Today was legal London day. Most of the students went down to London on the schools dime to see the home base of all the legal centers. The 5 of us decided to opt out. This meant a free day for all of us. Dan decided to go see the tall ships Newcastle-upon-Tyne. About his time with the tall ships he remarked, "One of the coolest things I've ever seen. It was pretty stirring. I enjoyed it."

The rest of us stayed around the house, slept in, watched some movies, worked out, and enjoyed the free time. Here is a picture of us after a hard chest/tricepts workout. We're huge.

Typical day for the men at Oxford,

7:30ish - Awake and get ready for school.

8:30 - Head off to school, most days that means a bike ride for Bryan, Dan, and I. The ride is about 2 miles and takes us about twenty minutes.

9:00 - School starts at 9:00, although, school actually starts about five to ten minutes late each day, and most of us are greatful for it.

Our first class is EU law. We all participate in this one together. Professor Craig is excellent. He wrote the textbook we use. Each day he comes in and starts lecturing, without notes, starting right from the place he left off the day before. Bryan says, "He is a proper brit, with a sly sense of humor."

11:00 - Second class starts, that means Products Liability for me and International Public Law for everyone else.

1:00 - Class ends, some days we'll go to lunch with some of the other students, and some days we'll head home for lunch. There is a great place called Yates down by school. They have 2-for-1 fish and chips that are excellent.

3:00-5:00 - Most days we'll relax for a spell when we come home and then head over to the gym. Bryan, Dan, and I have been working out almost every day for about two weeks. Chris just recently joined us as well. We're all seeing results from our efforts, so it makes the effort well worth it.

5:00-10:00 - We come home from the gym, make dinner, watch big brother on the tube, and do some homework for the rest of the night. Sometimes we'll go get groceries or do other errands, but must days we just take it easy.

Trip to Stratford

This is one of the windows in the Church

This is a first edition King James Bible

Shakespeare's Resting Place

Birthplace of Shakespeare

The program took us on a trip to Stratford-upon-Avon today. This was the birthplace and the burial place of William Shakespear. We went to visit the grave and the house that Shakespeare was born in. It was pretty cool.

We also went to the local theatre and watched a production of 'Comedy of Errors.' About 18 of the students in the program attended the production. It was really fun. The actors really made the dialogue come to life. The English accent also added to the entire effect.

The story is of twin brothers who are separated when they are young children. 33 years later, one brother goes looking for the other. When the searching brother happens unknowingly upon the town that his brother lives in, the townspeople (including his brother's wife) confuse him with his brother and hilarity ensues.

This is a panorama and the regular photos of the river (I believe that it is the Thames) that we ride along on our way to school every day.

There are typically many kayakers, rowing buddies, and houseboaters along the river. There are also many picknikers, pedestrians, and other bikers that ride along the path. The river doesn't look like much (it's not that deep) but for some reason, they have life preservers set about every 50 yards. So perhaps it's more dangerous than it looks.

Either way it's quite pretty and it makes for a delightful ride into town each day. Personally, it gives me something to look forward to each morning.

Another photo of Christ Church

Bryan, Nikita, and I at Noodlebar

This man with Bryan and I is Nikita. He is a marketing executive from Russia. He's unique among us because he is not here in order to get any degree. He graduated from an Indian College with an MBA degree in 1998. He has since worked for an advertising agency in Russia. He decided that he would take some law courses through the University of San Diego, because he felt that too often, people from countries with a common law system (us and England among others) had a hard time understanding, and therefore trusting, businessmen who operate in a civil law system (Russia).

So last year he took two classes in Florence, Italy, and this year he is taking the same products liability class that I am taking. He's a really smart guy. He is very able when it comes to interpreting cases, and drawing the law out of the American judges opinions, which is difficult for law students from civil law countries.

Bryan and I had dinner with him this evening. We went to an oriental restaurant called the "Noodlebar." It was good. He told us all about Russia and how in many ways, the poor in Russia live very much the same way people lived hundreds of years ago. Many people are subsistance farmers. The economy in Russia is still mostly agricultural. He asked what the American public perception of Russia is, whether Americans trusted the Russians. It was very interesting.

