Day Four - Oxford

Day four in England was Saturday and was all about Oxford, which thankfully did not include getting on a bus! It was all foot power this day.

After getting up a little later for breakfast, we met the Fannins for a short walk around town. We went down and were able to get down into the Christ Church gardens and walk along their huge winding meadow path down to the River Cherwell.

After our walk along the river, the Fannins left us to explore on our own. The Thomases had some friends meeting them that morning, so the remaining six of us decided to walk around together. We went to Alice's shop, toured the marketplace, visited the Eccentricity exhibit at Oxford's Museum of the History of Science (which Brett declared was an excuse to haul up junk out of their basement and put it on display!).

For lunch we went to the very famous Eagle and Child Pub, nicknamed the Bird and the Baby. It was here that two Oxford fellows, CS Lewis (Chronicles of Narnia) and JRR Tolkien (Lord of the Rings), met every Tuesday morning for years with other friends and colleagues from Oxford to discuss their writing. They called themselves "The Inklings."We had fish and chips for lunch and sat in the back room where the literary group usually gathered.

We finished up our free time by touring the very cool Natural History Museum in Oxford.

We met back up with the Fannins and Dr. Ralph Waller at Harris Manchester College. Dr. Waller is a British Methodist pastor, the president of Harris Manchester and the pro-vice chancellor of Oxford University. He has written a few books, including one on John Wesley which we read in preparation for our trip. Dr. Waller gave us a walking tour around Oxford. We saw the music hall, the library, the divinity school, University Church (where we climbed the tower!), and the home of Edmund Haley who discovered Haley's comet.

We also toured Lincoln College where John Wesley was a fellow.

Our tour ended up back at Harris Manchester where Dr. Waller read to us a chapter from the book he is currently working on about Wesley and money. When he was done we hurried back to Christ Church so that we could finally get inside by attending the 6:00pm evensong service. As we cut through their quad, you could see preparations being made for a formal night celebration of that college to mark the end of the term.

For dinner in the dining hall this night we were served salmon, mashed potatoes, carrots, cabbage and chocolate mousse cake. When the steward found out that Daryl and Ed did not like salmon, they quickly made up sausage for them instead for dinner. Our whole dining experience that week at Oxford was the epitome of radical hospitality. After dinner Jim led the devotional for the entire group and then the four couples went back out to the pub to relax and talk.