Of Birthdays

Well, dear readers, I am 21 years old, which means I can go home in a month and legally indulge in everything I'm already legally allowed to do here.  Huzzah?  I find it hard to believe that that baby in this picture ever actually existed, but I suppose both grandmothers would beg to differ.

Seriously, though, my birthday was lovely.  Sunday night the choir sang me happy birthday in full harmony at Formal Hall, and in my birthday itself TJ and my fellow William & Mary'ers surprised me at lunch in hall with a bottle of champagne, balloons and sweets.  I should have taken a picture, but honestly I was so surprised I completely forgot.  It was absolutely charming, and made me feel quite loved indeed.  Monday night TJ and I went out to our favorite restaurant in Oxford, the Riviera, which is run by a Lebanese family and makes the most excellent food if you order the right things.  They also have cheap takeout deals for lunch and are right across the street from my dorm, so I've gotten to know them quite well.

Wednesday TJ went home.  The process was quite smooth, and we got him there in plenty of time and with more than enough for me to get back to Oxford for my tutorial later in the day.  It's sad to see him go, but it was a fantastic visit, and I'm glad he came.  If anything, I think being able to share Oxford with him enhanced the trip for me, because I got to play the role of tour guide for once, and show him all my favorite things.

I also had my second tutorial with David Wednesday, and that went very well.  He's not scary at all, really, and our conversations are very interesting, particularly because I know nothing whatsoever about drama, so I'm almost starting from square one.  He's very patient, though, and I feel like I've learned a lot already.

Thursday I received my birthday present from home!  It was the most ridiculous little package full of strange and wonderful things, and it made me happy.  Inside were three birthday cards, scrunchies, hair elastics, hair claws, Obama magnets, little pins with birdies on them, a set of Burt's Bees beauty supplies, and some lovely emerald earrings.  Emerald is my birth stone, and I don't have any, so I really like those especially.  Thank you, Mom, and thank you Nana for mailing it!  I actually like that it came a bit late, let me stretch out my birthday over a week instead of just one day.

Friday I finished up the first of my three tutorials, Victorian literature focusing on the detective novel.  For that tutorial, I read: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, Bleak House by Charles Dickens, The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, The Sign of Four and The Hound of the Baskervilles, both by Arthur Conan Doyle.  That's rather a lot of reading for six weeks worth of work, and I'm proud of myself.  I'll miss my meetings with Helena, though. I think she's my favorite.

Lesbian literature is progressing apace as well.  Thus far our works there have been "Christabel" by Coleridge, Carmilla by Sheridan LeFanu, The Well of Loneliness by Radcliffe Hall, and The Rainbow by DH Lawrence.  We have two more weeks, focusing on The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson.  David and I have only done Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice and Love's Labour's Lost thus far, but we'll have three more plays before the end.  We're planning on finishing up a week early, though, by doing a two-hour tutorial in 8th week rather than progressing through 9th.  That'll give him a chance to go on vacation earlier, and me a chance to travel more before I go home.

Speaking of traveling, I'm starting to solidify my plans for the end of term.  I plan on meeting up with two friends from William & Mary who are studying in Bath and London respectively.  Starting on the 23rd, we'll spend three nights in Rome together.  After that, though, I'm on my own, so I plan on spending two nights in Paris followed by two in London before I fly home.  Details are still being ironed out, but it seems like quite a ride.

Today I saw a one-man-and-dog band.  He was playing the guitar and the harmonica, singing, and beating a drum with his foot while his dog howled in time.  I didn't have my camera, which is something I think I'll regret for quite a while.   I gave him all the change I had.


That's all, I believe; to conclude, some more Things I've Noticed:

• British people love to congregate in doorways.  If they are in any open space that has an archway, door or passage, they will immediately flow toward it as if magnetically drawn and then block it as fully as they possibly can.  There are rarely exceptions.

