May 27, 2016

Hello, again!

a panorama I took after our tour of Christ Church

So, today I was inducted into Christ Church college. The colleges here, unlike the College of Arts and Science at MSU, is not specialized. People apply to individual colleges and then are later accepted into the University of Oxford itself. It's a completely different process than in America. We have these library cards that we have to show to the guards around campus; these distinguish us from the French tour groups. Christ Church is home to the steps where Harry Potter first met Professor McGonagall and to the inspiration for the Great Hall in Harry Potter. It's honestly astounding. We have to wear robes to the formal dinners, which all begin with a Latin prayer. We have to have fob cards to get in the campus after it closes at night. And Christ Church is the only Oxford college which has a cathedral -- in fact, it used to be called Cathedral Christ Church College. Quite a long name, but when you're established in 1546, I guess you can do whatever you like.

This morning we ate at a little cafe called Off the Hoof where the construction workers -- here, the builders -- frequent. It was run by two women, one British and the other foreign and the coffees were free. When the jetlag is this crazy, free coffee is a must. I had a sausage, egg and mushroom bap (basically a British sandwich). It was so tasty. Really though, everything here is tasty. Except curry. I had curry tonight, and it was not my thing. We had Wagamamas; it's Asian or Oriental food. I don't really know. It wasn't amazing. The bolognese that I had at Jamie Oliver's restaurant the night before was much more satisfying. Today was a rather long day but things just took up more time. Tomorrow is a free day and I'm hoping to explore the part of town called Summery. A girl at the WISC office said that the atmosphere was phenomenal, unlike anything else. Everything is so new and exciting. I honestly cannot even believe I'm here. It's such a blessing. 

So, today -- which is Friday -- was our first free day in the city, which means that we got to sleep in. Just kidding. I got up bright and early because the sun was out and shining happily into our window. The day before I searched up some random cafe for our breakfast, so I did the same today. A few girls from my group and I went to a cafe called St. Giles, which is on St. Giles Road in Oxford. I went with the intent to get a fry-up which is the traditional English breakfast with mushroom, tomatoes, sausage, black pudding, eggs and more. It's a serious meal. However, when the rest of the girls ordered smaller

breakfasts I settled with the eggs royale, which was a poached egg on an English muffin and salmon with hollandaise poured over it. It was very good but fishier than I thought so I stole a girl's sausage and ate it with the other stuff. The latte I had was honestly amazing, probably the best I've had so far.

Two of the other girls in our group from Mississippi State are in New College and they wanted to show us the parts of their college where Harry Potter was filmed. It's got the tree in its courtyard where Mad-Eye turns Draco Malfoy into a ferret. It also holds one of the oldest walls in Oxford. But before we got there, we decided to climb the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin's tower. It's around five American dollars (3 pounds) to climb the tower and it lets you look all over Oxford. The stairs were so tiny; our feet did not even fit on them and it was a never-ending concrete spiral staircase. It was an insane climb but the view was worth it. This church has been open from 1400, and probably before, and has been renovated naturally with the times throughout history. Actually, the regular members of the parish are buried beneath the tile so we were essentially also at a graveyard today. It was so beautiful inside though; we all had a sit down to just soak in the beauty.

At New College, we stopped in the church part, where we could hear the boy's choir practicing. It was honestly gorgeous. The evensong at New College is apparently world renown so I look forward to going. The courtyard at New College also has the halls that Harry Potter walks through -- obviously I got a picture. We also went about the Summer Eights today, which is the rowing sport show down here. It was interesting but quite confusing. We weren't seated close enough to the action, which was at front but it was neat to see so many people get so into a boating competition that they couldn't actually see happening in front of them. Soon after we left that, we had to do some little admin things to be able to access our college and eat in the dining halls. And then we picked up little dinners from the shops and watched bad British television.

Tomorrow we are headed to Windsor Castle, and I'm super excited!

catch you later,
Karleigh