Thursday, March 7th,

Well, I see that I haven't written since last month. Time sure flies when you're having fun and having company. Right now, Bryn's friend, Evan, is visiting from Portland. Nice to have him here. The boys haven't really been around anyone their age since we left home.

Saturday, February 16th we took the Lewis and Clark group to Oxford. Thankfully, Lewis and Clark bought each student 8 Britrail passes, which are good for anywhere in England, Scotland and Wales. So they were able to use them for the train ride to Oxford, about an hour away. Once we arrived we met 2 tour guides that spent 2 hours with us, explaining about the history of Oxford and especially about the unique Oxford university and the colleges that make it up. So cool! And very different from what we're used to. Oxford is the oldest English speaking university in the world and is made up of 38 colleges. The colleges are where the students live, study, eat and worship. The program for undergrads is 3 years and during that time the only thing they are required to do is meet with their tutor once a week for about 2 hours and take the final exams at the end of the 3rd year. Most of them also attend classes/lectures in their fields but they aren't required to and they can do only independent study during their time there.

We got to tour Oriel college. Each of the colleges is set up the same with a quad area surrounded by the dorms. The grass in the quad is forbidden for the students to walk on, until their graduation day, when they get their group photo taken on it. The "fellows", the faculty can walk on the grass, and do! The students can eat their three meals in the dining hall for about $12/day. The supper is formal and they all wear their robes to that meal. They also wear their robes to chapel. Back in the day, chapel was required every day, but now it is optional. When we went into the chapel someone was practicing the organ, which sounded great. The dorms are set up more like apartments so they are more conducive to studying. There are separate staircases for each group of about 6 rooms. We saw graffiti on the walls of the quad, but that is acceptable because it was telling that their college had won "Head of the River" crew race. To win you have to bump the boat in front. So on my photos you can see "bumped ....college", that means they won that year! Each of the colleges have very wonderful libraries and we also saw the Bodleian library in town, which is amazing. Every book every published in the UK has a copy at this library. Many of the books are stored underground..

(The Bodleian Libraries form the largest university library system in the United Kingdom. The combined library collections number more than 11 million printed items, in addition to 45,000 e-journals and other materials in different formats.
The Bodleian Library, the University’s main research library, dates from 1602 and is globally acknowledged to be one of the greatest libraries in the world. Its priceless collections include the papers of six British Prime Ministers; a Gutenberg Bible; the earliest surviving book written wholly in English; a quarter of the world’s original copies of the Magna Carta; and almost 10,000 western medieval and renaissance manuscripts.)

After our tour, many of us ate at the Turf Tavern, which served amazing food. I got Shrimp Scampi and we had a yummy brie cheese appetizer. The pubs and taverns here are often great restaurants. It was a lovely day and we even sat outside!

Then we walked up and down the city trying to find a place where Erik could go punting on the Thames, but unfortunately the water was too high and the boats weren't operating yet. We asked a group of hippies where the boats were, and got invited to join them in saying "Ommmmm" along with hundreds of others across England. It was interesting, felt like a Portland moment.

We then headed to Blackwell's which is a huge bookstore. Not as big as Powell's, but very cool. One of our LC students knows a woman, a former LC alum, who is at Oxford right now as a graduate student. She is a Rhodes Scholar. Melissa got ahold of her and she gave about half of our group a personal guided tour of her college, Magdalen-pronounced Maudlen. It was neat to walk on the paths of her college, we saw some famous deer, they are genetically unique to the college and stay there year round. We also learned that CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien walked on that same path many times, sharing ideas. Too cool! The college did look similar to Oriel, but more beautiful.

We walked so many miles, I think 15, but we saw lots and had a great time. We went back to Blackwell's a second time for a bit. The four of us were so tired, and couldn't find a place to eat supper, but then we found an amazing Italian restaurant. We don't usually eat Italian, but we've had 2 great meals here in London, so we are starting to change our thinking. We headed home about 8 p.m. What a day. We LOVED Oxford.