• Apparently it's baby waterfowl season.  I saw 10 ducklings today of two different species.
•  Most people are really bad at punting (propelling yourself down a river in a flat boat with a long pole.)  There's usually a good deal of screaming involved.

Of Gardens and Cities

Forgive me, readers, for I have sinned.

I have committed the basest of transgressions available to the American world traveler.  I have worshipped at the temple of the most unholy.

I have eaten at a McDonalds in a foreign country.

Allow me to make a few excuses for myself before I'm utterly condemned.  Around 5:00 on Thursday afternoon, my innate clumsiness, passed down carefully from generation to generation finally down through my mother to me, reared its persistent head.

Basically, I whacked myself in the face with my own laptop and gave myself a nose bleed.

After pouring out my lifeblood into a tissue for a while (for the concerned adults: yes, this is hyperbole.  No, I wasn't dying) I felt decidedly shaky and displeased, and I really just wanted a taste of home.  Since I think it'd be pretty impossible to ship my cat overseas in a box, I went for the next best thing.  What could better ring true of the American experience than a big, nasty quarter pounder with cheese and a side of fries?  So, dear reader, I have sinned.  And it was good.  And it made me feel better about hitting myself in the face, too.

On a less graceless note, I had my first session with my third tutor on Wednesday.  It's held all the way up and across the river at St. Catherine's college (pictured), which is much more modern than Hertford or any of the others I've visited.  Large, airy, modular buildings.  My tutor is different as well; first of all, he's the only male tutor I've had here, and he's a bit more traditional in the way he conducts our meetings.  Instead of emailing him my essays in advance, I must bring two copies with me to each session, where I must read them aloud.  He stops me every couple of sentences to discuss what I've said, and enlighten me on what I've gotten wrong.  And I do get quite a bit wrong; I've never had much exposure to drama in the past, so I'm not very good at writing on it yet.  I analyzed 12th Night in a literary way, and didn't address the aspects that are found only in plays.  I'll get better, though; David's an interesting tutor, and not nearly as scary as I was fearing.

TJ and I went to the Botanic Gardens on Thursday.  They're amazing!  I'd seen them without realizing on my walk through Christ Church meadow many times, and had admired the flowers nearest the fence.  Going in is a whole other experience though.  I think my favorite areas were the greenhouses.  They have a lily house, fern house, palm house, insectivore plant house, and cactus house.  Perhaps even more wonderful, I found Tolkien's favorite tree at the back of the main section.  It's a beautiful tree.  It deserved a hug, definitely.  The best part about the gardens is that I get in for free with my Oxford student card, so I can go back as often as I like.  I absolutely plan on doing so, especially if we have more nice days like we did this week.

 On Saturday, we went to London.  This was one of the highlights of my trip thus far, I think, just because it was such a fun, relaxing day, and we got to see so much.  We took the Oxford Tube bus to the city, (about an hour-and-forty-minute to two-hour ride,) and then booked an open-top doubledecker bus tour for the day.  This was the best idea.  While it's true that it was a very touristy experience, sometimes it's better to just admit that you're a tourist and go with it.  We never would have seen as much as we did otherwise, and it allowed us to see a ton without getting worn out walking across the entire city.  Westminster Abbey is probably what we saw most in-depth, though we also saw Big Ben and Parliament and got off at Piccadilly Circus, the Times Square of London.  We thought about trying to see a show, but the best price for tickets we could find was 29£ for a show we weren't particularly interested in.  Avenue Q would have been fun, but it was 44£ per person for the Saturday 4:30 showing, and that's a bit steep for college students on a budget.  London's the kind of place that you absolutely can't do justice in a day, though, and I'd love to go back.  If you want to see all my pictures, you can find them HERE.  The first 30 or so are from the Natural History museum in Oxford, but once you get through those it's all London.

Tomorrow's my 21st birthday.  Not sure exactly what I'm doing yet, but I think I may go to the Eagle and Child and have a pint or two.  Should be a good day.

