June in Pictures

Howdy!

Sorry Brandon and I have not been doing blog posts lately.  Seems like every free moment we have is spent writing our dissertations.  Thankfully I am now sitting with around 9,000 words (out of the 12,000 required) so I feel comfortable enough to spend a bit of time writing a post for you all!  Brandon is at 10,700 (out of 15,000)

Since we have missed several updates the past week, I thought I'd just post a bunch of pictures so you can see what we have been up to the past month.  Because, let's face it, a majority of you probably just scan these posts and look at the pictures anyway, so I'll keep the words to a minimum this time ;)

We visited the Sherlock Holmes museum back in May when the Stover Seniors were in town.  Here is our attempt at being Dr. Watson and the great detective.

Another remnant from May with the Stovers - Enjoying a pint on the stage before seeing the musical "Once"

The following pictures are sights from Kew Gardens - a large botanical garden in South West London.  Brandon and I made the trip out there one bright and sunny day to enjoy a picnic lunch!

The Kew Palm House - a giant green house with plants from all over the world

At Kew Palace - a formal royal residence of King George III

The Japanese garden at Kew

A modern tunnel built to look ancient

In front of the tunnel

On the five story high tree top canopy walk at Kew 

Kayla, a lovely friend of mine from Millikin stopped in London for one day as part of her month long backpacking trip through Europe, here are a few of the things we did that day!

On my way to Hogwarts!

An a visit to the Doctor was a must...

Brandon and I took a day trip to Oxford to visit the city, but mostly to enjoy an afternoon at The Thirsty Meeple - the UK's only board game cafe.  Several from the Goldsmiths tabletop gaming society went as well.  Now Brandon and I are making plans to someday run our own board game cafe...

One of the many colleges in Oxford

One of the college accommodations in Oxford - seriously looks like a castle...

The Radcliffe Camera - a round building which is one of the University of Oxford libraries

Another University of Oxford building

The board game cafe!

Lately, we have enjoyed many cultural offerings in London, including an orchestra concert in a car park, a stage version of Orwell's 1984, and Bizet's The Peal Fishers at the English National Opera.

The view of London from the car park after hearing Sibelius Symphony No. 5

The London Coliseum - home to the English National Opera

We celebrated our fourth anniversary on June 25th by going on an impromptu Thames River Cruise (okay, not really a cruise, more of a river taxi...but it was still awesome!)

View of the Tower Bridge from the Thames Boat Taxi

Most people get the "London Bridge" and "The Tower Bridge" confused, but as you can see here, the London Bridge  is actually quite boring...

Tate Modern and the Millennium Bridge from the Thames

And finally, we spent yesterday morning with a friend we met through a geocaching event.  He wanted to climb to the top of St Pauls, since there is a virtual cache up there, so we made it up the 528 to the top of dome and got rewarded with some spectacular views of London!

Almost to the top, here we took a short breather about 3/4 of the way up on a wider outcropping

At the top!

A view of the scary stairs you have to climb in the actual dome

Hope you all had a lovely June!!  July will be taking us to Italy and Greece, before August brings us back to the US, so we still have lots to look forward to this summer!

Our Canterbury Tale

The Stover Jr. family recently took a trip to Canterbury, UK over reading week (a week off from school, like spring break).  We spent 2 nights there and saw much of the city.  Canterbury is the setting of Chaucer's 14th Century collection of stories, The Canterbury Tales. This was one of the first books ever published in English.  It describes the pilgrimage many people made from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of a famous Archbishop, after he was murdered in the Canterbury Cathedral in the 1170.

So, of course, we had to visit the Canterbury Cathedral.  It is a beautiful Gothic cathedral, much like Westminster in London, and is a World Heritage Site.  It is also the symbolic leader of the worldwide Anglican church and home of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the principal leader of the Church of England.  We even got to attend a short service of Evensong while there and it was a very lovely and powerful service.  Fun fact: Canterbury was where Christianity was first brought to England!

The Canterbury Cathedral

A selfie in front of the Cathedral

A street in downtown Canterbury, with the cathedral in the background

Since we considered this little trip our Valentine's Day gift to each other we decided to have a fancy dinner out while in Canterbury (this is a big deal for us, since we don't have a lot of money right now, and usually just purchase cheap food...) So we found this nice little restaurant on the river called 'The Old Weaver's House' and had a lovely dinner in a charming historic building.

The quaint restaurant where we had 'Valentine's Dinner'

Canterbury is a rather small town, with cute little boutique shops up and down the main streets.  It is easy to walk through the whole town in a matter of hours, perusing the little shops and historic buildings.  There are also a few museums to check out, such as the Canterbury Roman museum which gives you a look into what the city was like in the Roman period.  The Beany House of Art and Knowledge was another museum we visited, which houses random artifacts and collections from around the world.  Here you can see Emily playing with some dolls, really she just needed a break from walking around!

Emily playing with dolls

Then there are the historic gems that we found in the town - like the ruins of an old castle and the Westgate into the city, which is the largest surviving city gate in England, built around 1379.  While wandering through the streets we ran across this out-of-the-way path that lead to a pretty park. We also walked through an old hospital, but not in the sense that we use the word.  It was actually a place of hospitality for pilgrims to who were coming to Canterbury to visit the cathedral in the 12th Century.  We don't have any good pictures of that, but it was an interesting visit.

Ruins of the Canterbury Castle from 1066

The Westgate into the city

A river running through town

The 'out-of-the-way path' we stumbled upon

While we had a lovely time in Canterbury, it is a place you can see in only one or two days.  It is a quaint little town, that is easily walkable, with many historic buildings and stories.  A worthwhile weekend trip from London!

St. Catherine's Church

Many of you know that Brandon and I are proclaimed Christians.  We love Jesus and we try to live our life in a way that reflects Him.  So, it is important to us to find a church home while we are in London.  Not only does a weekly worship service help you feel closer to Christ, but it is a way of connecting with the community of Christians and gives us a support system to rely on when things get difficult.  We have joined the Christian Union on campus and attend their events when we can.  We have also befriended the campus vicar (clergy).  Both have offered several church suggestions for us to try, so we spent our first month visiting several area churches to get a taste of what is available and find a church home while living in London.

So the church we landed on is St. Catherine's!! This is a Church of England (Anglican) based church and it is located on the top of big hill, with wonderful views of the city.  The building itself is made up of Gothic architecture and is a wonderful atmosphere to worship inside.  The vicar of the church is a woman, who is interested in developing the music programs at the church and reaching out into the community of New Cross.  The service itself was much like St. Matthew's, with a very liturgical based worship and even included some familiar phrases ("The Lord be with you....and also with you!")  Everyone is very nice and we have already met many of the church members.  Downsides of this church - not very many other students (25-35 age range) attend, the congregation is made up of mostly young families and older adults.  But overall, it feels a lot like St. Matthew's and I love the fact that we can offer our musical gifts to help the vicar in her vision.

Here are some pictures of our new church home!

The sanctuary and alter

Stained Glass windows above the alter

Gothic arches

Outside sign

The front of the church

Happy Sunday everyone!!