We got to be tourists again on Friday, when John, our wonderful blue badge guide (the official England guides, sort of like cabbies--fountains of random knowledge) gave us a tour of St. Paul's Cathedral. Some of the random knowledge that I picked up--a cathedral houses the seat of a bishop, whereas a church does not. But St. Paul's was beautiful. There's been a church on that spot for hundreds of years, but it's kind of like the Swamp Castle in Monty Python and the Holy Grail--one was built, then it burned down. A second one was built, and that burned down. A third church was built, and that got pretty delapidated because it took up so much space that people started using it as a thoroughfare to get from one side of the city to the other, so there would literally be horses trotting on through. Finally someone with sense commissioned Sir Christopher Wren to renovate this church. He said something along the lines of, "Well, this building sucks, let's build an entirely new cathedral!" to which the The Powers That Control Finances replied, "Um... no." But then, presto! The Great Fire happened in 1666 and burned that church down, too, so Wren got to start all over. It took him some thirty years to build, but it's gorgeous. One of the only surviving parts of the pre-1666 church is John Donne's statue. Donne was a famous poet in the seventeenth century, and also served as dean of St. Paul's. He coined the phrase, "No man is an island," to which John our tour guide responded, "Except the Isle of Man."
We didn't get to take photographs inside of the cathedral, but a group of us climbed to the top of the dome. Until the building boom following the Blitz, this was the highest point in London at 365 feet, and it took over 500 steps to get there. The first area that you come to is inside of the church still, and it's called the Whispering Dome. You can stand on one side, whisper something into the wall, and a person standing on the opposite side will hear it. Up another, much narrower staircase was the Stone Gallery, which is on the bottom of the outside dome. This offered some beautiful views of London, but the view from the very, very top was even better. Climbing up the last third felt a little like a scene from The Hunchback of Notre Dame because there are spiral staircases going everywhere, and it was a little scary.
The view was amazing, though, even though London is definitely not the prettiest city in the world. Ah well.After our morning workout, we headed to a lunchtime concert at St. Martin in the Field. After explaining to Stephenie that this was actually a church, not a field, I enjoyed a very nice program by a woodwind trio from the Guildhall Music School. After this concert, a small group of us ate the best lunch ever at a small Italian cafe. The food was amazing, and they were running a promotion where we got free desserts. Awesome? Yes.
Saturday was another day out of London! I've really enjoyed being in London, but I'm very excited to move to Norwich where life will be a little more relaxed and less crowded. Walking in London is incredibly frustrating because there are no established traffic patterns. You'd think, "Okay, they drive on the left side of the road, so people probably walk on the left side, too." Well, that only applies to about one-third of the population. Another third walks on the right side, and the last third just walks down the middle of the sidewalk and runs over anyone who is in their way. And no one will look at you, either. They just stare straight ahead and book it to wherever they're going. Very odd.
So on Saturday we escaped (kind of) to Oxford in the morning. John came with us and gave us a very nice tour of the college area. The University of Oxford is made up of 39 colleges who are all under the authority of the university. The school has existed since the twelfth century when English scholars returned from France and received a charter from Henry I to establish a college. Now, Oxford is famous in my book mainly for two things: 1) the Great Hall of Hogwarts is almost an exact replica of the dining hall in Christchurch College, and 2) J.R.R. Tolkien taught there. He and several other literary figures, including C.S. Lewis, were part of a literary society, called The Inklings, that met at the Eagle and Child pub. I did not get to go to this pub and make the proper homage, but I did get to see Merton College, where Tolkien taught Anglo-Saxon history.
It's not much to look at, but this is where he was grading papers one afternoon and wrote on the back of one, "In a hole in the ground, there lived a Hobbit." So no Harry Potter Great Hall and not much Tolkien, but Oxford was a beautiful example of a medieval town.After our tour, we piled back on the bus to head to Stratford-upon-Avon, which truly is a tourist trap. But being Shakespeare's birth place and all, it's pretty important.
Shakespeare's childhood home is a bit of a joke, and I felt as though I was on Splash Mountain instead of in the home of the man who was arguably the greatest writer in the English language. We were herded into several rooms with scenes painted on the walls and ridiculous animated movies playing, and artifacts would light up at random times. Very, very touristy. But we got some fun pictures. 
