Before starting the post on Oxford, here are three things I’ve learned about people in England:

1. Everyone smokes. Okay, maybe not absolutely everyone, but a hell of a lot of people for sure. Definitely everybody who works for the bus company—and there is at least one of them for every civilian on the street, they all hang around at the bus stops in groups of three or more, doing who-knows-what, and all wearing their high-viz yellow or orange rain jackets (since England has generally low-viz weather, and of the wet variety). And the smokers all smoke incessantly, down to the nub, burnt fingers and all. I’m surprised we don’t see big hunks of lung spewn [yes, “spewn”] about in the streets and gutters, especially near bus stops.
2. Everyone is sick. Buses, trains, restaurants, shops, walking in the streets, on bikes, coughing, sniffling, sneezing, nose blowing, sounds of phlegm and mucus…yecch.
3. People have no idea which side of the walkway (sidewalk or any other footway) to walk on. Cars drive on the left side of the street, so you would expect that to be the pattern for foot traffic as well (no matter how wrong it might be—after all, your sword hand doesn’t change). But there are signs directing you to the right side of the staircase entering or exiting Tube stations, as well as to “stand on the right, walk on the left” on escalators (as is normal for us). So what do people in England do? Some people walk on the left side of the walkway, and some people walk on the right side of the walkway—and I mean Brits, not just clueless Americans and French (and not even Brits hoping to avoid running head-on into clueless Americans and French). And the Brits walking down the left side of the walkway do so resolutely, you cannot scare them off-line in a game of sidewalk chicken (they run smack into you deliberately, then smirkingly mutter, “sorry”). And the Brits walking down the right side of the walkway do so resolutely as well (“sorry”). It all makes not a bit of sense.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, here we are at Paddington Station, wheelie bags in tow.

Mom is wheeling mine to safety, as I stand, back to traffic, taking the picture—not that I would know which direction to look for buses trying to run me over anyway.

After a one-hour train ride (“smooth as the sail of a gull”), we ended up in cold and windy Oxford. Very windy, like 30-miles-per-hour windy (that’s miles per hour, not no puny little kilometers per hour). Anyway, it was way too windy to enjoy any kind of college visiting, so we just scurried a little around town, ducking into whatever sheltered locations we could find.

I spotted a painting in a gallery from across the street, which I thought was Mackenzie Thorpe, so we decided to go check it out (that is, get out of the cold and the wind). It actually turned out to be an artist named Doug Hyde, whose work is insanely virtually identical to Mackenzie Thorpe (deviating only by the slightest parallel universe). The gallery owner, who I chatted it up with, told me that they stopped carrying Mackenzie when he started going really dark in about 2006, and assured me that Doug Hyde was now definitely the most popular artist in Britain. Personally, I like Mackenzie’s dark stuff (some of that big-heart stuff I could do without). Upon leaving the gallery, I was shocked to see these Doug Hydes in the window:

For those who don’t know, these are quantum clones of Thorpe sculptures (forgive my terrible pseudo-physics qualifiers, clearly I know they are gibberish). The art world is nuts.

We also visited the Covered Market, where there are a number of junky knickknack shops, some decent-looking small cafes, and a few amazing specialty food stores, this being one of them (and by the way, it was Thanksgiving—not that they give a hoot about it over here):

We then headed to Cornmarket Street, which has a promising-sounding name and is wide and pedestrian-only (which means welcome relief from the throngs of Oxford double-decker buses, and hence the throngs of chain-smoking bus line employees in high-viz yellow and orange), but unfortunately the street has nothing to boast for its seeming advantages. Instead, it is the home of Starbuck’s, McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, and The Gap. No kidding.

This was the one-and-only time we walked down this terrible block of Cornmarket Street (between High and Broad Streets), which, by the way, also hosts Oxford’s oldest building, Saxon Tower (who must be pretty pissed about its crappy new neighbors).

Since we had only a light breakfast in London before getting on the train, Mom was hungry for a fairly early lunch, and we stopped in at The White Horse for some authentic pub food.

