Day Three Exploration Day

Today was our day to explore the city of Oxford. Our first stop was two blocks away at ACU's Oxford campus. That was such fun to meet some of the students and visit with the one of the administrators, Janine. We hope to worship with them on Sunday evening. They don't have a Sunday morning service as everyone does something different.

Our next stop was our first encounter with English food. I'm still wondering how two countries can speak the same language and it sound so different (I couldn't understand one word the waitress said) and the same for the food. For lunch, I had a jacket and beans. Translation--a baked potato covered in baked beans (straight from a can, no seasoning). 2 papa had a veggi-burger (pretty good) and chips, translation-french fries. A man from northern England ate with us--I'm assuming this is common practice as he asked and I said okay. He was very interesting and explained that he had too many disabilities to work, but had written a book on China. We asked him to take our picture, so you'll see us pictured at a very popular pub. Don't get too excited-pubs are restaurants, too. Other things on the menu were bangers, which is just sausage that has to be pierced before you cook it or it will explode, and mash, which is mashed potatoes.

As you can see from the photo, the sun shone today so it was a beautiful day to explore the city. It was between 55-60 degrees, so a coat was needed, but still nice. After lunch, we went on an Oxford University walking tour. Very quickly, so I won't lose you, Oxford U. is made up of 39 colleges. Most of the colleges are buildings built in a quadrangle surrounding a garden of grass, similar to a golf course, and beautiful flowers. The colleges have an average of 500 students who are, as the tour guide said, very clever and carefully selected. The college we are with, Regents, has 300 students. When first developed, each college's students came from a single location or region of Great Britain. For example, the people from Wales had their own college, etc. Now, the colleges are very diverse. Women were admitted somewhere in the 1800's, but could not get a degree until 1920's. Now the schools are 50/50, men and women. How's that for progress? One more interesting fact, if you're still interested, is the university owns 95% of the land in Oxford, giving it enormous income from rent, etc. The street that I am walking down in the picture above was originally the moat that surrounded and protected the city of Oxford. Now it is a main shopping area. I'm not mourning my left-behind boots so much now---I found the cutest pair ever today!!

We made a quick trip back to our flat to drop off our purchases and off to dinner at an Italian restaurant--ahhh...food we could recognize and easily a place we could go daily. Weird that we can recognize Italian food and not English. When did we get so far from our roots??? On our way home we had to stop, once again, for toilet paper as 2 papa accidentally got paper towels last night.

Now, I think we're all set up. The grand kids handmade cards are displayed in the window, we have a bowl of fruit on the counter, and 2 papa is flipping through the TV channels. Yes, it's almost like home, except there's no chance of someone walking in the door. It still seems like we're here for the weekend and will head home on Monday, but we're getting used to it.

As we toured the old buildings today, so rich in history and culture, I couldn't help but think how sad it is that we once fought this country to gain our freedom. But, what a blessing it is that today we all live together in peace. I love Ephesians 2:16 that says, "Christ brought us together through his death on the cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility. Christ came and preached peace to you outsiders and peace to us insiders. He treated us as equals, and so made us equals. Through him we both share the same Spirit and have equal access to the Father."

The young man who ate lunch with us today heard a slight reference we gave to our faith and jumped on the chance to ask if we were Christians. He was so thrilled that we were. The cross brought us together in peace. Pretty cool, huh?

Hugs, 2 mama