The Continent, Just for Anna

Well, I realize it's been forever since my fateful last Oxford post. But since I think it's important to remember this stuff and, more significantly, because I do not have a full-time job, I thought I would tell some tales of my fantastic continental travels. And I may have been receiving a lot pressure from my fans, AKA fan AKA Anna Speckhard, to compose such a post.

I should warn you that there are a lot of tales to be told. I considered writing a book about them, entitled “Lisa Single-Handedly Alternately Creates and Destroys the Bonds of International Friendship.” There were some days when I told myself: hey, I seem to be getting along pretty great with this particular Italian. There is hope that they will think all Americans are as cool and cultured as me. For instance, we were in Florence for Easter, and apparently they have this great crazy tradition where two oxen pull this cart all around town, straight into the Duomo, where it rests for an hour, and then they pull it back out into the square and set fireworks off of it. Happy Easter! So when we ran into this oxen-and-cart parade, we wanted to figure out where it was going and what time they were going to blow it up. So I asked an Italian man, and we had a great time using short phrases and large hand gestures, but apparently, one of us screwed up, because the fireworks started at 11, not noon, as I was led to believe. But we did catch the end of it, and it was awesome. Then a parade of some men in funny medieval costumes came by. But that is not the point. The point is that this Italian man and I, we were like this. In fact, we are now pen pals. The wedding is in December.

But then I would interact with some Frenchwoman, who, from what I could gather, wanted to spit in my bean curd. For instance, there was one Frenchwoman who stayed in a hostel with us, who we referred to as “The Crazy French Lady.” (Sidenote: she didn't seem to be grasping the whole idea of a YOUTH hostel, because she was at least 45.) The first night we stayed in our hostel in Nice, we turned on one little reading light over my bed, which, according to hostel rules, you are allowed to do, so you can do things like put your sheets on your bed, which we were doing. But the CFL started making harsh sounding commands in French, which I naturally assumed meant either “Turn off your light!” or “What gorgeous Americans you are! I can tell because your light is on!” However, once she figured out I don't speak French, she confronted me about my light-using habits, and I meekly turned it off and went to sleep. Interaction, over, I went to bed. So far, she does not sound very crazy, just a little light-sensitive. However, the next day she turned the MAIN room light on whilst 80% of the room was still in bed. So apparently you are allowed to turn on lights only if you are French. Noted.

But to be fair we also ran into a LOT of very friendly, sometimes borderline creepy-because-they-were-so-friendly French people. I would like to give a shout out to the poor French employee who helped me purchase 3,439 train tickets, and was very cheerful about the whole thing. Also the man who, on our first night in Nice when we were looking extremely touristy while trying to find our hostel at approximately 11:30 (we had our guidebook out and everything) offered to help us. And couldn't read our map, so called another French guy over, who also couldn't read it. And then led us to a store front so he could see it. And then insisted on bringing us (following us) to the hostel. And kept talking to us in broken English, while we just nodded. And didn't take our repeated “merci”s as a hint to leave. What a great guy.

Mother, if you are reading this, all I have to say is ha ha! Those crazy European times! Absolutely nothing to worry about!

Said travels started, as you may guess, with a chunnel ride to France. You can, if you so choose, take a ferry, but then you have to take some trains to get to the ferry, blah blah blah, basically, it is more complicated than it needs to be and since our main goals was convenience, that was ruled out pretty much immediately. You may also find, if you are (non-bearded) Jake, when attempting to purchase ferry tickets online, that you are red flagged by the ferry organization, on who knows what basis, and have to wait for the ferry guys to clear you before you can take said ferry, so that you are prevented from carrying out your doubtless deadly intent of skewering a hole in the bottom of the ferry, leaving all the other ferry passengers die a slow, descending death. I'm just giving you fair warning.

Anyway, I'm assuming the chunnel ride itself was great, although I really can't state that with authority, because I was awake for maybe 6% of it. You should ask (bearded) Jake. He was awake for 100% of it. Because we bought tickets at different times, we were in different compartments in the chunnel, and he was lucky enough to be in a compartment where he was completely surrounded by jr. high age-french children, who, as I understand, sang French songs at maximum volume the whole time. Jake really enjoyed this first glimpse into French culture.

