This past weekend we traveled to two of the most famous universities in the world, Cambridge University and Oxford University. We were fortunate enough to be taken to both places by students or former students, so we got a bit of an inside scoop. We have also been able to visit our good friends from Trinity, Jon and Sarah Hall, who are over visiting family in Croxley Green. We will talk about the ending of our time with St. George's and our reflections in a separate post. For this one, we'll just stick to the fun touristy stuff.
On Saturday, our friends from St. George's, Richard and Sophie Brooks, drove us up to Cambridge to show us around. They both went to university there, one to St. John's College and the other to Emmanuel College. One of the first things that we had to learn was the difference between the university system in the UK and the US. In the UK, universities like Oxford and Cambridge are made up of various colleges, there is no university proper. Each college has its own faculty and staff. Every student applies to an individual college, which is made up of its own dining hall, chapel, common rooms, and dormitories. These colleges are enclosed areas, with gates for entry and exit. They are really like their own neighborhoods. This serves as the social center for the students. At some of the universities, all classes are taught in the college, while at others, they are taught at different colleges. We had picked up bits and pieces of this in our time over here, and had it explained more fully during our visits to these universities.
When we got up to Cambridge, we were shown Richard and Sophie's respective colleges, and then met up with one of their friends, Stuart Browning. Stu is a student pastoral assistant at Holy Trinity Church in Cambridge, which has a thriving student ministry of around 375 students. We grabbed lunch and walked out to St. John's College to have a picnic lunch on the lawn (pictured here).
While with Stu, we asked him plenty of questions of the ministry at Holy Trinity, as well as talking about what it's like to be a Christian at Cambridge. We then walked over to Holy Trinity Church, and talked more there. Stu was very generous with his time and even gave us some materials and resources that the church has developed in their student work. It was a helpful meeting. One of the cool parts of it was just the fact that we could get inside of Holy Trinity Church, which is an historic church where Charles Simeon, one of the great figures in the Evangelical movement in the Church of England, was vicar for his whole career.
We then parted with Richard, Sophie, and Stuart, and struck out on our own in Cambridge. It is a beautiful town that is dominated by the towering centuries-old buildings of the different colleges. Around every corner is another college with magnificent architecture. We walked down to one end of the river Cam, which runs through the town, and rented a boat to partake in the tradition of punting down the river. It's like those boats you see in movies about Venice with the guy in the stripped shirt and beret singing in Italian and pushing the boat down the river with a pole. Brian acted as the driver, but did not sing in Italian (he was too stressed learning how to handle the boat and not crash into the other boats). It was a beautiful day, and the river was very busy, but we managed to spend an hour drifting our way along "the backs" of the colleges down the river.
We were told that punting down the river was the best way to see the colleges, and we found this to be true. Mandy took advantage of her relaxed position and snapped many pictures of the colleges which we passed.
After punting, we continued to walk through the town, popping into some of the other colleges and walking around. There is an immense amount of history there, with buildings that have been up since the 14th and 15th centuries. After a few more hours of walking around the relatively small town, we walked down to the train station and caught a train back to London.
Sunday, August 12th was our last Sunday with St. George's. We will say more about this in our next post, but it was an eventful day, spiritually enriching, but also emotionally draining as we had to say goodbye to the many good friends that we have made in our time here. Some did feel a call from the Lord to organize a mission trip to San Diego soon...we'll see how that turns out.
On Monday, we took a train up to Oxford. We arrived just before noon and met up with James Crocker, the son of a priest who is the rector of a church in Southern California. James is currently studying for a doctorate in theology at Oxford and graciously agreed to show us around the town. Oxford, like Cambridge is dominated by colleges, but is a bigger town, which makes things feel a little more spread out. It has the feel of a larger town as well. In Cambridge there were a lot more pedestrians than cars, but in Oxford there were more buses and cars around.
Thanks to the fact that we were with an insider, we were allowed into many of the colleges for free (normally they charge visitors). We saw Balliol, Oriel, and Christ Church colleges. They are set up similarly to Cambridge (Cambridge came after Oxford and copied their model). We also saw the Bodleian Library, which is the largest library in the world. We were allowed into one of the rooms which is the oldest built-for-purpose room in Oxford. It is also the room in which the dancing tutorial scene of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was filmed. Needless to say, we were both excited by this.
We then went up the tower of St. Mary's University Church. There was construction going on, which meant that we had to climb up some scary metal staircases, but that was nothing compared to the cramped spiral staircase to actually get up the tower. After getting up to the top we were treated to a marvelous view of the city. James pointed out all of the different colleges that we could see and told us a bit of the history of each. We could easily see from that vantage point why Oxford is called the City of Dreaming Spires.
When we left the church, James pointed us to a side door. C.S. Lewis attended St. Mary's when he was in Oxford, and when he would leave the church, the door which he exited looked like a wardrobe door. As you leave that door, in front of you is a door decorated with fawns, one of which is holding a flute-like instrument. There, as you look to your right, is a lamp post. The story is that this was the inspiration for the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and we believe it after seeing these things.
After this we grabbed lunch at the Turf Pub, which was originally built into the city moat and still retains part of the city wall which dates to the 1380s. Then, we went back out looking at colleges. James had to leave us to get some work done, but we continued to walk around. We saw the spot where Thomas Cranmer, Nicholas Ridley, and Hugh Latimer were burned at the stake, as well as the monument that was built for them some years later. Since all three of these men went to Cambridge, there is a joke that Cambridge produces martyrs and Oxford burns them. Yikes! We also walked briefly into The Eagle and Child, the pub where the Inklings met. The Inklings were a literary group of friends who would meet together regularly to discuss their stories. The group consisted of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Owen Barfield, and Charles Williams, among others.
To round off the day, we went to Christ Church Cathedral for choral evensong. It was a nice service, and on the way out we saw a marker in the floor commemorating the fact that both John and Charles Wesley, who were students at Christ Church College, were ordained in that cathedral. Also on the way out we spotted a staircase which was used in the Harry Potter movies, so we had to take a picture. We then walked back to the train station and headed back to London after a full day.
On Tuesday, we took the tube out to Croxley Station to meet with our friends Jon and Sarah Hall, whom we met in our time at Trinity School for Ministry. They and their children came over to England to visit John's family, and we arranged to meet up. It was really good to see them again. We went to Jon's parent's house and had a cup of tea, and then all took a nice walk through the green countryside. We ended up walking along a river in which Jon had played during his childhood, and now his two kids also waded alongside him in it. It was a beautiful warm day, and we enjoyed leisurely strolling together, and having a chance to catch up with one another. We ended our walk at a pub where we grabbed lunch and some ice cream, before heading back to the house. It was very encouraging and a blessing to be with them.
Next up for us, we have a few days of traveling on the continent of Europe, visiting France and Belgium, and then we head back to San Diego.
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