London - Round 2.5

The continuation of our weekend in London!
 


Day 2 - Saturday, 16 June

7:20 a.m. - Hannah, Bailey, and I departed from Gloucester Green, Oxford. Bailey was late, missing the 7:05 bus by 15 seconds and delaying us. Instead, we took the 7:20 Oxford Tube bus but made sure to mock Bailey for the duration of the trip. 

9:00 a.m. - Arrival at Marble Arch, London. We purchased Day-passes and transferred to the Underground, only to learn that westbound train service was temporarily suspended. Fortunately, we were able to use our day-passes on westbound courtesy buses.

But First A Coffee Break... 

We rode one of London's famous double-decker buses down Oxford Street to Tottenham Court Road. We disembarked in search of a good breakfast before attempting to tackle the British Museum.  Unfortunately, both of the coffee shops that I'd researched turned out to be operated by hipster scum who thought they were too good for advertisement or signage of any sort.  The first cafe displayed nothing to indicate whether or not it was open. There were no patrons, and a bored-looking barista and a meager pair of croissants in the window did nothing to entice us.  Its wall menu seemed to have very high-end font. We moved on.

The second shop was located further down its street than I'd been led to believe and was in fact the only shop on its row without any external signage of any kind. Having walked right past it, we were forced to settle with a comfortable-enough, vaguely Italian  cafe on the same street.  This fallback named Cafe Paradiso turned out to have a descent selection of baked goods and quite palatable coffee.  Big couches with low tables. Bailey amused himself with a spare Bollywood tabloid while I examined a self-important British music rag with minimalist page design and artsy photos.  We were the only customers, the meal was good, and we likely were better off than we would have been at either of the other places.

Bailey is entranced by the latest developments in Bollywood.

(We later passed the cafe which we'd at first been unable to locate.  Its lack of proper signage, flat white interior, bare wooden tables, and industrial lighting made it far too cool for us. Rather glad we missed out.)
 

Hipster scum.

Culture and Stuff

10:30 a.m. - Arrived at the British Museum, one of the world's great museums and it is entirely free to the public!!! We saw the highlights including the Rosetta Stone, the Sutton Hoo helmet, the Lewis Chessmen, the Elgin Marbles, and a special exhibit on the history of thoroughbred race horses.

British Museum

Sutton Hoo helmet (top: original, bottom: replica)

weird violin-like instrument

Rosetta Stone

Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon

Bailey and I really like the dramatic Assyrian sculptures of the royal lion hunt (c. 640 B.C.)

  
I chose not to split off from the group and walk over to tour the Sir John Soane's House and Museum near Lincoln's Inn Fields for the 11:00 a.m. tour. Soane was a 19th century architect and collector who converted much of his London residence into a small museum. He collected a wide variety of artifacts: antiques, paintings, and architectural drawings to name but a few! I've wanted to visit for years, but I just couldn't pass up the British Museum. I missed a very interesting exhibit on the history and architecture of stadiums, but I would rather go to the Soane museum's monthly candle-lit tour anyway.

2:00 p.m. - Walked down to Holborn Station and rode the Tube to Knightsbridge to pay a visit to Harrods, the famous department store. Hannah wanted to go shopping, and since "The Sale" is taking place at Harrods over the next week, we thought it would be worth a visit. So did everyone else in London. We spent 45 minutes examining the Lego and Harry Potter goods as well as perusing the designer clothes, frivolous accessories and lifestyle gadgets (who really needs 007-style spy equipment for the house?) and sumptuous food halls.  Needless to say, Harrods truly lives up to its motto: Omnia Omnibus Ubique—All Things for All People, Everywhere.

Harrods

We met a celebrity or two in Harrods.

3:30 p.m. - Lunch at Harrod's, sort of... The food halls were incredibly crowded with shoppers and the sit-down restaurants were rather pricey. (What else did you expect? It's Harrods.) We opted instead to purchase some deli sandwiches and drinks and head over to the nearby Hyde Park for a late afternoon picnic.

FUN FACT:  Many of the wooden lawn chairs in the park are NOT public property; they must be rented from an attendant who comes around periodically with a credit card scanner.  Apparently, there are notices posted in the area, but we certainly didn't see any. Still, the rate is only about £1/hour.