This is one of the oldest pubs in Oxford (licensed in 1591), and is actually tucked between the two entrances of a bookstore (Blackwell’s). It is awesomely small and cramped on the inside. Mom and I sat at the table under “The White Horse” photograph. Whoever that is on the white horse, indulging in the great adulation of the masses (either that, or fending them off with a broken sword), we have no idea.

That’s “game pie”, with duck, pheasant, quail, and venison, in front of my spot. Mom, not being as game (so to speak), opted for the carrot and coriander soup. Incidentally, we have also found out that she is not so game for black pudding or mince pie in England either. The matriarch of the tavern wouldn’t let us leave without trying the apple crumble, drowned with piping hot custard, for desert. It was actually quite good, and we stumbled out of there, battled the wind back to the hotel, and passed out for a few hours. After that, we lounged in the hotel lounge, had dinner, then back to sleep. The rain came down and the wind was blowing up a storm.

That was not actually the nice day in Oxford promised by the title of this post.

The next morning, here was the view out of our hotel window:

This was the nice day. Clear and crisp. No rain, no wind, but tons of chill, just to make it interesting (39 degrees when we stepped out of the hotel).

We had breakfast at the Queen’s Lane Coffee House, which boasts of being “the longest established coffee house in Europe (since 1654)”.

This is not to be confused with the Grand Café, directly across the street, which claims to be “the first coffee house in England (in the year 1650)”.

The coffee house turf wars must be nasty. I wonder how many times front windows have been shot out of both establishments.

Anyway, it turned out to be a really beautiful day. We were bundled up (Mom in Smartwool, a down jacket, outerwear, and gloves), so actually the cold did not factor in much. It was sunny and nice out, we almost forgot we were in England. That is, until we saw this:

Yes, folks, that’s the outside of the Great Hall at Christ Church College, rising majestically above the south wall of the college and the lovely English garden in front of it. The Great Hall has now become the top tourist attraction in Oxford because it served as the model for the Great Hall at Hogwarts in the Harry Potter movies. I definitely had mixed feeling about going to visit, since I would rather be motivated by its role in the daily life of a venerated, 466 year-old institution of learning, than its role in a few dozen scenes of a 20-year old 7.7 billion-dollar grossing film series (and note that the hall wasn’t actually used for the filming, but only as the inspiration for some soundstage at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden). But, actually my ambivalence turned to enthusiasm upon getting close, it was clear that this was an epic thing to see, Harry or no Harry.

Here is a shot looking up at the outside of the foot of the hall (you can match up the turrets with those from the previous photo):

And here is the top of the stairway leading up the entrance of the hall:

Apparently, this (or the steps leading up the landing that I am shooting from) is where Professor McGonagall first welcomed the new students to Hogwarts in the first movie, but regardless, the architecture is stunning.

For those of you who went to MIT, I ask you to compare this with Lobdell, in the old Student Center (opposite 77 Mass Ave.). Close? I think not. Or if you have any doubts whatsoever, try this on for size:

Note that this can’t be where they actually filmed Harry Potter, since there are only three long tables. This could only be Hogwarts in an alternate universe (perhaps the one where Mackenzie Thorpe didn’t go dark, and Doug Hyde worked for the London bus line). Also note the lack of candles floating in mid-air and absence of magic indoor snow. The scaffolding for the non-self-decorating tree is also a dead giveaway.

Behind the high table hangs an imposing standing portrait of King Henry VIII, flanked by smaller (though equally famous) portraits of Queen Elizabeth I and Cardinal Wolsey (you can read about their roles in the founding of Christ Church on Wikipedia).

The proximity of Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey is perhaps ironic given the complex and treacherous relationship between the two.

Here is the awesome chapel at Christ Church College, which is replete with memorial plaques (and perhaps inlaid coffins, as well), reminiscent of, but not close in scale to, Westminster Abbey:

To the left side of the alter is a stained glass window dedicated to Saint Cecilia:

In addition to being a lover of music (St. Cecilia being the patron saint of musicians, that’s her accompanied by angels playing a lyre and a viol of some kind—I believe Cecilia herself has a small pipe organ, though I can’t see how it could possibly work, perhaps it’s a quantum organ), some of you may know why I also included this picture.

