reading week -- a photo story

I have resigned myself to the fact that I will get little to no sleep (hopefully the former) the next couple of days because of papers and Thanksgiving preparations. So, as I look at the "paper 1" window on my desktop with an MLA format help from "paper 2" in WRIT 340, I will update this blog, complete with pictures from reading week, where I went to Windsor Castle (with a stop at Eton College), University of Oxford, Stonehenge and Stratford-upon-Avon (I think they pronounce it "ay-vun" here). So now, pictures from reading week. You will notice, however, that there are no Stonehenge pictures. Those will be posted later. Here we go.


** this is the front of Shakespeare's birthplace. Stratford-upon-Avon is one big tourist trap, except maybe his tomb inside the Holy Trinity Church, which is open to visitors even on Sundays .... unusual.


** the beautiful garden in the back of Shakespeare's birthplace.


** this is Holy Trinity Church, which sits on the banks of the River Avon, which is gorgeous. The church itself is in the shape of a cross, with the top of the cross facing east, toward the River Avon. The nave and the chancel, where Shakespeare and his family are buried, is buily at an angle. I've been told two different explanations for this: one is that it is the architectural style of the day (doubtful, but I am open to dispute from people who know architecture), and two, that when they "rebuilt" the chancel, they built it to align perfectly east since the "old" chancel, along with the current nave, is slightly off-center. I'm not sure I quite believe the second explanation either, but the brochure they gave out didn't really explain the weird crookeness.


** the is a view from the River Avon from the graveyard of the Holy Trinity Church. Pretty, huh?


** Shakespeare's tomb. You can see his family's coat of arms at the bottom corner. His tombstone reads:
Good friend for Jesus sake forebeare,
To digg the dust encloased heare.
Blese be the man that spares these bones,
And curst be he that moves my bones.


** University of Oxford's Herford College courtyard. Oxford is in the town of Oxford, which is to say that the university IS the town in that it is a college town but also that the campus is so spread out in the town that it makes sense to just call the whole thing Oxford.


** a statue in the courtyard of the Bodleian Library, the university's main library.


** the Radcliffe Camera, part of the Bodleian Library, from the tower of the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin.


** The Coronation Chair from the Westminster Abbey. Remember when I said I didn't know we couldn't take photos in the abbey? Here's proof.


** And the Westminster Abbey.