A Royal Celebration

I'm sure by now all of you know that there was a pretty important wedding in London yesterday. I'm so excited to have been able to be there in London during the celebration. It was a crazy day, but SO exciting! I think the easiest way to tell you about my day is just to break it down "chronologically."

Friday 12:15 am: Finished my final history paper for my Tudor/Stuart England class. Got some rest

3:00 am: Woke up, got dressed and packed my backpack. We left the house at 3:35 to catch our 4:00 bus for London. (I had to take a picture of my watch so people would believe howe early we were up!) 

6:00 am: Arrived in London. There were six from my group on the bus, and we stopped at Victoria Station for an early breakfast at McDonalds. After that we headed towards Buckingham Palace. As a group we decided that our best bet for a place to stand was somewhere near the palace and not on the parade route. We knew that the procession route would be really crowded, and we didn't care as much about seeing Kate at Westminster Abbey--we just wanted to see them kiss! So we walked down Buckingham Palace road and  to the corner of the palace. There were a lot of people there, but not as many as I expected. (Probably because it still wasn't even 7:00 yet!)

Here's a little view of our spot early in the day: 

By 8/9 ish we were all a little tired of waiting, and the wedding didn't even start until 11:00. We had all brought snacks and blankets, so we spread out and settled in for a long morning. There were enough people in front of us so that we couldn't get a picture of the street without lifting our hands up over our head to take the photo. Every now and then people would just start randomly cheering, so we'd stand up to take pictures--only to discover that it was just mounted policemen or something like that. 

This is a picture of me and my three roommates before things got TOO crazy!

And when I say we "spread out," I mean we all sat in a tiny circle on our blankets while more and more people arrived and tried to take our spots. We got very territorial! 

By 10:00/10:30 things started happening outside the palace. We heard (more than saw) the Queen leaving, other guests leaving, etc. It was difficult to get a picture because the gates were pretty far away, and the cars they were in were moving--which doesn't help!

Then around 10:50 we knew Kate would be headed that way. We had looked up minute-by-minute schedules of the whole day so we knew what was going on. There was still a lot of speculation, but about five minutes to 11 her car came by! Now, I'm relatively short, so I wasn't able to see what was happening, but I gave my camera to Allen, the only guy that went with us and the tallest member of our group. He tried to get a picture of Kate, but handed the camera back to me saying he had failed. We were just happy to have caught a glimpse of  a veiled figure in the backseat. 

An hour or so later as I was looking through my pictures I got to the ones he had taken in an attempt to see Kate. One of them was just a picture of someone's arm, and the other one had flags in the corners. But upon closer examination, you just might see something very interesting.

And by very interesting, I mean KATE! The picture didn't look too clear on the screen--but here it is!

And when you crop it a little bit, you can really see her! How cool?

We joked that she was waving right at us. I think she might have been ;)

Anyways, at 11:00 the ceremony started. We couldn't see any screens or anything, but we could hear them saying their vows and the congregation singing. 

The return procession was too quick for us to get a good glimpse of anyone, but by 12:50 people were pressing in even closer, because we knew that around 1:30 they would head out on the balcony. At this point we were all standing up, with our stuff packed up, ready to get a picture of the royal family. It got really tight and really crowded, and I admit I was a little claustrophobic. People kept inching forward and it was pretty miserable. 

But then, right on cue, the entire royal family came out on the balcony. I'm sure that all of you who watched it at home got a clearer, crisper picture than I did--but here are some of my best shots: 

When they first came out on the balcony, they were alone. Doesn't she look beautiful!! The next two have been edited a little bit.

And again, pointing to the planes coming for the flyover. They're so cute!


As far as their two kisses go, I had the perfect shot lined up, but someone bumped my arm so all I got was a picture of the column above their head. However, I'm very, very satisfied with the pictures I did get!

After the fun was over, the police were directing people out. It was at that point that I realized how MANY people were there. The streets were shut down and it was just like a mass of people flooding to the bus/train stations/pubs/souvenir shops. I admit, we got into the spirit of things and bought a tacky souvenir--

reusable bags with Will and Kate's faces on it. I also got a copy of the newspaper to hold on to. We went back to Victoria for lunch, but at this point our group had dwindled to three. It actually worked out well because all eight of us split into three groups and caught three busses back to Oxford. I thought traffic would be really horrible, but we got on the bus about 3:45, and I was back at the UGA house at 6:08! Really, I only spent about 10 hours in London, but it was an amazing day! I'm so, so glad that I got to be a part of something so historical! 

I ended up taking around 280 pictures all day--too many to post on the blog, or even on facebook, but if you want to see some of my other photos, here's a link to a public album of pictures I did put on facebook. You shouldn't have trouble looking at them, even if you personally don't have a facebook account. 

