Life of an Oxford Student
July 15, 2007

I feel like I’m living an entire lifetime this summer alone. Whenever I start to look at all of my pictures and think of the places I’ve been I’m taken over by amazement. The people that I’ve met, the oddities I’ve seen, historical places I’ve passed through, I’m still not sure I can grasp what’s happening.

Speaking of pictures, the links are to the right. Just click on the titles and you can see a lot of my pictures. If you have problems let me know.


Typical Day in Oxford

We have breakfast in the hall every morning at 8 (we sleep in a whooping 30 minutes on the weekend!) For breakfast it is a self service style, except our servers bring us our choice of coffee or tea and fresh toast in a toast tray. For breakfast we have cereal, fruit, hard boiled eggs, ham, cheese, or yogurt.

After breakfast I have two hours before my 18th Century English Literature class at 11. Usually I go up to my room and then head off for a walk. I’ve explored many different avenues around Oxford which is just filled with parks, paths, gardens, streets, and shops. In the morning it is nice because it’s before the poky tourists crawl out of the floorboards to swarm and get in your way. Yes, I have come to despise tourists with a great passion. Only because they are about as oblivious as headless chickens.

I’ve been known to stop on my morning walk to go into Sainsbury’s, a local grocery chain. I am so glad to have everything in English again, and have similar food choices (like granola bars and diet drinks) and they have Hobnobs, which are about 34 p. so it’s a fabulous deal.

Usually sometime during the morning Magda, our maid or scout as they call them here, come by and cleans my bathroom, makes my bed, gives me fresh towels, and takes out my trash. Magda is from Poland and so we’ve had some nice chats and she said she likes it when the Americans come to Oxford because she can understand our English better! She also has given me suggestions on paths to walk, which has been nice.

Today I came back and noticed they changed my curtains in my room. Weird.

Class consists of a lot of discussion about our novels, which is exciting. After that I usually have a granola bar for lunch (cheap) and then find things to do all afternoon. I’ve gone to free museums around Oxford, gone to the tourist information office to plan day trips, walked more, email, and nap. A few times I’ve gone out expecting that it will rain because everything is grey for miles and overcast, and I’ve sat down to read in a park, and the sun just comes out and the next thing I know it’s a bright blue sky and sunshine. English weather is rather fickle. I’ve been scouting out affordable places to go have tea and scones, and last week I went for a scone that was so hot the raisins burned my mouth!

At 7 p.m. we are served our 3 course dinner, which starts with either a soup or appetizer and bread, followed by a main course, then dessert. And the food quality is very good.

Me after Champane on the quad lawn.

Right now they are filming a movie called “The Brideshead Revisited” around Oxford, and last Wednesday another girl and I went to Christ Church’s prayer service and when we walked outside we realized that the whole college (Christ Church College) was closed to all visitors/tourists because they were filming and all these guys dressed in sweater vests and tan suits were milling around! We walked right through the courtyard and a few of the extras were taking pictures of themselves, and one guy said “we look really good” and then they realized we heard them say that and we all burst out laughing.

The prayer service was really small, but very neat. The vicar couldn’t have been more friendly. As we were leaving, we looked down and I was definitely standing on John Locke’s grave, the famous English philosopher that influenced the principles behind the US Declaration of Independence.

In addition to the movie, sometimes I’m walking home and there is a random model outside Brasenose by Radcliff Camera getting a photo shoot done. It’s weird.

Other things that I’ve been doing in Oxford: I’ve been to the Eagle and Child Pub, which is the pub where C.S. Lewis met R.R. Tolkien and their later hangout. I had a tasty blush wine there and also was introduced to Pimms, an Oxford drink that I really like. While we were there I ran into the American girl who gave me and my dad directions from the street when we arrived in Oxford. So I said hi and told her I found it! Surprise!

I’ve also been to this great hole in the wall pub that is like tucked into an ally so there were no tourists! We ran into, like literally ran into, this American professor who was rather tipsy who engaged us in a “conversation” and almost spilled his cider.

Now down to business.

Friday: Globe Theater to see Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice

We had groundling tickets, meaning we stood in the middle of everything, which turned out to be the best thing. Coming from Vienna, I’ve seen some world class performances. Shakespeare has a built in advantage that it’s in English, but seriously, the quality and entertainment value of the performance can’t even compare to anything I saw in Vienna, including things like Mozart’s “humorous” Magic Flute. I know some people may be groaning, but it was THAT good considering I still was impressed by what I saw in Vienna.

The performance starts with the actors coming out from all sides. They are on the balconies, coming up the steps from the back of the theater, coming out on stage, playing music, burning incense, passing baskets and things to the front, hanging off of balconies, and just completely involving the audience with 360 degrees of action and occupying all of your senses. The acting was the best I’ve seen in ages in their facial expressions, voices, actions, aura, EVERYTHING. It helped that we were so close we could see the spit fly out of the actors mouths. It also helped that some of the guys were um, how do say in Shakespearean language, hunky? They were adorable.

The play, for the most part, was laugh out loud hysterical. The actors acted out the innuendos hidden in the play and were so perfectly expressive. I swear every scene had at least one pelvic thrust if not more.

The whole thing left me wowed. When we left for London that morning we were also convinced that it was going to be Shakespeare in the rain, but once we arrived the weather turned beautiful, again! Also, while we were watching the show, a helicopter kept flying over head, and one of the actors was in the middle of a speech, and then just chewed it out Shakespearean style, and went on! And as we were heading back toward the bus, we all did a double take and realized we had just passed one of the actors strolling eating an ice cream cone. He must have slipped out the back and gone for ice cream. We all looked at each other bewildered, then burst out laughing. It was fantastic.

Ok, I’m out of energy and need to go to bed. I’ll update on Brighton and Wallingford tomorrow! Tomorrow night we are having a 007 James Bond themed dinner where we are all dressing up and having cocktails! How quaintly British!

Elaine