One Month Anniversary Edition

Today I have been in Oxford for a MONTH. My life is flashing before my eyes.

Today was also an excellent day. It helps a lot when you start the day off right, say, by having cookies for breakfast. Not just any cookies, but Ben's Cookies from the covered market. 

Jake creepily showing us his Ben's cookie: 

The covered market itself:

 Check out these sweet cakes!:

After that we went to the Bodleian to see an exhibit on Mary and Percy Shelley. We got to see original manuscripts for Frankenstein: SO COOL. Also lots of personal letters about their extremely messed up lives.

Newsflash: I am American.

It turns out this is fairly obvious, for a number of reasons. I tell you these things so that you, if you ever find yourself in this country, will not look like the American noob I am.

TOP EIGHT DEAD GIVEAWAYS THAT I AM AMERICAN

1. My walking pace. In America, people are always telling me to slow down. Here, not so much. The other day I was walking down Cornmarket Street, and noticed someone was keeping my pace to my right for a good while. I looked, and I swear, it was a woman who was AT LEAST 70.
2. The fact that I wear pants, AKA “trousers.” No seriously. British women apparently do not wear pants. It is like leggings, jeggings, or tights with skirts or shorts. I don't understand. It's not THAT warm here.
3. The fact that when someone is approaching me head-on, I dart to the right. They dart to their left. Which means an extended awkward little jab-step dance ensues. Probably about the time I train myself to go to the left will be when I return to America, and I will have to go through this whole thing again.
4. My huge outlet adapter. See, I like the library. Since you're not supposed to talk, I can pretend that I'm English. But then my computer starts to die, and I have to pull out my big ole honkin' adaptor. And no one likes me anymore.
5. My large clunking boots and big winter jacket. Definitely should have brought my peacoat. And the weird little boot shoes I don't have.
6. Occasionally, I have to talk.
7. The fact that I hate tea. This is kind of a sin here; we try not to talk about it.
8. The fact that I keep tripping over cobblestones. I think ever since I wrote the spiteful blog entry about the Ashmolean making me put my backpack on my front to protect their precious artifacts from bumbling Americans, the Clumsy gods have been smiting me. I have seriously tripped over their dumb non-paved sidewalks about 6 times in the last 3 days. And in perhaps the greatest show of my American smooth-ness, let me tell you a little story. It's called “one of my roommates alarms was going off really early in the morning, and she wasn't waking up.” So, I figured, hey, I'll just turn it off. I had done this before with no disastrous results. However, when trying to find her alarm clock in the dark, I may have possibly knocked her entire bookshelf off the desk. I mean, it's possible. 
   Sidenote: I told my tutor about the backpack thing, and he told me a few years ago at an English Museum, an American (of course) who was rather large (of course) came in with backpack and camera case swinging, and somehow managed to fall down a flight of stairs and into two priceless vases. He told me it was probably a youtube video, but tragically, I couldn't find it.

The one British thing I have down? My hair. It is large and ridiculous and goes crazy in the rain/dampness just like all the other English girls who don't wear pants.

WHY BRITISH PEOPLE HATE AMERICA:

They do it wrong! We discovered “American” hotdogs... in a can!

Lies and deceit. We do NOT do hotdogs like this!

We also found some in jars. Ga-ross.

MY BRITISH QUEST

I was having “coffee” (aka hot chocolate) this week with people from the Bible study I go to in this cute little coffee shop called “The Nosebag.” (Don't ask, I don't know either.) Anyway, they told me there is a coffee shop of Queens that sells Nutella hot chocolate. I am so there its insane.

BEST MOMENT OF MY ENTIRE BRITISH LIFE

Nicole, “other” Jake (sometimes affectionately known as “Non-bearded Jake”), and I were walking to choir Monday night when we passed a group of British hooligans on the sidewalk. We honestly heard a girl say (must be read in a British accent): “Do you know any good yo mama jokes?”

I actually took some pictures this week. Observe: 

My house! SCIO students live on the right side:

Beautiful High Street, the one time it was sunny:

Broad Street:

All the cool kids ride bikes.

Tomorrow, of course, is the SUPERBOWL, that I get to watch in a pub. My biggest worry: they will replace the American commercials with extremely weird British ones like they did for the championship game. But in any case, the Packers are playing, and I actually get to watch it, so I really can't complain. I'll let you know how the whole watching-till-3-in-the-morning thing works out.