* another fabulous experience at the Oxford Experience 2012

Approximately 20 years ago, Pat read an article by travel writer and publisher Arthur Frommer, praising a week he had just spent at Oxford. Two years ago, she saw another post by Arthur saying if you wanted to sign up for Oxford Experience 2010, now was the time to do it. We did, and had a wonderful experience. See our 2010 posts at ….

* the Oxford experience … more than you could ever imagine

* Ethics and Beethoven … two courses in the OXFORD EXPERIENCE

This year, we signed up again. At the opening reception, I was speaking to a man and looked at his name card. “Are you THE Arthur Frommer,” I asked, and thus began a wonderful week long friendship with Arthur and his lovely wife Roberta. It is indeed a small world, full of coincidences.

NOTE: Apparently the feeling was mutual. Here is a quote from Arthur’s blog (http://www.frommers.com/blog/) … My wife and I met people from Australia, Paris, Nashville, the Cotswolds, California, and even Key West (an especially engaging couple). Each was a vital individual in love with learning.

Read more: http://www.frommers.com/blog/#ixzz22NKvcks6

Pat, Roberta, Arthur and Lew

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This year, Pat took a course about “Cardinal Wolsey” offered by tutor Glenn Richardson. Wolsey is best known for failing to convince the Pope to allow Henry VIII to divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Lew’s course was titled “The Brain and the Senses,” taught by Gillie McNeil. Each course was taught from Monday to Friday, 9:15 to 12:45, with a break for tea and biscuits, and each was a delightful and challenging  but not too stressful learning experience … lots of learning; interesting classmates; no examinations; no papers!

Someone asked Pat if she had learned something new. Her response was “everything I learned was new since I knew absolutely nothing about Wolsey before.”

Whereas Lew was terrified to learn that each time he sneezes, which he does fairly often, he blows away brain cells that have lodged just above the nasal passage.

For more information about the Oxford Experience and our particular courses, see … The Oxford Experience – Department for Continuing Education …

the Wolsey group & the brain group

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Cardinal Wolsey was also the original builder of Christ Church College,Oxford University, the site of the Oxford Experience. It is a magnificent campus, with the “Harry Potter” dining hall, a beautiful cathedral, and enchanting parks and ancient buildings. It is a privilege just to be there for a week, and to eat all our meals in a dining hall where Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Elizabeth II, and many British Prime Ministers also dined.

As one of our classmates said as he reclined in a nearby pub with a pint of beer, “Seven hundred years ago, another man was sitting right here, also drinking a pint.

The city of Oxford is also a wondrous place, with the other Oxford campuses, soaring churches, many delightful pubs, and the incomparable Blackwell’s bookstore.

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among the many sides of the “Oxford Experience”

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to learn more about Lew Weinstein and his novels,

go to … http://lewweinsteinauthorblog.com/

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