Oxford

Well, I've been in Oxford for near 24 hours now... I have to say, I absolutely adore it. Posting may be slightly spotty, but mainly because I want to ensure that my posts are at least somewhat entertaining to read, rather than me just repeating my schedule with a few elaborations.

The flight over went rather smoothly. At first I was a touch frightened because I had a child to the side of me and one behind me. If you know me, you know my feelings toward children are iffy at best, so you can imagine how thrilled I was to be surrounded by them for a seven hour flight. However, the one to the side of me was a young Londoner named Oliver, and I have decided that I could never nanny for a British family because the children could literally get away with murder. They'd ask me if they could go throw a rock at some poor old woman's head and I'd be slightly inclined to say yes just because their accent is so bloody adorable.

The use of bloody brings me to a side topic: I LOVE BRITISH SLANG. Why are our slang words not near as creative as the Brits?

But anyways. So the flight was not too rough, I took an ambien and slept straight through it. Fell asleep of the coast of main, awoke off the coast of the UK. I really think that was a good plan, because I do not feel jet lagged in the least. It's already weird for me to think that it's 7pm at home, it feels like incredibly late.

Which brings forth another observation: everything closes phenomenally early here. Even a lot of the pubs close around 11 or 12. I suppose there are a few that close at 2, so that's fun. I've only been to one pub -- The Eagle and Child, which is apparently famous for being a meeting place of C.S. Lewis and Tolkien. I had a Pimms and hot apple juice, it was phenomenal. I also have been really enjoying the cider.

After that everyone wanted to just grab some drinks from Sainsbury's and bring them back to the common room at St. Michaels Hall. I must admit, I was a touch disappointed, I really wanted to go explore the Oxford night life a bit more. I suppose I have a full term to do so. I'm excited to see what Oxford is like once the students return. As much as I adore most the others in the program, I do want to be more integrated into the British culture. As of the moment it's kind of as if we're long-term tourists -- just hanging out with other Americans and such. It's kind of like moving America to England.

But all in all? I absolutely adore Oxford. The shopping is PHENOMENAL, there's history at every turn, and it's gorgeous. I do love America, but nowhere do we have an atmosphere like they do in the UK. It's certainly something I could get used to.