Country Walks and Pub Talks

Six years ago I spent the second semester of junior year studying at Oxford University. Last week I went back to the town I fell in love with, retracing the steps of my past with my Oxford roommate and one of my best friends, Lisa (who, if I may brag about, is getting her doctorate in history at Oxford). It's difficult to talk about my trip to England if you don't understand who I was or who Lisa was when we met six years ago. And if you don't know who we were then, you can't possibly understand how far we've come. It's also difficult to talk about this trip because nothing exceptional happened, at least nothing that's story worthy. So there's no way I'll be able to convey how extraordinary or amazing this trip was for me--how past and present intermingled and contradicted themselves, walking both side by side and miles apart.

Pertinent fact: Lisa is the Junior Dean at the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (CMRS), which basically means she's an RA but with a lot more power and less responsibility. CMRS is also the program we were part of during our semester abroad.

The abridged version of my trip to Oxford

Day 1: I got into Oxford somewhere around 2 pm, already feeling the jet lag. Lisa was waiting at the bus station for me, a fact that shouldn't surprise me, but it does. And though her presence there made me smile, I was looking forward to seeing if I could navigate myself back to CMRS without any help. Being back at CMRS wasn't as weird as I thought it'd be. It looks and smells exactly the same. After some introductions, a couple of episodes of Black Adder, a nap, and dinner made by Lisa and Meghan, we went to see Pride and Prejudice, just so I could say I saw it before any of my friends in the States. [This was my second Austen-at-the-movies-in-Oxford experience with Lisa. We saw Mansfield Park in 2000.] I stayed that night in room the size of my closet somewhere in the city centre and slept amazingly well.

Day 2: Lisa and I walked across Port Meadow with the objective of eating dessert at The Trout, a gorgeous pub credited as the place JRR Tolkein's prancing pony was inspired. I ate Spotted Dick and drank tea. [Walking acrossPort Meadow was one of the first things I did in Oxford (2000) with Lisa and other CMRSers.] The walk back was a race against the sun and rain. We didn't beat either and were drenched by the time we got back to CMRS. Later that night we went to The King's Arms with some of Lisa's CMRS students, and I had my first full pint of beer, purchased by Lisa. I also learned about the power of a penny in a pint. [Lisa and I, along with our dear friend Katie, went to pubs often, but we never had beer. I'd usually get a Coke, but Lisa didn't always do as much.] We capped off the night with chips from a kebab stand and learned about O-Zone. I still have that song in my head, Nate.

Day 3: One of the things I wanted to do this time in England was see the Cotswolds. So we spent the day in and around the town of Burford (I think), popping in and out of shops and taking a glorious walk in the country. It felt comfortably familiar walking through pastures with Lisa among grazing sheep and cows. And on our way back into town we stopped by our third pub, the Mason's Arms, in a small village and each had a half pint of cider. After walking for a couple of hours, the half pint made me a wee bit tipsy, so I passed on alcohol in our next pub, The Mermaid. I spent the night celebrating my birthday with Lisa and a couple of her Jesus College friends at Jamal's, an Indian restaurant. [Appropriately, Jamal's was the first time I ever ate Indian food and can indirectly be blamed for spurring my interest in Indian culture.] The rest of the night we hung out with even more of Lisa's Jesus friends in the GCR drinking too much wine, playing darts and billiards, and singing along to an unbelievably awful kareoke DVD.

Day 4: We struggled getting up for a brunch that began at 1:00 pm. But we made it to the GCR at Jesus in time for food and conversation. I don't know where Lisa was much of the brunch, but I was engaged in a conversation about magical realism with a former Jesus student. When we left Jesus, a group of us walked down to the boat houses along the Isis River to watch the rowing time trials. We ate dinner at Jesus that night, eerily reminicent of dinners at Keble. Lisa explained that Jesus is the only Oxford college that can boast about having three royal portraits in their dining hall, or something like that. There's also a great portrait of T.E. Lawrence, a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia in the hall (mention Peter O'Toole to Lisa. I dare you). After dinner we met two of Lisa's friends, who both had the privledge of dining at the high table, at the Jesus bar and played trivia and table football--I lost every game I played. The evening ended after a trip to The Turf, one of Lisa's favorite pubs because of the choices of cloudy cider. They didn't have cloudy cider the night we were there, so I'm chalking it up to urban legend. But I had a great time conversing with Lisa and Sarah over another half pint of beer. Back at CMRS, Lisa, Nate, Meghan, and I had a discussion about affirmative action and discrimination. It was amazing.

Day 5: Lisa and I barely got up in time for lunch, so in the spirit of going to as many pubs as we possibly could and in finding a place I could order fish 'n chips, we spent the hour at The Old Tom (I can't really remember the name of the pub, but I think it's across the street from Christ Church). I guess this was my official Oxford day because we walked around the city doing sightseeing things. I walked around Keble College; it was bigger than I remembered it. We saw the shrunken heads at the Pitt Rivers Museum (if you've seen the third Harry Potter, you've seen one of these heads), and I finally got to see the PB Shelley monument/memorial at University College. After stopping for tea, the day was over, as Lisa was on duty at CMRS that night, so we planned on watching a Bollywood movie since we had to stay in. This was certainly one of the highlights of my trip, especially since the VHS of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai wasn't subtitled, and I was forced to translate the entire film. I did get a bit self conscious when Manu, the only Indian CMRS student popped in. And for the record, no, I don't know Hindi. By the end of the movie, there were probably nine people watching this movie with us. And for Lisa and Donnie, the latter whom watched nearly the entire movie, it was a huge success.

Day 6: We woke up in time for lunch again, this time eating somewhere inside the covered market. There really wasn't much else I wanted to do, so we did a little bit of shopping, went to Starbucks (my coworkers wanted me to check it out), and watched U2's Rattle and Hum, drinking mulled wine and eating mince pies. My last night in Oxford I wanted to go Bookbinders, a pub Lisa raved about all week. So the two of us, along with Meghan, Manu, and Nate walked to Jericho to hang out at this pub. But it was packed and uncomfortably smokey, so we left and opted for Jude the Obscure instead. We didn't stay there long because Manu, who didn't have her ID, was asked to leave the pub. Lisa and I drank our pints of cider quickly, and we moved the party to the Three Goats Heads. It was there I learned the real value of a penny. There's an English drinking game where you can put a penny inside someone's glass and they would then have to drink the remaining bit of their beverage without stopping. Well, Nate ambushed Lisa's pint, forcing her to down it. I wasn't really scared of the penny because I knew that Lisa knew I was new to this drinking thing and I had just drank my last pint of cider quickly. Isn't there a saying about not trusting the people closest to you? Next thing I know, Lisa has dropped the penny into my pint, which, btw, was nearly full. I wasn't going to attempt it, but when Manu instigated that I couldn't let Lisa show me up, I drank... and I drank... and I drank... until I was done. A rather fitting end to my week in Oxford. [Six years ago, Lisa, Katie, and I went to the Three Goats Heads and were asked to leave because we weren't drinking enough. I'm the only one who got a drink that night--a Coke.] I felt completely pissed, so one last kebab stop for chips and cheese was a God send.

Day 7: Got up early (9:00 am), ate breakfast, and left Oxford.

I warned you that this story wasn't that interesting, but it doesn't matter. I spent only $350, took only 7 pictures (all on my last night), brought back no souvenirs, and had one of the best travel experiences of my life.

I should mention, though it has no place in my rundown, that I am really impressed with toilets in England. I'm usually paranoid about public toilets, but in England, I didn't have any qualms about sitting directly on the toilet seat. I wouldn't dream about doing that in the States. Ew.