Oxford Coma

On Saturday I woke up at the crack of dawn (or 7:30) to get ready to head out to Oxford! One of the parts of my semester with ASE that I was most looking forward to was our week in Oxford at University College (the oldest Oxford college) and so far it hasn’t disappointed.
We got to Oxford before noon on Saturday, got settled in, took a short tour of the college and of the city, had some time to explore, and then had a “ Disco in the Univ Bar” (yes, that’s what our itinerary called it). First of all, I absolutely adore my room! We have singles for this week, which is nice, although I do miss my roommate being around. (Our staff likes to say that this is the week you get to take a break from your roommate. Instead, I go to visit her in her room just down the hall from me.) It’s a cute little dorm room that has its own wash basin and a little chair and coffee table in addition to a bed, desk, etc. But the best parts are that each of our rooms has its own water heater, tea cups, and tea bags (just as a side note – I’m not a huge tea drinker at home, except for Throat Coat on occasions. But since I’ve been here, I just can’t stop drinking tea, especially with lots of milk and brown sugar) and I have my own bay window and WINDOW SEAT!!! I’ve always wanted to have my own window seat and I couldn’t have been more excited when I saw the giant, comfy one in my room. (The only way that my room disappoints, especially now that we have internet in our rooms, is that we were told in the past that some ASE students have gotten a room with a grand piano. So I was really hoping for that grand piano. But I guess I’ll have to make do with the window seat.)
As for the city of Oxford itself, I love it. It reminds me of Boston, in that it’s this giant college city and has this great mix of new and old (although the old here is significantly older). Already, I’ve found some great unhealthy places to eat, like Ben’s Cookies and G & D's Ice Cream (both soo delicious). They even have this chain here called The Mission, which is exactly like Chipotle. We cheated a little bit by eating there the first night, but it was great comfort food.
Our “Disco” was pretty brilliant. The highlight was definitely when Barbara, the director of ASE, came out and made the boys dance with her to David Bowie (apparently she used to dance with Bowie, which is just so awesome). We met another group of American students there who are in Oxford for a semester from Pomona College!! And that’s really exciting because Pomona College is about a half hour from my home and I have a number of friends who go to Pomona and the other Claremont Colleges. It was one of those great small world moments.
Sunday we picked up breakfast and went to the gorgeous Christ Church Cathedral for church and to see the cathedral. One of my favorite parts of Oxford so far is that we get breakfast and lunch on campus. You don’t really realize how much you miss a dining hall until you don’t have one anymore. It’s really adorable because we pick up our food from the Buttery (!) and then eat in the Grand Hall (like Harry Potter!). (Another side observation – bacon here is weird. Still delicious, but weird. They cut wider and fatter strips. It’s more like a fried slice of ham than bacon.) As for Christ Church, I wasn’t a fan of the service itself, but it was fun and amusing to listen to their famous boys’ choir.
Then, we went punting!! It was simultaneously one of the most frightening and most exciting experiences of my life. You’re in a long skinny boat, with someone standing in the back with a giant pole, pushing and steering the boat. I was in a boat with four other girls and we did not get off to a good start. The boat house said they would give us a tutorial about how to punt, but the “tutorial” essentially consisted of “Here’s the pole. Have fun”. So as we were trying to get underway, the boat kept turning around, getting stuck sideways trying to get under a bridge, with us generally squeaking because it felt like the boat might trip over. After lots of trial and error (and getting to our third punter), we figured out how to make it work. How you work the pole to make the boat go in the right direction seemed somewhat counterintuitive, but once we finally figured out how to do it we were fine. The worst part, though, was trying to shift around in the boat to change punters, since the first two girls reasonably couldn’t figure out how to make it work. So there was lots of weight shifting and boat turning and general unrest about not wanting to fall in the water. But once we got going, it was fantastic. It was so peaceful and relaxing and we were punting around a beautiful area. I eventually worked up the courage to awkwardly scramble across the boat and try to not fall in the water to take my turn punting. Since my friend had already figured out how to punt, it was a lot easier for me. It was neat to stand at the back of the boat and steer us around the other boats that were having their own punting problems (and there were a lot of them throughout our journey). It was such a uniquely Oxford-ian experience and so much fun.
Now, unfortunately, we all have to return to the reality of classes and homework. Hopefully, though, in the middle of all the school stuff, we’ll still find time to play and explore. And on the bright side, at least I have a window seat to do my homework on.