In England at last!

Guess what? I’m in Oxford! I arrived here Friday at dinner time, and have spent the weekend getting acquainted with the building I’ll be living in, The Vines, and meeting other students living here. I think I’m going to enjoy the atmosphere!

This post is rather jumbled, but here are a few highlights from my time here so far…

I flew in to England on January 2^nd, so before coming to Oxford, I was able to spend two days in London. Some good friends from school were flying back from Africa and had a day layover here, so the three of us got to hang out on Wednesday night and walk around London on Thursday.

Walking around London was amazing! We saw Buckingham Palace (and Hannah and I got a picture with a policeman there!), Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and walked along the outside of St. James’ Park (which was lovely). The Turnbulls left around noon to catch their plane, and I headed across the Thames and walked down toward Tower Bridge. Seeing so many landmarks that I have only ever seen in pictures was mind-blowing!

I loved London. The city is designed for walking, and everywhere you look there is a mix of the old and the new, squished up right next to each other. There were bucketloads of tourists and businesspeople walking around, and I heard people speaking languages that I didn’t even recognize, which was pretty cool. I am looking forward to going back again!

Random story time…

The hotel room felt empty without the Turnbulls there, but I put on some music and read, until someone knocked on my door. Confused, I opened it, and the hotel staff was standing outside. They sang happy birthday and gave me a croissant, and then left. I’m still not sure what to make of that, but it was pretty funny. At any rate, I’m sure my facial expression was amusing because they were all laughing!

Taking the bus to Oxford, someone asked me if I belonged to Hartford College, and I said no. He looked confused and said, “But you are Australian, aren’t you?”  “Um…no. I’m an American,” I said. He apologized and said that there was no way that he could have known me, and sank back behind his newspaper.

Things I have learned on my trip so far:

            A 42lb backpack is heavy. Especially when you’re climbing up multiple flights of stairs.

            Jet lag is just as nasty as everyone told me it would be.

            Taking the Underground is AWESOME, and I was probably the only person there who thought so.

           

Anyways. It has been lovely being here so far, and I am excited for tutorials to start soon! We will have more orientation stuff for the next few days, so I will figure out more about how to do things properly here. For now, cheers! and I'm sure I'll have more stories to share very soon.