valentines day, lewis, and tolkien

valentine's day in charlbury!! it was a blast. we decorated the church in red and white streamers, balloons, and candles. the night was filled with poems and readings, songs and skits from a few local charlbury talents and of course all of us! as you can see, jodi and i manned the bar for that evening (and did quite a good job!). it was a nice, relaxing break from exam studying!

well, i wrote my last exam yesterday morning and after only 8 hours of sleep in two days, i was quite relieved! now...essay. but before i

continued with those, we took a break and went into oxford for the day yesterday. dr. loney (laura's dad), who had come in to england just a few days before, is well known in this program for his cs lewis and jrr tolkien tours. so, for a few hours in the afternoon, he took us all around oxford to the schools, chapels, houses, and other places associated with the two famous friends in some way. we went to see so many different places and dr. loney knew all the facts about what stories they wrote when they were at certain colleges, when they attended college, when their friendship had begun, and so on. very very interesting!! so i posted a few pictures below of our afternoon out:

above is university college. this place is actually closed to the public...but dr. loney was very convincing and they allowed us to come in and check it out!! we were very excited. apparently, lewis wrote the entrance exam for this college and was rejected - so that makes me feel better!
this is laura and myself in the university college chapel where lewis attended. like all chapes in engalnd, it was breathtaking!

this is fellowshall - where lewis actually lived for awhile! his windows are apparently the two just above those people walking. and then we went on addison walk which was very much enjoyed by lewis who actually wrote about it in one of his poems i believe. and of course we saw deer park which, as the name implies, is a fenced off area filled with deer. mom you would have loved it!
this is an area of one of the colleges (i think university college) that lewis would have walked through every day - the gargoyles that surround the entire area are actually characters that he put into the chronicles of narnia. he got the idea of them from these!

we also saw some other neat and random things not quite so relevant tolkien and lewis, but still interesting. the the left is jodi making her confession...i just like this picture. what happened after the picture was not so funny though...sorry jodi!

the picture below is a building we passed in which the first living cell was identified by robert boyle and his assistant robert cooke. crazy!to finish the tour, we went to the lamb and child for a pint - one of the pubs where lewis and tolkien's group called the 'inklings' met to discuss literature. it is right across the street from the eagle and child where we had gone before.

afer, we went to see cloudcuckooland in oxford. it was so hilarious! it was intended to be a childrens production, but because it was adapted from aristophane's greek play the birds, it of course fit into our course! it was about a bunch of birds who are tired of the pollution that humans are creating. so, in order to get them to stop, they make a plan to, well, to poop on everything until they give in. you can just imagine how funny

this play would be! it was so much fun, i felt like a kid again. a great stress reliever!

after the play, we all went to an italian pizzeria nearby and the pizza was amazing! so good and the perfect ending to a wonderful day! but now, unfortuately, i can procrastinate no longer...back to the essays!