London

Craig and I planned this trip to London because since attending Harding University Graduate School of Religion, Craig has had an increasing thirst for Biblical knowledge and appreciation for Biblical scholarship. One way he feeds this thirst is through his independent studies and membership in organizations such as the Society of Biblical Literature. Many times he has attended the annual meeting which rotates among various cities in the US. However, since we are in Europe, he became keenly interested in attending the International Meeting which was being held at Kings College in London 3-8 July. Just a new expansion on the same theme. So we registered for the conference, made hotel and plane reservations and off we went. Fortunately, the timing just barely fit backing up to the visit of Tim and Milenda. Their plane left at 2PM and we left about 6PM. It all went well and wasn't as stressful as I feared. We arrived at our London Hotel sufficiently exhausted.

The Location at Kings College was partially chosen in connection with the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible. Kings College was founded in 1829 and currently has about 24,000 students. Although the college is spread around the Thames, most of the meetings we attended were in the Franklin-Wilkins Building at the Waterloo Campus. We stayed at the Hotel Mercure which proved to be about a 20 minute walk to the meetings.
After a good night of sleep we were up and ready to start the meetings on Monday morning. It is amazing to listen to the scholarship provided in so many areas. There were about 150 different sessions offered and each 3 hour session could have up to 6 presentations. Choosing each session to attend required study of the program which is fortunately emailed out ahead of time. We particularly are pleased to see a representation of scholars presenting their papers who are from the Church of Christ Universities who are able to maintain the level of scholarship with other presenters’. This is all to explain how our time in London was predominantly consumed by this conference. This particular meeting was impressive because of the worldwide scholarship. Fortunately for us, the presentations were all in English!

Since Craig and I have been to London other times, we didn’t worry too much about visiting the regular tourist sights, but just more or less settled into the area we were staying. One place of note we discovered was a Pub located between the hotel and conference on Southwark St called The Mad Hatter. We had dinner there on Tuesday and lunch there on Wednesday. It was tastefully decorated and looked exactly as you would want to imagine an English Pub. The food was good and service was quick. We visited with the manager who told us the name was given as the building was originally a hat factory. There were at one time many hat factories in this area. He also told us the term “mad hatter” had its origin because in making hats many years ago mercury was used in the glue, and those who wore these hats all the time eventually went a little mad from the mercury poisoning! Interesting tidbit of etymology of this expression.

We did visit Shakespeare’s Globe theatre as it was only a few blocks away. Today’s Globe is a reconstruction of the original theater. We were unable to get tickets for a show there, but we did go in to visit and, of course, I managed to hit the gift shop. We did however manage one theatre show. On Wednesday evening we attended a performance of “Legally Blonde, The Musical” at the Savoy theatre. This was a truly delightful performance and we enjoyed it very much. When choosing a show we didn’t stop to think this was likely to be an audience of young teen girls. It seemed every teen visiting London must have been there. Waiting for the show to begin the chatter in the theatre was overwhelming. However, once the show began, all was quiet and everyone enjoyed a truly delightful and professional performance.

Another experience we had was on Wednesday evening prior to the performance we walked down to Trafalgar Square and Craig said, “There sure are a lot of people here.” I said, “It is London in July, just a lot of tourists.” We shortly realized it was more than that! Trafalgar Square was the location of the gathering for London Premier of the final Harry Potter movie. Harry Potter fans had been camping out there since Monday for the opening on Thursday. On Thursday morning a red carpet was rolled out from Trafalgar Square to Leicester Square and all the stars were there as well as JK Rowling! It was a neat and unexpected experience!

The conference ended at noon on Thursday Craig suggested a visit to Greenwich for Thursday afternoon. This is an area we had never been to so we checked our underground map and off we went! The afternoon was quite rainy, but nevertheless, you have to make do and go anyway. Greenwich is perhaps best known as the Prime Meridian. Maritime Greenwich is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It was the international Meridian Conference in Washington DC in 1884 that voted for Greenwich to be adopted as marking the prime meridian of world time and time zones. Of course, world time today is regulated by a system of atomic clocks, the Prime Meridian remains in Greenwich. Other places we visited in Greenwich included the Old Royal Naval College, the National Maritime Museum and the Cutty Sark. Oh and yes, there was a large Greenwich Market. The Cutty Sark has been under restoration for several years, so we couldn’t really visit it. The restoration is to be completed this year; however it doesn’t really appear to be close to finishing. There were also extensive renovations going on at the National Maritime Museum so that was a little disappointing. Anyway it is a beautiful and historic setting and we enjoyed our visit there.

Here are the photos: