I had an awesome weekend with Andrew visiting. He got in on Thursday at lunchtime. His guest room here at Lincoln College appeared to have been built for a hobbit. That first afternoon, the two of us climbed the tower in the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin. We took pictures, and I pointed out where some important things are in the city. Then, a group of us went punting. Andrew and I were in a boat with Cristina and Ali. It was slow-going for a while (we ...

It's hard to believe how much I actually did in the span of about 30 hours, from the time class ended Friday afternoon to dinner time Saturday night. It was a crazy, exciting (at times, stressful) couple of days. On Friday, Cristina and I went to catch the 4:01 train to London, which was delayed to 4:30. We got into London Paddington station at 5:30, figured out which Underground line we needed to take, and I walked out into the city of London for the first time...

Nothing big happened this week. People have pretty much been getting back into the routine of having class everyday. We have 3 courses: Art in the Middle Ages, Social and Political Life in the Late Middle Ages, and Arthurian Literature. So far, I like Art History the best. We look at slides and talk about what they mean. It's quite fun. I haven't really gotten a chance to explore Oxford yet. I've only left Lincoln College a few times, and that was to do things I...

This past weekend was absolutely wonderful. On Friday, we took our last field trip to the beautiful cathedral of York Minster. As opposed to Durham Cathedral, you walk into York Minster and are flooded with light. The stone is white, and there are windows everywhere. I think there are something like 100 stained-glass windows in there. It was cool. Friday evening when we got back to Durham, everyone got dressed up and went to a dance club where they all drank misc...

The majority of our time this week has been spent on a bus, traveling from one end of England to the other. We have visited several churches and castles that are in some way significant to the period of English history between the Roman Empire and the Norman invasion in 1066. So far, my favorite cathedral has been the one at Durham, which required nothing more than a 5 minute walk, as opposed to the churches at Lindisfarne or Edlingham, which took about 2 hours t...