Lou Ann's EuroBlog

"I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move."
- Robert Louis Stevenson

Not sure if that character ("ø") in the title is going to happen on your English computer screens, but here's to trying. That little "o" with the line through it is in the title of almost everything here in Denmark ... ah, but I get ahead of myself. Where was I? Oh, yes ... the Cotswolds... :-)

Day Nineteen (7/14/05) - London, the Cotswolds, and Oxford
Now, I had such a good experience with that walking tour the other day, and just knew that I wanted to do more walking tours with that company. And ... it had been my intention all along to spend a day in Oxford. Now, the city of London offers busses and trains to Oxford so that you can spend a day if you'd like. The walking tour company offered a full day tour of the Cotswolds and Oxford for only a few pounds more than the round trip city bus would have cost (and that without the tour guide!) So, I decided to spend the day with the Original London Walking Tour folks. It's really a great set up that they have because you don't have to make a reservation or anything. Apparantly they have enough business on a regular basis, that they know they'll make money if they just publish the meeting time and place.

So ... I met the tour guide at the Paddington Rail Station at 10:00 a.m. Interestingly, at the Paddington Station, they have a whole store with just Paddington Bear stuff. Maybe that's the place where he was created? (In the Paddington neighborhood?) Hmmm ... who would know things like that? (MOM??) Another interesting thing ... when you do one of the original London walking tours, the brochure tells you exactly where to stand to find the tour guide ... but you'd think that in London, what with so many people and all that it would still be difficult to find the person. Well, the guide will stand in the exact place published and wave a brochure, and you walk around bewildered with an identical brochure and the group just kind of draws you in. It seems to always work!

The cost of the tour included a rail ticket to Oxford and a private coach bus from Oxford to the Cotswolds and back again. The Cotswolds are a small group of rural towns near Oxford. All of the buildings there are built of stone that lasts (very very old buildings) and have thatched roofs and are absolutely gorgeous. Even the ones that were originally built as servants' quarters are beautiful buildings today. Some of the homes that the tour guide pointed out were worth about £800K (keep in mind that one dollar is worth about £1.80)! Here is a website that I found about the Cotswolds. It's not their official website, but it has a good explanation.

Well ... from Paddington station to Oxford, on the train, I sat with a very interesting woman, only a few years older than I. She's from Atlanta, born and raised. She was in elementary school when they began to integrate the schools and was one of two white students sent to an all black school. She had some very interesting stories to tell about her experiences. She was in London with her husband and teenage daughter, who both thought that 10:00 was WAYYY too early to be up and at a train station for any kind of sight-seeing, so she was on her own. LOL!!

From the train we got on the bus and made a 20-minute trip from Oxford to our first of two Cotswold stops, Minster Lovell (that's the name of the town). When we got to Minster Lovell, it was about noon, and the tour guide asked that we observe the two minutes of silence that all of England was observing at that time (Carrie asked about that in a comment a few days ago). It was rather moving ... being in the London area and all. I can't imagine if I was actually in the city proper for that time of silence.

Besides the gorgeous old stone homes in Minster Lovell, there was a rather ancient site of a church and castle. I was glad that I took the tour because the tourguide had an interesting story about the family that lived in the castle. That's the kind of stuff that I wouldn't be able to discover for myself.

From Minster Lovell, we were back on the bus and headed for the town of Burford. Frankly, Burford was pretty, but mostly shops and restaurants. We only stayed about an hour, and that was about long enough for lunch. So ... enough about Burford.

We got back on the coach and headed back to Oxford. Oxford is a very unique university. We did a very long, but very interesting walking tour, and only saw the tip of the ice berg. Oxford is made up of 39 separate colleges, and you can only belong to one of them (if I understood the explanation correctly). There are a few events that the University does/holds as a whole, but other than that, you attend classes with other students in your college. But there also don't seem to be many classes, again, if I understood correctly, the students mostly work in small groups or one-on-one with "tutors" and do reading and research and write papers and then take big ole tests at the end of the terms. Apparantly there are certain mile-stone tests that you are only allowed to take once, and if you fail, you fail to graduate ... no second chances.