However, after our chunnel ride we decided that if we were going to take over a country, it was going to be France. They spent about .2 seconds checking our passports. We momentarily changed our country domination plan to Italy, as absolutely no one checked our passports when we arrived there. However, we decided to stick to France after our experience on an Italian train when there were two separate lockdowns where a dozen policemen came in to check everyone's passport.

But anyway, we arrived in PARIS, where we experienced culture shock, Brooke even saying as we got off the metro “There's not even a gap to mind!” This reminds me that I should probably tell you who was actually on this here shenanigan. At the beginning, there was Jake, Brooke, Nicole, Max, Michelle, Elaine and I, although our number varied throughout as people died, or alternatively, headed back to London to catch their planes.

Anyway, in Paris, we did the classics like the Tour de Eiffel (Translation: “Eiffel Tower”), the Lourve (French for: “A Gazillion Paintings”). Luxemburg Gardens, Notre Dame, Musee d'Orsay, the bridge from inception where Mol stabs Juno girl, crepes, etc. etc. I would like to take this moment to say HOW DELICIOUS NUTELLA AND BANANA CREPES ARE. Seriously. I think they should do a “Super Size Me”-type documentary on what would happen to you if you ate crepes everyday, and I, for the good of French people everywhere (or in France), would volunteer to be the person who eats the crepes.

We enjoyed our crepes. 

Lookit that, a creep with his crepe: 

This is an example of Something Famous at the Lourve. 

This is an example of Something Cool at the Lourve.

Ahhh, Pair-ee

Europe, also known as "Place Where You Pay Money to Climb Stairs"

There are many other stories to tell, mostly involving food, but they will have to wait another day. Maybe next time we will make it to Italy. Can I be done now, Anna?

Last Oxford Post?!

WOW. I am now on summer vacation. This is incredibly weird. I'm pretty much in denial, my favorite life strategy. At noon Thursday, our last papers were due. It was basically better than New Years. We grabbed pots and pans from the kitchen and used them as excellent noise-makers, to the sure delight of our next-door neighbor, who hates us, and sometimes barges into our house at midnight and yells at us to be quiet. He is probably a very nice man, sadly driven to insanity by the constant (academic) partying that happens in this house. Or he is just jealous of our crazy paper-editing good times. Either way, his frustration/jealousy is understandable.

But it is pretty miraculous to be done. As of my last paper, I have:

-written 44,463 words

-which is 127 (British) pages

-and read TENS OF THOUSANDS of pages, mostly in the Bod.

Yes I absolutely took the time to add that all up. I clearly had to do some math to balance out all that English.

By the end of this, I was transforming into a British person. I honestly starting automatically replacing all my “z”s with “s”s (analyse, realise, etc.) and adding “u”s where they clearly don't belong (colour, favourite, etc.). I still have not learned to look the right way when I cross the street, but the pointless spelling differences, I've got that down.

I continued to celebrate my accomplishment by A) buying pretentious Oxford apparel (expect me to whip that out frequently – don't worry, I got a sweatshirt from my college, like all the legit students... but I may have possibly also gotten actual “University of Oxford” apparel, giving in to all my noob/American tendencies. I mean, know one's heart is made of iron, right?) and B) having a barbeque with SCIO. IMPORTANT NEWS: Remember when I documented the hotdogs that were slanderously labeled “American”? At said barbeque, I had an “American” hot dog, AKA it came out of a jar. A jar filled with unidentified fluid. With enough ketchup, I could pretend it was American. But needless to say I am looking forward to the real deal. Also I had Kraft Macaroni and Cheese today. I had forgotten HOW WONDERFUL that stuff is.

