Digression -- day one

so tonight for supper we had salmon...yes, salmon. i guess now we know where our $5000 is going to: 3-course meals. oh well ... now i'm going to go back to good ol' dining services and expect something phenomenal. anyway, we were walking through University Park, which is just a huge park with all kinds of fields, and I found oxford university's 6 lawn tennis courts. talk about exciting! and it just so happens that UNL's number one tennis player is on this trip. apparently he was playing earlier -- playing which consisted of him serving to himself. so i'm sure even though i may not hold a candle compared to his undoubtedly mad tennis skills, i'm better than serving it to no one at all. at least that's my hope. okay ... now on to the stuff i wrote yesterday.

departed omaha at 1pm, made my connection in chicago. the transatlantic flight was long, as they tend to be, but we got into london heathrow on schedule, about 630am local time (1230am back in nebraska). i waited in the customs line for about a half an hour and then claimed my bags and stopped by the budget counter in the airport to say hello (i brought my name tag with me...it did get me a 15% discount on my food at O'Hare!) they were kind of weirded out that i was stopping by, but i didn't care. i caught a 0930 coach to oxford, and promptly fell asleep. when i woke up, it was about 1030 and we were just rolling into oxford. i had no idea which stop i needed to be at and so i waited until the last one, right in the city center. luckily, that was where i needed to be. when i stepped off the coach to get my bags, i recognized this kid from one of my classes...what a stroke of luck! he had already been to mansfield so i followed him to the college, even though it was a long walk. we checked into our rooms and then i took a walk, and when i came back, my roommate was there. we grabbed a bite to eat in downtown oxford at KFC of all places, in the middle of these historic downtown buildings which also house a GAP and a Borders. then we decided to take naps in our room - yay! the room is small and stark - 2 beds, dresser, closet, and desk, but we'll make do. we met up w/our next-door neighbor, ben, and went walking around before orientation. there are only 2 buildings in the college (mansfield is the smallest of oxford's 39 colleges), so it wasn't hard to find. then came dinner. we ate a 3 course meal in our semi-formal dress, and it was HOT. nowhere has A/C.

after dinner came the interesting part. in the basement of the campus, directly under the dining hall, lies a pub. the campus is dry except for that one room. it's quite the place...with a brick ceiling and lots of character. i tried some of their local ale - light - and it was not my thing. you all know how big of a drinker i am :-) then we went to another pub and hung out til they closed, which was 2300 on sunday.

the architecture and history here are amazing ... it's a totally different way of life. all the streets are skinny, the cars are tiny, and everything is so old. as for the college itself, mansfield, while small, is nice. our quad isn't as manicured as some we walked by, but that might have to do with construction going on at the campus. i was sad to hear we can't play frisbee on it. one thing i did find amusing, though, is that our lecture hall has an ATM in it.

oh, and at dinner, 11 of the 77 people here got money stolen from their rooms. i think it amounted to £1000 ($1750). nothing was stolen besides cash--no cameras, ipods, or passports. but all the doors were locked. the police were around today (monday) and i heard a rumor that it was an inside job. there were security cameras, but they strangely weren't on ... fishy, considering that we got a huge lecture about security and the thieves that had hit the program for the last 2 years. anyway, here safe and sound and glad to have avoided theft so far.

missing the a/c,

grant