Day 5

Started off the field trip to St. Mary the Virgin's Church in Iffley England a little crazy. Thought it started a 1/2 hour earlier than it did. A couple of other students and I thought we missed the bus and thought they left without us. Turns out the field trip started half an hour later and we didn't miss the bus after all!

 

Had a lady comment on my buddy bruce this morning. She's said "There's a girl who takes her teddy bear everywhere" I then explained how a friend gave him to me and how I take him on all my field trips!

 

So when we all finally met up for the field trip we walked to the bus station, then rode a double decker bus to a bus station near the Church, and then proceeded to walk a half a mile to the church. It was a lot of fun walking with everyone and looking at all of the cottages along the road.

 

When we arrived we learned more about the symbolisms used in the church and various details about the Church that we had not learned in class.

 

After we had viewed and discussed the church some students rode the bus back and others walked back along the Thames river. We all got back in time for lunch and I made it to my first seminar at 1:00 pm. My first seminar was business ethics in London. We had four people in the class and we all had really great discussions on the topic of occupy protestors.

 

After the seminar we had tea and I ended up listening to many philosophical and theological discussions that were all about really topics and were founded in solid evidence. It was such a nice refresher to hear all of the dialogue back and forth. I wish we had more of that at NCU. I ended up staying in Simon's office (that is where the tea and discussions were) until dinner time. I had dinner with some uplifting and positive encouragement from David Timm and I am going to start working on my thesis for my first business essay.

 

West side

 

West side

West side



Simon explaining the history behind the carvings on the door.

Small graveyard (they are every where around the church)

Church keepers house

It sits right next to the church

North side

Window added in the 14th century on the north side.

Tower added in the 1900's (north side)



You can see where the original 12th century church ends and the add on begins (north side).

Original window (north side)



Inside of the church

Fount with black marble imported all the from France in the 12th century.

See the brick arch above the window? That is where the original window had been replaced.

Inside windows

Fantastic arches

View of the 1900's replica round window from the inside.

Organ!



I believe this stone cross was from the 13th century...



Pews

Amazing archways in the church.

See the intricate detail?

Black marble columns were also imported from France.

This was a stairwell leading up to a little room. I couldn't hear what it was for...

And the little room...

More intricate carvings

These columns were from the 14th century

You can tell by the pointed archways

Dr. Jenkins explaining about the building structure and the pointed archways

Front of the church

Beautiful cross on top of the roof.



Impressive tower... It looks so ominous.

 

More gravestones

A holy well

South side

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Only this two stones were carved at the top. Theory is that the benefactors of the church ran out of money.



Green Man!

Door where the hermit used to receive the sacraments



13th century priest's grave.

Royal Navy grave



Raven hanging out on top of the church

East side

Pretty purple flower!

 

 

Day 4

Today is our first day of classes! I don't have any seminars until tomorrow but I will taking the general seminar that the whole group takes today. It is called Christianity in the British Isles. We will be studying Churches today I believe in preparation for our visit to Iffley.

Here is our list of places we are going to visit while we are here:

Field Trip 1: Iffley: St. Mary's Church
Field Trip 2: Bath
Field Trip 3: Winchester
Field Trip 4: Burford and Widford
Field Trip 5: Stonehenge, Old Sarum, and Salisbury

Optional Field Trips:

1. London
2. The Kilns
3. Blenheim Palace and Bladon

I think I'm going to try and figure out the Bodleian system today. I reserved a couple of books and thought I might peruse around some of the open shelves.

We learned about the churches built before the 11th century and shortly after the 11th century. What the differences were, why they were different, and some speculation in the discussion on the symbolism of certain items in the church itself. A little hard to listen to because you can tell that some Brittan's do not care for Roman Catholics so they will either skirt around the subject if they are in a generous mood, Try to be politically correct if they are in a good mood, and luckily that is all I seem to have encountered so far.

They have a symbol on a lot of the older British churches called the green man. When we go to visit St. Mary the Virgins Church I will take a picture and show you what it looks like. I find the history fascinating though!

Feeling a little scatterbrained so I am going to transfer my schedule into my Google calendar, add the special events and field trips, then work on creating a plan of action on how I want to start working on my essays!

Finished another Business Ethics and Christianity book! Only two more to go!

Day 3

We got our library cards today! Here is the inside of the parliment room of the Bodleian Library!