Also, I should mention that I balanced out my pretentious clothes-shopping with some truly tacky/hideous purchases. I don't know if you've heard, but there is some sort of shenanigan about a royal wedding of sorts in about two weeks. Apparently, this is a big deal. I'm pretty confident in saying this, because yesterday we discovered you can by flags, shot glasses, calenders, magnets, spoons, and yes, pillows with pictures of the FACES of the happy couple on them. And today, I found socks featuring a nice little, creepier than you can possibly imagine, animated Kate and Will with the words “my favourite pair” (notice the unnesseary “u”) for a mere two pounds. For reasons that I cannot determine, the Kate and Will on the socks do not have mouths. This is probably deeply symbolic. Also I found British flags socks for the low low price of 1 pound. It's really a toss up as to which purchase I will get more enjoyment out of, the British socks or the University of Oxford sweatshirt. 

I can't believe I will be leaving this beautiful beautiful place on Sunday! The good news is, I'm going to France and Italy with some wonderful SCIO people. The bad news is, I really, really love it here.

To show you just how wonderful it is....

Random Awesome things Lisa has Done in Oxford the Past Few Days To Try to Cram Everything In Before She Leaves:

Harry Potter: I mean, not only does it have a Harry Potter atmosphere (academic, British, gowns, magical) they actually filmed some parts of Harry Potter in the various colleges and libraries. For example, the pivotal scene where Malfoy gets turned into a ferret? Filmed in Oxford. Yeah, I know, it's impressive. Obviously, we made a point of visiting this spot and reenacting the moment...

Jake = Harry Potter, Max = Mad Eye Moody, Chris = Malfoy/Ferret 

Oxford also includes the infirmary/the place where they learned to ballroom dance (the Divinity School), the Great Hall (Christ Church Dining Hall), the library (Duke Humphrey's library), the staircase where the first years wait before getting sorted (Christ Church College), and the place where Cedric tells Harry about the dragon egg (New College Cloisters). I don't know why I put the parenthetical translations, because obviously he Harry Potter significance is more important. Of course, I visited all these locations.

Punting: This is an excellent classically tourist thing to do. Actual British people do it as well, but mostly tourists. You can tell because when you walk along the Thames, you see these groups of preteens punting, insulting each other in French and wearing Oxford apparel (you may remember that this is a classic sign of noob). I have yet to see one fall in, but there's still hope. You can also tell its a touristy thing to do when the people working the punting rental hate you on principle. It's great fun. No, honestly, I would definitely recommend this experience. About 17 of us went, splitting up into four boats, being careful to put a guy in each boat to do the actual punting. Half-way through the punt, one guy, Trinity's own Mr. Jake Slaughter, was still punting, although I understand some of the other guys were talented as well. Although I will admit that it was tricky. It is basically taking a large metal pole and propelling yourself along the River by pushing said unwieldy pole into the ground and pushing off from it. That was my refined (clearly explained) technique anyway. I did it for about ten minutes, and then I went back to my various roles as figurehead, punting model, and sun-basker. I made a good choice. Again, unfortunately, no one fell in, although I tried my best. You see, it was easier to punt the further you stood back on said punt, but it was a wee bit more wobbly back there. My crew voiced the concern that I was going to A) fall in B) tip the boat over, although believe it or not, they seemed to be considerably more concerned about the latter situation.

Lovely punting picture: 

Jake totally got the nod from a British guy for punting three such lovely ladies around.

And speaking of figureheads, check out the ones we saw in Portsmouth!

As Anna says, BATGIRL!

As per Speckhard tradition, “Just Around the Riverbend” was sung. Definitely by the whole boat and not just me. Although they did join in for a little Grandmother Willow/Little Mermaid moment when we accidentally punted into a willow tree.

Ashmolean: I went to the Ashmoelan again (Sans the backpack this time. I'm a fast learner) with one of the lecturer's from SCIO, Mr. Jonathan Kirkpatrick and 5 other SCIO-ers. It was great, because as far as I can tell, Jonathan has remembered everything he has ever read about anything in the Museum, so I got to learn lots of fun facts that aren't on the signs. Even if they were on the signs, I didn't have to read them, because Jonathan would tell them to us. This, my friends, is education at its finest. For instance, did you know that someone broke into the Ashmolean in 2000 on New Year's Eve by throwing a smokebomb in through a skylight? Causing the fire alarms to go off, and security to evacuate the building? Leaving the villains alone to cut out some very valuable painting? I submit that you did not. How cool and Oceans 11-y is that?

