Belated Present!!!

SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes. I walked out of a supermarket today to find those fluffy little white pieces of heaven falling. I could feel my face break into a HUGE smile. It was the greatest present ever. 

Speaking of which, here are a few things I have gotten for myself in the past few days with the birthday money people have been giving me. (Thanks, everyone!!)

Yesterday I went and got a new pair of running shoes. I know. What? I don't run. But I would like to start. There is a park a block from my house and so many other people in my house run there. I'm already walking more than I ever have in my life, why not run as well? And because the store I got them in is going out of business so everything was ridiculously cheap, I got a pair of sweatpants to run in as well. So far, only the sweatpants have been used and that was to sleep in. Good intentions, people. Good intentions. 

Another great purchase on my account was lunch yesterday. I finally tried Oxford's Mexican Food. The name of the place is The Mission. And not only do the use the same set-up as Chipotle, but the same font as well. Unfortunately it does not taste too much like Chipotle. That isn't to say it wasn't still very good as far as British Mexican food standards go. But their chicken wasn't just chicken; it had so many onions mixed into it that I was in desperate need of gum by the time I finished.  

Today after a great tutorial spent discussing The Chronicles of Narnia, I bought myself three books. It came very close to being four, but my practicality caught the better of me and I decided I couldn't justify sending one more book home at the end of term. I could justify, however, a sketch book and some coloured pencils. 

But really, getting snow was exactly what I asked for, what I had wished for and prayed for. It has since stopped, and was not sticking to anything as it fell, but nonetheless, there were millions of snowflakes. Brilliant. 

21 in 21

For my birthday I rounded up a few friends and we went to conquer London for a day. This is our adventure, in a nutshell. 

1. A great card and a small Toblerone chocolate from my Gordon friends: The card is currently on my wall. The chocolate, however, we devoured on the coach ride into London. 

2. Roasted Chestnuts: I had never had these before, and since it was a day of 'firsts', I thought it worth the 1.50 to try them. Three of us went in on them. After a little trouble figuring out exactly how to eat them, we finally managed to polish off the paper bag. They were different; slightly sweet with an almost potato-like consistency. 

3. Piccadilly Market: After buying half-price tickets to a show, we started a slow, meandering walk to Hyde and Kensington parks. On the way we stopped at a little open air market near Piccadilly. There was a lot of jewelry and art, some of which was good, and some of which was just terrible. I bought a wooden ring that halfway through the night cracked and chipped, which was very disappointing. I should have gone with the ivory one. . .

4. La Maison Du Chocolat: Since all the people with me were girls, we were naturally drawn to the store claiming to be The House of Chocolate. After a quick peek around and wishing we could drown in some of the pieces they concocted, we decided to put together a little bag of truffles and ganache for ourselves. The pieces had names like: Othello (honey infused), Romeo (coffee mousse), Bacchus (rum blazed raisins) and Yoko (tea infused). 

5. On the Hunt: Now, although the drinking age in England is 18, and I had already consumed alcohol, a 21st birthday for an American is just not a 21st without some sort of drink. The plan had been to picnic in the park, but we got into London late and so had already eaten our lunches, so the new plan was to find some Champagne and drink it with our chocolates in the park. Unfortunately, the walk from where we had been to the parks was along the most fashionable road in London, an unlikely place to find cheap bottles of anything. We finally make it to a market and promptly buy the cheapest, and rather large, bottle of Champagne we can find. 

6. Peter Pan: The destination of Hyde/Kensington Park was chosen because it houses the famous statue of Peter Pan. I love Peter Pan, and detest the idea of having to grow up and be a responsible, working adult. So it seemed fitting that on the day I turned 21, the day I finally pass wholly and completely into adulthood, I should visit the everlasting child, Peter Pan. 

7. The 'Picnic': We walked a little ways past the statue and found a nice, protective tree to sit under. We pulled out the bottle of Champagne and, for the first time in my life, I legally popped off a cork. Then we all proceeded to sit on a rather unforgiving and slightly prickly ground and drink champagne and eat gourmet chocolate. It was a very simple, very wonderful way to celebrate. I'm very thankful for the friends who chose, like me, to ignore the pressing deadlines and celebrate instead. 

