Friday, June 16, 2006

Seeing 'the other' Uni


Tonight I write not from my little flat, or from the local library, or from the internet cafe down the street in Cambridge...no, I'm actually writing this from Michael Rhodes' house in Oxford! While some of you back home may not understand the fax paus this is considered in either university town, here's the run down. Both Oxford and Cambridge pretty much hate each other, so to take a weekend to go visit the 'other uni' is quite a big deal. But in any case, it's actually been a really fun weekend, and good to spend some time to really hang out with someone from back home. Rhodes has been doing a study over here in Oxford for the past month,and it's his last weekend in the UK before he heads over to the mainland to backpack for a bit, so I figured it would be fun to see one last American before the only one I know over here (aside from my brother and his wife who are also leaving for holiday this week) heads off.
We pretty much wandered a good chunk of Oxford,and although it is a university town like Cambridge, it is quite, quite different here. It all started out with a good stop at The Eagle and Child, the pub where the Inklings (including C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien) met in the "Rabbit Room" in the back.
We also wandered through several of the colleges and the gardens, Christ Church, and went up into the tower of the oldest building in Oxford dating back to 1040ish--Saxon Tower. Of course we also had to make a few stops through the day to catch the World Cup games (the hype here is incredible, and it's really been wonderful. I'm actually considered quite the novelty as a girl (american none-the-less) who enjoys watching soccer and actually knows what's going on for the most part. Tomorrow we're off to do some punting, and hiking, and whatever else we can fit in the short 24 hours of a single day. It's been incredible, and I'll try to post some pictures in the next few days!

1 comment:

peri said...

"...who are also leaving for holiday..."
you are so turning into a brit