We also visited Shakespeare's grave in Holy Trinity Church, so I felt that the appropriate pilgrimmage was made (his tomb is not nearly as attractive as Leonardo DiCaprio's Romeo though, so you get the picture of Leo instead. Check facebook for more photos!)Sunday was a completely free day, which was wonderful. It's been difficult finding time to catch up with myself, especially since I'm always around people. Part of this is the nature of the program, and part of it is living in a city. I've realized that I'm fairly Wordsworthian in that I need trees and rolling hills, and quiet. But I got some decent work done in the mrning, and then my group visited all of the sights for our walking tour of 1960s rock music in London. We got to see Abbey Road studios and the famous zebra crossing. This is the only place in London where motorists actually pay attention to pedestrians because it's a zebra crossing and because there are always at least four tourists trying to cross in a line, with a fifth member taking a picture from the middle of the road. And yes, we're going to try to recreate it next time we go back! But it's cool because the walls outside of Abbey Road Studios are painted white, and people have written messages all over them.
I could see earlier messages through the paint--I wonder how many layers of paint are on those walls? We got a bit turned around trying to find Wardour Street, so we decided to ask a passing police officer (or bobby, I guess I should say). David misheard me when I said, "Wardour," and so he actually asked the poor guy how to get to Mordor. Quite understandably, the policeman looked at us like we were completely barking.That night, all of us headed to the South Bank to visit the Thames Festival, which was a lot of fun. There were beautiful lights up everywhere, and a lot of craft and food vendors, plus live music. It was a beautiful night and a really great atmosphere. We ended the night on Millennium Bridge watching fireworks over the Thames. It was fantastic.
Monday was back to work, and we spent the morning at the East London Mosque, which was very, very interesting. We had all read about Islam prior to our visit, but our guide wasn't sure what to do with us. He asked, "So what do you know about Islam?" This is like asking, "Well, what do you know about books?" Where would you like me to start? What would you like me to say? So no one said anything for a second, and I think that he stereotyped us as ignorant Americans. He did take us through the basic beliefs of Muslims and opened the floor to questions, but he seemed very defensive. He was very quick to dismiss fundamentalists and Muslims who mistreat women or participate in violence as false Muslims. He did draw some interesting points about the differences between the Islamic faith and various cultures that Americans view as extremist or backward. Islam is actually a very tolerant faith. Because our guide immediately stereotyped us, however, I think that we missed a chance at a good dialogue. He mentioned the need for cross-cultural understanding on the parts of both Muslims and non-Muslims, but he didn't seem to want to engage us on that level. Even more interesting, when we were out in the lobby we were watching some children playing in a gymnasium area nextdoor. A woman who was obviously from a more conservative Muslim tradition saw us and immediately pulled down the blinds in the windows and locked the doors to the gym. Very interesting. Stupid pastor in Florida.
Lunch was in Old Spitalfields Market, and I tried Indian food for the first time since I've been in London. It was delicious! We had class discussion in the afternoon, and then the alumni event that I alluded to earlier was that night. We got all dolled up and went to Barclay's to hobnob with President Durden, the chairs of the Board of Trustees, and other alumni. It was probably the highest society that I've ever been in.
President Durden asked a really interesting question, as only he would: have we seen anything since being in London that has changed our ideas of what we want in life? This definitely got me thinking. My political views have certainly become more formed through a combination of listening to NPR all summer and through seeing the British government system and how it works, but I will not bore you with that here. Another aspect of London that I have fallen in love with is the incredibly easy access to the arts here. Londoners seem to have a keen interest in good art and in making that accessible to people. Most of the museums are free (maps are not, however, which is where they get you!) because they're subsidized by the government, and some of the most famous pieces in the world are here. And I've gone to the theatre so many times, for only a small fraction of the price that I would have paid in the States. There's also a global awareness here, both in the arts and in other aspects of life, that I really love, especially since it's mixed with so much history. I don't know if I could live in London, but I do love those aspects of the city.
Today we visited a synagogue in the morning and learned about the history of the Jews in Britain. I've really enjoyed learning about so many different religions during our time here. This afternoon we saw a play called The 39 Steps, which is a spoof of the text that inspired the Hitchcock movie of the same title. Again, loving the theatre--it was fantastic. It was so clever and spoofed not only Hitchcock but theatre and Englishness in general. It was so well done, and the performers' timing was impeccable. Apparently it's playing off Broadway now in New York, but I don't think that it will do very well in the States. It's just so wonderfully British, and I think that a lot of the humour would be lost on the general public elsewhere. I realized half way through the show that I actually watched a Masterpiece Theatre adaptation of the text last year, so I enjoyed it even more. It was like Spamalot, except it made more sense.
Well, that got rather long-winded there, but now you're all caught up! And this week will be a lot of research, so not as much to report back. I miss you all, and I think about you a lot, especially when I have to get up and I remember that I could be sleeping for five more hours in the States. One more week in London!
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