Kellie and I were up early in Nottingham, packed our backpacks again, and headed to the train station for Oxford. The train ride from Nottingham to Oxford provided us with the most traditional English countryside settings. There were sprawling grass pastures surrounded by immaculate hedgerows and small splotches of giant, ancient trees, and then there would be a mini-castle on a hill overlooking it all. Near every one of these mini-palaces was a cathedral with a tall spiral. It was just what I had expected to see in the English countryside, and here it was at last. I watched it go by and never took a picture. C'mon, it was grass, hedges, big houses, and small cathedrals. After the first five or so, it got boring. However, with all of that carefully clipped green grass, I never saw a tractor or a mower. I think something suspicious is going on in England.
We arrived at our hotel shortly before noon via taxi from the station. The place was known as easyHotel, and let me tell you, it was as simple as you get--a bed with about one foot of room on either side, a TV hanging on the wall, and a bathroom that you could barely turn around in. It was neat and clean but very, very tiny. I did not take a picture. The funny thing is--and by "funny," I mean peculiar--that hotel was our most expensive stay. We hadn't planned our trip early enough to get in the Hampton Inn because of a graduation at one or more of the 44 universities in Oxford, so we paid almost double for a room that was half as big as the typical Hampton room--and with no free continental breakfast. As I neared the end of this travelogue, Kellie sent me some pictures of the room. Here they are.
Anyway, it was not check in time, but the hotel agreed to hold our backpacks, so we went exploring. First, we had to find somewhere to eat, which was not easy. Again, there was a big crowd in the city, so we ended up eating pizza at a place called Mama Mia's. I did order a beer, and I took a picture of the bottle because it was very good. I thought I might want to remember it. Here it is.
After a very average but expensive pizza, we hopped on a city bus and rode to the town square where we caught the old familiar Big Bus. I am telling you, if you want to see a lot and don't want to walk everywhere, the Big Bus is the way to go.
Now, I am going to be honest, both Kellie and I found Oxford to be very boring. We listened to the headphones on the Big Bus, and between Mozart masterpieces, we heard, "This building is where so-and-so did this-and-that. On your left is the building where a different so-and-so did a different this-or-that. Here is where former US president Bill Clinton graduated. Here is where Percy Shelley attached an electrical current to the doorknob and nearly electrocuted his Latin teacher. Here is where Shelley was expelled for posting his treatise The Necessity of Atheism." In other words, all there was to do was look at buildings. On Day Seven of the trip, we had seen enough buildings, so we rode on the bus and listened to Mozart for the entire circle of that particular line and never got off the bus. I did take this one picture of the statue of John Henry Cardinal Newman, who is famous for being the organizer and intellectual head of the Oxford movement, which steered the Church of England back toward Catholicism. He also was a great proponent of the Liberal Arts education. He believed that everyone should have a wide-base of knowledge. I agree. Anyway, here is his statue.
After riding the bus for two and a half or three hours, we got off right where we had started and looked for a city bus going back toward our hotel. When we didn't find one, we started walking. It was only two miles or so, and I had seen a couple of things from the bus that I wanted to take a closer look at. One of those places was a tavern called The Eagle and Child. It is a place where JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis met to discuss their individual projects. I was not told what came of these discussions, but I wanted to see the place. Sadly, it was closed and across a broad and busy street from where Kellie and I were. We did not even take a picture of it, and though we thought we might walk back by it at some point, we never did.
However, we did walk by something that was very interesting to me. It was the offices of the English teachers at Oxford University. I wish that we could have some offices that looked like this at ASUMH. Oh, and their teachers get to teach English as a foreign language as well. Talk about interesting! That would be crazy.
Finally, I want my office door to look like this one.
I was just wondering if I have made a reference to any particular work literature in this entire travelogue. I don't recall doing it, but this is my last picture in England, so I will include a bit of Chaucer after it.
When that April with his showers sweet
The drought of March has pierced root deep,
And bathed each vein with liquor of such power
That engendered from it is the flower,
When Zephyrus too with his gentle strife,
To every field and wood, has brought new life
In tender shoots, and the youthful sun
Half his course through the Ram has run,
And little birds are making melody,
Who all the night with open eye do sleep –
Nature their hearts in every way so pricks –
Then people long to go on pilgrimage,
And palmers who seek out foreign strands,
To far-off shrines, renowned in sundry lands;
And specially, from every shire’s end
Of England, down to Canterbury they wend,
The holy blissful martyr there to seek,
Who had aided them when they were sick.
Looks like I only have one more day with this travelogue. Enjoy!
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