including happy deer with waggly tails and a delightful trip to England

I am a hard-core anglophile.

"Why?" you ask?

Well...the Beatles, Harry Potter, Downton Abbey...

The books, the music, the acting, the tea, the humor, the charm, the stiff upper lip. The Queen. I could keep going, but I'll keep it at that.

Never mind. I have to add one more thing: the food. 

People never have anything good to say about British food.

They are crazy.

Tea and scones, people! And the Brits have honed the savory pie to perfection. It even comes in to-go style as a pasty. Not to mention fish 'n' chips, eaton mess, the English breakfast, and tarts. And all the cool ethnic food that worked its way to England from all over the former empire.

But I've gotten totally derailed.

What I started out to say is that, being an anglophile, my li'l anglophile heart was in high heaven over Memorial Day weekend. Dad's holiday lined up with my school holidays, so my parents took me to England. We spent three days in London and one wonderfully glorious day in Oxford.

This post is not going to be a play-by-play of the trip. It's simply a photographic record of some (not remotely all) of the moments we enjoyed during four ridiculously non-rainy days in England.

OXFORD

I forgot how much Oxford felt like my native environment. 

I don't even care that this line isn't in the book. Of course it needs to be up in The Eagle and Child. It just does.

If you zoom way into the first picture you'll two specks in the middle of the field of gold. Which specks are happy deer with waggly tails.

Our friend the gargoyle. We didn't think to name him. If we had, he would have been Bob evermore.

I was intrigued by this one word on a paving stone in Merton College.

All sorts of things came to mind.

Well, then.

Oh well.

Well...

All shall be well.

And then I asked the porter who informed me that the stone marks the location of the well so that should there be plumbing issues they would know exactly what part of the courtyard to tear up.

Ah, well.

Colors and neutrals coinciding.

The Divinity School.

Apparently collegiate croquet players are exempt from the mandate to 

PLEASE

KEEP

OFF THE 

GRASS

.

.

.

LONDON

Hello, Portobello Road.

Who knew a black house could be so charming and inviting?

The sign requests visitors to please keep to the path. I love the fact that the "path" is a mowed strip of lawn while the rest has been allowed to run wild. This is Kensington Palace Gardens, y'all. And in the middle of this grand spot we have a meadow.

We went to the Victoria and Albert Museum solely to partake of their scones. Because the scones at the V&A are the best in the world. And the museum cafe's decor is a dazzling combination of Arts & Crafts style and modern snowball chandeliers. It's pretty much my favorite.

This takes the idea of gutting a building to a whole new level. I mean, the facade is left but EVERYTHING else is gone. Respect.

On the other side of the spectrum, we have some really futuristic stuff going on here... I would never have guessed that this was London. It feels more like Seoul. But it's just down the river from Westminster. Who knew?

We went to Motown the musical, which was super fun. The sign below was posted all over the theater and definitely gives a sense of the mood of the show:

I was definitely dancing in my seat. (How can you not dance in your seat to "I Want You Back" and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough"?) But no one asked me to moderate my enthusiasm. So maybe I wasn't enthusiastic enough?

The South Bank of the Thames:

Covent Garden:

There was a random magnet board on a wall in a secluded square in Covent Garden. So Mama and I collaborated on a poem.

dazzle away

shadow

with 

light

We were quite satisfied with ourselves.

A new way of seeing the Underground icon.

The whole time we were there, I kept thinking: I want to live here! 

Who knows? Maybe I will again. If I could make it back to Germany I can make it back to the UK. One can always dream.

Things I Learned This Month | May 2018

It's time to wrap up the month of May with a list of some of the things I learned this month!

1. I really, really love the UK. 
Granted, I knew this already, but getting to spend Memorial Day weekend in London and Oxford reminded me how much of an Anglophile I really am. I was so happy to be back that I jumped up and down. All weekend.

2. It is possible to die as a direct result of too much studying.
I spent a day showing my parents around Oxford, and we took a tour of the Bodleian Library. Which was so much fun, since I spent tons of time studying there but had never taken a tour. Evidently, fire has never been allowed in the library. Understandable. But this means that until the invention of electricity, there was no heat in the building. Which meant that if it was freezing outside, it was freezing inside. At least two students in the history of the library died of hypothermia.

3. In spite of this fact, I really miss studying.
Evidence of my eccentricity: while I proctored a test earlier this month, I found myself reminiscing fondly over my favorite exams in college. Yes, I had favorite exams. Dr. Bieber's, to be precise. Missing exams is a surefire indicator that I'm a student at the core. Whether I actually pursue further schooling or just do independent work, I want to be learning for the rest of my life.

4. Pea cake with lemon buttercream icing is surprisingly good.
I saw this in the Victoria and Albert Museum cafe when we were in London. Since it is an unalterable family tradition to get tea and scones in the V&A (because they are hands down the best scones in England), I didn't get the pea & lemon cake, but I made a mental note to try it at home. The day after getting back, I did, and it's surprisingly yummy. (I used this recipe, if you're interested. The icing was too sweet, but that's tweakable.)

5. I prefer the 1984 NIV Study Bible to the ESV Study Bible. 
The notes in both are good, but the NIV Study Bible has way more cross references, which I find really helpful.

6. Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds, is just what I needed to be reading at this point in life. 
I'm reasonably familiar with the TCK experience, being one myself. I also think that I'm a reasonably well-adjusted TCK. That said, this book has been hugely cathartic as I realize that many of the things I think about and deal with on a daily basis are common to third culture kids throughout the world. For example, the feeling of being as at home in an airport as anywhere else in the world. Or wrestling with how to answer the question, "Where are you from?" and realizing that this is a different question than "Where's home?" Or having very strong loyalty to a sponsoring organization (for me, the army) even after you're no longer living with the parents who are actually members of the organization. I'm going to be thinking about this book for a long time.

7. My father is the baby whisperer. 
I'd heard legends, but never seen him in action. My parents and I watched a 6-month-old for an evening, and Dad was amazing. Mom and I enjoyed holding the baby, feeding the baby, and playing with the baby, but the instant she started fussing we were so out of our league and Dad took over. Within moments she would be chuckling and giggling. Every. Single. Time. Whatever that gift is, it's innate, not learned, and I don't have it. I can keep a baby safe, but I definitely can't guarantee a happy baby. I'm in awe.

Catching up {part 2}

{If you haven't already seen this post you might want to go check it out because it's part one of my two-part endeavor to wrap up {at least for now} my travel-blogging phase and catch y'all up on my last weeks in Oxford.}

I wandered Oxford. 

There are some pretty impressive dinosaurs in the Museum of Natural History.

I wandered into many of Oxford's 38 Colleges. These three pictures are from Corpus Christi college. I loved this one because the gardeners had a sense of whimsey and I could tell they enjoy what they do. Usually Oxford colleges are grand, not whimsical, and I found this one delightful.

In the Middle Ages it was believed that during a famine or draught pelicans would pierce their own breasts and feed the gore to their young to keep them alive. This was considered an allegory of Christ's sacrificial love for the church. Since this is Corpus Christi - the body of Christ - college, there were images of pelicans everywhere.

I found one of the two things I remember from my visit to Oxford years and years ago.

This gate is the entrance to the Master's Garden at Christ Church College. Years ago when Mom, Charlie, and I visited Oxford for twenty-four hours, I took a photograph identical to the one on the top right. That view, and the Bodleian Library shop, were the only two things I remembered about Oxford up until the day when I arrived in January. I stumbled across it on a stroll through Christ Church Meadows and knew I had to draw it.

I drank lots of tea.

I grew to love this tucked-away room in the King's Arms pub - a perfect place for a pot of tea and some quiet studying. 

The stereotype of the British preoccupation with tea is on point. Tea is a crucial element of each day. It is drunk with milk, not cream, and the milk goes into the teacup first.

To give you an idea of how important tea is: There's a delightful gentleman in his seventies on the SCIO staff. His name is John. For eight years, John's Lenten practice was to give up his Saturday afternoon cup of tea. This was such a difficult thing that after eight years he gave it up and now does not involve tea in Lenten fasting. I'm not making this up. 

So. Tea is important. 

According to Dr. Baigent, tea is a necessary element of all decision-making in Oxford. 

It is also a hugely necessary element to sustain students preparing fourteen-page research papers worth 75% of the final grade for a course.

The tea I had at the Grande Cafe on High Street is called Lapsang Souchong. I ordered it because the menu discussed its distinctive smoky flavor, and I was curious what that meant. Drinks are described as having all sorts of characteristics that I usually don't understand, and this one sounded intriguing. 

It tasted like smoke in liquid form. In a good way. Drinking it was like drinking a summer campfire.

When I next had wifi I googled this tea and discovered that the leaves are dried over pinewood fires. You learn something new every day. And when it's about tea, all the better.

I had to sneak this in, though it's not tea. Cafe Nero in England is as ubiquitous as Starbucks in the States, and I much prefer its ambiance (think long lightwood farm tables and whimsical photos of Italy). I procured a loyalty card my first week in Oxford and by week 12 I had finished it. 

This was important, guys: I have never, ever completed one of those things.

When I found out that I could get whatever drink I wanted in whatever size I wanted, a good day got way better. So I got a large orange hot chocolate with loads of whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles. The barista totally understood my excitement and enthusiasm, which made me even happier.

This is only a handful of my tea photos, and I won't try your patience with more. 

I found Addison's Walk, a favorite walk of C.S. Lewis'

Lewis, Tolkien, and another friend took countless laps around this walk (it's probably about half a mile) during intense debates leading up to Lewis' conversion.

I walked into Narnia.

Unfortunately, I have no photographs documenting this fact. But if you ever want to walk through the wardrobe, I recommend the Story Museum in Oxford. Not only does this fabulous museum give guests the opportunity to sit in a sleigh in a snowy wood near a lamppost reading about Lucy's first impressions of Narnia, but it also offers a gigantic location for bedtime reading. 

It also gave me the opportunity to tap into my dictatorial four-year-old self as I impersonated an annoyed Alice at a mad tea party. 

Finally, it transformed Katherine into "The Terrible Master of Mystery," Paige into "The Cheeky thing of Nutwood," and myself into "The Mysterious Person of the Clouds." (Amy was our Phenomenal Photographer.)

Spring came, and I took photographs of flowers and chopped-down trees.

Elisa and I spent the night in London before I flew home and she went gallivanting around the UK.

We spent an hour and a half inside Westminster Abbey, but first we took rubbings of it from the guide to the square. 

I got to see what is possibly my favorite portrait ever. It is in the National Portrait Gallery and it is of William Wilberforce, who battled for years to abolish slavery in the British Empire. I have loved this portrait ever since I first saw it. {The quote is taken from the memorial to Wilberforce in Westminster Abbey.}

An unexpected detour took us to Baker Street underground station, which was one of the first underground stations in London and was recently restored to its Victorian glory. 

And, finally, I came home.