The Kilns: I made a recent visit to the Kilns, former abode of C.S. Lewis, because the same Jonathan Kirkpatrick lives there now. I felt so literary slash cool to be where the Narnia Chronicles were written. My favorite part was the attic, mostly because the Magician's Nephew is my favorite: 

A wardrobe in the Kilns...... (oooooooh)

Iffley Track: In the last 3 days that I have been at Oxford, I have increased my physical activity by approximately 400%. Some of this new physical activity was Ultimate Frisbee, which was great. Some of it was Kathryn and I running (appropriately) to Iffley Track, historic site where Roger Bannister first broke the 4-minute mile. Kathryn and I can run a 3 minute mile, probs, so it's really not that impressive, but you know, you have to do all the touristy things while you have the chance.

Pitt Rivers/Natural History Museum: The draw of the Pitt Rivers Museum is apparently the shrunken heads from Figi. The draw of the Natural History Museum is supposedly the most complete remains of a Dodo, but is really that in their vast array of taxidermied animals, you can find almost EVERY ANIMAL FROM RESCUER'S DOWN UNDER:

Wilbur, the Albatross

 (My hands obviously represent Bernard and Miss Bianca)

JOANNNNNNNNA!

Me riding Marahute:

Tragically, I can't find the Frankie picture, but he was there too. 

Alas, now I must pack up all my possessions, and like, figure out what we're doing in France and Italy or something. I will perhaps write uno mas post when I am back in the states, to update you all on my European adventures? Until then, know that I am enjoying my intellectual freedom and plan not to think for the next three months. This could lead to some unfortunate life choices.

Your Very Own British Tutorial

Spring has most definitely sprung.

Here is how I figured this out:

-The sun was still out when I got kicked out of the library at closing time.

-It's tourist season! I love the tourists. They make me feel cool by comparison and also have lots of adorable little kids in strollers. But I can't help but notice they aren't exactly hip with the jive, if you know what I mean. Not at all like me. I plan to be the coolest, most subtle tourist ever. I'm traveling through France and Italy after the term, and I expect people will frequently mistake me for an Italian or Frenchman (Frenchwoman?). This will be greatly helped by the fact that I plan to casually throw out all the Italian/French I know, which can be summed up as follows: “Zut alors! Sacre Bleu! Bonjour! Pizza!” and “Prego!” I will probably only order French fries and French toast, as those dishes are clearly indigenous to France. I also fully intend to purchase both a fanny pack and an American flag do-rag before traveling. After hearing this, one of the people traveling with me expressed regret at choosing me as a traveling companion, although I can't imagine why. I am clearly an asset, as all foreign hatred will be concentrated on me, and so the rest of my group will look extremely cool and non-infuriating in comparison. Whilst (have I mentioned they say “whilst” here a lot?) I am being shot by some patriotic Frenchman for blaspheming the name of France, they can make a safe getaway.

In any case, I thought I would provide the Oxford tourists, as well as you, with a guide on British culture. This is known as a “tutorial” and are all the rage here in Britain. But to really fully experience this, you need to not have slept for a day before and imagine the intense fear that comes from reading your paper out loud in front of a brilliant tutor who has spent their whole life researching the topic you have spent one week on, etc etc.

LANGUAGE

We will start with a language overview. By the end of this, I hope you understand both why it's awesome to live here and why I have to get Sam to translate everything for me. As a quick example, what do you think writing a paper means? Wrong. Just always assume you're wrong. A “paper” is an examination, an “essay” is a paper. The basic rule of thumb here is to never assume what it means in English to you is what it means in English to them. Confused? Good.

We'll start with some basic vocabulary:

“chat-up lines” = pick-up lines

“star jumps” = jumping jacks

“Chinese whispers” = the game of telephone

“aluminium” = aluminum. I mean, you could probably figure this one out, but I want to make sure you are fully educated.

“toad in the hole” = I'm still not exactly sure what this is, but it's actually pretty tasty.

“cheers” = thanks, goodbye, see you later alligator (I'm not sure the British would agree with that last interpretation)

But just knowing the words does not guarantee you will pronounce them properly:

Gloucester = Gloster

Leicester = Lester

Worcester = Wusster (Do you sense a theme here?)