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.10150183035759425.308638.517814424&l=ccc9754d75


I hope my brief play-by-play gives you a glimpse into yesterday's festivities. Tomorrow is May Day, so hopefully I'll get to participate in another exciting Oxford Tradition, and Tutorials start next week, so keep checking back!

Cheerio!
Sarah

Easter Weekend

Hello again!

Just wanted to fill you in on Easter Weekend here in Oxford.

On Friday I attended a joint service of St. Ebbe's and St. Aldate's churches. Both of these churches are very popular with students in Oxford, and I think St. Ebbe's is probably where I will attend from now on. The service was really great. It was strange, though, because even though I knew the songs, the melodies were different for a lot of them. For example, we sang "Nothing But the Blood," and I didn't even recognize it at first because the tune was so different!

After the singing and a sermon on Romans 3, we went to McDonald's for lunch and back to the house. I had to finish a History Paper on the Puritans that was due at midnight. For dinner on Friday we had group dinner at the house. Because of the holiday weekend, we couldn't get meals in the Keble dining hall, so we all banded together and made tacos. They were delicious. Mexican food is the one genre of food that the English don't do so well, so it was nice to have taco night at home and enjoy our chips and salsa!

Yesterday I went with my roommate Julia to climb the Saxon Tower in City Center. The tower is Oxford's oldest building--built in 1040. The tower doesn't look that high from the street, and it really isn't incredibly tall, but it gets you high enough to see the "dreaming spires" of Oxford. Here are a few pictures I took from our little adventure:

Shot of the Tower from its base

Shot of the Tower from street level

Initial Staircase

Looking up the tower

Dreaming Spires of Oxford

Radcliffe Camera 

Another Dreaming Spire

We even could see Keble! (Mostly because its architecture sticks out like a sore thumb...)

Hope you have a wonderful Easter wherever you're celebrating! Love,

Sarah

Birthday Fun

Hey everyone!

Just wanted to give you another quick update. Technically I should be writing my next History paper, but my brain's a little fried, so I'll write a post here instead! It's much more fun!! :)

I had my second English paper due yesterday. It's been a really stressful week at the house. We had class on Monday to discuss the three novels we read over the weekend, and our paper was due on Wednesday. I stayed up until 6 am Wednesday morning writing my paper. The first draft was terrible. So after about three hours of sleep and a trip to McDonald's I sat down and rewrote large chunks of it to consolidate my ideas. I finally printed my final copy at 3:20 pm. Whew! While I might be a bit of procrastinator at home, that's the closest I've ever cut anything. I really like my topic, but I just hope the writing backs it up!

Unfortunately, that kind of sleep deprivation really adds up! I'm hoping I'll have time this weekend to get some rest. The only comforting thing about all this work is knowing that everyone in the house is dealing with the same thing. (Well, it's also comforting to know that I am learning more than I've learned in any English class at Auburn!)

Well, today is my birthday, so I celebrated in true British fashion. (I think? I'm not really sure what they do for birthdays here, honestly.) Anyways, my day had a slow start until lunch time, when I got home and found this waiting for me:

Some of the girls decorated my bed with balloons, cards, leis and British flags. They were really sweet to think of me!

After a short time at the house I decided to go back to City Centre before my History class and do something strange. There's a cookie shop in the covered market downtown called Ben's cookies. And I won't lie, the cookies are insanely good. I think what makes them good is the huge slabs of chocolate that somehow stay mushy in the center of the cookies. That's not the strange part, though. I took my cookie and my history book back to a quiet little spot I discovered. The "spot" is actually an old graveyard on St. Giles road, one of the roads that leads into the city. Actually, St. Giles is the same road as Banbury, the road our house is on. But before you think I'm morbid or gross, this graveyard is so cool. There are benches set out in a circle, and it's very quiet--even though it's on the border of City Centre. It's also directly down a side street from Keble, so it's pretty much the perfect central study spot. I sat there and enjoyed my cookie and then headed to my history class at 5.

Sitting there, I was reminded of L.M. Montgomery's book Anne of the Islands. There's a graveyard in the book that is very similar. "very full and very bowery, for it is surrounded and intersected by rows of elms and willows, beneath whose shade the sleepers must lie very dreamlessly, forever crooned to by the winds and leaves over them, and quite undisturbed by the clamor of traffic just beyond." While the thought of enjoying a cookie and diet coke surrounded by dead bodies is a little creepy, the cemetery is really more like a park than a graveyard. Yesterday I saw someone sitting on a tombstone eating lunch. That's a bit extreme, if you ask me!

After class we ate dinner at the Eagle and Child pub. If the name doesn't sound familiar, that's the pub I mentioned earlier--the one where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkein met and talked. This time I got to go and enjoy dinner instead of just a Diet Coke. I also got to look around a bit more.

Eagle and Child from across St. Giles

Letter signed by C.S. Lewis, J.R.R Tolkein and the "Inklings" saying they've drunk to the proprietor's health. 