8. A New Scarf: After leaving the park and taking the underground back to the West End we wander China Town for a while. One little store had very cheap scarves outside, to the tune of 2/3 for 5 pounds. Elizabeth and I both found blue ones we wanted and did not hesitate to buy them, since I had not already spent enough money on myself for my birthday. Blue was one of the colors I was missing though, and it is in a style very popular at the moment but which I did not yet own. (This now brings my total scarf count to 13.)

9. Zorro- The Musical: When we bought tickets that afternoon there were only a few shows left still at half price. So it came down to either Zorro or Sound of Music. If ever given a choice between something you are familiar with or something completely random and mysterious, go with random and mysterious. We managed to get 4 seats next to each other in the 12th row, center, of the theater. Right away we knew it was going to be a fantastic show; the stage had wooden ladders on both sides, a rope ladder on one, various other ropes hung around, and a black and red slashed curtain. 

10. Zorro-cont'd: Within the first two minutes of the show was singing, flamenco dancing and fire. How could that not foreshadow a great time? As it turned out, the dancing and fire would be joined by spanish guitar and swordfighting as the best aspects of the entire musical. The script desperately needed work and some of the songs were just beyond ridiculous. 

11. Zorro- still: The actors were fairly decent, but one character in particular was just fantastic. She was a gypsy and while leaving the theater we were wondering how we could become gypsies as well. Not only were the skirts great, but their flamenco heels in bright colors and be-flowered hair were just amazing. Then we decided that a salsa outing was much needed, so we could stomp around and wave our skirts in the hopes of imitating the dancers. 

12. Zorro-again: By the end of the play as the actors were receiving their ovations, we were all dying of laughter and riotously happy for having chosen well what show to see. I would definitely recommend seeing it if you can get half-price tickets. It would make a great melodrama, and would probably be improved by it, but the two best songs by the main heroine were serious and would have no real place in a melodrama. I certainly had a great time though, making my birthday just that much better. 

13. Theater: British theaters are so unlike American ones. They serve alcohol before the play starts as well as during intermission. You can drink and eat during the play as long as you do it quietly. We broke out the little bit of champagne we had left, surreptitiously concealed in a water bottle, at intermission. This was accompanied by a few chocolate digestives and caramel squares to the great satisfaction of all. 

14. Cheap Chinese Buffet: Since we hadn't had any dinner and sugar isn't very filling, we headed back into Chinatown after the show. We ducked into a small restaurant we had passed on the way in and decided to stop. It was an all-you-can-eat for 4.95. It smelled like sanitizer and greasy food. But that's half the fun, right? The food was alright, nothing special and pretty much what you ask for when you're paying under 5 pounds. Most of the meat dishes were heavily supplemented by onions and my chicken wing still had a few residual feathers sticking out of it. 

15. Coach: The walk back to the bus station was eerie; there were very few people on the roads and it was very dark. It wasn't unsafe, but it felt a little surreal being in London yet not surrounded by masses of people. When we finally made it back to the bus station we plopped ourselves onto a stone bench and started waiting. The buses run continually between London and Oxford, but not on a set schedule. Luckily we were only there for about 30 min before our coach arrived. 

16. Home Again: The ride was spent mostly fast asleep- the dead kind, where you wake up feeling like lead and with gooey eyes. The walk back to Crick from the station was more refreshing though. It was misting and cold but the leaves we shuffled through made it worth it. 

17. Notes: When we got to the front door there was a little sign for me, duct-taped and telling me to go into the kitchen. As I walked up the hallway there were more, telling me I was getting closer. When I arrived in the kitchen there were-

18. CHOCOLATE COVERED STRAWBERRIES!!! One of my most favorite things in the whole world and something we had been discussing earlier that day (in conjunction with the champagne). And...

