Botanical Gardens and "The Turf"

England's been a bit uneventful lately, since we are all adjusting to the weather, the living conditions, and basically pretending like our world hasn't just been turned upside down. But yesterday I took an excursion to the Magdalen Botanical Gardens that are basically in the backyard of our house here.

The garden is beautiful, and full of flowers and plants from all over the place. I went walking around with my friend Shana and my roommate Juliana. It's not a very big place, but you can tell that the gardeners here are proud of all the neat plants they grow. My favorites were venus fly traps, the "palm tree" greenhouse, and the cocoa plant.

Later in the evening, my friends and I went out to icecream (I got Kenyan Coffee...delicious) and then to a pub called "The Turf" which is apparently where Bill Clinton "did not inhale" during his time here as a Rhodes Scholar.
It was a pretty happening place, although the ceilings inside were about 6' and I totally didn't fit. The Turf is really old and has all these funny posters around making puns about alcohol and kegs. The types of "blokes" hanging out there ranged from 60 year old men (when they passed by our table, Shana exclaimed "Has Parliament just been let out?") to young hip kids that were apprently our age. I ordered my first legal beer (Stella Artois) and sat in the rain with my housemates laughing loud like typical Americans, before we called it a night.

The first morning...

Good morning from England!

It’s my first morning here, around 8am at the moment, and I’m currently sitting in my little Sherbert-orange colored room, typing while my poor roommate Juliana continues to sleep. What can I say, my biological clock is currentlnonexistentnt.


So first off, how did I get here.
Yesterday was a whirlwind. I met Katie Jones, another Stanford student on my flight, at the airport and we were traveling buddies all the way along. The flight was long and I didn’t sleep a wink, so you can imagine the state I was in after 10 hours. Heathrow airport was manageable but full of excessively long lines and hot hot heat. We made our bus right on time and got to Oxford with basically no problems! As soon as we arrived we were shown our rooms and started orientation with Stephanie Williams, the house manager. She gave us lots of money, keys, towels, paperwork, paperwork, paperwork to fill out and other boring things you don’t want to hear about.
My room has a few windows, and looks out on High Street, a main drag in Oxford, which is pretty cool. Good thing I’ve been living near Woodside Road my whole life so the noise doesn’t bother me! One funny thing about our living situation is that our closets are outside our room, in the common hallway. Most of my clothes fit in my desk drawers inside the room, but my coat and dresses and shoes are hanging out in the closet out there. It's such a quirky house! I’ve got to take a video of the staircases themselves to give you any idea how odd this living situation is—-totally inexplicable and fascinating (there truly are more staircases than rooms in this house!!).
In the afternoon we had tea and scones (pronounced "sc-AH-nes," here) in the garden out back, which allowed us to meet everyone in the house, as well as the staff. Our last activity yesterday was a tour of the city. The weather was gorgeous which made walking around Oxford almost a dream. Every corner of every street is filled with amazing architecture and stunning views. The buildings are ancient and overwhelming. I was looking up so much at the architecture that I couldn’t pay attention to where we were going. I barely remember the names of the streets we were walking down during that tour but it was an amazing time just walking around. I am definitely in the right place for my architectural study.

After the tour we all stopped by a pub on the Thames called "The Head of the River" (which, I learned recently, is the title given to the winning boat of a rowing race here). Beautiful view, expensive and tasty food, all paid for by the program. My kind of meal. We walked back home around 8pm and nearly everyone konked out, weary, in our quirky, sherbert, house.

I'm having a wonderful time to far, even though I'm exhausted. I think this is going to be a great quarter.

18 Days

So it's about 18 days before I leave for Oxford, and I've started getting all my clothes together (hello cold weather, I don't believe we've met) and done my best to approximate how much luggage I plan on heaving around England. You'd be impressed by how small my bag is, although I do plan on having a carry-on entirely devoted to shoes.

I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't nervous about taking a plane to the UK, based on all the threats that have struck Americans travelling that route lately, but I suppose a naive faith that I am invincible will get me on board.

I'll be working at the Museum until the 22nd, and I leave on the afternoon of the 24th. Between now and then I'll be visiting with Stanford friends who are back in Cali, going to the football games in the brand-new stadium (Can we say overcompensation?) and reading a few books to prepare for my tutorial. I'm definitely ready to get back to living on my own and learning neat things (not to mention being more than 10 miles from home). I'm ready to be homesick.