Mosaic of pictures

If you double click on the picture, it will enlarge.

























We have so many good pictures I thought I would post a mosaic of pictures for you to look at.

Picture #1 - The city port of Monaco France
Picture #2 - Swiss Alps
Picture #3 - Swiss cows (notice the cowbells)
Picture #4 - Ludwigsburg palace in Germany
Picture #5- Buckingham Palace England
Picture #6 - Steve at Coliseum in Rome
Picture #7&8 - Venice

Oxford University

Oxford was indeed the highlight of Stephen's Renewal leave. He was quite surprised when they asked him to sit at High Table for the first evening's dinner. What an honor however as he was instructed to dress formally, sit at the head table and the prayer was to be said in Latin - whoa, better bone up on my latin. After Steve was seated then everyone else could be seated. Sounds rather snooty, but he seems to have enjoyed the experience because he tells everyone about it. The picture on your left is the dining room (where Harry Potter was filmed) where Stephen was "head-table sitter"

Classes were very inspiring. I think they will help answer some of our questions concerning modern trends in the church and theology. The afternoon class particularly addressed some questions concerning enthusiasm in the American church today. There is not much time to do anything else but classes and study. At Steve's discussion table were 2 bishops; an ambassador from Belgium; a very wealthy financier from West LA, California who just loves theology (his neighbor is Tom Cruise and the Beckham's); a university theologian; and Steve! This is a picture of Christ Church College where he studied. The study experience was a great mind stretching time that he will never forget. He could have enjoyed even more of the academic time there.

Stratford upon Avon

William Shakespear was born, lived and buried in Stratford England. We enjoyed visiting his birthplace, home, workplace, burial place and we did find the city most fascinating. Of particular interest was the thatched roofs in this area of England. Thatched roofs are made up of thousands and thousands of river reeds, layer upon layer. These rooftops are only built in the very wet regions of England. If these reeds would dry out, the roofs would leak. There is an entire eco-system that lives in these roofs. Spiders, bats, mice, bugs, etc... all make this habitat their home. BUT....they are so wonderfully English. Each thatch architect has their own signature style. Some of the roofs have a pattern, or sculpted, or they use a rounded pattern around windows or a square pattern. Some architects design very manicured shapes, others have a "hawaiian" thatched look. Another thing we loved about English homes were the gorgeous English gardens.

Edinburgh Scotland

July 12, 2007

Everyone needs to see Edinburgh Scotland. We ended up in Edinburgh around 5:00 pm. The sun was shining when we got here (which is quite rare), so we headed out of our hotel to take pictures of the sun shining on the old city of Edinburgh. The old city is across the river and the view of the ancient city from the modern side of the river is quite the view. Edinburgh is known as the “Athens” of the north. There are many, many philosophers, financiers, doctors, scientists, and literary artists that made wonderful contributions to society. There are many, many statues all over this city commemorating the great people who had lived here. We attended a Scottish entertainment evening where we witnessed the famous "Ceremony of the Haggis", which is a delicacy of intestines, kidneys, liver, etc....all rolled into a sheeps stomach and served on top of sheep horns. Do you think we ate the nasty stuff? You'll have to ask us when you see us!

Lake District of England

July 12, 2007

We began our tour at 7:45 am this morning as we headed to the Lake district of England. The lake district was glorious! Perhaps one of my favorite areas in England thus far because of it’s uniqueness. We drove through the city of Windermere to catch our boat cruise across the Windermere lake to the little city of Grasmere. It was misting (which we are finding out that misting is a norm here – it is always misting) but the lake was lovely sporting pastures lined with stone fences; large stone farm houses laden with rose gardens and honeysuckle draping the stone walls surrounding them. I wish I could paint the picture that we saw with our eyes. There is no way to captivate the green misty glory of this region – our pictures are not adequate, I guess the pictures in our minds eye will be the souvenir that we will take back with us.

Back in England; Chester

July 11, 2007

It was rather fun to take a steamship from Ireland back to England. Check out this picture of this 18th century Victorian city of Chester. This little town is nestled on the border of Wales and England on the River Dee. This city actually had roots dating clear back to 100 BC when the Normans and Vikings settled in England - then in 79 AD the Romans took over and ruled for 200 years leaving behind all kinds of Roman ruins. The half-timbered buildings were built in the 12th century by the Celts, but re-decorated in the mid 18th century in the "Victorian/Edwardian" style of architecture when Queen Victoria celebrated her 25th year of rule. I think if you double click on the picture, it will enlarge the picture so you can see how beautiful this city really is.

Dublin

July 10, 2007

We went to Trinity College to see the famous Book of Kells. These books are copies of the gospels written in 521-597 AD. moved to Dublin (particularly Trinity College) in 1663. There were also other valuable manuscripts – The Book of Armaugh, the Book of Darrow, the Book of Mulling and the Book of Dimma. These books were highly decorated with Celtic art, made on animal skins and calligraphy quills. They were amazing. Then we visited the Long Room – or the main chamber to the Old Library which contained 200,000 of the Library’s oldest books in oak bookcases reaching to the ceiling of the highly arched 65 meter long room. If you love antique books you would have loved this place.

I really enjoyed the day as we were set free to explore the city of Dublin Ireland. The Ha’Penny Bridge was fun to see - and of course we had to walk across the Ha'Penny Bridge to "prove" that we were not "poor" and we could afford to pay to cross the river! The city of Dublin is a mixture of old and new. One place of particular interest to Jayna was where Handel's "Messiah" was first performed on April 14, 1742.