Roman Baths in Bath

This past Saturday we went a road trip with our Swedish neighbors, Elin, Magnus and Rebecka to Bath, England. Bath is where the only natural hot springs is located in England, and the Romans set up an elaborate bath house around the springs, to enjoy the warm and supposedly healing powers of the water. These bath rooms were built over 2,000 years ago, and to this day, a good portion of the original stone and lead used to build the baths are still functioning. Now you can't actually go into the baths that still have water, as the water is untreated and quite green looking. But we can see how the Romans built the plumbing and architecture. Then over the years, the bath houses have been worked on, and so you can see the layers of architectural history. Bath is also a charming town for modern shopping and restaurants. The River Avon flows through the city, the Bath Abbey is located directly across from the Bath houses, and renown architects have built amazing buildings here, including the Royal Crescent building and the Circus.

We started by walking by the Royal Crescent and the Circus, on our way to the History of Costume Museum and Assembly Rooms (which weren't Brian's faves). We had a tea break, and then visited the Roman Baths for quite some time. Next was a stop in the Bath Abbey where a local musical group was practicing for their evening concert, and it was lovely to hear music in the vaulted worship area. I also noticed how this worship area had so much natural light coming in. Many of the chuches and chapels around here can feel very dark and damp, as the stained glass work doesn't let it much natural light. But the Bath Abbey must have been built with this in mind, and allowed a lot of clear glass so light could get through.

We then walked along the river Avon and stopped for dinner at a small cafe. It was a wonderful day and didn't feel rushed. We were back home by 8ish and had time to pop in a movie and relax for the evening.

Birthday Celebrations

I had a great birthday on Thursday! A leisurely morning, with Pilates at the Sports Centre, and a large carmel latte coffee from Costa Coffee afterwards. Then a relaxing bath and some email time. Headed out the door about 2:45 with neighbors Elin and Rebecka to walk down to the posh (means "fancy") Randolph Hotel in the city centre. I invited some of my new friends from the Newcomer's Club to meet for afternoon cream tea. In the group photo here is a short list of the ladies attending starting from front left: Elin & Rebecka from Sweden, Bettina from Germany, Lyndsay from Canada, Joan from the US/California, Frieda from US/California, Judith from Australia and me of course! They were all sweet too because I got some flowers, cards and a book for birthday gifts. Was so nice to have some people to share my day with.

Then my wonderful husband took me out for a great birthday dinner. I was having a hard time deciding where I wanted to go out, since getting a steak here is a bit different than back home. :) So I wanted to try something more ethnic, since I'm still not used to their interesting concoctions of fancy British food. So we were thinking of Indian or Thai, since there are great restaurants in the UK specializing in this type of food. But we also knew of a small, tucked away Greek restaurant, just in Summertown where we live. So we went for the Greek food, and had a great time. We had some spinach and feta wraps for appetizers, and shared a big greek salad. We each order kabobs, mine with lamb and chicken and Brian's with prawns (shrimp). They also had grilled veggies on the kebobs and rice on the side. Then since it was my Bday, I ordered dessert and coffee. We think the owner also noticed we were first-timers there, and were enjoying ourselves so he also gave us an apertif of some orange liquer, on the house. Yum!!

Thanks everyone for your emails and well wishes for my birthday - was so great to hear from friends and family back home!

Go Ducks!!!

Amazing how across half the world, I'm cheering for the Duck's Men's Basketball team in the NCAA tournament - LIVE! I'm listening on internet radio from a Portland radio station, and it's only 8:30 p.m. here - so it works out pretty well! I could probably get visual too, but I think I would have to pay either the NCAA online or Ducks online, so radio works just fine.

Speaking of the Ducks, in one month, we've seen at least six people with Oregon gear on. It's great! Our fave was some guy running down the main road here in Oxford with a "Go Pre" tshirt on. Just saw a college-age chick wearing a Nike Oregon sweatshirt. We're wondering if some of it has to do with Nike being based in Oregon, and there are Nike stores over here. But we saw a green/yellow "O" cap and I would think that's more specifically avail through the U of O and not Nike. . .

Cheering to make the Sweet Sixteen!

Swedish Neighbors & Inspector Morse

We're lucky to have such great neighbors across the hall from us. Elin and Magnus Bjork are from Sweden, and have the most adorable one-year-old, Rebecka. They have been in Oxford only three weeks longer than we have, so it's nice to have neighbors to ask questions to or share household items with. They also have a car, and have kindly offered to take us grocery shopping or on other trips to explore England. Last Thursday I took Elin up on her offer to drive to Swindon, about 30 miles south, to the Outlet Shops. Of course I'm not going to pass that up! So the three of us, (Elin, Rebecka and myself) took off on a little road trip. Mind you, the Swedish drive on the same side of the road we do in the US, so her car had the driver on the left side, but we also had to drive on the left side of the road. We also didn't know, but when we made it into Swindon we were approaching the World's Largest Roundabout, which was one large circle in the middle, and then 5 more roundabouts entering into the middle one. At this point, we realized we were an American and a Swede trying to navigate in England, and thought we were doing well right up until entering the roundabout. They even have tshirts that say "I survived the Swindon Roundabout". Pretty funny. Anywho, here are a couple of pics from our shopping day.

