Under Stars and Over Seas: Dance Breaks and Ships Ahoy

As this term draws to a rather intimidating and sudden close, I am struck with the realization that I am on my last tutorials for my classes. My final one is March 12th, so in just a few weeks time I will have officially finished (survived) a term at Oxford.

To celebrate this I decided to try something new. I attended the last New College bop last Friday, which is kind of like a themed informal dance. This one was held at New College and was super hero themed, but not everyone dressed up (myself included, mostly due to lack of timing and planning). There was a bar where students could buy drinks (again, I didn't, but I tried my friend's beer and have decided that I'm not a fan) and dance. The music was pretty good, playing a mix of party songs and decades music, even if the transitions between songs were terribly done. It was nice to just get out of the flat for a bit and dance.

The day after was a trip sponsored by the study abroad group to Portsmouth, a large port city in southern England. It was windy, but not rainy thankfully, and I was very much reminded of being back in San Diego, a similarly port and military base city. Portsmouth is kind of ugly though, because it was heavily bombed during World War II, so most of the pretty historical buildings were destroyed. This was made worse by the fact that rebuilding happened in the sixties, one of the worst decades for architecture in the history of human building.

Once we got to Portsmouth we toured a museum and some older ships from the Royal Navy. The museum was dedicated to a man named Horatio Nelson, who served in the Royal Navy from the time he was fourteen to when he died in battle at age forty-seven in 1805.

Nelson was a really cool guy to learn about because he served in the Royal Navy in several different enlistments and made it up to the rank of Captain, highly admired by everyone on his crew. He suffered the loss of sight in his right eye and later his entire right arm, but came back to the navy after recovering from both of those injuries. He ended up living with his best friend and his wife (the Hamiltons) when he wasn't at sea (and had an affair with his best friend's wife, who bore him a daughter named Horatia, but nobody really seemed to mind or question that??) and was an incredibly important military official. He died during the battle of Trafalgar when a musket ball went through his shoulder. The shot shattered his collarbone, punctured both of his lung, broke several ribs, snapped his spine, nicked an artery, and paralyzed him completely. He struggled with living for a few more hours and was brought to the lower deck, where he was later told that the battle had been won. He then died, but not before requesting to not be buried at sea. The tradition was normally to wrap a dead sailor in the hammock they'd been sleeping in and fill it with rocks or cannon balls before sewing it shut. The very last stitch was often stuck through the person's nose (to make sure they were really dead) and the whole thing was flung overboard.

Because of Nelson's status, though, his request was honored. The only problem was that the ship was about a month and a half away from port, so the body needed to be dealt with accordingly. The surgeon on board then had the brilliant idea to dump Nelson's body into a barrel of rum and seal it for preservation. That worked marvelously, and six weeks later the ship reached port and Nelson, body preserved beautifully, was given a land burial. Of course his naval buddies thought, 'waste not!' and ended up drinking the rum his body had been floating in to honor Nelson. I thought this was really gross, and by the reaction of everyone listening it sounded like they did too.

Moving on, the two ships I got to board and take a look at were the HMS Warrior and the HMS Victory. The HMS Warrior is a 19th Century iron clad ship, the pinnacle of progress and the first ship of its kind to kick start the industrial revolution that was happening in war craft. Unfortunately, that meant that with the fast progression of warfare and material the Warrior was quickly left in the dust. After it was finished in its battles, the ship was offered up for scrap twice, but nobody would take her. She was re-purposed as an oil embargo ship and used for various other things for several years. Eventually though, it was realized that she was the only 19th century ship left in commission, as all the others had either been sunk or torn apart for scraps. And so the HMS Warrior was again redone as a museum for preserving the technology and advancements of the time. Below deck we were able to explore the rooms where the naval men all ate, slept, and fought with cannons, hammocks and tables pushed between the aimed weapons. The captain's quarters were nicer, and the ship itself was very well cared for.

The HMS Victory was an entirely different ship. Also called the Mary Rose, the Victory is the oldest ship in the Royal Navy still commissioned. Considered to be Henry VIII's favorite ship, she served in the battle of Trafalgar and was the death place of Horatio Nelson (yes, I got to see the room where he died and the barrel they shoved his corpse in). It also, however, has the bottom planks threatening to rot right off and is unable to use its sails for fear of collapsing the structure. The upcoming project for Portsmouth is to repair the ship, but in the meantime she won't be going anywhere, even with a still-active crew. Inside the ship, the ceilings are all very low, and I felt bad for the few other guests taller than me because I spent the entirety of my time inside stooped down to avoid bashing my head on the low-hanging beams. It was incredibly cool though, despite the dangers to my head.

The day ended after that and we all had to sprint back across the pavement to make it back to our bus. Having had a rather busy past few days I managed to crash for most of the trip back to Oxford before getting back to my flat.

The upcoming week looks like it'll revolve around library visits and paper writing, and while my motivation is lagging, I've got the knowledge of impending travels to push me through the next couple papers. We've already bought tickets for France later this month, and after that we'll be heading down to Cicily, Italy to spend Easter with my roommate's family. Until then, though, I've got books to read and papers to write.

So good night Oxford and good morning California!

Sam