My Very British-American Life

8:57 PM

While America was celebrating Independence Day on the fourth, the British were making jokes about treason. I, on the other hand, was having the most American-British day. It started with McDonald’s breakfast with some friends so we could have pancakes and syrup (not a breakfast item served at my college here).

After enjoying a home comfort, we went out to the streets of Oxford to enjoy the Alice’s day festivities. This year, on July 4th, was the 150th anniversary of the publishing of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and every year there are events all over Oxford to celebrate the most famous children’s tale.

Did I mention I was dressed like this all day?

The first stop was The Story Museum where there were multiple stations related to Alice. There was a pretty cool cake display, people in costumes, and my favorite part of the holiday: an opportunity to use a real printing press to print a page of the honored book.

Cake display

My pressed page

Printing press we got to use

My inner journalism/paper/typography/writing nerd couldn’t contain its happiness as I pulled the lever that pressed the ink onto the page. Later in the day we also checked out the printing press at the Weston Library and actually got to ink the letter tiles AND press the paper, though it wasn’t as spectacular of a design. We got to pick card symbols and I picked the symbols of a character’s “card” from the show “Once Upon A Time in Wonderland.”

After dropping off our papers, we went to the Natural History Museum front lawn and learned the Lobster Quadrille dance, which we now have mastered after so many repetitions and reenactments since then. Next we went to lunch at a delicious Tapas place and got ice cream.

Tapas (I ate my ice cream too quickly to remember to take a picture of it)

We relaxed for a couple hours after that before going to the Bill Spectre Oxford Ghost Trail where we heard spooky stories of Oxford past and laughed at cheesy tricks played by our guide. It was super fun and Bill Spectre had the most perfected Victorian accent/voice to play the role of the scary-story-teller.

Bill Spectre

We completed our British-American day with our first pizza of the trip that was a bit peculiar in appearance and taste, but was delicious after a long day.

A group of us then watched a bit of Netflix on a projector in our classroom before sleep.

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Saturday was another excellent American-British day at the Cowley Road Carnival. It was, by far, the largest street fair I have ever been to as it spanned an entire mile long road, and about 3 side roads off of it. There was never a moment lacking music; as soon as you got out of ear shot of one band you were coming up to another band, DJ, music group, etc. There was also a ton of different food vendors and after a long time of searching for the right food, I finally settled on a good ol’ American BBQ vendor’s pulled pork sandwich.

There were a TON of people at the carnival and, despite a few slow crowds, it was super fun and interesting to see what a British carnival was like (with American food, no less).

A trip to a cafe was a must after the carnival (when in England…). Except, our drinks were not American at all and my white chocolate mocha was kind of just frothy milk. But, it’s okay, we still love you England.

Queen’s Lane cafe, opened in 1654

Continuing the British vibes, we then went to a different cafe to read and do homework before then going to the junior common room on campus to do more studying once the cafe closed. I’d just like to disclose now that studying in Oxford is not like studying at Davis, or any college. It’s super fun and only slightly productive (though is always completed) due to my amazing distracting friends and awesome Oxford venues.

That night we stayed in the JCR after studying to secure the couches in front of the TV so we could watch the Women’s World Cup game live at midnight our time. My friend Katy is also a soccer fanatic and player, and it was too much excitement sitting next to her and watching the amazing US Women’s team score 4 goals in 20 minutes. Our other friends videotaped our yelling/chanting/cheering goal reactions.

Katy and I still overly stoked during half time while everyone else was overly calm and collected

Katy and I ended up staying up later than anyone to watch the medal ceremony and after-game interviews until the last highlights and credits of the broadcast. That meant we were up until about 3 AM.

USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA

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Today was another class day with a guest lecturer from an actual Oxford University professor. She talked to us about C.S. Lewis, J.R.R Tolkien, and Philip Pullman, along with their writing and revisions processes and how we writers can implement their techniques or learn from them in our own writing. I was a bit teary-eyed by the end when she spoke about how each and every one of us in the room, even those who didn’t claim to be writers, were and could be a writer without having to be a magical genius or anything like that.

Her talk was so completely inspirational and at the end she told us we could email her whenever we wanted to ask questions or ask for advice, and you know I will be taking her up on that soon.

After lunch and more class, I had some free time before grabbing dinner with my friends at a Pizza Hut, which was the fanciest Pizza Hut ever with extensive menus, sit down, separated booth tables, and no take out pizza sizes.

The entrance to Pizza Hut from the top of the long staircase that starts at street level and goes down underground to the restaurant

Movie night was after that in the campus theatre room, where my class watched the first half of the first Lord of the Rings movies.

Katy, me, Maddy, Amanda

Now I’m chilling in my room, writing my blog, and soon going to read and watch Netflix before bed. Tomorrow is the Oxford Castle tour, some midterm studying, and most likely some spontaneous adventures.

I know all of you back home want to know I’m safe and having a great time and I want to assure you I am having the time of my life and I can’t wait to share more stories and the photos I haven’t posted when I’m back in the states. I promise I miss you all, even if I don’t say it, but again thank you to everyone who has supported me on this journey (including, especially, my parents and best friends who I don’t talk to enough but I love you all!)

Cheers!

Oxford here I am (19 days left)!