C.S. Lewis' signature (third line down on the left)

Next to each of their names they wrote where they were studying. Lewis was a Fellow at Magdalen College. (Pronounced Maudlin. Not Magdalen. People here scoff at you if you say Magdalen)

The Rabbit Room. This is where the Inklings met. I felt the literary atmosphere when I was there :)

Behind this statue is the graveyard where I studied. It's on this little triangle shaped plot of land between two streets. Keble is to the right and the Eagle and Child is to the left in this view. Also to the left is Taylor's deli--where you can get the most delicious caramel squares EVER. 

Hope you are all having a blessed Easter Week! 

Talk to you soon!

Sarah

The word of the Day is...

Degeneration: The state or process of becoming degenerate; decline or deterioration.

But in case you're still fuzzy about the practical applications of the word, here's a visual example.

This is our neat and tidy dining room in the midst of a Dr. Bradshaw seminar. Did I say seminar? I mean tornado!

All joking aside, degeneration is the topic for our English paper this week. Fortunately our reading load was cut down by one novel, but we're still all frantically trying to finish our papers by Wednesday at four.

This weekend was mainly focused on reading, with a slight detour down "stomach-ache lane." But now that I'm feeling better, I'm back on the schoolwork wagon. As soon as this English paper is finished, I need to start working on my second History paper that's due Friday. After that it's only one week and two papers until the Royal Wedding!!

Hopefully then my posts will get longer and more interesting, and less focused on papers and grades.

Have a happy Monday!

Sarah

Halfway Point

Hey Everyone!

This weekend marks the halfway point in our seminars. The next two weeks will definitely be crazy, but at least now we're on the downhill side. This weekend I'll be focusing mainly on reading. We have four novels due in my English class Monday. (Dracula, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Secret Agent, and Howard's End.)

I just finished my first paper for that class. We had our first essay seminar on Friday. It was pretty terrifying. Basically three people read out their papers, and he stops you and critiques you along the way. Sometimes it's critiques about your writing, and other times he questions your arguments and you have to defend your point. It might be a little less intimidating if he were just any old professor, but he's actually the head of the English Faculty at Oxford.

Then, once you've read and defended your work, he gives you your grade in front of everyone else. Yikes!

At least for my History class you just e-mail him your papers!

Last night after dinner I went to the Eagle and Child Pub with some friends from the program. It's the very same pub where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien used to meet with their other literary crew. They called themselves "The Inklings." I've heard that Lewis and Tokein would play Scrabble together, but they would each use words from the languages they made up for their book series. Craziness. It's a fun little place to sit and talk, and I'm excited to go back and actually eat there. I've noticed that every pub has a sign out front advertising "the best fish n' chips in Oxford." I'll let you know which pub actually has the best.

In other news, I had an embarrassing moment at the grocery store today. I had my whole basket on the conveyor belt before I realized that I had left my credit card back at the house. So I power walked about 1/2 mile to get my card, hoping they would hold my basket for me. Turns out they didn't, so I had to "re-shop."

Next time I'll be a little more careful about what's in my wallet!

Thanks for stopping by!

One Paper Down

Hey everyone!

Didn't want to keep you all in suspense until the next time I do something fun. (Which will probably be around April 29th!) So, I thought I'd just post a little update to let you know that I've finished the first of many papers to come, and am about to start writing my second paper.

The first is a History paper answering this prompt:

"Patriarchal in theory; permissive in practice." Discuss this view of family relations in seventeenth-century England.

I finished it tonight at a total of 8 pages, 2,212 words and 22 footnotes. Whew!

The second is an English paper with no specific prompt, just the instructions to relate the following texts to New Imperialism:

King Solomon's Mines by H.R. Haggard
She by H.R. Haggard
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
An Outpost of Progress by Joseph Conrad
An Outcast of the Islands by Joseph Conrad
The Ebb Tide by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Beach of Falesa by Robert Louis Stevenson

This is the paper I'm worried most about. I only get five pages to tie all of those texts together!!

Holding on to Matthew 6:33 tonight!!

Sarah

But...

Lest you think I am simply having way too much fun to be learning anything, let me give you some numbers:

For/on this trip alone I have read

4 books
3 short stories
5 chapters of literary/historical criticism

which comes to a grand total of 1,122 pages. And that doesn't even include the document packs I've read for history!!

I think that the number of books/pages is going to be astronomical by the end of this, so I'm keeping a running tally.

These next three weeks are going to be pretty rough--I have two papers due every week, and for my seminar next Monday I have four three-hundred page novels due, plus five chapters of literary criticism for one seminar alone.

I'm so glad we got to go to London and blow of steam before this craziness! We're all already looking forward to April 29. First, because that's the last day of seminars, and tutorials begin on the next Monday, and second, for the Royal Wedding!!!! We've booked our bus tickets to London, and they're the reward we're giving ourselves for getting all this work done!

See you soon!!