He said that to govern the Russian people, the government must use an iron fist. That the people respond to strength and strong rulers. I got an impression that the people were tough. He said that many times, if you buy one car, you must buy a big car. The little cars that you see in Europe are, "laides cars." Many times, a man will buy a jeep, then he will buy a smaller car for his wife. However, he will end up driving the smaller car, because it's more practical to find a place to park and it's easier to maneuver in city traffic. His wife will end up with the Jeep.

A Typical Street in OxfordThis Guy is a Sentinel that Separates the Scholars from the Regular Folks (there are 13 more like him)

This is Where all the Students at Oxford Take their Exams (They have to wear special clothes)

This Cobblestone road is where we began our tour

A Building

McDonald's gets McCrowded at Lunch Time

We went on a walking tour of Oxford today. Kathryn Bevis, who has been a student here for like 10 years, is some kind of administrator for our group. She took us around and told us about all the different schools and monuments in town. There was a building that was a college founded in like 1200 or something. There is a place in the middle of one of the streets where some protestants were burned at the stake for heresy.

She showed us the building where all the Oxford students take their exams. They have to wear a special uniform. Then their grades are posted on boards in front of the schools. Most of us were glad that our grades weren't posted in public. It's a tradition to congratulate those in uniform who look happy. Those that don't look happy haven't taken their exams yet, I guess.

Apparently they found out who the bombers in London were. Dan said that a mother of one of the men had called the police because he had been missing for days. They put the pieces together and it turns out they were suicide bombings. They were all born and raised in the United Kingdom.

Some Pictures of the Main Courtyard at Christ's Church

The Main Courtyard in Panorama

The Front Spire in Courtyard

Today is the first day of classes. We met our professors and sat through our first class. EU law was quite engaging. I am excited to learn more about how the EU works.

Bryan and I hit the weights again today. It was a good work out. One of these days I'll be strong again.

A courtyard that we pass on our way to class

Picture of a tower from the "students garden"

Another tower from the "students garden"

The Hall in Harry Potter

Today was our first day of school. We had an orientation meeting at 3:00. Tomorrow will be our first day of actual classes. Bryan, Dan, and I went out this morning to get bikes so that we would have some form of transportation. We rode into town to Christ's Church (this is where we are attending school) for the orientation meeting. Our class consists 3 germans, 2 italians, 2 Russians, 2 Canadians, and a handful of Americans.

When the orientation meeting ended, we went on a tour of the grounds at Christ's Church. Some interesting things about Christ's Church are that, Lewis Carrol based his stories on the grounds and goings on at Christ's Church. Alice was the daughter of the Dean of Christ's Church, and the grounds and people there were the genesis of many of his ideas for his writings. Another interesting thing is the the dining hall is the basis for the Hall of Hogworth's in Harry Potter. The film crew came and looked at the hall, but because it was a little too small, they decided to make a replica of the dining hall that was a little bigger. 25 of Britain's prime ministers were educated in Oxford. Of those 25, 13 were educated at Christ's Church.

It's really quite amazing here.

The front of the townhouse where 'da boyz' live

A typical bedroom (this one is mine)

One of the bathrooms

My bathroom (not too shabby)

Our oven

Our kitchen table

The entertainment center in Jordan's room

The sunroom (and Dan)

The back yard from the back door

The backyard looking towards the flat

Here are some pictures of our apartment. It's pretty nice. The problem with pictures, is that you get hardly any sense of scale, but whattaya gonna do? I am really pleased that we got such a nice place. The bathrooms all have slate style linoleum on the floors and tile on the walls and showers/tub surrounds. Everything is brand new. We figure this place is only a couple of years old. The plants in the back are on an automatic sprinkler system. The oven is electric with a gas range. All the bedrooms have nice sofa style chairs in them. The beds all have comforters.

Yesterday, we came in at about three. We had to meet our new landlords at that time and we barely made it. Our train got stopped for about thirty minutes about a mile from Oxford. We showed up, got settled, and went out to get lunch and groceries.

