Dover and First Week of Classes

Hey y'all,

It's been a while since my last post, so there is a bit to catch up on.  The highlight of the past week was a trip to Dover on last Saturday.  I, along with five other UNC-KCL students, left on a bus from the London Victoria Coach Station in the morning for a 2-hour trip to the seaside town of Dover.  The drive took us through the Kent countryside and through a stop at Canterbury.  We arrived late in the morning and, as most of us had eaten little or no breakfast, we sat down for breakfast at a restaurant where I got my first full English breakfast.  It was a very good combination of a fried egg, (country) ham, sausage links and tomatoes.

Our main attraction in Dover was the castle located on a height east of the town.  It was truly an extraordinary site, as it contained history from the Romans, medieval times, 18th-century, both World Wars, and up through the Cold War.  The geographic value of the area was recognized by the Romans who built a lighthouse, or pharos, atop the cliffs.  Later King Henry II, daddy of Richard the Lionheart and King John of Robin Hood) built an imposing castle there for show as much as military reasons.  The main keep was surrounded by two curtain walls and the position atop the cliffs would've made it a tough nut to crack for an invader.  Under the castle was a network of medieval tunnels that were really cool to walk through.  Away from the keep, closer to the cliffs, the English later dug tunnels beneath the earth to house supplies and soldiers fearing an attack from Napoleon.  These in turn were improved upon and extended during the World Wars to include a hospital, command rooms, and larger barracks.  All told, there are some 4 miles of tunnels dug into the cliffs.  Most impressively, it was in these tunnels that Bertram Ramsay managed Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk in World War II.  During the Cold War, the deepest tunnels became nuclear fallout shelters to house the Regional Seat of Government should the country be attacked by the Soviets.  From the top of the cliffs (yes, the white cliffs of Dover), we could see the French coastline across the Channel.  Pretty neat.

I joined Ryan Dickey in attending All Souls Church Sunday morning in London.  All Souls was the church from which famous preacher and theologian, John Stott, played a primary role in returning the declining Anglican Church back to Gospel-centered Evangelism in the 80s.  Stott seems to be very highly regarded among Evangelicals here, almost like an English Billy Graham.  My school, King's College London, started classes this Monday, and all of my courses (or modules) are from the War Studies Department.  I'm taking classes on War and Global Conflict, Intelligence in War, Naval History, and War and International Order.  The Intel class seems like it's going to be pretty cool.  Beyond class, I attended the KCL Christian Union meeting on Tuesday, a Bible study at St. Luke's Church in Hampstead Wednesday, as well as going to the first KCL Cross Country training session.  I also joined a chorus which practiced on Thursday night.  Our concert is going to include Mozart's Requiem and Carmina Burana.

Anyhow, sorry for a long post.  I'm headed to Oxford tomorrow, and just booked a few days in Brussels for next weekend.  Glad to hear that the Red Sox had their hearts ripped out of their chest and trampled into the dust the other night.  Ah, how I hate them.

Yall be good,
Will

Getting There

On Thursday, my four and a half month summer came to an end, and I don't think anyone could blame me for saying "woe is me."  I reckon that spending three months in England will make up for killing my long summer.  Now that I've thrown that sarcasm away and ticked some folks off, here are the facts.

My plane departed from RDU at 11:30 Thursday morning.  Everything went smooth enough.  They did run me through the full-body x-ray machine, so I guess the Polo shirt, Sperrys, and blazer made me look like a bad guy.  Upon arriving at Boston-Logan, I found ways to kill time, including eating lunch at Wendy's for my last American meal.  I flew out of Boston around 7:15 PM and I feel no shame in saying that the sun setting behind the Boston skyline was a beautiful sight.  I had imagined after countless long bus trips with church and band that I had become hardened to the discomfort of those journeys.  However, the 5.5 hour plane ride did not suit my legs.  Only the movie "Battle: Los Angeles" could put me to sleep (yes, it's that bad).  In the morning darkness flying over Ireland, I used the plane's map to pick out the lights of Cork and Waterford far below, and I thought back to that trip years ago.  Shortly after 6 AM GMT on Friday morning, my plane touched down at London-Heathrow.

I was a bit worried that I received my visa without the security agent looking at any documentation besides my passport, but turns out I was just over-prepared.  Allison Bonner (Farmville, NC connection!) and I met some other Carolina-King's College students at a Krispy Kreme in the airport.  Everything tasted the same, but a single glazed doughnut cost an equivalent of $2.  From there we crammed four of us into a taxi and headed towards the neighborhood of West Hampstead, where my residence is.  My hall, Lord Cameron, is a university residence but is located off-campus in this, what is considered to be, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in England.  And sure enough, around the Heath (think big park), there are some huge houses.  Friday evening was filled with a hall meeting and social to meet new folks.  They are all real nice, mostly from England, but I have made friends with a guy from Berlin and a girl from Montpelier.  They seemed excited to have an American in their midst.  From my third story bedroom window, I can look out over West Hampstead, the Heath, and see the downtown skyline in the distance.

Today, after a cool (sub-50 degree) run on the Heath, I met up with a group of UNC/KCL students in the shadow of Big Ben.  They were actually having a cycling time trial for the 2012 Olympic qualifying.  After walking around Westminster (British Parliament) and Whitehall (British government agencies), our group continued on walking down the streets of downtown London.  We saw the London Eye, Thames River, Royal Courts, and St. Paul's Cathedral.  In the late afternoon, I went to visit the British Museum where I saw the Rosetta Stone and the library where Karl Marx infamously wrote "Das Kapital".

Overall, getting here and settling in has been alright.  I did feel bad missing church today, but luckily there is a Gospel-centered Evangelical church on my block that I hope to attend in the coming months.  Anyhow, sorry for the long post.  Hope all is well back in North Carolina.

                           Not a bad view from my bedroom window, huh?