Loyal readers will forgive me for the relative brevity of this posting.  We celebrated the end of our first week of the course by reading Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey" last night after Jack Hallow gave us a report on both the poet and the place named in the poem, then right after breakfast this morning getting into a hired minibus, driving to Wales, visiting Chepstow Castle in the lovely town of Chepstow just over the Severn River Bridge, and hiking the six miles from Chepstow to Tintern Abbey on the rigorous but gloriously beautiful Wye River Valley Trail.  We made it back to Brasenose just in time for all the boys to start bickering over who got the first shower, but we all agreed that it was an exceptional day with a lot of exceptional experiences.
     First, though, a few glimpses from yesterday's tour of Magdalen College led by Jake and Thomas:

Above, inside the "pulpit" area of the college.  Below, the group at the stunning Cloisters Quad.

    Today our first stop was at Chepstow Castle, a very large ruin with a lot of remnants to explore:

And then, after buying takeaway sandwiches and water at a friendly sandwich shop, we hiked to Tintern Abbey for a guaranteed Wordsworthian experience:

In the photo below you can barely make out the face of Paul, our bus driver, peeking out between Dawson and Charles, who are 4th and 5th from the left:

Below is John C. listening to the still, sad music of humanity as he sees into the life of things: