:: Pedantic Platitudes ::

:: Sunday, July 31, 2005 ::

Greetings from Oxford University! I am having a blast in England. I can't believe I've been here for a week already. Here's an update (Part 1).

I finished packing up all my stuff and wrapping up loose ends in Philadelphia last Friday. (My last story: Boy's medical battle gets boost from run.) It took a bit of scrambling, but I got all my stuff together and then took the overnight train from Philly to Boston.

Arriving in Boston in the morning, I dropped my stuff off at the airport and met up with some friends staying at Harvard for the summer. They showed me their apartment for the summer, and we chatted. I then walked to Porter Square to meet up with a couple of other friends, and we had lunch at Uno's. I was more thirsty than hungry, so I drank a lot. I had this wonderful mango iced tea, and it was so sweet and full of fruit flavor that it tasted just like bubble tea without the bubbles. After visiting the Gap clothing store, I went back to Harvard Square to meet up with another friend and her friend who was visiting. We shopped at the square, and then we found out that my friend's friend had never had bubble tea, so we went to the Boston T Stop and got bubble tea! Yay.

I then went to the Boston airport and flew to New York, where I made the short connection (although my luggage didn't) to London. The flight was nice. There was a weird and creepy man sitting next to me, but he was quiet and watched his movie, so it was OK. It was an overnight flight, but I was too excited about going to England for the first time ever to sleep. I watched the in-flight movies they played on the tiny screen they had on the back of the seat in front of me. I could select from several channels what I wanted to watch, from movies to TV programs to cartoons. I watched Miss Congeniality 2, which was hilarious, and parts of Spider-Man 2 and Guess Who, a romantic comedy starring Ashton Kutcher about an interracial couple. That was pretty amusing, too.

Arriving at the London airport on Sunday after the 6-hour flight, I passed through the passport check and got my dollars exchanged into pounds. That really hurt my wallet, since the dollar is so weak right now. While waiting for my luggage, which was delayed but ended up on the next flight to London, I ran into another Harvard student who's in the same program I'm in. I got my luggage, and we found our bus to get to Oxford. It was about an hour's bus ride, and we drove past these wonderful English countryside fields.

Just getting into Oxford we got a quick look at the city. It's beautiful with buildings hundreds of years old. The streets are so much prettier because they have little planters on the lampposts with blooming flowers and colors that enliven the surroundings, particularly in dreary, pouring weather like we had the day we arrived.

I checked in and started unpacking. We are staying at Jesus College (yes, we have made every joke possible about this... "Have you found Jesus?... College?" "We've found Jesus... College." "We live in Jesus." "Jesus gives us shelter." "Jesus is beautiful!" "I love Jesus!" etc etc... we've even turned Jesus College into an exclamation, like Jesus Christ! "Jesus College! That's a lot of work!"), and it's a magnificent college. We have come to find that some of the other colleges here are more beautiful and grand comparatively, but Jesus College is quite magnificent. Oh, Oxford University is a bit different from American colleges in that the "university" is actually a collection of colleges, so Oxford has 39 colleges, and Jesus College is one of them... others include Magdalen College, New College, Christ College, St. John's College, etc.

Pictures and more updates will come soon.

Quote of the Day: "Ahhh! There's 'tossed salad' in the newspaper!"

:: SL 6:46 PM [+] ::
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