They have a lot of ethnic resteraunts in Oxford. Some of them are pretty cheap, too. We found one place that has doner kebabs. That was my favorite food in France and when I took my first bite it was every bit as good as I remember. I'll be going back there often. (They also have cheeseburgers and fried chicken at a decent price.)

It looks like the three Mormons will be riding bikes. It costs about the same as a bus pass and it will be more mobile than the bus. Bryan and I walked to church today, it is about 2 miles away and a bus doesn't really go there. (We could take a bus into town, then back out to church, but that would be lame.)

Church was awesome. They had an old school missionary farewell. The Brethren have asked us not to do that kind of thing, but the comments that the father of the missionary made were awesome. He was a british guy (there are a lot of American students in the ward, potentially more than the members who live here) who served a mission 30 years ago. He told his kid to read the Book of Mormon and all of the basic advice, but he had a good spirit about him. I have always enjoyed the faith of the European Saints.

We have yet to encounter air conditioning in this country. Our apartment doesn't seem to have it. The church didn't have it. Our hotel room didn't have it. It's hot here. London was raining, so it wasn't so bad, but yesterday and today in Oxford were really hot. We're a little confused as to why these folks don't adopt the whole air conditioning way of life. It's really hot. They need it.
Tomorrow we will be heading out to buy some fans. (I'll be keen on the lookout for a Walmart.)

City Hall - Not OldTower of London - Old

Tower Bridge - Looks Old, but Isn't

We went out today to see the sights. We didn't spend a lot of money, mostly we just walked around and looked at different things. It rained lightly the whole time. As Zoe, the gal that occupied the seat next to me flying into London, would say, the weather was, "mad grotty." I took a few pictures.

I enjoyed wandering around the streets of London. I wondered if my dad had ever spent much time in the city. The street layout, the little shops, the age of the buildings, and the pedestrian lifestyle reminded me very much of France.

People were on edge. We were in the British Museum and an announcement came over the PA saying that whoever had chained a suitcase to the front gate needed to go retrieve it immediately. There were bomb scares all over the city all day. Unfortunately, because of the bombings, the tube was not going to be running again for as long as a week. Many of the stores were closed because employees could not get into work. We were unable to go to some of the sites we would have liked to, but it was certainly interesting to be in London at the time of such a crisis.

Bryan and I flew out of Indianapolis together. The plane ride was as plane rides are, no real excitement there. We did have a wide selection of movies, television shows, and music available on our individual screens nested in the back of the seat of the passenger in front of us. A good change in my opinion.

When we arrived in London, we had a small problem. The country had been closed for the week. Due to the terrorist attack in the subway and on the bus, the public transportation was shut down. We were able to take a train to the victoria station, but we were stranded there. Not only that, but the PA system kept telling us that we shouldn't go into downtown London.

We weren't sure yet exactly what had happened so we decided to go ahead and risk it. I figured that if we ended up in downtown London and we were the only ones there, we would need to make a quick retreat. We wanted to take a taxi because that was the only option left to us (besides walking), but when we got outside of the train station, the line for a taxi was about 200 yards long.

So, we decided to walk. I don't recommend lugging 60lbs of luggage through london after a 20 hour plane ride. This was painful, but eventually we made our way to our hotel where Dan and Jordan were already waiting for us.

Our hotel room was a single room with 2 beds, a sink, and a closet. Our bathroom was shared with about 20 other rooms. While the 4 of us were a bit tight, squeezed into this tiny room, it was well worth it in order to save a little cash. I found London to be terribly, terribly expensive. We went to McDonald's our first night in to eat something safe and familiar, and I spent 4 pounds on a meal. That's almost double what one would spend in the States. The next morning, I was talked into getting the all you can eat breakfast buffet at the hotel. That was 6 and a half pounds. The food was pretty average. I figure I paid about triple what the food was worth to me.

So we are all holed up in the hotel room, glad to be doing well and be able to get some real sleep.