OBU in London #15 - August 1 (Oxford)

Leaning Building!

July 16 – August 14, 2018 – “The London 15” – OBU Student Abroad in London, England 

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!

Wednesday, August 1 – Oxford! 

Early morning – 6AM departure!  As expected our young lady whose sister attempted suicide did not come – she was finally sleeping and getting some much-needed rest.  Vanessa had already planned to stay behind, and offered to do laundry for the team: 4 bags of “gifts” were left outside our door for her to take care of. 

  She let our remaining student sleep until about lunch time.  Then the two of them went to Nando’s for lunch, and to Primark to shop for a bit.  Good company and calm after a tough night.

The rest of us … on to Oxford!  6AM departure to the tube to Marble Arch, where we caught the 6:30AM “Oxford Tube”—a double-decker bus from London to Oxford City Center.  The bus took about 90 minutes altogether.  We got there in plenty of time for our 9AM tours—Lindsey took 4 students on a guided extended tour of the famous & extensive Bodleian Library; the other 13 of us did a walking tour of town.  Our guide was young – a 2^nd-year history major.  She knew her stuff, and was very cheery and pleasant.  We learned some about the town history, including its use as a

temporary castle.  We saw several of the famous colleges, including Balliol (Sir Peter Wimsey’s) and Trinity – the old rivals! 

The Bridge of Sighs

After the walking tour, we met up with the Bodleian Library group for a group entrance to Magdalen (pronounced “Maudlin”) College, where C. S. Lewis taught for 28 years.  The College grounds are gorgeous, with a nice quad and a famous old tree planted nearly 200 years ago.  We also explored Addison’s Walk, the mile-long path along the Cherwell River, the little creek that flows through Oxford.  Addison’s

Walk is famous in my circles mostly for its role in Lewis’s conversion.  Lewis and Tolkien and Williams went walking after supper one night, talking about Lewis’s questions and doubts.  After dark they retired to Lewis’s rooms and continued the conversation until 3:00AM.  That conversation was instrumental in Lewis’s conversion shortly after.  Great time walking in the footsteps of some giants of the faith and of Christian literature.

 

Beautiful weeping willow

At 1:30 we went to our booked tour of the Tolkien exhibit connected to the Bodleian.  It was a fairly small exhibit, filled with a lot of Tolkien’s original manuscripts, sketches, and illustrations—but was very informative.  I never knew that Tolkien actually started his fantasy world with the Elvic languages.  He was a philologist, and loved creating languages.  Then he needed people to speak the languages and a world to set it in.  I would very much like to get the rest of Tolkien’s fairy stories and read through them!  Anyway, phenomenal tour, a

great (and free!) addition to our day in Oxford. 

After Tolkien, Arsid, Lindsey, Stephanie and I ate lunch at The Eagle & Child (aka The Bird and The Boy)—a pub frequented by the Inklings at least once a week to read and discuss their work.  Again, it was pretty neat to follow in the steps of giants.

After lunch, we spent a couple of hours browsing G. Blackwell’s, the massive 3-storey bookshop in town.  I restrained myself admirably and emerged without any books—although at one point I

had cheap copies of Confucius and Lao-Tzu in hand.  Then it was back to The Oxford Tube, and back to London.  We got to Pickwick about 9PM. 

Noah Jones on Addison's Walk

Vanessa had met our earliest returning group, and they went for Chinese take-out.  Vanessa bought me duck & fried rice—it was awesome!  I much appreciated having something waiting for me.  Our ‘older sister’ was doing a little better, but was quite worried about her sister.  She will be in a mental health facility for at least a few weeks.  As a team, we will continue to lift the whole family up in prayer.