To wrap things up, here are Things I've Noticed:

• I saw no street vendors in London.  No gyro guys, no souvenir hawkers, not even a kebab stand.  There were a couple of ice cream trucks, but that was it.
• British people cannot take the sun.  It hit 75 degrees (24 C) and was sunny yesterday, and I can't tell you how many people I saw with terrible sunburn.  Personally, I found it delightful and didn't get any color at all.
• While it's true that driving in all cities is stressful, I do have to say that at least the bus drivers in London are pretty awful.  We actually dinged a traffic light at one point yesterday.
• This country really is just swimming in baby animals at this time of year.  I saw more foals, calves and lambs than I've seen in my entire life just on one direction of my trip to London.
• Speaking of, there's been much less beef on a day-to-day basis, and much more lamb than I'm used to.  I suppose it would have something to do with having a country that doesn't have nearly as much open grass space for cattle, so I guess what cows you have are mostly for dairy.  You just don't have room to have an ever-reproducing supply of maturing meat wandering around.

Of Adventures

Since I've settled down a bit into a more regular schedule, not every day holds exciting new experiences.  As such, I think I'll start updating on a once-weekly basis, so as to not have a string of posts that consist primarily of "Today, I read a book."

Tutorials are going along better and better every week.  I really enjoy both of them thus far, and this week I start my third, so I'm very much looking forward to that as well.  I have to figure out how to get to it, though; it's held in a different college, one which I'm not acquainted with, so I'll have to do some exploring before Wednesday.  Both Helena and Jennie seem to be liking my essays more and more, though, so I'm very pleased about that.

I did manage to have an adventure on Wednesday night.  One of the ways to and from college involves going through the Christ Church meadows, and I like it very much because it's prettier than the main street.  However, on Tuesday I was running a bit later than usual, and I only had about 10 minutes until the gates are supposed to be locked.  Taking the risk, I walked briskly all the way to the exit near the Graduate Centre, behind Warnock house.  On arriving, however, I found that the groundskeepers had been rather prompt, and with three minutes to spare the gate was already locked.  I'm sure that there is another way out of Christ Church, and another way to get to where I needed to be, but suffice it to say that I knew neither. 

This is how the gate is structured: a short iron fence skirts the river, and the gate, which is at least doubly as tall, blocks the bridge over the river.  There's enough room on the wrong side of the fence to skirt along and get to bridge, except for another problem: there is a large spiked iron semi-circle that protrudes over the river, to keep people from doing exactly that.  However, Justine, when finding herself locked out and on the wrong side of the river, will not be discouraged!  To make an already too-long story shorter, I hopped the fence and made it to the protrusion.  Bracing my feet on the bank, I managed to swing myself over the river and around so as to be able to reach the bridge.  Particularly since I was wearing dress shoes and a heavy backpack, I felt victorious.

TJ arrived for his visit on Thursday.  Everything there went very smoothly; I made it to Heathrow to pick him up in plenty of time, his flight was only half an hour late, and we made it back with no complications.  He's only now getting over his jetlag, so we haven't gone exploring too much, but we have plans to go out to London and also check out the Botanical Gardens and Oxford Castle, at the least.  I'm glad he's here.

Yesterday I had an unfortunate mishap.  Cooking dinner for us late in the evening, the butter in my pan started to smoke.  Mind you, it did not even smoke a tremendous amount; it wasn't burned, nothing was on fire, etc.  However, the smoke alarm promptly went off.  Beyond even this, the smoke alarms here happen to be linked, so not only did it go off in the first floor kitchen, but in every single room in the entire Graduate Centre.  Fully abashed, I had to call the college lodge to track down our caretaker to turn it off; I think the alarms were on for a good 15 or 20 minutes.  Pretty embarrassing at the time, but at least I can say I wasn't cooking something stupid like popcorn, and worse things have certainly happened: I could have actually set the kitchen on fire, and then would I feel worse!

