1. Living at Univ
University College, known as Univ for short, is the oldest of the 44 or so colleges that make up Oxford, and that's where we got to live! Each of us got our own single room, some with common rooms attached. My personal favorite part was the sink right in my bedroom -- how have I lived this sinkless life?? Imagine waking up and immediately being able to brush your teeth and wash your face without leaving the comfort of your sunlit bedroom...such was my life last week. Ahh, I could go on and on about Oxford sinks and their glorious locations, but why would I, when I can talk about the food? Every day we were able to get breakfast and lunch from the Buttery and eat it in the dining hall. Which, in England, means feeling like you're in Hogwarts' Great Hall every day. Just another Oxford luxury. (No sinks, though.)
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| The Univ quad |
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| The dining hall |
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| The view from my window |
2. Punting
Ah, punting in Oxford. Collegiate. Glamorous. Graceful. WRONG. Harrowing. Painful. Psychologically damaging. Allow me to quote an excerpt from Gaudy Night. Dorothy L. Sayers wrote about punting, "either you look graceful or you look ghastly". Friends, guess which one I was? To be fair, as soon as I laid hands on the pole it began hailing. This didn't serve to help anything, as the metal pole was already ice-cold and felt as though it weighed about 300 pounds. Furthermore, punting seems as though it should be a pretty intuition-based thing. It is not. When you try to move one direction, you find yourself going the other. When you finally get the pole in position to correct your last move, you're heading back too far the other way. When you finally get some good speed going, some equally unqualified person punts too hard in your direction and knocks you off course. Still, it wasn't all bad, and I don't want to sound too grumpy. I'd put "punting in Oxford" up there as one of the coolest things I've ever gotten to do. It's not something everyone can say they've experienced.
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| Before the hail/tears |
3. Christ Church Tour
Christ Church is one of Oxford's colleges and home to many famous views. On our tour we got to go inside the gardens that inspired Lewis Carroll -- remember those from last time? We also saw such things as the dining hall that inspired the Great Hall in Harry Potter, as well as some of the corridors and staircases used in the movies. We also saw a guy get thoroughly rebuked for accidentally trying to get into a room where a lecture was taking place. Seriously people, DO NOT mess with Christ Church, they will find you and they will cut you, or at least yell at you sternly in a British accent.
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| With Amanda on the Harry Potter stairs at Christ Church |
4. Formal Dinner
Our last night at Univ ended with a formal dinner in the dining hall. Some of our tutors joined us for a 3 course meal followed by entertainment provided by an Oxford professor who once performed in Liverpool at the same time as The Beatles! Seriously, how are these amazing things happening to me? I'm kind of just in awe 99% of the time here. Dinner was delicious, two types of wine were served, and after dinner we migrated to the Univ bar where we had the chance to drink and play foosball with our tutors. Strange? Not at ASE!
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| Well-played, ASE. |
5. Blenheim Palace
After leaving Oxford but before going home, we stopped at Blenheim Palace, residence of the dukes of Marlborough and birthplace of Winston Churchill. I saw the very bed where Winston Churchill was born! Awesome or gross? That's for you to decide. After our tour of the palace we were allowed to roam around the gardens and grounds. It was simply gorgeous, and luckily the rain held off until just as we got onto the bus.
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| I didn't notice a sink though... |
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| How palatial of you. |
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| Okay you win this round. |
So, tomorrow I leave on an 11 am flight for Venice, after which I'm headed to Florence, Rome, Thessaloniki, and Athens. Not a bad lineup if you ask me! And pretty much as soon as I get back, it will be time to welcome Kristin to Bath! Oh happy day! So, you won't be hearing from me for a while. I have a busy couple of weeks lined up -- time to test how well a person can run on very little sleep! Ciao!