Last night, they also invited us over for pitas with lamb burgers. They said in Sweden people don't eat much lamb, which we said that it's not as common in the States either. But we gave it a whirl (well not Brian, he had a veggie version), and it tasted great. I then stayed longer to watch one of the Inspector Morse movie espisodes, and Brian went to bed, as he hasn't been feeling well this week. Inspector Morse is a beloved character in Oxford. He was created by author Colin Dexter, in a series of novels. They were then turned into TV movies during the 80s and early 90s. Inspector Morse episodes are all based in Oxford, and the movies are really fun because you can pick out all the different locations which were filmed in town. The actor who player Morse I believe passed away in the last few years. But now there is a brand new TV series spin-off called Lewis, based on Inspector Morse's side kick. Since we still don't have TV, we haven't yet seen an episode, but eventually we hope too.

Mozart at the Sheldonian

Saturday night Brian and I went to a Mozart concert put on by the Oxford Bach Choir and London Mozart Players. It was held at the Sheldonian Theatre, where all of the Oxford University graduation ceremonies are held. The building is one of the most stunning and recognized in Oxford, as it's in a circular dome shape. Check it out at this website http://www.sheldon.ox.ac.uk. We went with my friend Bettina and her boyfriend Steffan. Steffan works in international law and is a lecturer at St. Anne's College. The four of us met up for drinks before the concert, as Brian had not yet met either Bettina or Steffan. We enjoyed their conversation and companionship very much and we all enjoyed the concert. We had bought the cheap seats though, so it was like sitting in wooden bleachers with no backs. We knew that going into it, but didn't think about being at the top of the dome, in a building centuries old, that it would get extremely hot! I guess they have problems of people fainting quite often from the heat - even in the winter!

Wine Tasting

On Tuesday night, I went with my friend Bettina to a wine tasting put on by our Newcomer's Club. We could have brought our significant others, but worked out best that Bettina and I went as dates. It was at one of the smaller colleges called Harris Manchester. Each college has its own sommelier (usually a gentleman who's studied wine all his life and picks the wines to serve with all the events/meals/dinners in the college). Harris Manchester's sommelier hosted our tasting, and he was very informative, funny and enjoyable. We tasted four whites and two reds. Mostly all from France, but one of the reds was from Chile. It was definitely quality wine, and didn't take much to get a little tootled with the British. Many of the others in attendance were the older ladies on the club's committee and their husbands. So they were dressed up and a bit tootled too. It was really fun to chat with them when we all have a shine on. They loved to hear where in the US I was from, what I was doing here, etc. And they love to tell you if they've been to the States, where they were, what they thought about it, etc. Makes for easy conversation and Bettina and I had a lot of fun. We then had some British snacks afterwards, provided by the college. There were two different types of sausage rolls, which is sausage sliced with a pastry crust around each bite. Some crisps (potato chips) and another veggie quiche thing. They really like pastry crust around everything. I met another couple from Vancouver, Canada, and the gal is also in communications work. I think I'll ask her to tea sometime. :)

Note: the photo I'm posting is not related to the wine tasting, but since I've talked a lot about my new friend Bettina, I wanted to post a photo of her. She is in front of Christ Church college.

Sunday in London

So Brian and I spent Sunday on a day trip to London. We had planned to go on Saturday, but someone had a late night at the pub Friday (no JC it wasn't me) so we ventured out of Oxford Sunday. We didn't have very gradious plans, but just wanted to figure out how to get there and back, and do some exploring in between. Of course it rained the entire day, but it's similar to Oregon rain, so nothing too heavy. From our flat we walked to the Oxford train station. The direct train wasn't running due to track issues, so we had to ride a coach bus to another town called Didcot, and then caught the train to London. Of course in Didcot the train was late, then cancelled, so we had to wait for the next one. I think we landed at London Paddington about noon, so it took a bit more than 2 hours to get there, where it should take about 1. We had chosen to explore the Kensington Park area and museums, so we walked across the park toward the Science Museum. Kensington Palace is where Princess Diana lived, and people still put flowers and things at the gate. It was raining a bit harder at this point, so we just walked through, and decided to come back on a nicer day. As many of the London museums, the entrance fee is free, so we enjoyed spending the afternoon looking at science stuff (well we know Brian definitely did) along with every young couple and their little kids. After the museum, we headed to Picadilly Circus (took the underground, or the Tube as it's called). It's a touristy area, with lots of lights and within walking distance to Leicester Square, where a lot of movie and West End theatres are located. We ate at a Pizza Express (a pizza chain in England, but more upscale, and I had been wanting to try it) for dinner and my pizza came with a fried egg on top! It tasted great. When then walked around a bit, and noticed people gathering around the entrance to a movie theatre. We stumbled across the London movie premiere of Becoming Jane. We saw the red carpet, etc., but didn't stick around to see the actors, since we didn't know how long we'd have to wait. Headed back to Oxford the same route we came, and had a fun day. London is so enormous, that we only explored a small fraction, and look forward to going back many more times!