Honestly, that's about all that's happened.  Life here has settled down into more of a regular routine, and I like it very much.  As much as people complain and warned me about the work load, I'm not overwhelmed.  It's more work than home, but with a little dedication and time management, you can have great heaping helpings of free time as well.

To conclude, Things I've Noticed:

• There's generally much less traffic both in the city and on the highways.
• The days are MUCH longer here than at home: it doesn't get fully dark until almost 10, and the sun rises by 4ish.  
• They don't have frozen foods to the extent that we do; I could only find either fresh corn or canned, for instance.
• British smoke detectors are sensitive.

Of Families and Museums

I really must say that the tutorial system is much more fun than the American system of classes.  Anyone who knows anything about me will know that that's saying something: I love William and Mary and actively enjoy classes there, so the fact that I find Oxford even more enjoyable is really telling.  My tutes aren't quite the norm amongst normal Hertford students, in that I only have one-on-one sessions, while I've heard of others having two or three students in each.  It's a very energizing system, though.  In a class, there's the option to just sort of passively sit and not engage; I'm among the best of us who have occasionally spent an entire class surfing the internet or playing old N64 games on my laptop.  (I can feel Nana disapproving from 3,500 miles away.  Sorry, Nana!  I don't do it often!)  Tutorials pretty much wipe out that option, especially mine.  The format generally for my first two has been the tutor saying, "I read your essay.  I liked what you said here, but this bit is crap.  Give me why you think this makes any sense at all."  That's a bit exaggerated, but that's the basic format.  I found it a little terrifying at first, and my first session pretty much involved me panicking and being entirely ineloquent, but by this Friday I found myself really looking forward to them.  I had my third meeting with Helena at 11, and my first with Jennie at 2.  Both went very well, though both emphasized that I need to include more knowledge of criticism in my papers.  I honestly just didn't have time to read much this week; between the 870 page Bleak House, the 460 page The Moonstone and a 20-page poem, I felt myself lucky to have finished the primary material.

Choir was pretty awful this week; not that I didn't enjoy it, but that we were just kind of terrible for some reason.  Numbers were low, and I think we were all frozen; not sure what else could account for it.  Even the girl that I love to stand next to because she's both loud and right most of the time was making mistakes.  We went to Noodle Bar after, though, and that was very nice.  I don't think we have anything like it, at least not on the East coast.  I had egg fried rice (which was just that, much plainer/paler than at home, without the sauce pre-mixed in,) with duck meat, onions and peppers in black bean sauce on the side.  It was quite good, and if I can remember how to get there from the Grad Centre, I'll definitely go again.  Afterward I let about six members into the MCR with me (they're all JCR and thus can't get in,) and we sat in front of the fire in the Octagon (pictured) and had tea.  I'll have to take some pictures of the Octagon next time I'm in there; it's a pretty coveted place by all the undergrads who can't get in, with big comfy arm chairs, and a gas fireplace.  Another room in the MCR has a Wii, plus free fruit and tea, which is very nice.

Saturday morning I had my family brunch!  (A normal English brunch/breakfast is pictured, though the picture is not mine.  It's pretty much exactly what you can get in Hall, though the tomatoes are not nearly so pretty as they are in the picture.)  This is something that I'd forgotten to describe, I think, and it's both really strange and absolutely charming.  Apparently, it's tradition that everyone gets a college family composed of other students upon matriculation.  As in, you're given a "mother" and "father," who may or may not have other "children" that are your "siblings," and you may have "aunts" and "uncles" and everything.  By the end of your last year you're pretty much "related" to everyone by "blood" or "marriage," so it's a fun way of relating to other students and providing a sense of community.  Though, I must say, it's very odd to be introduced to someone with the phrase, "Oh, this is my daughter," and both the people are between 18 and 21 years of age.  My father is J-L, who reads my blog (hi, J-L!) and my mother is Inge.  I'd seen my father once at the ball, after he was pointed out to me by someone who already knew who he was, but I met Inge for the first time at the brunch.  Arranged by Vanessa who has something to do with watching out for us International students, the four of us new William and Mary students had our family brunch all together where we all either met or hung out with our parents.  It was nice!  Inge's very busy with an Engineering group, so I was lucky to meet her, but they're both very nice and I like them very much.  I'm not sure if this is a Hertford thing or an Oxford thing, though...

