Clay's Visit

Wow. There is just too much to say here. I am sorry we didn’t catalogue it as we went along, but the combination of the beautiful weather and our desire to make the most of our time together here pulled us away from the computer for a good week. Thanks for sticking with the blog, though—I promise I will try to make it up to my faithful readers with several posts today and more to come!

Clay wrote so well about the beginning of his visit here, and I posted a scrapbook of the first half of the week, so I will try to pick up where those left off...

Friday: I had class until 11:30, and we thought we might try to make it to Bath, but didn’t really have enough time…so we went to the Tourist Info Center here and asked then what they thought we should do. Their answer: an Oxford Walking Tour. So we purchased the guidebook, grabbed our favorite Morton’s baguettes (yum!) and hit the road. We had so much fun. I learned a ton about Oxford and saw lots of places I had yet to find on my own. We toured Christ Church College and Cathedral (which are stunning) and wandered our way in as many of the colleges as we could find and would let us through the Porter’s Gate. Amazingly, every college seemed both unique and just as gorgeous as the others. Oxford definitely knows how to design a quad. Magdalen College even has a deer park—random but fun. We laughed, we explored, we took lots of pictures…it was great. Friday night we had dinner with my closest girlfriends here at Wagamama, a noodle bar right around the corner from Lincoln. Hit up the White Horse, the Turf Tavern, and King’s Arms before heading to bed.

Saturday: London! We grabbed a morning bus and arrived around 12:30into Victoria Station. After a few minutes of trying to orient ourselves, we found our way to our hotel (B&B Belgravia—it was perfect! And unlimited espresso included!) where we dropped our stuff and headed into the city. Again, perfect weather—Clay definitely brought it with him over here and I am so glad he did! We took the Underground up to St. Paul’s (check out the views of London we captured from the top of the Dome in the video below!) and marveled at how big and historical it was. Walking to the top of the Dome is a must: combination good workout and great way to see the city from a different perspective. It was awesome to do it as our first stop because we really felt like we were in London, you know? We are here—yay! We are together—YAY! We then walked down to Covent Garden and Neal’s Yard for a yummy lunch and then walked all over the city—Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, Parliament, National Portrait Gallery…Clay, what am I forgetting? We finally made it back to our hotel around 7:30, where we showered and geared up for dinner in Soho. We picked out a neat-sounding Indian restaurant but couldn’t find it, but luckily there was a charming little Indian restaurant down a side street where we could sit outside and enjoy the evening—and some naan. We toured Soho a bit after dinner (Soho appeared to be combo of nightclubs and strip clubs, so we found our way into some funny situations) and had a yummy piece of coffee cake at a bakery right before they closed. Again, just so glad to be together.

Sunday: We went to church at Westminster Abbey (how cool is that??) where we were amazed at both how huge and intricate the interior space was and how sparsely attended the service was--maybe less than 300 people. But we felt lucky to be there and then walk out into another sunny day. We saw as much as we could of Parliament and then made our way to the Churchill War Rooms. I remember doing this with Mom and Dad a few years ago and loving it, and once again I was so impressed. They have added a HUGE and very smart Winston Churchill Museum to the tour, and Clay and I spent more time than we anticipated reading all of the displays and seeing the impressive collection of artifacts they have from his life and England during WWII. I was fascinated. Churchill was such an eloquent speaker, too, and they had some neat readings from his more famous war speeches to the nation. Dad, you would have loved it J. We then thought about going to the All England Club to see where Wimbledon is played, but we eventually decided we wouldn’t have enough time before it closed, so we wandered through Regent’s Park (where I saw R&J last night) and then down into Bloomsbury. We tried to find the plaque commemorating the Bloomsbury Writers, but no luck—but we did find Charles Dickens’s house, which was pretty cool. We decided to take a bus (as opposed to the Tube) back to our hotel so we could enjoy a few more sights of London and, after grabbing our backpack, headed to the Coach Station and caught the next bus back to Oxford. We loved London and felt like we really “did it.” With the exception of Wimbledon, we saw everything we had hoped to see and also enjoyed times when we just wandered around discovering things not in the guidebooks. Great memories of London.


Monday: Again, plans to go to Bath, but a wonderfully relaxing morning led to time in University Parks, Blackwell’s, lunch at Morton’s (so good!), and an hour rowing on the river! A drink at The Bear (for Clay) and a cone at McDonald’s (for me) rounded out the afternoon. This was perhaps my favorite day of Clay’s trip so far…we were just so relaxed and excited to do whatever we felt like doing. Monday night BL hosted Joe Dixon, who played Bottom in the RSC’s production of Midsummer that the entire program went to go see. He did Q&A with us for an hour before cocktails and high table. We loved Joe Dixon—he was so engaging and had years worth of theatre memories and insights to share with us. The more I learn about Shakespearean actors, the more I respect them. A ton of thought and effort goes into every production, and I find the choices they each make to be fascinating. I got to sit across from Joe at the High Table during dinner, too, so I got to hear more about his background and interests, which was fun. A bunch of us headed to All Bar One for drinks afterwards and got in a good, rousing game of Family. Awesome.

Tuesday: Clay’s last day in England. We went out for coffee in the a.m. before my class at 11, picking up some Oxford mementos for Clay and a Happy Anniversary banner for Jessie. She celebrated her second anniversary with Steele, s o we wanted to try to do something to make her smile since she wasn’t going to be with him that day (although it doesn’t take much to make sweet Jessie smile :-)). Clay did an awesome job decorating her door while we were in class—she loved it. Clay and I went to The Mission (looks exactly like Chipotle) for lunch, sharing delicious burritos. We briefly browsed through the Blackwell’s Art and Poster Shop before catching the bus for London. We took in part of the Tate Modern (including a giant, hanging electrical plug…hmmm) and then crossed the Thames on the Millennium Bridge for one last walk around the city. We grabbed dinner (and breakfast for Clay the next morning) at a grocery store and ate in front of the Globe right on the river. I don’t know about Clay, but I was trying to not think about the fact that was leaving early the next morning. I was pretty sad. It was hard being apart when we were dating, but being apart from him now that we are married just feels wrong. Anyways, we saw King Lear at the Globe (more on that in another post), got home around 12:30, woke up at 4:30 a.m. to walk to the bus station, and then he was gone. Good thing yesterday was my longest class day and we had a play; staying busy helped me not think about how much I already missed him.