Day 2

Today is Sunday June 15th. Yes it's Father's Day and I'm over here in Europe traipsing around. Happy Fathers Day Daddy! I Love you ♡

I need to buy a couple of things while I'm over her like an adapter and a calling card. I'll have to find a store today before my phone battery runs out.

Met up with Joy while having breakfast. We walked into town together and purchased everything we needed. We the walked around and looked in shops. We ended up getting lost and going in the wrong direction so we were a couple minutes late to the only seminar we had that day. It was a great first adventure to have though!

When we finally made it to the orientation we got to meet Simon Lancaster who is head of our student affairs, Australian, and really funny! He gave us a 2 hour tour of Oxford and I had a great time :)

I got back from the tour about 20 minutes after 6 pm. Had a sandwich for dinner and got to chat with other students eating down there as well.

Went up to my room after dinner to Skype with my Dad and tell him happy father's day! Ended up talking with my mom for about an hour and showing her the view from my window.

I've seen so many things and everything has really been a fluster that I don't really know where to start. When Joy and I were on our adventure we got to watch some punting action which is really cool. There were also some English guys singing Irish pub songs behind us as we walked down the road which was interesting. 

One girl in our group commented that it seems it would be more fun to travel here as a married couple or with your significant other and I think she is spot on.  Watching all these cute couples holding hands and walking down the road is so sweet. I can't imagine what it would be like to travel with someone you love.

Day 1

I managed to sleep on the plane fairly well! Probably about 5 hours of in and out sleep on my last flight.

I sat in the middle of a lady and gentlemen. All of us spent most of the time sleeping so I didn't catch their names.

Made it to the airport in London safely. By the time I made it to the baggage claim my bag was sitting there waiting for me. I then went to the atm to take out some pounds and they look gorgeous! I never knew money could look so colorful! Made it to the central bus station and it is really nice outside :) I'm starting to finally realize that I'm in the UK!

On the bus ride I realized that people in other countries actually do drive on the wrong side of the road! Also there is no personal bubble space as the bus driver practically rear ends the buses in front of us! It has started raining really hard here... I hope my webbed feet kick in soon!

The taxi driver was nice I gave him a 30 pence tip and he dropped me off in front of the building! Sarah had also just arrived so we walked in together. We met Geoff who has lived here for 3 years, is working on his PHD in philosophy and theology at Oxford, and he is the SCIO junior dean for the North wing (us). He kinda reminds me of Mike from admissions at NCU...

I met one of my roommates so far. Her name is Katie, we have one class together, and neither of us can find the bathroom on this floor! So she should me the one she found downstairs. Down two flights of stairs, around a couple corners, and through a couple of doorways to be exact. I really hope Geoff can show us a closer bathroom!

FYI Thanks to Sarah we now know were the nearest bathroom is. Down 1 flight of stairs and across from a Professor's office.

Dinner was fun! We got to get to know everyone in the programme (except for the guy who missed his flight and will be here tomorrow). I have an awesome pair of roommates (Katie and Cece) and we have great floor neighbors! I talked with our next door neighbors for quite a while. Sarah ans Samantha are very nice :) Believe it or not we had pizza hut as our first meal here... Yeah I was pretty shocked too!

Skyped with mom and dad to let them know I was ok. Need to make a shopping list for tomorrow... so all and all I have had a great busy first day here at Wycliffe Hall!
 

 

Waiting for the PDX airplane in Redmond...

 

Ended up talking to a lady who doesn't like to fly, was traveling back to Nashville, TN where she lived but had no family, was visiting family in Redmond and thinking of moving there soon. I know all this yet I didn't catch her name...



 

Bruce wanted to look out the window in Vancouver...

 

 

Vancouver looks a lot like La Pine but a little greener...

 

Waiting patiently for my bus in port 14a...

 

 

 

Turns out the Coach ended up in port 13

Travel Day!

I've been up since 3 o'clock this morning and feel like I need a major nap! I took about an hour nap in the airport until the nice air flight attendant asked me if I was traveling on the plane to Tokyo. I politely declined and informed him I was going to London. Apparently I was napping close enough to the next gate that he wanted to make sure I didn't miss my flight! What a nice gesture :)

The next flight is the long one. Vancouver B.C. to London Heathrow station. Yay!!! I am so excited to be on my way although truth be told I really feel like I'm just kind of floating in a dream. Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!