Yesterday I went to the coolest museum I have ever been to.  The Natural History Museum in Oxford is amazing, and I can't wait to go back.  The Smithsonian back home is trying to get rid of the idea that it's the Nation's attic, but the Natural History Museum and the Pitt-Rivers Museum here seem to revel in it.  Natural history was full of interesting things, including dinosaurs everywhere, and Pitt-Rivers was much more about human history.  It was definitely a sort of collection of  Imperialist memorabilia, though; it pretty much yelled, "Hey!  Look at all this cool stuff we picked up when we colonized pretty much the entire known world!"  What was especially interesting is that, while museums back home organize things by culture, time period and then similarity, this museum pretty much focuses on similarity only. You'll find a mask from Peru next to a mask from Tahiti under a mask from colonial America, from the 1600s, pre-history and 1800s respectively, and they're all together just because they're masks.  Even though the museum takes up very little space in terms of square footage, there's so much to see that even though we spent over two hours there, we barely scratched the surface.  I plan on returning very soon.

Sorry about the day-late update!  I was planning on doing it last night when I got home from evensong and dinner, but my internet died as I was uploading photos, and as the English say, I was "knackered," so I went to sleep instead.

As usual, to conclude, Things I've Noticed:

• There are a lot of peas.  I don't know if that's an English thing or a Hertford Hall cafeteria thing, but I've had peas at least four times a week.
• What would be either "the check" or "the bill" at home is only "the bill" here. A cheque is a cheque and only a cheque. 
• "Urinal" = "yer-EYE-nul."  Yeah, that's pretty odd to me.
• You don't eat with your hands nearly as much here as you do at home.  People seem to usually eat chips (fries, though I've only seen the big thick steak-fries type) with forks, and burgers are only hand-food at cheap places.  (It's a sandwich!  Its form was created by the Earl of Sandwich so that he could play cards and eat with his hands at the same time!)
• Sausages are different here, as is bacon.  Bacon here is more like ham at home, and sausages aren't just seasoned pig bits in a tube; it's pig bits and breadcrumbs and all sorts of other stuff.  As J-L said today, cheap sausages are only about 10% pork, which I'm sure is an exaggeration, but the sausages I got from Sainsbury's in my first week pretty much tasted like it.
• Breakfast includes beans, mushrooms and grilled tomatoes.  I usually abstain from the beans, at least.
  

Of Writers and Dinners

 It's been an interesting few days since I last updated!

Sunday afternoon, I went to a talk featuring Philip Pullman and the Dean of Divinity.  Philip Pullman is a really fantastic fantasy author; he wrote the His Dark Materials trilogy, which I adore.  (My cat's named after the main character, actually.  Well, technically; her real name's Lyra but we all call her Rara...  but that's beside the point.)  He's recently written another book called The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, which retells the Christ narrative as though Jesus and Christ were two separate people: twins, actually.  Pullman is an atheist himself, so it's fascinating to see what he does with the story.  I haven't read it yet myself, but it seems like it's quite good, and the Dean of Divinity wasn't too harsh with him when discussing it.

The talk itself was held at New College, which is actually quite near Hertford; I'd be surprised if we didn't share a wall or two with them, actually.  It's a much grander college, with a tower and dark stone cloisters and whatnot; much larger than Hertford, too, I think.  I got a bit lost afterward with my friend Nike, so we accidentally explored for a while, which was nice.  The discussion was held in the main chapel, which was gorgeous; high, high, high ceilings, with stained glass windows and dark wooden pews.  I didn't feel comfortable whipping out my bright pink camera and clicking away during the event, as there was a very respectful atmosphere throughout (and rightly so,) so I don't have any photographic evidence of the talk, but afterward...!