Magdalen Street = Mawd-len Street

And my personal favorite:

Herb = Herb. Like you pronounce the H.

When I realized the wealth of terminology I was not familiar with, I instructed Sam to place me in a British immersion program. The first word I learned from him was “moreish," and he thinks its definition is self-evident. I beg to differ. Apparently, if refers to things like cookies that are addicting, or things that its easy to eat a lot of. His next word was “chuffed.” Apparently, it means “extremely happy.” And in my favorite variation, if you are extremely happy, you can say “I'm chuffed to bits!” This actually sounds disastrous to me, like you're exploding or something, but hey, I'll let these crazy Brits have their way.

When in doubt, throw in “as it were,” “brilliant,” or “if you like” as conversation fillers. If there is ever a awkward silence, immediately revert to conversation about the weather (rain). Continually apologize to the Americans about the rain, acting surprised at bad weather and keeping up the pretense that the weather is actually good sometimes.  Don't ever ask “What?” when you can't hear something, you hideous American. “Sorry?” or “Pardon?” is the proper response. And don't forget the most infuriating aspect of all British talking: the question. Many Brits won't raise their voices at the end of questions, but rather make it a statement, or even lower their voice to conclude the question. I cannot fully describe it; just know it's annoying. This is becoming even more annoying to me, because two guys from my program started doing this intentionally, and now the rest of the house is picking it up subconsciously. I comfort myself that they will sound like idiots once they are back in America.

So that you can see this language in action, we now turn to some actual excerpts from British media:

“Thanks so much, really brill of you! … Hope you're ace”

The “brill” part I got, obvs, as it is short for “brilliant” and as this was an actual email to me, clearly makes sense. But apparently “ace” is a British expression from the '80s that no one uses anymore. So now you not only know British slang, you know retro British slang.

Here are some other excerpts from emails I have actually received:

“but do go along if you fancy it”

“a sound grade will be gained”

“I hope you are getting on well and that you aren't flagging too much.”

The Brits don't really have to worry about this. I don't even own a flag. (HAHAHA Oxford is not just making me smarter, but FUNNIER)

“Boy scarred for life as yob hurls stone from bridge.”

Apparently, a “yob” is like a hoodlum. This was an actual headline from a Welsh newspaper. (Don't worry, the boy was OK, despite the yob's hurtful stone). This newspaper also included the headline “Fluffy is still meowing strong at age of 20.” No translation problems there though, just hilarious.

You should be able to see that all these crazy English language differences make it extremely difficult to play the British Apples to Apples we have at Crick without a translator present. Do YOU know what scousers, bendy buses, or geordies are? I didn't think so.

CULTURE AND CUSTOMS

Visualize that it is your first day as a tourist in Oxford. Go ahead. Close your eyes and picture it. Why is the sun in this picture? The sun does not exist at Oxford. If your imaginary luggage does not include an umbrella and rainboots, take the imaginary plane back to America to get them. There. Much better.

Grab your bike. Tuck your pants into your sock on the side of your bike chain. Unless you are a girl, because, as previously discussed, you will not be wearing pants. Also don't call them pants. I probably should have mentioned that in the vocabulary section.

As you bike along the streets, you see many really, really old things. Most of these old things are pubs, but some of them are colleges. If you pass some students, you may hear them reference “the Bod,” another old thing. This is the Bodlean library. Similarly, the “Rad Cam” is the Radcliffe Camera library, mostly for undergraduate students. During term, you are guaranteed to find a minimum of 5 students in every room completely passed out on the desks, and occasionally one will snore. If you study in this library, try to look extremely intense and academic. Note that your bag will be checked before and after you study in this library, because you can't actually take any books out of this library. If you study in the upper level of the Rad Cam, be careful not to drop anything, as it will make an EXTREMELY loud echo-y noise, and you will get hateful looks from surrounding students. Also, its worth knowing that in the Upper Cam, it is uncomfortably easy to accidentally play footsie with the person sitting directly across from you. If this happens, avoid eye contact at all costs. It's the British thing to do.