19. Snickerdoodles! 

20. I went to bed completely content and totally wiped. It had been a fantastic day, a great day of celebration and I am so thankful for all my friends! I checked my facebook before finally falling into bed and saw that tons of people had wished me a happy birthday! My one wish didn't come true though, but that was to be expected. (It was for snow...)

21. Feels a lot like 20. I can't wait to get home and celebrate with all my other friends though. But I think I'll hold on to my Peter Pan dreams a little bit longer.  

Reminiscing About Lazier Times

This is the ridge we hiked along on Helvellyn, looking back on it after crossing. It was quite fun getting to scramble at will over all the tiny juttings and mini-chasms. 

Just a picturesque landscape on our hike around Derwent, I believe. Keswick, the town we stayed in, is just down in that valley and off to the left a bit. 

Derwent Water. 

I found Snow White and her evil Step (Drag)Queen in the ruins of Kenilworth Castle. Christye, aka Snow White, actually picked that apple on the grounds. It was crisp and delicious. And not poisonous. 

A little more of Kenilworth. 

I am Fall's Child

I love fall. It is my favorite season in Colorado and Massachusetts. And now I can add Oxford to the list. The trees are dropping their leaves, most of which are bigger than my hand. Carpets of an earthy orange line every gutter and cushion every corner. I made sure to drag my feet through them this morning on my way to tutorial. The ivy that creeps over the majority of the buildings here is also turning. 

I think the colors here, especially the warmer ones, are more vibrant. Maybe it is because they are in constant contrast to the greyer skies. I am just in love with the brick reds with the slow spreading green moss contrasting, with the million different shades of clouds an overcast sky can have, with the grass that even now is a truer green than Colorado grass in summer and with the rosy apples I eat everyday. 

In fact, I am going to go to the grocery store today and pick up some apple juice so I can make apple cider for the house. It is a perfect day for it- the wind is blowing and a slight drizzle just started falling. If only our house had a fireplace we could actually make a fire in. How fantastic does that sound? A mug of apple cider in one hand, a book in the other, a fire in front of you, a blanket wrapped around you and God's creation whirling outside your window in the most magnificently costumed show. 

First Week

Today marks the end of my first week of a real Oxford term, appropriately labeled "First Week." (Next week will officially be "2nd Week" and so forth.) It's confusing when things actually refer to the weeks like that and not by the dates themselves, since it is very easy to lose track of the abstract idea of a numbered week than an actually impending date. 

This week I started my tutorials, which turned out to be much less intimidating than I had assumed. On Mondays I have Creative Writing at Wolfson College, which is a short 10 minute walk from my house. Once there I make my way to a small room consisting of two lounging chairs and a small desk with chair. The windows are quite large and between two edges of building I get a glimpse of the college's quad. Mostly though I get a full view into someone's office, which can get quite awkward if they realize they have the same view of you. I then spend the next 50 minutes reading my own stories aloud to my tutor and having her tell me what I need to work on. My focus for the 4 weeks we meet will be fairy tales, culminating in a finished fairy tale of my own composition as a final project. It hardly seems fair to the other students that my homework consists of reading Hans Christian Andersen and The Grimm Brothers and writing about strange forests while they are all stuck with philosophers and historians. 

On Tuesdays I begin my day with a tutorial on C.S. Lewis. My tutor for this one is amazing; I love her already and hope to somehow forge an actual relationship with her. She is very nice, very welcoming and very understanding. The majority of our tutorial consisted of discussing Lewis, Tolkien, and Pullman, and deploring boring allegories such as The Pilgrim's Progress. The purpose of tutorials is to have a discussion, and I feel like that might actually be achievable with her. She is also my Long Essay advisor, so most of my guidance this term will be under her and on subjects concerning Lewis and fantasy. 

After my tutorial I have an hour or so to kill before my first lecture. Lectures are very different for us here than they are in America. We get to choose whatever lectures suit our area of study and that best compliment our tutorials. There are no tests or quizzes, so it is entirely for our own enlightenment we go. This makes them infinitely more enjoyable, not having any pressure attached. We each go to four sets of lectures. Mine are: Intro. to English Lit, Medieval Literary Theory, Spenser's Poetry and Prose, and Victorian Literature/Ideas. All the professors are brilliant are definitely more engaging than most, even when they are reading straight from an outline. 

