Griffindor!

Whew! So, as you can tell, its been a few days since I've been able to update my blog. Well, thanks to one of my lovely roommates and the generosity of our homestay fam, I am now able to check e-mail and such from our homestay.

Well..lets see..so much has been going on! The other day we took a day trip to Oxford -- both the town and the college. The college was amazing. The whole place looked like Hogwarts! Which, incidentally, it should since they filmed portions of the Harry Potter movies there, but I'll get to that later. We went all over Oxford with our insanely knowledgeable tour guide and learned all about the history of the quaint little town and prestigious University. Oxford U was in the middle of its final exams, so it seemed a tense time for the students. We toured all over and even went into a place called the Sheldonian Theater, which is where Oxford students gather to be addressed as a body. There, we climed all the way to the top of this building and were able to take some wonderful pictures of Oxford city. We had lunch in a wonderful open air market and toured a musem containing a special exhibit on the Marconi brothers and even Einstein's blackboard! I've included pictures for you to see -- on is of me on the steps leading to the dining hall at Oxford, which if it looks familiar is because those steps are the ones that professor McGonnagal greeted her new pupils on at the beginning of the first Harry Potter. The dining hall was also used as the Great Hall in HP, except at one and a half times its actual size.

We've also done some shopping, gotten lost, gotten rained on a lot, and toured the BBC studios in recent days. Did you know that the BBC is the worlds largest news network? CNN is its closest rival -- and is one third smaller. We saw the studios where many popular British TV shows are filmed and learned where the worldservice programs that we get in the US come from. That tour was fun, but there was no photography allowed unfortunately. I think one of my favorite things so far (or should I say favourite ;-) ) has been absorbing a bit of local culture at a pub called O'Neils.

O'Neils is just down the road from our homes and we've basically deemed it our collective meeting place and watering hole. It's unique in that its actually a converted church -- rock! I went out with one of my roomies and some of our other study abroad crew on Friday night for drinks, and it was quite fun. My roomie and I were going to leave at about 11:30, when we were asked to sit down by a very pleasent group of young British men. It was so much fun! We chatted with these five guys for the next couple of hours, trading British and American slang and admiring each others accents. Now, the thing you have to understand about British pub culture is that this is all a friendly thing. These guys were chatting us up and buying us drinks because that's how you conduct yourself socially in a pub -- they weren't trying to take us home with them. These places are not like the usual American bar, where there's always some slimball or slutty girl looking to score. I mean, I'm sure there are a few, but they are largely full of people just looking for some fun conversation. We talked about the NFL, the US president, and then my roomie and I were asked (this is after 3 drinks mind you) for the words to the American national anthem. Oh lord. I was by no means trashed, but I was a little happy and trying to remember your country's national anthem in such a state is an adventure. I think between the two of us we got it. Our company however, couldn't get past the first two lines of theirs, so we did pretty well.

Well, I don't want to kill you with words, so I'll post some pics and give another update as soon as I can.

Cheers!

British phrases/words of the day:
a cuddle = a hug
bubble = mashed potatoes
white/black = when ordering tea or coffee, with or without milk
fag = cigarette
mates = friends
blokes = group of guys
"zed" = pronounciation of the letter "z"
mind = look out for, as in mind the gap, mind your head, mind the slippery floor
queue = a line