London

Last Thursday, I began a three day tour of London. The trip started with the Oxford-Cambridge varsity rugby match at Twickenham Stadium. Twickenham is the largest rugby stadium in the world at about 82,000 and was very impressive (Wembley is London's other big stadium and has a 90,000 person capacity). Since I had not used the trains before the game, I was a little nervous about figuring out which train to get on when I transferred at Reading Station and how to get to the stadium once I got off the train. Luckily, when we got to Reading, it turned out that everyone on the Oxford train was going to Twickenham too so I just had to follow about a thousand other people. The under-21 teams played in the morning before the varsity match and Oxford won decisively, 53-17. One of my friends from our college rugby team plays on the under-21 side, so we had a big Hertford contingent to support him.

I tried to find some hot dogs or hamburgers between matches, but could only find fish and chips (not a bad trade off though). The varsity match in the afternoon started off well and Oxford was leading at the half. Unfortunately, Cambridge stepped it up after halftime and prevailed, 31-27. I noticed two major differences between the rugby match and American competitions I have been to. The first is that the crowd seemed to be about 80% men instead of fairly even. The second is that there was no music, announcing, bands, etc. Obviously I still enjoyed watching the game, but I just felt a completely different atmosphere.

A friend of mine lives in London, so I met up with her after the game. On Friday, we took a walking tour of London working our way east to west. I am so grateful that I had Celia with me because she knew how to get navigate the buses and the tube (subway) smoothly. She also knew some off-the-beaten path sites, like the the market below, and had stories about every place we went.

We went to the Tate Modern Art Museum (inside the structure of a behemoth Victorian-era power plant), the Globe Theater, St. Paul's and Westminster, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Parliament and Big Ben, the Foreign Office, 10 Downing Street (the Prime Minister's house), and several other places. We broke up the walking with a few cafe breaks and an excellent lunch near King's College. In the evening, we went to National Gallery and followed it up with a play, The Priory.

This is a picture of me on the Millennium Bridge in front of St. Paul's Cathedral (not the Capitol Building). I knew about the bridge from a class on oscillations because, when it was first built, the bridge was unstable and swayed with the wind and pedestrian traffic. The bridge doesn't sway anymore, but I still really enjoyed finally seeing it in person.

During one of our breaks, we stopped to watch a Charlie Chaplin-esque street performer. Celia and I made the mistake of sitting in the front row and it wasn't long before I was called out to help with the show. At first I had had to hold ten wooden bricks. The first few minutes were fine, but I began to wonder how long I would have to hold them and whether I would lose my grip. Fortunately the performer came over and took them from me before my arms became too tired. After a few more stunts, he had me come out to the middle, where he proceeded to stack a woman on my back. Although he was doing the whole show without talking, he kept whispering for me to keep my arms wrapped tightly around her legs. I had to find the right balance though because I don't think she appreciated me squeezing to hard. Once he had her situated, he did a handstand on her back. I guess it was pretty cool because everyone was applauding, but I could only see the bricks in front of me and the woman's very concerned boyfriend not too far away. This picture might give you a better idea what was going on.

Celia and I were exhausted by the time we finally started heading back to her house. When we were in the station walking to the final train we needed to catch, we ran into one of our Hertford friends who also lives in London. It was one of those epic small world moments as he had just arrived from Oxford and we had no idea he'd be in the city. We got up late Saturday morning and went to the British Museum to see the Rosetta Stone and a mummy from 3000 B.C. (that still has skin and hair!). Then we met Ollie, the guy from Hertford, for lunch nearby.

Earlier in the week, I had received an invitation to watch the Army-Navy game in a pub with several West Point and Naval Academy graduates (who had any idea there were 50+ graduates in the London area??). Before I went to the game, I took the tube to the Tower of London. This picture is of St. Thomas Tower on the southern side of the castle. Before the wharf was expanded the length of the castle (while Chaucer was in charge of finances), the Thames came right up to the walls. The gate in the middle of the tower is Traitor's Gate, where Anne Boleyn entered prior to having her head lopped off by Henry VIII. Another cool note about the castle is that it was home to the royalty's exotic animals before the London Zoo was constructed. They kept the lions under the drawbridge in the Western Gate to intimidate visitors. After the Tower of London, I went to watch the game. I was excited because I have not watched American football for three months and was even more excited when Army was winning at the half for the first time since 2001. My excitement was short lived however because Navy had a big second half and ended up winning. Despite the loss, it was great to share the game with a lot of fellow members of the American military watching the game there in London and at bases all over the world.

A lot of my friends have asked what part of London I enjoyed the most. While it is hard to pick one aspect out of such an amazing city that really stands out, the biggest disappointment was certainly the London Bridge. It's a normal bridge! A lot of Americans (me) get it confused with the Tower Bridge, below. The one with all of the houses was demolished in 1758 and they replaced it with what looks like a highway overpass.