Three more very nice views of Christ Church College. First, the sundial (one of many within the Oxford colleges) on the side of the Kilcannon building:

Second, the façade of the Meadow Building, through which visitors enter (notice the awesome tree/vine-thing climbing the wall on the left-hand side):

And third, the view of Tom Tower, designed by Christopher Wren (look him up, if you don’t know who he is):

That was our look back at the college as we departed.

We had some more traditional British comfort food for lunch today (what do you know? actually blogging about events on the same day), to combat the cold (though not the rain and wind, which were doubtless visiting some other part of the UK). Shepherd’s pie for me, and soup again for Mom.

I too was disappointed by the tea bag (Twining’s, it was). Here was the hygiene rating posted on the outside of the small shop where we ate:

I, myself, was hoping it would go to eleven (don’t you think visitors deserve a little better than “very good”?).

The other college that I wanted to go visit was New College (founded in 1379—there is a warped sense of time in both Oxford, and England as a whole, that we upstart Americans have a hard time grasping). It just turns out that this and Christ Church are the two colleges whose choirs I have the most CDs of (no, I’m not obsessed with music, or anything). On the way, we passed by the Bodleian Library (which I know nothing about, since they don’t have a college choir); Mom went in to see what the fine was for overdue books.

Here’s Mom doing her Abbey Road impression in front of the Bridge of Sighs at the entrance to New College Lane:

We went down this street for about 15 minutes without finding an entrance to New College, before realizing that it had long since turned into Queen’s Lane (just after the foot-and-a-half wide alleyway leading to the renowned Turf Tavern), and we were now trying to get into Queen’s College. We had to backtrack and go around another way. The entrance is actually on Holywell Street.

Finally inside, here is Mom standing in the New College Gardens (again, lovely English garden, but what else would you expect?):

Take notice of the walls of the garden (which actually turn out to be the old city walls), see how new they are (in keeping with the name of the college)…NOT!!!

Here is the Great Hall at New College:

Perhaps not as great as the one at Christ Church, but at least this can seat four houses of wizards without the risk of cooties.

We were not allowed to take pictures in the chapel of New College, so of course I didn’t.

And here’s a close-up that I also didn’t take:

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped in to visit All Souls College, which has only graduate students. The design of the chapel wall behind the altar is similar to New College, though smaller, and with a different arched arrangement of the figures.

Outside the chapel, shooting from the side of the main quad, you can see the Radcliffe Camera looming over the main gate.

It is very typical in the central colleges of Oxford to see parts of other colleges, or the university buildings, in view, especially the larger, more ornate structures. The colleges now closely abut one another, as the institutions have taken shape and filled the available real estate over 900+ years of development. It is truly an amazing place.

Here is one last view of the university, taken as we returned to the hotel; this is the Examinations Schools building.

On the far left-hand side of the picture, you can see a white building with “Eastgate Hotel” written on it. That’s where we started and ended our very nice day in Oxford.

This is totally not cool, but I am jumping ahead to London temporarily, will come back to the stops in Australia, Indonesia, India, and Jordan shortly (or sometime thereafter). This is mostly to reassure those of you who have inquired about our well-being (okay, the one of you) that we have made it here in one piece (or make that, two pieces, depending how you count).

