DFW to England - 2002

Picture Album

Random Recollections
  • When we arrived in England, we discovered that our coach was delayed. We waited in the cold London morning at Gatwick for well over an hour until another bus finally came to take us to Oxford.
  • On the ride from Gatwick airport to Oxford we passed by Heathrow airport. I was able to shoot a photo of the Concorde near the horizon. We were excited to see it, but didn't realize at the time that they would soon permanently take it out of service.
  • The streets were very narrow everywhere we went. We couldn't believe how the big double-decker buses navigated the small, winding roads in the tightly-packed towns.
  • I was quite surprised by the amount of undeveloped rural countryside that we passed through between London and Oxford. I discovered as time went on that the cities are very tightly packed together and that the countryside is not encroached upon as it is in the United States. I assume that this has something to do with the historic need to raise food for an island economy.
  • I got almost no sleep on the trip over and Laura got very, very little. Nevertheless, we were so excited when we got there that we toured Oxford with Melissa and Fred and Bonnie Bailey as soon as we arrived. We got to bed at the normal England time and didn't miss a beat the rest of the trip. The same could not be said for our adjustment when we returned to Abilene.
  • ACU has two houses which sit side-by-side about a mile or two from downtown Oxford. Girl students occupy one house and boys the other. We were fortunate because the fall semester has many fewer students than the spring. We were able to stay in an empty room at the top of the boys' house for no charge. In return, we brought camera batteries and other necessities to help out Fred in his work.
  • Oxford is a city steeped in history. Fred explained that the Anglican influence caused the churches and colleges there to build courtyards inside of high walls. The idea was that the walls would keep out the bad influences of the outside world.
  • The first morning that we were in Oxford we walked through University Park. It is a beautiful park that has giant Sequoia trees brought from America in the 1800s. Laura found some great new birds, and I got in trouble for my Texas 'howdy' to everyone. Melissa explained that the people there treasure their privacy even though they can be quite friendly if you know them personally. She was quite outdone with me being too forward with my greetings. I tried to tone it down as best I could.
  • We found that almost all of the streets in Oxford and most other towns in Europe have many names. The name will run for a few blocks, and then suddenly changed to another name, and then in a few more blocks will change to yet another. This made it very difficult to figure things out at times.