Aerial view of Hyde Park (Source)

 5:00 p.m. - Choral Evensong at Westminster Abbey.  We jetted over from Hyde Park in time to make the 5:00 p.m. service.  As we emerged from the Westminster Tube station, we were caught up in a political street procession passing through Parliament Square.  It appeared to be a procession of officials from every administrative district in the country, though I'm not sure of its significance.  Perhaps something to do with the Diamond Jubilee or a vote in Parliament?


We've all become big fans of Anglican choral services in our time here, though I must admit that today we had more mercenary reasons for attending evensong.  Typically, admission to Westminster Abbey costs £16.00 ( £13.00 w/ concessions), but all worship services are free to the public. (The choral evensong service is typically at 3:00pm, but from June to September, it is moved back to 5:00 p.m., likely to accommodate the summer tourist season.)

We entered the abbey and stood in a queue on the left side of the nave with a few hundred other worshipers.  As we waited we examined the tombs and markers of the hundreds of famous men and women who have been accorded the honor of being buried within the abbey walls:  Winston Churchill; Issac Newton; Charles Darwin;  Henry V; James I; and Mary, Queen of Scots among many others.  I was particularly thrilled to see the tomb of composer Edward Elgar whose well-known Enigma Variations I played with the MSU Symphony Orchestra last year!  Hannah was delighted to visit Poets' Corner and Bailey stopped at all the scientists' markers.

We were finally seated in the south transept next to Poets' Corners and a marker for William Blake (1757-1827).  The service was very nice, though we were tired after a long day.  Bailey managed to fall asleep while standing and fell back into his chair!  He was O.K. though.

After the service ended, we walked north through St. James's Park and up to Piccadilly Circus. We stopped for some Turkish coffee at Kahve Dunyasi, a popular chain in its native Turkey.  The coffee was good, but we hat to wait forever for a table.

Nice cup of Turkish coffee

Around 7:00 p.m. - Tried to catch the Tube northwest to Marble Arch, but construction on the Central Line forced us to take a bus instead. The Saturday evening traffic on bustling Oxford Street was so slow that we eventually got off and walked!  Even with the crowds of shoppers, walking was still faster than the bus. From Marble Arch we caught our return bus and headed back up to Oxford.

London - Round 2

Not satisfied with our little London day trip a few weeks ago, Hannah, Bailey, and I decided to go down to the city again this weekend.  We went Friday evening to see a West End show and then again early Saturday morning for a full day of sightseeing!



Day 1 - Friday, 15 June

A Night on the Town

3:00 p.m. - We rode the Oxford Tube bus service from Gloucester Green, Oxford down to London.  The private bus companies are really catering to business travelers with free on-board Wi-Fi.  We used it to map out our little adventure.  The hour-and-a-half commute turned into a three-hour ordeal once we hit Friday rush hour traffic in the city.  The bus was also forced to make a detour when the exit ramp we needed was blocked by a traffic accident.  It took 30 minutes from the next exit to travel the six or seven blocks of our improvised detour and get back on route.  We disembarked near Victoria Bus Station and walked past Buckingham Palace northeast towards Piccadilly Circus.


6:00 p.m. - Dinner at Rainforest Cafe.  Attempting to find a quick dinner in central London on a Friday was a mistake. Since our bus arrived so late, we tried a couple of pubs near the theater, but neither served food on Fridays. With limited options, we finally settled on Rainforest Cafe.  Hannah was quite pleased, to say the least. My heart went out to our waiter who was forced to give us a "safari tour"of the restaurant as he walked us to our table.  While I wouldn't go again, the food was decent and the service was relatively quick.

7:30 p.m. - Les Misérables at the Queen's Theatre in London's West End.  The London production has changed theaters a couple of times, but it is currently the longest-running musical on West End. Queen's Theatre has hosted the production since 2004. In January 2010, Les Misérables crossed the ten-thousandth performance threshold in London.

True to reports, Queen's Theatre is a nice, intimate venue.  The three of us sat in the upper balcony but still had a fantastic view. The only negative aspect of the entire evening was the old man behind us who felt the need to sing along in a low bass voice.  I repeatedly gave him dirty looks until he finally shut up! Otherwise, we had a great time!