We also saw the place where the Rhodes scholars work, and talked a bit about them. The tour guide even pointed out the window to the room where Bill Clinton didn't inhale. ;-)

Regardless of the school aspects of Oxford, the architecture was wonderful. The day was gorgeous. And I had a wonderful time walking around and hearing the guide (Richard) tell stories from long ago in Oxford and about some famous (and some infamous) students who attended there. And ... of course, some coffee ice cream made it the perfect day! :-)

Now, what I haven't mentioned, is that there were several teachers in the group. It was amusing. There was a middle school science teacher from Florida. There was a middle school English teacher from Colorado. There was an elementary teacher from Toronto. There was a group of three women who are principals at schools in Southern California. Well ... we all easily found each other, and had quite a bit of "shop talk". It was actually fun (believe it or not) talking with teachers from other parts of the US (and Canada). We compared policies and procedures and opinions ... yeah, sounds boring, but it was actually good for making me contemplate what goes on at Arlington (in a very good way!!) Well ... on the train on the way back to London, I sat with one of the California principals and her husband. She just retired. She was telling me about teaching in California and some of the requirements that they have there (to be certified to teach in California, you have to have a certificate that says that you can teach students who are not proficient in English). She also told me about about some volunteer work that she and her husband have been doing with the Iditarod. They go to Alaska every year and work with packing the sleds and with a Iditarod teacher program and do some other things as well. She had some wonderful stories of Alaska ... memories of a trip long ago.... ;-) Anyway ... she tried to talk me into joining them next March in Palmer (where the race starts), and exchanged e-mail addresses with me so that we could talk more later. It was fun!

Anyway ... we got back to London well after 7:00 ... I went to the internet place I was using in London and typed for a while. On the way home from the internet place, I stopped for Indian food. That was one of the things that I was looking forward to doing in London. I mean, other than India itself, what better place to get Indian food, seeing as India was a colony of England and there is still a lot of Indian influence all over London ... it's very prevalent. Well, I had curry lamb (I love curry and I love lamb ... the perfect meal!!) Yum!!

Now, I said that I would comment a bit on some cultural things. I'll take time here for one. Let's talk about British talk. Now, I'm sure that you can imagine or at least recognize a British accent. (Although, I must admit that I have trouble distinguishing a British accent from an Australian accent...) I have to say that I actually had more trouble understanding the English spoken in England by the Brits than I did the English spoken, albeit broken English, in France by the French. Maybe it's because my ear was lazier in England or something. But I almost always had to ask people to repeat themselves. I began to get frustrated with myself, in fact.

There is another interesting linguistic thing that I actually noticed while reading the Harry Potter books. Often, a British person will use a question at the end of a statment, almost like a verification of what they've just said, don't they? (Like that.) They don't do it every single time, do they? But they do it sometimes, don't they? I've over done it here, haven't I? But that's how it sounds, doesn't it? I realized that it's rhetorical, and I had to stop myself from answering people outright when they did that. In fact, Colin's daughter Hazel did it a lot while we were having dinner. It was very interesting. For some reason, by the way, that conversation with Colin, his wife, and their daughter reminded me SO MUCH of a show that my mom watches called "As Time Goes By" ... a British sit-com in syndication, starring Judy Dench. The conversations with her husband and her two daughters sound so much like the conversations that we had at dinner that night, it was really fun!

Okay ... my krøners are running out here, so I'll have to finish London at a later date. :-) By the way ... I'm starting to be starved for a movie theater. E-mail me if you want to try to catch a movie with me sometime the week between 7/30 and 8/4 ... I've got quite a long list of movies that I want to see. I'm looking for movie buddies!! :-)

Until then, have a wonderful week!!