On Sunday, I took an early train back to Oxford to meet up with James and two other college friends to head down to Bath for another rugby match. Bath is named after the Roman baths build around 43 A.D. James did his undergrad in Bath, so we met up with one of his uni friends and they showed us around the town. We had some great pies (meat, not fruit) in a pub before the game. Bath beat Edinburgh (to the disappointment of our friend Steve from Scotland) 13-9. The game was exciting with the exception of a 20 minute period in the second half where wingers from each team just kept kicking the ball back and forth. The first picture is of my Oxford friends in front of Bath Abbey. The second is a view of the city from the river after the game.

All in all, it was an incredible weekend. Now it's time to get back to my dissertation and coursework...

End of Michaelmas!

This Saturday marks the end of the first term, Michaelmas. The celebration has been a mixture of parties, dinners, and essays.

The essay I turned in last week was on Scientific Concepts. The details are a little humdrum, but I'll write a quick blurb in case you might be interested. My writing focused on Weber's work with ideal types; James Davis' thoughts on prototypes, graded membership, and fuzzy borders; and the contributions of David Collier and James Mahon on family resemblance and radial categories (expansions on Satori's work with classical categories and conceptual stretching). While expanding the extension of existing concepts to address new ideas, conceptual traveling also leads to heated debates about whether borderline cases fit one category or another. When I realized I needed to do something to breathe a little more life into the essay, I proposed a search for the best American athlete of the 20th century and then applied each author's arguments to help find a suitable competitor. I finished by revising the original question, concluding that since Michael Jordan (does anyone remember the 95-96 Bulls??) is the undisputed best athlete of the 20th century, we ought to be looking for the second best athlete. Ironically, this also contradicted Weber's belief that ideal-types (essentially perfect examples of an idea, in this case an athlete) do not exist in real life--a point I also noted in the essay. My next essay is for International Diplomacy, but I still have quite a bit more work to do on it.

Despite being away from home for Thanksgiving, I managed to share a true American feast (at least as close as I could come with British ingredients) with about a dozen other American and British students. On Tuesday, I went shopping with a good friend of mine, Becca, to gather up everything we would need. She also volunteered to cook the sweet potatoes and did a fantastic job. After rowing Wednesday afternoon, I alternated between baking a couple of pumpkin pies and working on my Research Methods essay. The pumpkin was one of the most difficult ingredients to find, but I didn't have much luck with Cool Whip either. It turns out actual whipped cream works tastes just as good. Thursday morning, one of the post-doc students in my house drove me down to the grad center with all of the food. I appreciated the lift because riding my bike with a turkey and two pies was bound to turn into a disaster. I shoved the turkey in the oven, then ran off to my rugby match.

I feel much more comfortable with the game and our team has put together a few nice victories in the last two weeks. In the Thanksgiving game (Turkey bowl?) several of the forwards scored, including Greg, a Rhodes scholar from VMI and good buddy of mine.

As soon as the match finished, I ran back to take a shower, then hurried down to the grad center to take out the turkey. We ended up commandeering three different kitchens to cook everything since the ovens are pretty small. It all came together nicely though and I think everyone was able to stuff themselves satisfactorily. I was a little heart-broken that the only left-overs I could take back to my room were a few slices of turkey and a quarter of a pie:( When everyone began asking how I became such a great cook, I conceded that I had been on Skype with my mom every day throughout the week getting recipes, tips, and other essential advice.

Last night at KEEN, we had a Christmas party with dancing, karaoke, and presents. I think it's the first time that I've ever celebrated Christmas in November, but without Thanksgiving, the Christmas season gets underway a lot sooner here than in the States. James was well-behaved with no surprise kisses and I think everyone had a really good time. The karaoke video was particularly interesting because of the random cartoon videos assigned to each song (YMCA, Bohemian Rhapsody, etc.)...I'll let your imagination do the work.

The races on Wednesday of last week were pretty miserable. The Christ Church Regatta, a race only for novice rowers, has been cancelled due to weather the past few years. As a result, the marshals were inexperienced and compounded the problems stemming from 70+ teams racing on a narrow stretch of river. Even though we were on the water for more than an hour before our first race, we defeated the team we rowed against. The women's A-team was less fortunate because they sat in the cold wind for more than an hour without their opposition ever showing up. Unfortunately, the high water level from recent rain (even worse in the North, especially Cumbria) and resulting swift current caused the ensuing races for the rest of the weekend to be cancelled. Our college was especially disappointed because our women's and men's A-teams were so strong.

Another Rotary talk tonight, Christmas service in the chapel tomorrow, Christmas dinner Thursday, and a formal guest dinner Friday!

Until next time, God bless and take care!