My UK Trip - Day 3 Thur, March 1

The day started out with a walk with Laura in the countryside to check out the centuries' old White Horse, a chalk drawing on a hillside outside of Ferringdon overlooking the famed flat on which St. George fought the dragon to save the castle and the countryside. The highly stylized horse was believed to have been a creation of the Celts.

From the White Horse we met up with Steven, a youth worker from Northern Ireland working with a youth program in a Ferringdon area church to talk about hub night. He also referred me to talk with his sister and her fiancee', on the ground near Bristol University in northern Ireland as a possible location. He spoke about their upcoming work with the Alpha program and then we parted ways for me to catch the 66 bus to Oxford.

When I arrived in the home of the prestigious Oxford University, snow was blowing cross-ways down the street. A rendezvous with our tour guide, Joe, and we headed out to see the sights. As it turns out the tour was to be shortlived for myself and 3 others who were caught staring at a photograph the guide had pointed to when we looked up to a street remiss of our entire group of 20 people! We looked all around us and could not find the group so we doubled back to get a refund. The town of Oxford is home to over 18,000 students and 8,500 faculty, an amazing ration of students to faculty of almost 1 faculty member for every two students! 39 private colleges and universities fill the town touting the #3 college in the world. All buildings, though most centuries old, are in active use. Coffee houses are on every corner and Air 1 Radio is the Top 40 US equivalent. On my own, I darted in to check out the Ashmolean Musuem, then hit the street to enter St. Mary's Cathedral and check out the tower view up a long, winding staircase. The church was home to the likes of John Wesley and John Knox.

I snapped a few pictures and re-entered a cobblestone street to see bricklayers laying pebbles in the road. A local pointed out that pebbles in the road were used so women's dresses could stay clean and water would not puddle up in the roadway.

The evening coming on, I met two strangers, David (Frenchman) and Petra (Germany) in town for a two-week course on English. We chose King's Pub for the evening and down a couple Stella while we sat and talked politics and cultural differences between our three homelands. On the way out, I spoke with Ali, a manager, about a possible hub location and sat at The Swan pub reading more Ravi while I waited on my ride back to Rob and Laura's place.

My UK Trip - Day 2 Wed, Feb 28

At an early morning breakfast, I had a chance meeting with Clare (Susan, my friend Laura's friend) about some contacts she might have for the hub night concept. We finished our gruel (dry oatmeal with milk) and I took off for the underground tubes to meet up with other tourists for our first full-day London Walks tour led by Helena. We met across the street from Big Ben, the clock inside a towering clock tower near the River Thames. I met several others on the walk including Sylvia (a woman from Ontario), Elena (South Africa), a Norwegian couple who lamented their countries' poor Olympic performance this year, two US women and a man from California.

We started with Big Ben, the clock controlled by a bell named Big Ben after a man whose wife thought the bell looked like him--he was rather large. The 13 ton bell is timed in the Fall and Winter with the seasonal change by dropping pence on a scale in the tower--adding 3 pence is equal to adding a 1/4 of a second to the clock. We moved on to see the Houses of Parliament across from a large statue of Winston Churchill, instrumental for his role as Prime Minister in World War II. An Oliver Cromwell statue also stood in front of the House of Lords along with a statue of King Richard the Lionhearted on horseback, the man responsible for the military activity of the crown during the Second Crusade. We paused to view Westminster Abbey and learned stories of the many royal weddings and coronations conducted there. Crossing through St. James Park we stalled to watch the procession of the guards, Scots from one end of the park, English from the other to meet in the middle in front of Buckingham Palace. We then entered Green Park, touted as the most romantic park on earth. Queen Victoria became so red with envy at the antics of her cheating spouse when he would pick flowers from the park to woo his many mistresses that she had all the flowers in the park uprooted. Some of the trees in the park are 400 years old. We paused to watch the changing of the guard outside St. James' Palace and then headed to Picadilly Square and the subsequent theatre district, home of the famous Odeon Cinema. After a quick lunch in the crypt beneath St. Mark's Cathedral, we passed into Trafalgar Square under the gaze of a Lord Admiral Nelson statue and the friendly lions, named so after their sculptor couldn't get the paws right and stopped short leaving a resemblance to the paws of domestic house pets. A walk away from Trafalgar led us past monuments to fallen WWII soldiers, a monument to the women of WWII (who consequently built one of the famous bridges across the River Thames), the National Defense building, and arrived at a river ride. The day finished off with the great Tower of London, home of the now musuem castle that has been built on the land since the early part of the twelfth century. We toured the Traitor's Gate where men were sent before their heads were lopped off, heard stories of the pigeons that were required by royal law to always be on the premises (avian bird flu or no bird flu), the center tower itself with royal weapon displays, knights' armour, and other displays. We finished with the Crown Jewels of London. Noticing the time, I hurried back to the depot to catch a train and a late departure from London to my next destination, Swindon, an hour south of London central and friend's Laura, husband Rob (member of the Royal Air Force) and their two dogs Rhett and Biggles.

My UK Trip - Day 1 Tue, Feb 27

Coming off of jet lag and adjusting to the array of Peugot's driving on the wrong side of the road, I made my way to the Northwood tube station exit in the north-west area of London to check in for my first night in England with Val, the student affairs director at London Theological College. After grabbing a quick nap, I jumped back on the tube for my first night in London. Once in the tunnel, riding the Metropolitan line into town, I met a student from Ghana name Kassia along with 3 other London Theological College (LST) students on their way home. They suggested I speak with Deborah, a woman with a background in media, who was taking classes at the school and wants to become involved in a venture like the Hub Nights concept some of you are familiar with.

I exited the train at Tower station and walked out to face the Tower of London, lit brightly against a London skyline. I had a bit of time to kill so I traversed a side street to a local pub and ordered a sandwich from a Bracilian bartender. A quick bite and a chapter from a Ravi Zaccharias book and I was off to meet up with my first London Walks tour, Jack the Ripper Haunts. I met a man and woman from Belgium, a girl from Australia and a guy (Ben) from Philly. We covered the seedy parts of town, narrow cobblestone walkways with rows of pubs centuries old, lit only by gaslight as we tracked the Ripper's roots through his playground. We learned of the gruesome deaths of Anne, Katie and many other of the prostitutes that had worked these corners and met their untimely deaths at the hands of the Ripper. Our guide gave us a few conspiracy theories, largely discredited, and we finished back at a tube station. I chatted with an English girl for a bit on the train ride home who immediately recognized my Americanese from her travels in the States and exited back at Northwood to sleep off the jet lag from the days travels. Day one, in the books. More to come.