Which leads me to this advice: when you walk along the sidewalk, do not make eye contact with anyone approaching, and especially do not smile. This is not seen as friendliness, but creepiness, or perhaps even mental illness. Instead, to occupy yourself, purchase a “baguette” (a sub sandwich) or a “toastie” (toasted sandwich). Walk and eat at the same time. This way you look like you are so academic and busy you do not have time to sit down to eat.

As you walk, you will notice Oxford is a lovely place. Occasionally, like last Thursday for instance, they film Bollywood films on High Street, incorporating dancing, bicycles, and roller skates. It turns out that they do not randomly grab blond passersby to be extras, however, which is extremely disappointing.

Make sure you walk down Cornmarket Street. (You may ask what happened to your bike. Unfortunately, you were targeted as an American noob and it was stolen by English yobs.) This street has two advantages: 1) There are no cars on this street, so you will probably not get hit by a bus coming from the wrong direction. 2) There are frequently street-performers on Cornmarket, including, but not limited to: Fire-jugglers, violin-playing-slack-rope-walkers, various musicians bringing you the hits of Simon and Garfunkel, Queen, and Green Day(??), and if you're lucky, you will see the man dressed up in medieval apparel who stands on the corner and shouts “God save the Queen!” Also there is a MacDonald's on Cornmarket.

If you walk down Broad Street, will pass several Oxford apparel shops. Do NOT, under any circumstances, buy a T-shirt, sweatshirt, etc., that says “University of Oxford.” This will completely compromise your pretense as a non-tourist; I repeat: only tourists/noobs get University of Oxford apparel. If you are actually a student, you get the standard blue hoodie with your college name and coat of arms on the front, such as Christ Church, Queens, or Brasenose. These sweatshirts are uniformly unattractive, but that doesn't matter: it's what all the cool kids get.

Now we come to the ultimate tourist test: the classic British phone booth. Under no circumstances are you to take pictures in them. “But Lisa” you may protest “why would they set up a booth every five feet and scoff at people who take pictures in them if no one actually uses them for making phone calls?” As far as I can tell, they are the ultimate tourist test: if you can walk by one without reaching for your camera, you may be able to convince them you belong here. 

 

I could go on and on, but I should probably do something academic, as that is kind of the point of my being here. Hopefully, after all this knowledge I have shared with you, you will not stick out quite as much as the rest of the tourists. I think you are genuinely ready for an Oxford adventure. Just be sure to purchase a fanny-pack first. 

--- Editors note: I apologize for the extreme length of this post. It sadly reflects what repeatedly happens in all my papers ("essays"): I write wayyy too much and then have to edit out 500 words. Unfortunately for you, I don't have a word limit for blogs. 

(Only about 10 million pictures of) WALES

Hello FRIENDS!

I know, I know, it's been too long. So how about I write a ridiculously long post to make up for it? Okay? Okay!

To start off, last week was EIGHTH WEEK. This is a big deal at Oxford. Each term is only 8 weeks, so after week 8 Oxford folk are pretty much free for like a month until next term. For SCIO students, however, it means we get a spring break before doing 4 more weeks of program. But as this next part of the program does not have tutorials and DOES have field trips, it's lookin' pretty great. We still have papers and all that nonsense to do, but we are hoping it will be less intense... question mark?

In any case, by eighth week everyone's brain is pretty much dead. This could just be me, but I seem less dumb if I claim everyone else was like this too. I kept trying to put words in my papers that didn't actually exist. Sometimes I succeeded. I actually got a paper back that said, “I don't think this is a word.” This has led me to question whether Oxford is in fact making me smarter, or simply destroying any precious brain cells I have left. I also had trouble talking a lot of the time, leading me to capitalize on the built-in excuse that it was eighth week. This was almost as good as the first week excuse of jet lag. Honestly, my mental states in both weeks was about the same. 

This pretty much sums up eighth week:

So really attractive, basically.

But to make this whole eighth-week-of-death experience even better, it was SUNNY ALL WEEK. Have I mentioned that this never happens? This, my friends, is known as the irony of the universe. All I wanted to do was frolic, and all I could do was find a decently sunny room to write papers in, and stretch out in the sun like a cat. You do what you can.