Afterward, there was a tea where Mr. Pullman sold and signed books.  Conveniently enough, I'd happened to go to Blackwell's bookstore before the event and pick up a hardcover compilation of all three His Dark Materials books, so I waited patiently to get it signed.  To my utter delight, not only did Mr. Pullman sign my book, we actually ended up having a fascinating conversation!  I introduced myself and told him that I was studying at Oxford for the term; he asked what I was studying, and I told him, and we ended up discussing my thesis ideas!  He held up the line to talk to me for...  probably a good minute or so, and it was one of the most spectacular feelings.  Thanks forever to Nike, who took this picture for me.

Last night was another interesting new experience.  Apparently, over the course of the year, the principal of Hertford College arranges a buffet supper every week for students, so that by the end of the year every student is given the opportunity to dine with him.  I was the first of the new William and Mary students to get an invitation, so I was sent to "scope it out" and prepare the others for their turns.  Plus, who am I to reject free food?  As always, there was a fair bit of awkward smalltalk, as I didn't know a single person there, but I soon latched on to a small group and made friends.  The principal came and chatted with us over drinks before dinner, and we discussed the late Icelandic volcano; he had been stuck in New York for a conference, and I explained how I'd barely made it in.  Dinner was quite good, though I actually spent considerably more time on the appetizer plates, and the evening honestly flew by; it certainly didn't seem like 9:00 when we were ushered out.  Considering that I had a pretty brutal headache from reading for about eight and a half hours that day, it was very pleasant and I enjoyed it.

The weather's been a bit more tumultuous than our first week or so; back to being cold, and we've actually had rain.  I was lucky the other night; I managed to get home just about five minutes before it began to pour rain.  It's funny: British people aren't nearly as put out by rain as we are.  It starts pouring down on their heads, and they just give a sour glance at the offending sky and continue on their way at the same pace in the same posture.  I do actually really like when it rains and I'm in my room; I just crack the window, shut the curtains, and feel utterly cozy in my little accommodations.  I'm not allowed to put anything up on the walls, but I've made it feel a little homier; a scarf draped over the chair, a few little posters propped up against the wall on the desk.  I feel right at home.

I got my first real letter from home today, too; Aunt Lorene is just about the sweetest woman in the whole world, and my entire family should be immediately dispatched to tell her so.

To conclude, here are some more Things I've Noticed

• British people love to dress up.  Tuesday afternoon, going for coffee?  TIME FOR A SPORTS COAT!  (I actually love this, though I constantly feel under-dressed.)
• The bad teeth thing is kind of true.  It's not everybody, but particularly among the older generation, there are a bunch of not-so-pearly-whites.  It's not just a class thing, either; there are some pretty respectable people I've met who could use a nice set of braces and a whitening strip.
• The Golden Compass from the His Dark Materials trilogy is actually called Northern Lights.  They changed it in the US because they didn't think we could handle titles with different forms; the other two are objects (The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass.)  I do appreciate the uniformity there, but I don't like that we're known as a country with obsessive compulsive disorder. (On that note, can someone tell me why the US has Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone and it's actually [...] the Philosopher's Stone?)
• Quiet in libraries is a whole new level.  I was told the other day, "I can't study in the Radcliffe Camera!  It's so loud!"  I'll just say that I think the Rad Cam is the quietest library I've ever been in.
• All the green buses in Oxford are double-decker.  I just noticed this today.

Well, I should be reading The Moonstone; I got through all 870 pages of Bleak House in three days, but there's more work to be done!

Of Tutorials, Talks, and Total Washouts

Sadly, I have no appropriate pictures for this entry!  How boring!  I'll have to do better for Wednesday.

