Today was orientation day. At 9:30 AM, Jacque led our group to the Quaker Meeting House in Oxford for a morning session filled with information sharing, getting-to-know-you activities, and a fun scavenger hunt. Students spent the afternoon traipsing all over the city. The students are excited and curious, fighting jet lag to varying degrees of success, but hanging in. It’s a lot of fun watching students build relationships when living so closely together. Learning how to live in community is an important part of the Study Abroad semester.
They will need to do this quickly. Classes begin next week, and there is much academic work to be done. This semester I’m teaching two courses, “Introduction to Ethics,” and “Ethics and Social Issues.” These are bread-and-butter classes for me. I love what I get to teach this semester, especially in Oxford, a place that has been home to significant contributors to western moral philosophy and theological ethics. I’ll have more to share about my classes eventually, but not today.
After orientation, Tara and I went with Aubree, the residential assistant in Oxford this Fall, to a mobile phone store to get local SIM cards. Unfortunately, my stateside phone is locked to my phone provider. We ended up purchasing some cheap pay-as-you-go phones for use in the UK. Note to future Study Abroad professors: we’re leaving these phones behind for you. Use them!
By early afternoon, jet lag was really hitting me hard, so after picking up some groceries at the local Tesco, Tara and I headed back to our flat. I napped for a few hours this afternoon. I know it is better to force yourself onto the local schedule, but hey, the flesh was weak. It’s now almost 11:30 PM local time, and I’m wide awake. I expect I’ll be mostly adjusted by Sunday. This evening I took a walk back toward City Center by way of Jericho, a local neighborhood a short walk from the ACU house. Once an industrial area, long ago Jericho served as a resting place for travelers arriving in Oxford after the city walls had closed (Thanks, Wikipedia). Today the neighborhood consists of narrow streets of Victorian-style row houses and a long avenue of trendy pubs, convenience stores, bicycle shops, and hipster retailers. Thomas Hardy’s novel Jude the Obscure has a scene set at Jericho’s St. Barnabas Church. There is a great looking pub in Jericho that I ran into, named “Jude the Obscure,” another place that seems worth checking out! The British television series Inspector Morse has also filmed scenes in Jericho.
While walking through Jericho I was drawn to a phenomenal building in the neighborhood that I am eager to learn more about. Sitting across from the entrance to Oxford University Press, the building is quite large and imposing, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. It looked like it might be a restaurant, but the building exterior is like no restaurant I’ve ever seen. Check it out:
The place was advertising that it is currently hiring, like many restaurants in Oxford, but what restaurant has the name “Freud” sitting over the entrance? Any locals who know more about this place, both its past and present history, I’m all ears.
This evening I returned home to a large group of students in the common room watching “The Hobbit.” Given Oxford’s connection to Tolkien, the choice seems appropriate. I’m about to unpack the cheese and crackers I purchased from the local cheese shop. The cheesemonger laughed at me today when I asked him to recommend a blue cheese for me to try out. He doesn’t understand. I’m planning to visit him frequently. I’m wanting him to recommend new things each time I go. I’m also on the lookout for some Stinking Bishop. That cheese deserves an entire post devoted to describing it’s aromatic essence. No Stinking Bishop tonight. The cheesemonger chose the Oxford Blue. My understanding is that it is sort of like Stilton, but milder.
Tomorrow is a free day for us. Tara and I have made tentative plans to hike to the pub at Iffley Lock on the River Thames. Tara is wanting to gauge her own stamina to see how much of the Thames River Path she intends to do with me. I look forward to sharing how it goes. More to come tomorrow. Family, friends, and parents we are getting settled. A great semester is ahead for our students.
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Everyone looks so happy! Can hardly wait to hear about all of your adventures and find out what that strange building actually is!
Freuds is indeed a restaurant/bar/night club who’s struggled with its identity in present years. It was, as you guessed, a church in its past–hence its regal structure.