The moral of this story is that spring break was pretty much my salvation. As you may have heard from the word on the street, I spent it in Wales. We got there by van, which was the first time since I was driven to the airport to come to England that I have been in some sort of vehicle that was not a bus. It was an exciting time for me.

The first thing I did upon arriving in Wales was sleep for 12 hours. This was a good choice. Then, after I was somewhat cognizant, we explored various castles and mountains. It was BEAUTIFUL. Pictures are pretty much alllll you need to understand how great this place was...which is why I have 10,000 pictures...

Day One: The town with its funny little castle

Sign that Jake and Max flagrantly disregarded:

Oh, those rebels:

Jake doing his satanic dances in the bottom of the tower:

Day Two: Went to a Church of Wales service and Caernafon castle:

Day Three: Conway Castle and hill. Beautiful beautiful beautiful. I can't help putting up a million pictures.

 

Day Four: But alas, we used up our sunshine days the first two days we were in Wales, so Tuesday was destined to be disgusting. Unfortunately, this was also the day we were scheduled to do a mountain hike. I just consulted with a fellow Wales-tripper, and we have agreed the name of the mountain was somethin-somethin Ridge. It was a six hour hike and was incredibly foggy the entire way up. This led to a lot of remarks like “Hey, I bet this would be a great view!” or “I can see how this would be beautiful without the fog!” Simon told us this was the lowest visibility he'd ever experienced on this hike, so we were basically a part of history in the making. But the fog wasn't all bad, as it was kind of cool and mysterious, and made us all feel very trek-to-Mordor-y (Side note: Hazard a guess as to how many Lord of the Rings references you get when climbing up mountains with a group of English majors. I guarantee you it is more than that.) And our immediate surroundings were way beautiful; the problem was we couldn't see much more than said immediate surroundings. However, Simon has promised to show us pictures of the views we allegedly saw on his computer back in Oxford, so all's well that ends well as far as I'm concerned. Plus, the misty-drizzliness gave us the benefit of feeling very hardcore, as we were all pretty much soaked by the end of the hike. I fully embraced this hardcore hiker persona AKA I felt totally justified and/or awesome buckling my backpack 

around my waist. All the cool kids were doing it. 

The belt-bucklin' crew:

Check out this view! Yeah!

There are actually much cooler Mordor awesome pictures of this, but they are not on my camera. See Facebook.

In keeping with my family's Yellowstone traditions, I sang various hill-related songs from the Sound of Music pretty much every day. The day we climbed this mountain, as a kind of slam-bang finish to our mountain-climbing careers, we all sang “You Raise Me Up”. Needless to say, it was inspirational. Not as inspirational as my rendition of “The Climb” would have been, but I'm sure I can whip that out in some other desperate situation.

Day Five: Harlech Castle and home! Lucky for you, my camera died this day, so you'll have to take my word for it that it was beautiful.

The village we stayed in:

The whole vowels-to-constants ratio doesn't really make sense to me.

 

Also, the old people in Wales are extremely nice. They like to invite you to coffee and give you free fudge samples, and if you can't decide between the steak and ale pie and the Welsh black burger, they will tell you to get the burger and give you some steak and ale pie for free. Which I am all about. Also, sometimes they try to teach you how to make the weird spitting sounds needed for speaking Welsh. This is not always as successful as the fudge-eating, but is at least educational, even though you are destined to fail repeatedly, living up to your status as a dumb American tourist.

A Tribute to the nice old people of Wales:

That concludes my Wales adventures; tune in next time to see how my post-term life is going.

Extremely long post mostly about food

Okayyyyyy I have been slacking so there is much to tell.

Let's start with last weekend. 

After I wrote my last blog entry I realized I left out the MOST IMPORTANT PART of my day! Namely: that I got to pet a lemur. I know, it's shocking that I could forget something so important. Let me explain: Wycliff Hall, the theology college SCIO is associated with, was having a party Saturday night, so all SCIO students were invited. I had been told by a Wycliff student that there would be free Domino's pizza (I was sold.) along with live music and some “special guests.” But he wouldn't say anything more about the special guest, probably because he could not express just how special it was, as it was a lemur. They seriously hired an animal trainer to come with a lemur so you could pet it/take pictures of it. It makes me wonder if this is the cool thing to do in England. In any case, I plan to do the same thing for the next big party I throw, which will probably be my wedding reception. 