We've started getting into the real swing of the academic part of term here now.  I've written two 1,500 word essays thus far, and I'm working on the reading material for essays three and four, both due Friday.  Since mid-April I've read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë.  I'm now working on Bleak House by Dickens, The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, and "Christabel" by Coleridge, which is a poem that I've already read.  There's some secondary reading to do there as well.  Technically there's some to do with Bleak House as well, but since Bleak House is about 870 pages long in single-spaced size 14 Times New Roman font, I think I'll focus on the primary sources and count myself lucky to finish that.

Tutorials are going more smoothly already, though!  I've met my second tutor, Jennie, from whom I'll be learning about Lesbian Literature starting this Friday, and she's very nice.  I had a fantastic meeting with my Victorian Literature tutor, Helena, as well, the one that I felt a little off about on the first day.  My second essay was much better (I knew it was even as I was writing it,) and she gave me some more concrete ways to make future ones even better.  We had a really engaging conversation, and I felt like we both enjoyed it equally.  That was very satisfying to me.  It's funny, too, because we have our tutorial in this big room with a long table that could seat twelve comfortably, and it's just the two of us.  We choose to sit at the small round table in the window instead, reasonably enough.

Some other visiting students and I went to a pub quiz on Thursday night.  Pub quizzes are a very British thing, and are pretty much exactly what they sound like: a quiz game that takes place in a  pub.  The one we went to was at the Folly Bridge Pub just a little ways away from the Graduate Centre, and it had five rounds.  The categories were General Knowledge, Food and Drink, Music, "Brothers," and Picture Identification.  The questions are read out one by one, and you must mark your answers as a team on an answer sheet.   You would think that a team of 7 students from William and Mary, Princeton and Northwestern all studying at Oxford would be able to handle a trivia game, wouldn't you?

You'd be mistaken.  We came in absolutely last, partially because none of us know British culture beyond tidbits like Gordon Brown calling that woman a bigot last week and the show "Blackadder," which finished it's original run in 1989.  We had a fantastic time, though, and we'll be sure to do it again, especially since the buy in is only a pound apiece.  There were some gruff middle-aged men watching football when we came in who were none too pleased by the crowd of chattering Americans, but once the pub quiz began they cleared out and we felt as welcome as any British group would have.

I'm not only making American friends, but I will admit that it's easier to do so.  There's a little bit of culture shock between the British and the Americans, where a lot of my conversations just end up feeling a little awkward because we're not relating to each other in the way the other is used to.  The choir is providing me with several really nice acquaintances, though, and they've generally been an exception to the awkward rule. I've met others whom have been wonderful, as well.  I've noticed it's also easier to make friends with the Canadians here, so it's not just that either the British or we Americans are xenophobic; there's just some weird little social cues that we don't quite share, and it's taking a little bit to overcome it.  I'm optimistic, though.

Something very cool is that later today, I get to hear Philip Pullman speak.  He'll be discussing his new book mostly, which I haven't read, but I really enjoyed the His Dark Materials series.  Pullman is a strong atheist, and the discussion is between him and the Dean of Divinity.  The book is titled, "The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ."  I'm intrigued, to say the least.  I'll see if maybe I can't stop by Blackwell's before the talk to pick up a copy of The Golden Compass for him to sign; there's only 40 or so people attending, (limited space,) and there's tea afterward, so I may get a chance to speak with him directly.  Here's hoping!

Things I've Noticed:

• Kiwis (the fruit, not the people) are more common here.  They seem to be one of the generic fruit basket staples: bananas, apples, pears, plums and kiwis.
• Girl-pants button on the wrong side (button on left, buttonhole on right).  I'm always really confused for a minute when I put on my UK jeans in the morning while I'm still groggy.
• Size numbers are way higher.  I'm a size 12 in UK sizes, but a 4 or 5 in US sizes. 
• I'm not sure if it's the water or the shampoo or what here, but I have to wash my hair at least twice as frequently as I do at home.
• When a sign in a shop says "3 for 2," it means "3 for the price of 2," not "3 for £2." I have been sadly disappointed more than once, let me tell you.
• While most things (when taking the exchange rate into account) are more expensive, groceries are less.