A bus ride to Oxford

Clay narrated the last blog, and it was mighty informative and packed full of historical information.  This quicker post (because ONE of us needs to study tonight) is intended to show you a few photos of Oxford.  My daughter Rachel is studying at Oxford for 2 quarters this fall - on a Stanford Overseas Study Program.  Clay and I took a bus from London to visit her for a day.  She said we could come visit for a few hours on Sunday because the library was closed and it was too early for her to go to the pub.  Here we are in front of the Stanford House - where 30 students live.  They are assigned to one of the 38 "colleges" within Oxford University, and they have some of their courses from Oxford "tutors" and some from Stanford professors.

She walked us through some of the beautiful colleges that have been present here since the the 1200's - all of them have walled courtyards as historically there were real "town vs. gown" battles.

This tree below was in the "deer park" at Magdelen College (where CS Lewis taught) and a little sign said it was planted in 1800.

Here is a pic of Brasenose College which is where Rachel is assigned.  Her tutor this quarter is working with her on immigration and they are reading British immigration novels.  She writes 15-20 pages a week on the various works and also reads many secondary sources in addition.  She is loving her time there.

Finally - here is a picture outside of the Bodleian Library.  It is an amazing place established in 1602 and second in size only to the British Library.  No books may leave the library, so the students have to specially request books and then look at them only inside the library.  They used to have smaller collections in different rooms, and Clay and I had Rachel take a pic of us in front of our appropriate titled doorframe.  Quite a day!  Our next post will focus on our schoolwork so that you don't think we are exclusively sightseers.