OBU in London #2 - July 19 (British Museum)

Harrod's Emporium

At Kensington Palace ticket office

At Buckingham Palace

This summer, I had the privilege of spending a month in England with a group of 15 students from Oklahoma Baptist University.  Dr. Lindsey Panxhi (an English faculty colleague) and myself, along with our respective spouses, conducted a faculty-led Study Abroad that spent four weeks on the ground in London teaching OBU courses to OBU students while being immersed in the culture and history of Great Britain.  These are our stories!

Thursday, July 19 – Orientation Tour & Harrod’s

We hit the ground running to combat jet lag.  Class in the morning – Lindsey’s English Lit class (British Authors On Location) from 8-10, then my Biblical Ethics class from 10:15-12:15.  Vanessa and Arsid (Panxhi) spent the morning grocery shopping.  Lunch from 12-1, then we went on an “orientation tour” of London.  We took the tube to Kensington Palace, where we bought the Historic Royal Palace memberships for the whole team.  These will get us tours of Kensington, Hampton Court, the Tower of London, Kew Palace, and Banqueting House – definitely a worthwhile investment.

Chloe H and Lauren D

Lauren, Allison,
Rachel, and Chloe

After, we walked through Hyde Park to Buckingham Palace, where we took a few pics, and then on to Harrod’s – a 6-storey luxury shopping emporium.  Crazy expensive – a nice slab of smoked salmon for 540GBP, purses for 1000GBP, and such.  There was amazing artwork and decoration throughout, though – something which I’m sure will become a refrain throughout this trip.

London is an incredible city, with tremendous diversity and incredible wealth.  The rich cultural heritage is evident in beautifully designed and adorned buildings that inspire

Kensington, sunken garden

awe inside and out.  There are so many historic old buildings, and cobblestone streets – an amazing city.  I’m loving it – despite the millions of people!

In fact, London has about 20 million people (according to Patrick, our host at Pickwick), more than one-third of the UK’s total (58M) population.  That’s a lot of blokes squeezed into a city! 

After the orienting afternoon, half of the group took the Tube back to Pickwick Hall, while I took the other half and walked.  It was nice to explore the streets and begin to get familiarized

with the layout of the city.  The walk took us close to an hour, but it was worth it.

With Sierra D -
cooling off in the pool

Supper was late – but that’s OK.  As Lindsey reminded us all, rule #1 on Study Abroad is “be flexible.”  Vanessa and Arsid cooked supper, we had a short Colloquium meeting, and then dessert.  End of the first full day in London.  Everyone’s still alive! 

Classes: my Ethics class will be great.  It’s a good group, and a nice-sized group for solid

discussion.  The 20^th-century British mystery Colloquium is going to be a lot of fun!  Four great writers (Chesteron, Sayers, Doyle, Christie) to enjoy.

Vanessa and I were pretty beat by the end of the day, and ready for an early bed-time. 

Me at a column in Harrod's

 

Team pic outside Buckingham Palace