I’ll leave the end of the organized trip for later, to be recounted in sequence (no spoilers here), so I’ll pick things up here from after checking in to our new hotel, the Lancaster London, near Lancaster Gate (meaning, gate into Hyde Park). On recommendation from several of the folks on the tour, we decided to get tickets for one of the double-decker tour buses to see the famous sites of central London (makes a round in two to two-and-a-half hours, stupposedly [sic]), then to use the 48-hour ticket as a hop on/hop off pass to get around to the sites we want to actually visit. Big mistake. Or, at least a 50£ ($85) mistake, which I guess in London may not be that bad, a stick of gum isn’t too much less than that. Anyway, after noticing that the Original Tour T2 (red) line bus started deviating from the planned route, I asked the driver, “What the crikey???”, and he informed me that there was a fatal accident in the West End, after which they close the street for the investigation, and the bumper-to-bumper maze-crawling that is normal traffic in central London actually just comes to a halt. Here is our front-row seat view it:

Being stopped in traffic, I was able to snap this beautifully framed, artistic view (some would just say, obstructed view) of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square. Brings memories rushing back of The Giant Alexander (continuing the theme of memorable/haunting childhood books).

We were actually on our way to St. Paul’s Cathedral, which those of you who have been to my house know I have a painting of hanging over my living room mantle (the pride of my meager collection). I also have 25+ recordings of St. Paul’s Cathedral Choir, including the full set of 150 Psalms set to Anglican chant (which I listen to soothe me through troubled times—this is true). I have always wanted to visit. So we did. And it is spectacular.

We didn’t actually do a full visit of the cathedral and climb the dome as most do (of course, I didn’t climb the Citgo sign in 4 years of living a block-and-a-half from it in Boston either), but really only because we arrived when visiting hours were ending (having traveled at an average speed of a snail on crutches from Kensington Gate). We did however stay for the Evensong service, which is open to the public. We actually got to sit in the quire (not “choir”), which was a nice experience. I think the sound in the nave, under the dome, is probably bigger and more reverberant, but the quire was closer to both the choir and the lector, and more intimate. The choral director, by the way, is now Andrew Carwood, of Cardinall’s Musick fame, which is very interesting since he is not an organist (the first ever?). We’ll give him a pass, however, since I believe he knows something of liturgical choral music. The choir performed very nicely, except for a little shakiness in a couple of the solo trebles during the prayers (“collects”). It actually turns out that it was the feast day of St. Edmund, so the service included a hymn and a few other extensions (I think). In the Wikipedia article on Edmund the Martyr, it says “Almost nothing is known of Edmund”—the article then goes on for another 3,600 words. Go figure. Anyway, it was a really nice experience, at least for me. Mom was not so moved. She’s not so happy in cold and rain. Welcome to London.

The next day (which would be today), we headed out in the morning for Westminster Abbey. We had wanted to walk across Hyde Park to Knightsbridge to see Herrod’s, but guess what? It was cold and rainy. So we decided to switch to plan B and “Tube” it. We switched trains at the beautiful old Notting Hill Gate station (no facetiousness there, it really is old and beautiful).

We got out at the Westminster station, right by the Westminster Bridge, the House of Parliament, and Big Ben. How happy does Mom look about being there in the cold and the rain?

Of course, you can’t actually see Big Ben, since it is the bell in the tower, but we did hear it chime 10:15 (either Ben, or one of his presumably smaller siblings). I just did a quick Wikipedia look-up (aka. “research”) on Big Ben, and found out that the tower popularly (though incorrectly) known as “Big Ben”, and formerly called the “Clock Tower”, is now named “Elizabeth Tower”. Great monarch that she may be, this moniker doesn’t quite have a ring to it (so to speak), sounds more like the wife of a Mr. Tower (whoever he may be). May be as hard to get used to for Londoners (and the world) as “Willis Tower” is for Chicagoans.

Just a block away from Big Ben (the bell, not the tower) is Westminster Abbey. The most familiar façade of Westminster Abbey is the “Great West Door”, flanked by two square towers (picture later). But instead, we entered through this measly side door:

Okay, maybe not so measly. This is actually known as the “Great North Door”, which is actually the greater door (in my humble opinion), with its tremendous rosette and visible buttresses. You are not allowed to take pictures inside the church proper, so I didn’t, but it is absolutely teeming with history and architecture and reverence and—to be honest—clutter. But it is good clutter, not planned out and managed, but spontaneous and haphazard (again, in a good way) and evolutionary and amazingly human. As transcendent as cathedrals are supposed to be, the plaques and memorials and statues and sculptures are about people who have given to England and to humanity. Poets’ Corner was very cool (the most surprising thing to me was the bust of Longfellow, which carried an inscription from “the English admirers of an American poet”), and the number and scope of noble and royal and historical figures celebrated and exalted is nearly inconceivable, but the most moving section to me was Musicians’ Aisle, close to the very start of the tour. I won’t/can’t go into all of the names now, but they range from Orlando Gibbon to John Blow to Edward Elgar to Benjamin Britten, and even some perhaps lesser-acknowledged figures such as Adrian Boult, but the plaque commemorating Henry Purcell is just stunning, less so for its magnificence (it is large, but low-key for Westminster Abbey) than for its importance and profundity.

The Abbey also houses Britain’s oldest door (illuminated by Britain’s oldest stainless steel halogen torchiere).

Here is a view of the cloister garth, showing the incredible incorporated design of stained glass windows, rosettes, and stone buttresses.

Here’s finally the familiar west façade, which is actually the exit of the tour, with the mostly cheesy gift shop on the right hand side.

Yeah, this is fairly great, but I’ll take the Great North Door any day of the week, and twice on Sunday.

On our way to Oxford Street to see the central shopping district, we re-entered the Westminster Underground station. This is the view looking back up from the Jubilee line level:

You can see why they call it the “Tube” (haha).

After a cold and rainy walk up and down Oxford Street and Regent Street, we ended up at the little tea shop on the LG level of Selfridge’s. There we had tea (no great surprise).

This is what was hanging over our heads:

Mom did not love the bells. Especially, since, in keeping with the theme of the décor, there were off-rhythm and random-pitch chimes emanating from some electronic sound system throughout our meal there (these actually being non-functional bells themselves).

After browsing Selfridge’s a little (nice store, I’d say on par with New York’s finest), we tubed it back down south (south of Hyde Park, that is) to Herrod’s, which is the mecca (get the double-entendre?) for high-end department store shopping. Never seen anything like it. Not even close. There is way too much to describe (even with us just the small portion of the store that we saw), it would probably take as much time to really see it as like the Metropolitan Museum in New York (and I think the Met is a wonderland). They have a riding department—as in equestrian, with riding clothes, boots, gear (like saddles, quirts, and stuff), etc. In a department store. That’s bonkers.

Here are two other crazy venues within the store that we saw: first, an absolutely insane food section, with about 15 different places to eat, including a caviar bar, seafood bar, steak place, sushi bar, dim sum bar, etc., and at least four huge rooms of every kind of high-end foodstuff you can imagine, like spices, jams/jellies, dried/packaged food, etc.:

The cheese counter, charcuterie, and boulangerie:

Beautiful prepared foods:

Chocolates, candies, and the such:

And that’s not to mention the fresh vegetable and fruit markets (separate displays, sorry no pictures), all within the department store. Bonkers, I say.

The second crazy (as in, whackers) thing was the “Egyptian Escalator”:

WTF?

Here is a final view from outside the store, on the Brompton Road side (I believe), showing the lights illuminating the façade and framing the famous display windows:

Very tiring day, with much walking and much tubing (using awesome one-day travelcards, at one-quarter the cost and a zillion times the efficiency as the double-decker tour bus). One last note, I thought the London Underground was on par with (or actually, somewhat better than) New York subways (which I also like); Mom was not impressed. Some stations needed a fair amount of walking and stairs to make the connection between lines, and there are mile-long escalator rides everywhere, but the trains were clean and the displays showing upcoming trains and routes were very informative and accurate. Mom didn’t like the fact that there were varying step-ups (steps-up?) to board the cars at a number of the platforms. It’s true that handicapped folks would seem to be mostly SOL in the Tube, but I fancied rubbing/trading elbows with the commuters.

Anyway, we’re off to Oxford tomorrow, though there’s no telling when I may actually blog next, and what quantum time-jump I may make when doing so.