When I'm not going to lectures or tutorials I am either in the library reading for the next week or finding multiple distractions to keep me otherwise occupied. I spent a few hours yesterday in the park, writing and then enjoying some wine with another group of American students. 

Quotidian Oxford

Interesting pieces about my life here in Oxford. I'll be keeping this one updated as I learn more and more about my fascinating city (and surrounding country). 

1. Oxford Time: Oxford is situated west of the Greenwich Meridian by 5 minutes. Many of the bells, and some professors, set their timetables by this fact. Although this causes the chimes to ring at 5 past it is not recommended to assume that lectures will begin similarly. 

2. The Pasty: Pronounced 'pass-tee.' Warm goodness wrapped in a flaky dough that seems light but is really rather sturdy and filling. There is a cheap shop right across from our offices that almost always has a line and is already frequented by our students. I had my first one, a delightful mushroom/onion/cheese mixture, on Tuesday. I will definitely be going there again. And again. 

3. Flapjacks: Not at all what an American would automatically think of but my absolute new favorite thing in the entire world of . . . dessert. Flapjacks are little bars of oatmeal, butter, sugar, etc. and can masquerade almost as a granola bar but with very little pretense as to actually be healthy for you. My goal for the year is to come back to the states with a perfected recipe. (Right now the trial count is 5, of which I cannot rightfully take credit, as Jonathan did all the work while I wrote my papers. But it was my idea.)

4. The Fire Alarm: If the fire alarm in Crick does not go off at least once a week, then the world has turned upside down and hell frozen over. The detector in the kitchen is not for smoke, but heat. And it is positioned at the top of the very high ceiling, where all the heat collects. So when you have a large number of people collecting in the kitchen to hang out and some of those people are cooking, the chances of the kitchen "overheating" are very large. This is not even including the various shortages the number of appliances we have plugged in, which has been the reason for two or three of the alarm episodes. It has, in fact, gotten to the point that when the alarm sounds, nothing happens. People stay put exactly where they are just sigh or complain about the noise, knowing that someone will be turning the alarm off presently. 

Endless Possibilities

Oxford is alive and bustling with the students who have trickled in over the weekend. It came as a surprise on Wednesday when I was walking down the street and suddenly realized that no, it wasn't a weekend shopping day for tourists, but merely an afternoon in a University town of no meagre size. I still am finding it hard to believe that I get to be a part of this; I am an Oxford student. Today was Fresher's Fair, an amalgamation of every possible activity the university has to offer crammed into one building. Each booth was encroaching upon the others' space and yet doing a good job of ignoring the fact. I was verbally accosted a few times by overly enthusiastic members and discovered just how bad I am at asking the kind of questions that provide pertinent information. I think I signed myself up for an overwhelming amount of clubs, but only a few with the intent of actually attending. One of them was a climbing club I might try and boulder with on occasion. One free coffee, free pizza, free mug and a tree's worth of paper flyers later, I sat at my desk to begin work for my tutorials. 

Tutorials are beginning next week and I am excited. My C.S. Lewis tutorial sounds difficult, but I love the fact that it is merely an excuse for me to read his works and the works that influenced him. Maybe someday someone will be reading him because he influenced my writing. Which brings me to my other tutorial, creative writing. My tutor said I will be writing around 1000 words a week with a finished story as my final project. I already have an idea in mind and just hope it will be possible to put onto paper. I think I will be spending a lot of time in a coffee shop, pen and notebook in hand with Lewis waiting on the sidelines to inspire or distract. 

