The Rasmusens in Oxford

We drove our new car to Kew Gardens on the Thames near London, largely so we could visit the Korean shops in New Malden nearby. I’ve posted our bill from a Korean restaurant so you can compare prices (one pound equals about two dollars). It was a good restaurant, but standard Korean, not fancy, and came to over $100. Kew Gardens was grand, though, and we all enjoyed it. Helen liked the London plane tree’s texture, as you can see. The kids liked the evergreen overhanging the bench where you can see Lily and me. Benjamin liked kicking chestnuts in their spiky husks for soccer practice. Lizzy liked the pagoda. Faith liked walking on grass. I liked seeing typical English trees labelled, and the grand chestnuts and deodars.

  this is whare we go yousiily. it is doun toun it is my faferet plase.

  

After church we ate leftover chicken and hamburger plus bread, orange juice, jaffa cakes, crisps, and red Leicester cheese from Sainsbury’s next to to the County building. Then we walked up the castle hill.  There’s   one big tower of the castle left, separate from the hill, but we didn’t go to that part today.  We did get a nice walk and a good view.

Nuffield College is right across the street, and you can see the Tower in the background.  We could also the college  roofs, which are quite attractive.

We went to Abingdon yesterday, to try shopping at Tesco, a “superstore”.  We thought that meant a store like K-Mart or Wal-Mart, but it’s actually a large supermarket with a few household goods.  It has a large parking lot, at least, so we checked out mini-vans, called MPV’s here, many of which have no luggage space to speak of.  The Toyota Previa and Chrysler Grand Voyager look OK, and we discovered the wonderfully named Mitsubishi Space Wagon.

We also had two good meals.  You can see the kids eating a sundae at  Pizza Express,  which contrary to its name is quite an elegant place.   At $90 or so, it was three times what we’re used to spending for a family lunch at a restaurant.  The 4.95 -pound kids’ meal  included a sundae and a special coffeeless coffee–foamed millk with chocolate powder, shown here on Benjamin’s hand.

                 

 Our large family does benefit from family passes, though– it cost us “just”  8 pounds for a bus pass to downtown Oxford    the five miles to  Abingdon, and back again.