A Busy Week

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I've enjoyed talking with many of you through e-mails and IMs. Please keep them coming. We really enjoy hearing from home.

This was a really busy week, and we're glad it's over. Of course, an equally busy week is beginning, but we're trying not to look at it that way. Pretty much all we do when we're not sleeping is read, eat, and walk. And we only walk to get food or books.

Speaking of food, I was told British cuisine left much to be desired (and after that bacon roll on the plane, I understood why), but we've found plenty to eat that we really enjoy. I know I've mentioned the breakfast baps several times, but they bear mentioning again. They're so good. We got fish & chips one of our first nights here, but it was too greasy for Christine, so we haven't gotten it since. Although we did get a haddock filet with chips, salad, and veggies at the Radcliffe arms that was delicious. Every Wednesday, there's a covered market in town where we buy produce and cheese. We bought what appeared to be gouda wrapped in red wax, but when we got home, it was a crumbly cheese with blueberries in it. Christine was disappointed, but I thought it was pretty good. We had bangers & mash the other night, which is sausage and mashed potatoes. It's called the ultimate comfort food, and I can see why. It's very good.

This week I read Sophocles' Ajax and Electra, Oscar Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray and Decay of Lying, William Stead's "Maiden Tribute to Modern Babylon," several critical texts, and a book called London: A Pilgrimage that I had to pick at the Bodleian. It was a huge old book that was specially rebound. It had beautiful woodcuts of scenes around London by Gustave Dore. I was supposed to also read Shakespeare's "Richard II," "Richard III," and "Henry IV" for our Shakespeare seminar, but I didn't. Fortunately, I wasn't called upon to answer any questions.

I had my first Greek Tragedy tutorial on Wednesday. It went very well. I presented my essay on "The Role of Anger in Ajax and Electra," which was well reveived. For next Wednesday, I'll be reading the Theban plays. My second Gothic tutorial was better than the last one because I knew what to expect. We discussed Dorian Gray, and I presented my essay, "Dorian Gray: The Minotaur of the London Labyrinth." I'm really excited about this week's reading because it's something I've never even heard of before. My primary text is Prince Zaleski, which is about a detective and his assistant, somewhat like the Sherlock Holmes books but with character development. It deals with eugenics, which is a dark part of history that I find interesting. I've read up on it in the US and am interested to see how it differs in the UK. I'm also reading some scientific and criminal texts on degeneration and phrenology.

Next Saturday we're going to Canterbury, which should provide some more pictures.

Thanks for reading.

Warwick Castle

Today we visited Warwick Castle, Britain's Greatest Mediaeval Experience. We awoke at 8:30, had our usual vegetarian breakfast baps at Meltz to Go, and were on the road by 10:30. We brought reading material, but the painfully dull conversations of college sophomores were too much of a distraction. Christine found solace in slumber; I couldn't sleep and endured the banality, slowly losing all faith in the future generation.

Once, we arrived, thing really picked up. The castle is beautiful, as you can see from the pictures. As part of the exhibit, wax works of a mediaeval war party and a 19th century dinner party are on display in several parts of the castle. We went to the haunted section as per Denver's suggestion, but there must have been more going on when he was there, because it was rather dull. Atmospheric, yes, and, as the rest of the castle, beautiful, but not frightening.

We visited several towers and the giftshop and then accepted the challenge of the Caesar tower. To get up and down, you must use the spiral staircases, which are in a cylendrical column with no light and no break between the top and the bottom. I'm not usually claustrophobic, but this was hard. Dad, you wouldn't be able to handle it. The trek was worthwhile, though, since the view from the top was breathtaking.

After touring the castle, we wandered into the town of Warwickshire and had our first cream tea, which was recommended to us by Dorothe Bonzo. A cream tea is tea with sugar and cream served with a scone. You cut the scone in half, butter it, spread strawberry jam on it, and then spread on what's called "clotted cream," which, unappetizing as the word sounds, is very good. It's similar to whipped cream, but not whipped. While in all a cream tea is incredibly unhealthy, it is delicious, and since we've been walking everywhere, we can binge a little.

In other news, I had my first tutorial on Friday. It was a very humbling experience. It was a very positive experience, but when I talk to people about horror fiction, I'm used to knowing as much as if not more than those I talk to. One on one with an Oxford don with a doctorate in Victorian Gothic fiction, I felt like I knew nothing. he is very helpful, though, and I look forward to learning from him. My first essay for my Greek Tragedy tutorial, on Sophocles's Ajax and Electra, is due Wednesday.

Please leave a comment or drop us an e-mail. We thrive on communication with home.

The mound 

Parting shot of the Caesar tower 

Elizabeth's saddle 

The huge koi in the pond 

Koi pond in the rose garden 

Entrance to the rose garden 

The peacock garden, 

Convicted of un-British behavior: I smiled at a passerby. 

St. Mary's church seen from the tower 

View from the top 

Halfway up 

View from the ramparts 

We're about to climb the Caesar Tower 

From the castle grounds 

Swans 

A Victorian boathouse 

The Mound seen from the castle grounds 

View of the castle from the mound 

The Mound - the oldest part of the castle, built by the command of William the Conqueror 

The Caesar Tower 

Warwick Castle 

Warwick Castle 

The Natural History Museum

Yesterday was Christine's first tutorial at Keble College (not Trinity as I had said before). Keble is across from the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, so while Christine was discussing the Bronte's views of marriage, I was looking at dinosaurs.

The museum has the largest dinosaur collection outside of London and features several fossils that were found in Oxfordshire. A picture of the Tyrannosaurus Rex display in the main hall was featured in a dinosaur book I had as a child, so I got to see something I'd been looking at in a book for 20 years. Exciting stuff.

Several displays were about Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, which many of you may know is one of my favorite books. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (who wrote under the pen name Lewis Carroll) was a math lecturer at Christ Church College and a friend of the dean's daughter, Alice Liddell. Much of the story is based on sites in Oxford, including the Natural History Museum.

Upstairs the museum features several live insect displays, which are hideous, but of course I can't resist walking by to freak myself out.

In the evening, we studied at the Bodleian Library.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

Christine and Hedwig 

A Golden Eagle. I swelled with school spirirt 

A Flying Fox Bat