The Naming of Things

The Radcliffe Camera, Oxford, January 2008

The weather is amazing right now, and I feel like it is reversing me back to my time in Oxford. I got there in January, and as time went on it got warmer and warmer, albeit by rather small increments. Christmas on January 7 was freezing. By Pascha, I thought that the twilit 50 degree evening in Essex was warm. I've acclimated back to California weather (August in Riverside forced my hand) but the incrementally cooling weather reminds me more and more of Oxford, as if once it gets sufficiently cold I ought to expect to return.

Magdalen College as seen from the Botanical Gardens, Oxford, February 2008

I thought to myself the other day how I would like to hop on a bus (for 12 pounds) and get myself to London. There, I would by a Tube Pass (Zone 1 only, 6 pounds) and see my favorite parts of London: St. Paul's (8 pounds 75), the Tate Modern (free!), and Trafalgar Square (tourist photos cost only your dignity). Don't forget St Dunstan's on Fleet Street - Sweeney Todd, John Donne, and the Orthodox Church all in one place! Perhaps I can find my way into St. Bride's, and discover the entrance to the Inns of Court. Hop over to Kensington (via St Pancras) and get a Ben's Cookie. Walk the gardens, admiring the bluish blue of the sky, the shape and movement of the clouds, the face of each person who passes by. I might strike up a conversation on the tube - but only outside of Zone 1, maybe if I went to visit Olga.

St. Paul's at night, London, March 2008

But I'd rather see something new of London. Explore Notting Hill Gate. What's Marylebone? Where might Hammersmith and City take me (if they can get that line running at all)?

Sunset on Crick Road, Oxford, April 2008

Even though the winter will not take me back to Oxford, I will wear my scarf from Cornmarket Street, and eat paninis on colder days in between study sessions (though cheesy-tomato rice is more likely), and be grateful that there is no cobblestone in Orange County.