Queen's Theatre, London (Source)

 Afterwards, we took the bus back to Oxford since the cost of two round-trip tickets was cheaper that the cost of booking a hostel for the evening.  I argued that we should just stay up all night and see London but was overruled. We arrived at Gloucester Green around midnight and agreed to meet back at the bus station for 7:00 a.m.

The Quest of Spencer Hall

In a previous previous post I mentioned that I'd written a short story which I included as an appendix to my essay on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit.  Dr. Snyder returned our essays today, and I'm happy to say that he was quite amused.  He even sent me the following text: "Just read the Quest of Spencer Hall. Marvelous!"  

Hope you enjoy it as much as our group has.

Author's Note:  The following work is a literary adaptation of a theme proposed by Ms. Hannah Rogers on the afternoon of 7 June 2012 as recorded by the author.  See Bibliography for full citation. 

The Quest of Spencer Hall

In a town in Mississippi there lived a Hall.  Not one of those river towns in the Delta or one of those bustling municipalities down on the Gulf Coast but rather a small and secluded town in the northeastern corner of that fair state:  it was a town fit for a Hall, and that means comfort.  This particular Hall went be the name of Spencer and was by all accounts a most excellent Southern gentleman with a kindly disposition and a fondness for Faulkner and the comforts of home and hearth.  “One can deal with being lost. Or late. But one just can’t deal with being uncomfortable.  You just can’t live if you’re not comfortable,” he would often say.   But then the professor Snyder came along with a band of thirteen scholars and drew Spencer into their quest.  “For we are going to Oxford,” said the professor, “not the Oxford you may know, but another far across the sea.  We go there seeking knowledge, but the Road is long and weary, and we have need of a Free-Spirit to aid us in our quest.  There may be odd weather and we may not always take our meals at noon nor be so free with our time, as is your custom.  But for your pains, you will be richly rewarded with knowledge beyond compare.”  And so Spencer joined with the merry band, and the companions went and ventured far.  And Spencer was indeed often late, and sometimes missed breakfast or found himself in most uncomfortable situations.  Nevertheless, he acquitted himself well and in discussions of math and physics was well-esteemed by all the company.   And it was as the professor Snyder had predicted, lo the company departed, “There is far more to you than some guess, Mr. Hall, and I believe you may prove your merit, ere the end.”

Mr. Hall reads his story.

 Bibliography:

Hall, John Spencer. On Comfort and the Crowding of Elevators. George & Davis’ Ice Cream Café, Oxford, Oxfordshire, UK, 1 June 2012. Address.

Rogers, Hannah L.  Why Spencer Hall is the Hobbit. WISC Offices, Oxford, Oxfordshire, UK, 7 June 2012. Address.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit. the enchanting prelude to "The Lord of the Rings.". New York : Ballantine, c1937, 1979.

Stratford-Upon-Avon / Julius Caesar

This afternoon we paid a visit to the city of Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare, to see a production of Julius Caesar performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company. WISC/OSAP sponsored the trip and provided buses and tour guides.  This is a picture-heavy post, so enjoy!

We're on my way to see the Man, what's left of him, anyway (Plays, nothing creepy).

2 p.m. -  The bus for Stratford-upon-Avon departed from our usual meeting point across the street from the Ashmolean Museum.  This time we had the right number of buses and the guides, and so we departed Oxford without incident.

Stratford lies about an hour's drive north of Oxford.  We took the scenic route, passing by the gates of Blenheim Palace and proceeding through the neighboring town of Woodstock. Cutting across the English countryside, we saw several little thatched-roof villages and a number of private estates and deer parks.

Familiar territory.  Passing through a roundabout near Blenheim Palace.

 I rode in the second bus and spent most of the journey listening to our guide describe the landscape passing just beyond the window. Although she spoke in a low, monotonous drone, the stories she told were actually quite interesting.

In Shakespeare's time, Stratford-upon-Avon was much smaller, with around 2,000 inhabitants, and was heavily wooded. Today the city is much larger, with a population of around 25,000 people, and much of its old woodlands have disappeared, burned up as fuel or converted into buildings and ships in the last 200 years.  The UK today has one of the lowest amounts of woodland in Europe due to excessive foresting over the centuries.

Crossing the River Avon

3:15 p.m. - We  arrived in Stratford-upon-Avon and exited the bus in a car park near the city center.  Our main guide Brian (from the Windsor Castle trip) led us on a walking tour of the city center.  We passed Shakespeare's birthplace and a large shopping area before coming back to the River Avon and a series of locks connecting it to the canal system.

