Oxford!

Hello friends and family! Well, the plan had been to do my updating for last week, and yesterday, but sadly I forgot my journal upstairs, and the computer lab here is like impossible to get to, there are staircases and doors everywhere, and I really don't want to have to go get my journal, so I'm just going to write about today and then later, maybe tomorrow, write about yesterday, along with my week in Ireland. So sorry, I'm sure this is going to be so confusing to read, but I'm doing my best!

Ok, so this morning we had to wake up early to get to the tube station in time to ride that to take us to the train station so that we could catch a train to Oxford University. My first train ride, if you don't include trax, but this was like longer and stuff. A lady even came down the aisle with a trolley full of food, just like in Harry Potter! Man, I wish I could have been going to Hogwarts... there was a building at Oxford that some of the scenes from Harry Potter have been filmed, like the great hall and one of the staircases, but sadly I didn't make it due to several circumstances. But let's get back to the beginning.

Ok, so if you don't know, Oxford is a very old and very prestigious university over here, just a couple hours outside of London. But unlike what I had thought, it's not just a college campus, it's like a whole town. So when we got to the train station we decided to take one of those tour buses, the really tourist-y double decker ones where everyone sits up top and takes pictures- there were even headsets that we could plug in and listen to a British woman's commentary on everything we were seeing. So we rode that all the way around the town. Sadly the group had been split in half for a tour we'd be seeing later, so pretty much all of Denise's and my friends were in the other group, and our tour was an hour earlier than theirs, so they all got off and saw all the cool sites while we had to head straight for our tour. It was a cool tour though, it was of the Oxford University Press, which is mostly famous for printing the Oxford English Dictionary, you know, like THE dictionary. It was interesting, but the dictionary isn't the most fascinating thing to me, so I could have taken it or left it, but oh well. But it was fun, we had just a few minutes after we got off the bus before it was time for the tour, so Denise and I meandered down the streets and found this awesome little vintage store so we looked around and we both bought some fabulous vintage dresses! And they were even pretty cheap, so that was even better! Well, I don't know if you can really call anything over here cheap... the dollar is worth like almost twice as much as the British pound. That really hit me just now when I was checking my bank account and thinking where in the heck did I spend that much money? Oh yeah, that was all the stuff that I thought I was getting such a great price on... oh well, all part of the experience eh? Anyway, another absolutely amazing thing we saw, something that I was soooo excited to find, was a local pub called the Eagle and Child. It's the pub where J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of the Lord of the Rings, and C.S. Lewis, who wrote the Chronicles of Narnia (two of my favorite authors ever, and favorite books of all time) used to meet with a couple others every week to discuss their books. For this study abroad we all had to read some sort of a book related to the UK, and the book I read was all about the friendship between Tolkien and Lewis and how they helped each other out with each other's books, and this particular pub, which they nicknamed the Bird and Baby because they were there so often, was mentioned a lot in this book. I almost cried when we first went in, there were all these pictures of the authors and like tributes to them... it was absolutely amazing. Plus, the prices for the food were amazing! Denise and I were going to eat breakfast there but the kitchen was closed for some reason, but we did make it back for a late lunch.

So after our OUP tour Denise and I walked back into the main part of town to do some shopping, the author of Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, was also affiliated with Oxford, so there's an adorable little shop called Alice's Shop, so I bought a little bag and a picture book version of the story. We also found a little kiosk with Oxford souvenir type stuff so I bought a t-shirt which I was pretty excited about as well. Then it was time for our friends' tour to be over, so we met back up with them at the Eagle and Child for dinner. I had a delicious steak sandwich (I'd been craving steak for some reason) and then I was kind of upset that the rest of the group had already been on the tour of Christ Church, where the Harry Potter great hall and staircase had been filmed, and it wasn't something Denise was interested in seeing, so after I ate I went off by myself. Now before any of you freak out, it was like a 5 minute walk, and I didn't even make it halfway before I ran into Diane and Larry, one of the directors and her husband, and they walked the rest of the way with me. Sadly, like so sadly that I almost cried, the tours were over for the day. So no Harry Potter sites for me :( Not long after though the entire group met up to go to a service at the cathedral there, so that was cool to see anyway. The service was interesting, kinda weird, but just different I guess. Oh, and before that I'd met up with some others from the group to go to the like official Oxford Press bookstore, and I bought a book of children's poetry, because I thought it was cool, plus I really wanted to be able to own a book that I bought at Oxford. Dorky I know, but oh well.

So anyway, after another train ride, and another tube ride, we made it "home" to the flats. I ate a cup of noodles, watched some funny videos with Denise and Will, and found my way down to the computer lab so that I can keep up to date with all my loved and missed friends and family. It's so nice to hear from you guys, even if it's just on facebook chat. I may try to call soon, we've got a lot of free time this weekend so it would be nice to actually be able to talk. Well anyway, I think that's all for now. Hopefully I'll be able to get this all completely up to date soon, but for now I am cold and tired and very much looking forward to crawling into bed and (hallelujah) hopefully sleeping in a bit tomorrow. It's been really hard these last couple days to make it through the day without getting really sleepy... because for a week we spent alot of time on a bus, and a lot of that time sleeping, but now we just have to go go go all day, lots of walking, not a lot of breaks. I'll get used to it though. You all can be proud- I've been wearing my good shoes so I've avoided blisters again- yay! Alright well I love you all and will talk to you soon!