bit, this means that (in between traveling, jet-lagging, and walking around Oxford) my free time has been spent learning the beginnings of ancient Greek.  Having finished my late assignment, however, I finally have some time to devote to this poor, empty blog!

Learning how to write Greek is oddly satisfying.  And really hard.

First things first: arrival! While I won't go exhaustively through every detail, arrival was a blur: a mix of excitement and the sensory deadening that comes after a nine-hour flight. I could see the same sort of feeling in the faces of my fellow travelers (there were twenty-three of us in all, plus Dr. Reese).

When we finally got through passport security (which was the real trick; customs had apparently shut down for the day, because the place was deserted and we just walked through), we arrived at our bus stop.  We only waited two or three minutes before the bus arrived; then we were off!

Everything was green and growing, which is especially nice, coming from western Texas. Tori, an English major friend of mine, was the only other person sitting near the back of the bus; we chatted in the amiable and slightly slap-happy style of slightly drunk friends (weariness, in this case, taking the place of alcohol). Everything we saw was inspiring; from the first English duck, to the vines covering the road exchanges, to the harvested wheat on the English countryside.

We should make our highways look like this.

It was nice to see a familiar sight.

After a little over an hour's journey, we arrived in Oxford. I was surprised by how compact the city was; although we avoided the city center, everything looked carefully tucked together, cozy and almost rural.

Another thing the U.S. should adopt is the Oxfordian street-sign.

The view from my window on Canterbury Lane.  You can see the bus in the corner of the frame.

The house where we are staying was built in the 1800s. When we arrived, I (along with the other four men on the trip) carried my bags up to the third floor.  (Incidentally, this is referred to as the second floor here in England; the ground floor is essentially floor zero.) The house itself is beautiful:

After we arrived, we were given some time to rest and unpack.  The rest of the day was relatively uneventful; we went on several walks, one of which was guided, down to the northern side of Oxford's city center, including the magnificent main building of the Bodleian Library.  (This particular library is the second-biggest library in the U.K., and receives a copy of every single book published in England.) Because I was still drinking in the sights, I didn't take many pictures. Those will have to wait until I get to Sunday's events.

One of the buildings across from the Bodleian. I have no idea what it is - probably a college - but it's beautiful.

Rambling.

The next day was simultaneously uneventful and full of activity.  From nine to twelve we had orientation in an old Quaker Meeting House, where several of my classes are being held. (This meeting house is three doors down from the famous Eagle and Child, where the Inklings used to meet, and was also the site of C. S. Lewis's marriage.)  Once we finished orientation (which was interrupted by a tea break, one English custom I particularly enjoy) our group dispersed to various activities, among them being lunch and groceries.

Afterwards, four of the five English majors on the trip walked to North Parade Avenue, where we embarked on a religious experience.  There is a sandwich shop there, entitled On the Hoof, so beloved by our study abroad groups that the proprietor immediately knew that we were from ACU.  Three of the four of us got one particular sandwich—chicken, melted cheddar cheese, and cranberries—named after one of our professors at ACU, the famous "Cole Bennett."  It was delicious.

Wow, I'm hungry now.

We took our sandwiches to the gorgeous University Parks, the sprawling walkways and gardens kept up by the University of Oxford.  That particular day was the only sunny day that we've had so far, so we sure picked a good day to go rambling. The temperature was in the very pleasant mid-seventy range all day.

Saturday and Sunday, however, things really picked up—indeed, I walked over ten miles and saw most of east-central Oxford.  Those stories, however, will have to wait until the morning.  I want to get up by eight o'clock tomorrow, and it's already well past my ideal bedtime.

Until then, I hope you've enjoyed the pictures.  More pictures—and hopefully, a few poems—will be heading your way later this week!