new friends and frisbee

today started out like any other ... you guessed it...the english breakfast. i think i've decided not to eat it for a couple of days, because it's starting to get old. but the alternatives aren't great either...they have fruit, mostly melons (which i detest), and weird healthy/gross kinds of cereal. anyway, that was breakfast. since we went out to the club last night, everyone was either massively hung over or still drunk during class and drinking lots of water. there were a couple of people who racked up £90+ tabs last night--that's almost $200 in alcohol in one night. blows my mind. so we talked about britain and economics and then in the second class we talked about...you guessed it...international economics. i was actually really interested in the topic today: customs unions and trade agreements. okay, i know. i'm a nerd.

for lunch we had cottage pie, which is like beef stew, except it is inside a potato filling. looked better than it tasted, but still not fantastic. after lunch 4 of us walked down to university park and threw a frisbee around. i didn't even suggest it, but it was so much fun. the weather has been pretty nice...cool, but nice...for the last couple of days. today it was in the mid 50s and overcast...but it never rained. we threw for about an hour and a half and then headed back to campus for our excursion of the day: punting.

you know how when you think of puntin you always picture people gliding effortlessly on the water in venice, being serenaded to as you pass under the rialto bridge? it is nothing like that, at least not for us. the five people in our boat -- the other 4 consisting of andi, josh, collin, and jenna -- had to struggle just to get the boat out of the harbor. once we got going, it wasn't so bad ... i did a pretty good job, myself! things went well until andi took the helm, and she steered us through any and all obstacles ... we hit the bank and the bushes and trees. i probably took about 30 pictures in an hour on the river (yes, i was punting on the Thames :-) and we had a blast. i don't think that 30 seconds went by without us cracking up about something. the waterway was rather congested, and we kept running into boats and such. it seemed that the thing to do was to bring wine out on the boat, but we weren't aware of that convention before setting sail. after we finished at 1700, we headed back and i got ready to play frisbee. it was to be my first experience of british ultimate.

i was nervous but excited walking to the university park. would these people be a lot better than me? what if they have different words for all the ultimate terms? would anyone even show up? i walked into the park and sat down, and in a couple of minutes two guys came through the gate. we started throwing, and soon we had about 10 people there. i guess friday nights is just pickup (as opposed to college practice), so there was a mix of college-age and older people. i met two other people from the states, one studying chemistry here and one spending the summer here at a conference. turns out, all my fears were unfounded. i wasn't the best, but i was up there (not to be egotistical). it was a fantastic time, and i look forward to many more ultimate experiences here in oxford.

because of my ultimate-playing, i missed dinner. my friends, great people that they are, decided to skip the meal and go to pizza hut with me! not to mention we were having something really gross. i know i was complaining about people skipping to go to the hut before, but i had already missed dinner, and american food sounded amazing. we all just got individual pizzas, because everything is so expensive, but then we did get a 20% discount on our food w/our international student IDs! score! anyway, it was good to have soda again...i've missed it since we mostly drink water here. i had 5 pepsis and afterwards i was really full. by this time it was about 2100, and we were going to try to catch batman begins, but we didn't make it to the theatre in time, so we headed back for campus. when we got there, we went down to the college pub and then out to the Purple Turtle. when we got there, however, we found out that there was a £3 cover on the weekends. seeing as how we were all exhasted and were only going to stay for a little while, we strolled back. i guess that pretty much takes you up to right now, as i'm writing this. like i said in my last post, we're leaving for london tomorrow and so i may not post for a couple of days. we are going to a show on the west end on saturday afternoon and staying in a hostel at piccadilly circus on saturday night. it will be a fun time. but, before then, in about 4.5 hours, i will be waiting in line as the store NEXT opens its doors at 0500! bam, baby...well it will be an interesting weekend. anyway, that's it for now. i'm going to bed. goodnight!

frisbee-ally (like cordially),

grant