I have finally arrived in Oxford and I couldn’t be more excited! So far, this trip has exceeded my expectations in every way. For the next 6 weeks, I will be studying at St. John’s College, which is one of the Oxford University affiliated colleges. My classes are a little more demanding than I was expecting, but luckily homework-wise they’re pretty light, which gives me lots of free time to explore. I’m taking an Art History class focused on medieval art, and an English class on medieval gender studies. My Art History Professor is quite the jokester; he’s one of those people whose jokes you could easily miss because of his monotone and the way he says them in stride. All the more reason for me to actually pay attention in class, because Professor Clark is truly hilarious. I’m not the biggest fan of my Medieval Masculinities class, mainly because our texts are in middle English, and like, how the fuck do I read that, but also because I don’t have a great track record with the Gender Studies academic discipline. I took the Intro Gender Studies class at Rhodes for an easy “A” and a schedule filler, and it turned out to be a lot more work than I anticipated…
On Thursday night, I went with my class to see a local production of Canterbury Tales. Although the goal of the outing was to help us understand the Tales before we actually read them for class, the production ended up being both educational and fun. To be honest, I was expecting a long, boring play that I would barely understand because of the Middle English, but to my surprise and delight, this particular production of the Canterbury Tales was done entirely in normal English, and was hilariously inappropriate. It was pretty much like Medieval MTV; lots of cursing, sex, and drinking (although a little more subtleley portrayed). One of the tales even featured an original rap, which was probably the best part of the entire play.
Yesterday, we took a field trip to Winchester and Stonehenge. Winchester is a historic town about an hour outside of Oxford, and I think most people are familiar with Stonehenge (although, when I was a child I used to think Woodstock and Stonehenge were the same thing…no idea why). Our first stop was Winchester, where we visited a beautiful cathedral and saw King Arthur’s round table. There was some festival going on in the town with lots of people in strange costumes running around making alien noises. Don’t really know what to make of that… Anyways, Stonehenge was a pretty phenomenal sight, but it’s also one of those monuments you really don’t need to spend more than 5 minutes at. You go, you see, you leave. That’s how I like to do sight-seeing.
As far as “extracurricular activities” on my trip, Oxford is a pretty fun little college town. To celebrate the 4th of July, a group of us went “punting”. For those of you who are unfamiliar with punting (like me before 2 days ago), it is when you boat down a river in gondola-type boats with one person standing on the boat who pushes you down the river with a long stick. You kind of have to see it in real life to understand what I mean. For my boat, the designated punter was Mike, who luckily was a natural. Some other groups of Americans were not as naturally talented as us, and were really struggling to get even a few feet down the river. On the other hand, we moved swiftly down the river and arrived promptly to the riverside pub in 30 minutes. We did the Americans-abroad reputation well (which, judging by the other obnoxious Americans we’ve encountered, is a rarity). Probably the number one thing I have learned abroad is that foreigners are not particularly found of American tourists. Like not at all actually.
There are roughly 62 English pubs in Oxford, and the big drink here is cider. Cider is my new favorite thing; it’s literally like alcoholic apple juice. Plus, it also has a higher alcohol content than beer. Plus it doesn’t taste like beer. Plus it’s not beer… We’ve explored several different pubs and clubs since we’ve been in Oxford, and the most notable by far has been the notorious Purple Turtle. Upon entering the Purple Turtle (or “PT”, as the locals call it), you are shuttled down a flight of stairs into the basement in which the bar is located. The crowd at PT is insanely eclectic; the majority of folks are the hipster/edgy type, with some preppy and average people sprinkled in. The area where the bar is has a jukebox, which mostly plays hardcore scream-o and rock music. Until us Americans arrive and play “American Pie”, “Party in the USA”, and “American Idiot” (that one actually blended in with the atmosphere a little more). After we paid the cover charge, we were all handed 3D glasses that we were instructed to wear on the dance floor. The combination of the strobe lights, the blaring techno music, and my newly acquired glasses was slightly overwhelming, but still tons of fun. The Purple Turtle is a great place for meeting interesting people from all walks of life, and I think we will have many more memories at PT in the next couple weeks.
On Thursday night, I went with my class to see a local production of Canterbury Tales. Although the goal of the outing was to help us understand the Tales before we actually read them for class, the production ended up being both educational and fun. To be honest, I was expecting a long, boring play that I would barely understand because of the Middle English, but to my surprise and delight, this particular production of the Canterbury Tales was done entirely in normal English, and was hilariously inappropriate. It was pretty much like Medieval MTV; lots of cursing, sex, and drinking (although a little more subtleley portrayed). One of the tales even featured an original rap, which was probably the best part of the entire play.
Yesterday, we took a field trip to Winchester and Stonehenge. Winchester is a historic town about an hour outside of Oxford, and I think most people are familiar with Stonehenge (although, when I was a child I used to think Woodstock and Stonehenge were the same thing…no idea why). Our first stop was Winchester, where we visited a beautiful cathedral and saw King Arthur’s round table. There was some festival going on in the town with lots of people in strange costumes running around making alien noises. Don’t really know what to make of that… Anyways, Stonehenge was a pretty phenomenal sight, but it’s also one of those monuments you really don’t need to spend more than 5 minutes at. You go, you see, you leave. That’s how I like to do sight-seeing.
As far as “extracurricular activities” on my trip, Oxford is a pretty fun little college town. To celebrate the 4th of July, a group of us went “punting”. For those of you who are unfamiliar with punting (like me before 2 days ago), it is when you boat down a river in gondola-type boats with one person standing on the boat who pushes you down the river with a long stick. You kind of have to see it in real life to understand what I mean. For my boat, the designated punter was Mike, who luckily was a natural. Some other groups of Americans were not as naturally talented as us, and were really struggling to get even a few feet down the river. On the other hand, we moved swiftly down the river and arrived promptly to the riverside pub in 30 minutes. We did the Americans-abroad reputation well (which, judging by the other obnoxious Americans we’ve encountered, is a rarity). Probably the number one thing I have learned abroad is that foreigners are not particularly found of American tourists. Like not at all actually.
There are roughly 62 English pubs in Oxford, and the big drink here is cider. Cider is my new favorite thing; it’s literally like alcoholic apple juice. Plus, it also has a higher alcohol content than beer. Plus it doesn’t taste like beer. Plus it’s not beer… We’ve explored several different pubs and clubs since we’ve been in Oxford, and the most notable by far has been the notorious Purple Turtle. Upon entering the Purple Turtle (or “PT”, as the locals call it), you are shuttled down a flight of stairs into the basement in which the bar is located. The crowd at PT is insanely eclectic; the majority of folks are the hipster/edgy type, with some preppy and average people sprinkled in. The area where the bar is has a jukebox, which mostly plays hardcore scream-o and rock music. Until us Americans arrive and play “American Pie”, “Party in the USA”, and “American Idiot” (that one actually blended in with the atmosphere a little more). After we paid the cover charge, we were all handed 3D glasses that we were instructed to wear on the dance floor. The combination of the strobe lights, the blaring techno music, and my newly acquired glasses was slightly overwhelming, but still tons of fun. The Purple Turtle is a great place for meeting interesting people from all walks of life, and I think we will have many more memories at PT in the next couple weeks.