Magdalen College

The front of the New Buildings where C. S. Lewis lived

The back of the New Buildings

I am an American. Americans are dumb so just deal with it. I spent three weeks in England and even so I don't know how to pronounce Magdalen college (the Oxford one). I heard from some people that it's Mag-duh-lin, and I heard from some that it's Maud-lin,. Honestly, I just don't know anymore. Maybe the Brits themselves don't know. I'm leaning towards the pronunciation Maudlin, because more people said it that way. But now it's just a guess. I DO know that the one in Cambridge is pronounced that way.

Anywho, we didn't have much time left to spend in Magdalen. We ate lunch at a pub (by the name of Checkers, if my memory does not deceive me) with the man and woman who got us the rooms at St. John's college. Both of them are tutors there. She's working on a book on the Inklings right now and he is one of the only people who still knows ancient Gothic. Needless to say, lunch was wonderful. Even though compared to them I have the IQ of a snail. I'm not kidding. But because we had a 3:30 bus to catch we were left with about and hour and a half after lunch to walk to Magdalen, tour it, walk back to St. John's, get our things, and then make it to the bus stop. So I don't think we were in Magdalen for more than a half an hour tops. We saw the New Buildings where C. S. Lewis lived (I had heard that his rooms were marked with flower boxes. That may be true but I saw none.) We also went for a quick stroll down Addison's Walk, where C. S. Lewis was converted to Christianity. That was pretty cool. There was a poem of his on a plaque by a bridge there. As you already saw in the picture above.

Magdalen college itself is a gorgeous place, and I would have enjoyed it immensely even if C. S. Lewis had had no connection there. It's kind of strange to be walking around buildings that are older than your country (Magdalen was founded in the 1400s), but it is very neat to see that kind of architecture because that's something you couldn't see anywhere here.

That last picture is to prove to you that just because you have a DSLR camera and just because you shoot solely in Manual mode does not mean you take awesome pictures all the time. I'm convinced it means the opposite. Manual mode means at least 10 times more opportunity to make mistakes. But I think it's more fun. Well, except for the pictures that don't turn out. Those aren't fun.

P.S. Don't forget, Aragorn's birthday is in two days!