Hannah was super excited to see what might be Shakespeare's birthplace.  Possibly. Judging from the admission price, the owner's certain think they have the right place. At least, they're reasonably sure. Charles Dickens vandalized a window, so it must be correct place. Right?

An English major in her natural habitat.

'Sup, Hamlet?

Brian went on to tell us more facts about the city center and the canals, but for my part, it was all Greek to me.  I was quite distracted by a of bevy of swans on the river.

Pen and two cygnets

Bevy of swans, it's a real thing.

Brian tells some stories. (The Royal Shakespeare Company is the tower in background.)

The WISC group continued our tour along the riverside, eventually coming to the churchyard of the 13th century Holy Trinity Church.

Following the leader.

True story.

Brian tells us about exciting British things.

 

Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon

 Shakespeare and his family are buried at the foot of Holy Trinity's altar.  His prominent position suggests that he was well off at the time of his death, wealthy citizens being able to purchase prominent tombs.

Shakespeare family graves in the chancel.

Shakespeare's tomb

Afterwards, we split into small groups for a couple hours of free-time.  The play was to begin at 7:30 p.m., and we were expected to eat beforehand.  My usual cohort found a nice restaurant with a pre-theater menu.  Lamb's of Sheep Street is located in a 16th century building just around the corner from the theater. Highly recommended.

The play itself was a production of Julius Caesar with a modern twist.  Instead of the traditional Roman setting, the play was transported to a war-torn African nation.  Purists (i.e. Hannah Rogers) might cringe, but I thought that the change of setting worked well.  The dialogue was unchanged, and that is the important thing.  (For a short, professionally-shot clip from of Marc Antony's speech at Caesar's funeral, click here.)

The African setting was actually quite effective.  Note the house band on the upper right.

As you would expect from a group called the Royal Shakespeare Company, the acting and staging was top-notch.  The African setting necessitated an all-black cast and appropriate costuming. Caesar appeared as a rich African autocrat in a dashiki shirt, sunglasses, and sandals, and the rest of the cast worn casual tropical attire.  However, subtle costume changes over the course of the play really complimented the action.  The conspirators' black toga-style costumes for Caesar's death scene added a sense of formality and drama.  Likewise, the camouflage and fatigues worn by the actors in the later acts made them appear as though they had just stepped out of t.v. footage of the civil wars in Libya and Syria.  Like the Urdu-language production of The Taming of the Shrew which we saw in London, this production of Julius Caesar really demonstrated the universal appeal of Shakespeare's writing and the continuing relevance of his stories.

The play lasted a little over two hours plus intermission.  Afterwards, we boarded the bus and returned to Oxford.

Dinner and a Movie

Another rainy day. High of 50˚F.

After a uncharacteristic week of clear skies, the traditional English weather has returned in full force; we've had nothing but rain for several days now. Taylor spoke for us all when he said that he was surprised England hasn't been washed out to sea yet.  I think I read somewhere that Britain's explorers set out to sea just to find some nicer weather and wound up forging an empire by accident.  Pure conjecture most likely, but I can't say I'd have blamed them for doing so.

8:30am -  Taylor joined Ben, Khanh, Hannah, Bailey, and I for breakfast at Christ Church.  Typical British fare of eggs, beans, sausage, hashbrowns, cereals, and coffee. Unlike the more-formal sit-down dinners, breakfast and lunch at Christ Church is a casual affair and and is served cafeteria-style. Coffee pods of various types are purchased at the register and then inserted into an automated drink dispenser across the hall. A regular cup of black coffee seems to be practically unheard of in Oxford; if a restaurant or café has one, it's likely to be labeled a "filter coffee" and placed at the bottom of the menu. Likewise, I had to hunt for the plain coffee pod at breakfast, but surprisingly was able to find at least two passable offerings.

9:15am  - Stopped by WISC offices to print out our first paper for Dr. Snyder's class. Up, up, up the stairs we go! The WISC office is situated in a third floor suite (that would be the forth floor in the US, but in Europe it's Ground Floor, 1st, 2nd, etc.), and like so many European buildings, lacks air conditioning.  Given the cool British climate, that's usually not a major problem, but during the summer the indoor temperature can rise uncomfortably high.  Today it's not so bad.