Another distraction I recently discovered is Primark, a very cheap clothes store in our mall. A group of us went yesterday and had a wonderful time being normal girls and college students. I bought two rather similar striped sweaters, accidently, but that should be good for layering. I also bought an awesome pair of black boots. They are pirate boots, tall, slouchy suede, with a leather tied fold at the very top. I also got a hilarious pair of shorter boots in a sort of checkered pattern that I can't wait to wear. It's hard to wear only a few outfits for a month without getting antsy for new ones, so I feel justified in my cheap, new purchases. Although now I'm going to want a new sweater every week. If you want to contribute to the 'dress Lizzie in a British wardrobe' fund, I'll be happy to accept donations. :-)

The Lake District

Friday morning dawned without having seen the underside of my covers. Two papers lay on the kitchen table, for the most part finished, but unedited. Flapjack crumbs, a coffee mug, 7 books, a laptop and a notebook were strewn over almost half the table. It was 6.30 am; but the papers were done and soon to be on their way to be marked, and I was on my way to the Lake District. I threw together two backpacks full of clothes and books and waiting for 8.30 to roll around. It finally did and with it came a British 15 passenger van. 

This van looked comfy enough from the outside, but each seat was like a rock. The headrests were too high for any normal-sized person and angled forward, causing those of us of average height to either sit with our necks either slightly forward or scrunched down so as to be relatively upright. Yet after an all nighter sleep was the only thing on our minds. So sleep we did, awkwardly as it was, and woke up almost as nonplussed as if we had just stayed awake. 

The first stop on our trip was Kenilworth Castle. This massive ruin of red stone used to be the palace of Robert Dudley, 'lover' of Queen Elizabeth I. It was wrecked during the civil war and was never rebuilt. It was beautiful though, with great open areas of grass that had once been the halls of the aristocracy. The wind was on full-blast however, and promptly froze our hands, urging us to move on. 

We re-boarded the now dreaded vans to continue our journey. A few more hours and a gradually increasing lumpy landscape later we arrive in Keswick. Keswick is a small town in the Lake District chock-full of B&B's and sports-wear shops. The main stretch was very quaint and the surrounding countryside just gorgeous. It is very hilly and there are a few 'mountains,' which a friend and I re-dubbed 'hillmounts,' to reflect their status a little better. 

After a relaxing night enjoying each other's company and a real bed rather than a cold window, we wake up to the best showers since arriving in England. The water pressure is almost too high and the water a constant temperature of steamy warmth. A few of us from my house met for coffee and ended up with the beginning of "Cake Day." We found a cute little bakery with all manners of sugary, buttery goodness and decided to bring a few back to the house to enjoy. A few cups of coffee and tea later, we all take naps. 

The rain we had trudged through that morning was still going when we piled back into the vans to go see Wordsworth's most inspirational dwelling, Dove Cottage. It is a small, dark place on the inside and bright and cheery on the outside, despite the continuous drenching. There was a planned hike afterwards which I skipped on the grounds of keeping my camera dry and myself pneumonia free. Those who did go came back completely soaked yet with stories of how awesome the flooded trails were. I opted for another nap and felt completely satisfied with my decision. 

After another night of good food and good company it is Sunday morning, appropriately sunny and warm. We attend an Anglican service and then retire back to the houses for lunch and. . .naps. Then it is time for a ferry ride across the lake and a quick walk through the country and back to town. Well, the ferry ride was quick, but the walk was not. It turns out it was really a hike of 7 miles and a few hours. But it was beautiful; there were sheep and a waterfall, stone cottages and emerald glens. It was also a good warm-up round for the next day.

I woke up early on Monday morning to join 6 other people for a hike up the third tallest peak in Britain, Helvellyn. This post would be even longer if I went into the type of detail needed to describe my experience hiking. So let me just say that it was amazing, stunning, heart warming and wrenching, rejuvenating, a test of endurance, windy, gorgeous and the best use of a vacation day I have ever had. There is no option on the top of a mountain but to feel absolutely alive and blessed by nature and God. I wasn't as sore as I thought I was going to be, thanks to the hike the day before, the Dorchester hike the week before, the everyday Oxford walking and a summer of climbing. 

We left Tuesday morning on the terrible buses and adjusted a little better to sleeping on this time. The weekend wasn't as restful as I thought it was going to be, but was certainly wonderful and worth it. (Pictures may or may not be following.)