Day 6 - Oxford

This morning we got to eat our very first "English Breakfast".  Some of my students are a bit pickier than others, and I am including Jeri in that list.  However, no one went away hungry and we observed the other guests at breakfast and will "do it better" tomorrow morning.  They were most impressed that you could order a pitcher of hot chocolate with your breakfast.

The plan of the day for the students was to explore two of the three: Library, Natural History Museum, and Ashmodian Museum.  Unfortunately for us, the much of the Library was closed off due to graduation ceremonies, but I tried pointing out that you could at least glimpse the highlights of the highlights at the Library store.  Later on students told me that you could still see one exhibit for free, but more on that later.

Jeri and I started out heading in the other direction since I had seen that there was an easy, regular geocache very close by to the South.  One easy find later, and one less trackable, and we were off to the Library.

Jeri in front of the Radcliffe Camera, part of the Library

From the Library, we headed for the Natural History and Anthropology Museums.  I was supposed to get the coordinates for another geocache from the Bee room, but I never could find the number being referred to.  However, the Natural History museum was pretty cool if you are into dinosaurs.

The first described dinosaur, from anywhere in the world, was found in Oxfordshire.  It was a 9 meter long carnivore that stood on its hind legs; we now call it Megalosaurus bucklandi, which means "Buckland's giant lizard."  The first published record of a dinosaur bone was in Dr. Robert Plot's 1677 book The Natural History of Oxfordshire.  Recognizable today as part of a single thigh bone  of Megalosaurus, it was collected in 168 million year old Jurassic rocks from Cornwell, near Oxford (transcribed from museum sign)

The museum was also in a very beautiful Victorian building with statues of famous scientists all around.  It was also impressive that all the columns were of different rocks with the columns labeled.

Charles Darwin

Newton

Galileo

Euclid

Leibnitz

Watt

Priestly

Roger Bacon

Bacon (again)

Aristotle

Hippocrates

Hodgkin

Linneaus

At that point, even though we had eaten a large breakfast, Jeri and I were feeling a bit peckish.  We set off to find a grocery store to buy a snack because I was holding out for tea and scones.  On the way, I was very excited to walk right past the Mathematics Institute which was having an open house for prospective students (you had to pre-register).  They are also pleased that they will be getting a new building in October 2013.

You should check out the city map (which I didn't have) sometime.  I could really have used a Garmin Nuvi because I ended up on the wrong side of the canal for quite some distance and ended up crossing over North and only slightly East of the train station.  By the time we found civilization, I changed up plans slightly and we ate at the top floor of the downtown department store.  Jeri got her kids meal and I got tea, clotted cream, and strawberry jam.

Finally, we spent some time in Blackstone, England's oldest and biggest bookstore where I found a Terry Pratchett trilogy about some gnomes I had never heard of.  Since I found them on the top floor in the used book section, I bought them.  While at Blackstone, the students told me that you can still see the Medieval Romance display at the Bodean Library.  So, since it was only about 150 meters away, we went.  Good timing because we got there about 4 PM and they closed at 4:30.  I then had to take pictures of all the important doorways inside the quadrangle of the library.

School of Geometry and Arithmatic

School of Metaphysics

School of Logic

School of Astronomy

Some of the students went to a lecture on Nanoparticles.  I had more tea.  And we all went to an excellent little Japanese restaurant called Edamame where the only drawback was, with 12, we had a 45 minute wait in the cold.  I hear there is a video of me in the middle of a trust circle, but I will deny all knowledge of such an attempt to stay warm.

Day 5 - Travel to Oxford

So this morning, we checked out of the Hostel in London and took the train to Oxford.  While at the Oxford station, I checked into reserving seats on the next train (to Telford Central) - free and taken care of.  From there we walked the 2K to our guest house and dropped off the bags.  Then we hot footed it back to the Oxford Museum of Science.  What does it mean that my students think this museum is "cooler than the British Museum".

Memorable items at the Oxford Science Museum include the blackboard Einstein used when he lectured at Oxford, Boyle's vacuum pump, and an hour glass that counts by quarter hours and will definitely make an appearance in my next Integral Calculus course.

There was a very friendly gentleman in the Basement who told us about the Einstein blackboard, other museums to go to in Oxford, his fame of having his mother live next to Chelsea Clinton when she was a student at Oxford (the students asked who Chelsea was), and his memories of being at a famous event which he finally admitted after many hints was a Rock concert the year after I was born.  I didn't mention the last part.

By the time we returned to the guest house, we were starting to figure out the layout of the city, but it is complicated because all the colleges are surrounded by high walls.

Day 3 - London

Today was our first serious day of class.  We were all up nice and early with the time change and figured out breakfast.  The Hostel has an included breakfast of cereal, toast, juice, tea, and (instant) coffee, but you can buy up to a better breakfast if you want.  I thoroughly enjoyed my big bowl of musili.  We won't talk about the coffee.

I was nearly the last one out of the hostel since when I went out the first time, I turned around and went back to the room for my scarf.  It turned out to be a great decision since is was quite a bit cooler than yesterday.  I just wish that I had remembered to grab my London maps at the same time.  I didn't mention to the students that I was navigating completely from memory all day.  First, we took the tube out to the quays and transferred to the Dockside Light Rail for the ride to Greenwich.  We spent a good deal of the trip traveling with a large group of 9-10 year old school kids which had its disadvantages (they giggled) and its advantages (we couldn't get lost since they were also going to the Observatory).

The Royal Observatory Museum is in several parts, but we had to pay to get into the Time part so we could see H1, H2, H3, and H4 plus some great paintings of Naval Disasters.

Posing at the Prime Meridian

H1

H2

H3

Tierra del Fuego

H4

From there, we went up the hill a little higher to the other part of the museum which had great displays of Astronomy.  The special exhibit was on the transit of Venus and how it was used to measure the distance between the Sun and the Earth.  We were all surprised to learn that there is one more transit of Venus in our lifetime, it will be observable during sunset in Iowa, and it will be in June.

After leaving the Museum, we had decided to eat lunch together and let people be on their own for dinner.  We had another delicious pub meal at the Greenwich Tavern.  From there, we checked out the Cutty Sark exhibit from the outside and made our way back to the tube and on to Westminster.

At Westminster Abbey I discovered that 18 year olds aren't students, they are schoolchildren and that saved us fourteen pounds for the admission to the Abbey - thank you Freshmen!  Photography is not allowed, but the audio tours are included in the price of admission.  I told the students that I would see them tomorrow morning at breakfast and they were welcome to explore on their own.

Jeri and I left the Abbey and thought about returning to the Hostel, but she wasn't free again until 7, so we headed up the river in look of a small something to eat.  We walked up to Trafalgar Square and found a lovely little bookstore.  Jeri's ankles didn't hurt nearly as much when I agreed to purchase the new Rick Riordan book which isn't available back home.  We found a nice little sandwich spot with a children's menu.  From there, since we were so close, I had to stop in the Twinings store, but they were out of what I was looking for, so I just picked up a couple of bags to tide me over.

One of the evening papers has a nice article on an interview with Terry Pratchett about how children should not be allowed to text since it hampers their language development.   Finally we got on the tube going the wrong direction, but since the tube is so complicated, we were still able to transfer to the Central line going that direction and return to the hostel.