Dr. Snyder has asked each of us to write about the theme of "the quest" in Tolkien's The Hobbit. Tolkien borrowed heavily from medieval literature in writing his first novel. All but one or two of the dwarves' names come from the Icelandic sage The Poetic Edda while Bilbo Baggins' first encounter with the dragon Smaug is taken almost directly from the Anglo-Saxon "Beowulf." Allegedly, Tolkien had the idea for The Hobbit while grading papers and jotted down the novel's opening lines on the back of some student's essay!

Despite my distraction, I did have one insight about the novel and wrote a section of my essay about the wizard Gandalf.  Simply put, Gandalf is the catalyst for the action in the novel.  He initially convinces the main character, the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, to join a band of dwarves on a quest for treasure and then flits in and out of the story, always appearing just in time to save the quest from disaster.  His off-page activities are only briefly described, but they will prove crucial to the plot in Tolkien's later masterpiece The Lord of the Rings. In my essay I argue that Gandalf is actually on a quest for socio-political change and works behind the scenes to effect a regime change, restoring balance to the northern lands of Middle-earth.


I put in a decent effort, but I confess that I spent most of my time working on a short story which, in the manner of Tolkien, I attached to my essay as an appendix. You see, thanks to my classmates I've come to realize that we're really on a quest of our own here, and I just had to write about it.  Hopefully, Dr. Snyder will approve of my effort; if he does, I'll share my story in a future post...

12:15pm - Wrapped up our discussion of The Hobbit and went for lunch at Christ Church. Today is Pie Day with the menu featuring a selection of savory pies filled with everything from turkey and apples to vegetables and even steak and ale.  Having had my fill of pies this week, I opted for the Roast Turkey with Broccoli.

Christ Church´s version of a pie.  This one is turkey and apples topped with a puff pastry. The bowl contains an unmemorable pea soup.

 1:30 - 5:30pm - My afternoon was spent in the Bodleian library doing research for my second tutorial essay. I found several good articles on the two Fritz Lang-directed films I've watched this week: his sci-fi epic Metropolis (1927) and his murder thriller M: eine Stadt such einen Mörder (1931). I highly recommend both, though M is the shorter and more watchable of the two (it's also a talkie).  Metropolis has it´s merits though; it´s characters and imagery have been referenced in countless sci-fi films and novels (e.g. C3-PO from Star Wars). Both are available to stream online. (Follow the links above for free, subtitled versions).

Delving through the stacks in the Bod.

 6:45 - Changed into dress clothes with academic gowns and walked through the rain to a formal dinner at New College hosted by WISC.  We congregated in New College's Porters'  Lodge entrance on Holywell Street before moving to the dining hall adjacent to the college chapel. New College's small dining hall is a close rival to Christ Church's with its  magnificent high ceilings, Old Masters' paintings, and stately atmosphere. Tonight we had the hall to ourselves and feasted on a mozzarella and tomato  salad, salmon or vegetable teriyaki, a lemon tart, and a very good selection of wines. I had the pleasure of dining with Bailey and Khanh as well as some of our fellow WISC students from Cornerstone University (Michigan) and a Lithuanian exchange student.

Bailey Hansen and I take in the New College dining hall.

Cameron Clarke and Spencer Hall

Khanh Nguyen and Ben Bailey

 
9:00pm - Although I´m not a member there, I feel I´ve become well acquainted with New College after all the functions I´ve attended there.  Several of our Tolkien seminars, each of my film tutorials, and now this dinner have taken place on the college grounds.

Another part of New College life is the nearby Turf Tavern to which several of  our group retired for a pint before walking home. The Turf Tavern is a popular student pub down a narrow alley next to the college walls.  During his time in Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, future-president Bill Clinton is reputed to have "experimented with marijuana at time or two but never inhaled" at the Turf.  My studies have been rather more tame, but I pass the pub every week on the way to and from my tutor´s rooms and have stopped in with friends on more than one occasion.  Of the pub´s many offerings, Bailey and I have taken a liking to a particularly good stout from the White Horse Brewery, and we shared a round before returning through the rain to our various lodgings.

Source: White Horse Brewery webpage

On the way home, I popped into the local co-op for some discounted croissants (40p each!) which would warm up for a nice, quick breakfast in the morning.