I know this looks suspiciously like a cat in the darkness, but I swear, it's a lemur:

Okay, moving on. MY BIRTHDAY!!!!! It was a splendid day. The fact that the sun was shining was enough to make me extremely happy. A group of us took advantage of the sun and went to University Church Tower, where you can climb up this tiny little staircase to take pictures. And this was a good choice because guess what? Oxford is BEAUTIFUL:

My library from above:

 High Street!

Check out the purty colors:

 The gang's all here:

We embraced our status as American tourists that day. 

Actual quote from British person walking by: "I don't get it."

After that we went to G&D's, a famous ice cream chain in England that I hadn't been to yet. Kathryn and I split the brownie sundae and I was full for approximately three hours after that. You will understand when you see the below picture. I would have thought my intense lifelong large-portion-size food training as an American would be able to get me through, but these English have some tricks up their sleeve. 

This brownie sundae is not messin' around:

We ended the day by watching Indiana Jones, so it was obviously wonderful.

Monday, as you may have heard, was VALENTINE'S DAY. I honestly don't think I've ever eaten that much chocolate in one day. I had planned to be taken to dinner by several British boys, but when that fell through, I went to a girl from my Bible study's flat with some SCIO girls, and we made heart-shaped pizzas and ate chocolate. Then I went to choir practice and they had biscuits. Then I came back home and there were was lots of chocolate cake. I'm going to go with the theory that all the extra walking I'm doing burns calories, and thus I deserve said cake. 

For the many readers who are concerned about my English love life, I should let you know that I have figured out why I have not yet snagged a British chap! I was walking through the parks and it hit me! I have clearly not been walking my dalmatian in the park to get tangled up with some guy's dalmatian, leading to us falling in love and living in the wealth of his blossoming music career. But there is an easy way to fix this:

Step 1: Buy dalmatian

Step 2: Run into bloke with dalmatian, be initially annoyed, fall in love, etc. etc.

Step 3: Take care of 100 dogs.

This seems like a good plan to me.

But anyway, Valentines day was pretty brilliant (Translation: good). What could be the perfect end to this perfect day? One word: loot. I got three packages, baby.

I was joyous. 

My Spoils:

• Beautiful tye-dye shirt, props to Bethany and Jasmine
• An insane amount of chocolate
• A beautiful poem by one Hannah N. Merrifield. It touched my soul.
• Book, “The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists.” Thank you, Megan Simon. You can tell this is going to be a classic.
• And from my mother, another book, “Junie B. Jones and the Mushy Gushy Valentine.” She is clearly aware of the high intellectual standards I have for reading. These two books will definitely contribute to my academic endeavors/success. (If you haven't read Junie B. Jones, you're kind of behind the times/living a deprived life. Seriously.)
• Wonderful letters from Trinity folk
• AMERICAN PEANUT BUTTER!!!!!!
  
  You are all extremely lucky that I received this because I was going to start using this blog exclusively as a desperate plea for American peanut butter. I may have even gone on strike (I know, scary, right?) until receiving said peanut butter. Who knows? I was desperate. I have been craving it insanely lately, and I reaaallly don't like the stuff here. It tastes like, you know, peanuts, instead of processed sugar. What is that all about? Who do these crazy Brits think they are? And as long as I'm ranting against the food industry of England, I would like to voice my opinion that England should return the high-fructose corn-syrup to my Coke. Also they should sell tasty generic spaghetti-os. Thank you.
  
  Anyway, I don't really know what brought on this intense craving for good butter. I mean, I like peanut butter, but I don't eat spoonfuls of it like Hannah does. I think I wasn't helped by the whole “always wanting what you can't have” thing. Because I kept looking. And they don't do any sort of chocolate-peanut butter combination either. Like, on Valentines Day, I spend about ten minutes staring at the candy row trying to find peanut butter chocolate. It doesn't exist. So basically I looked like a forlorn single girl too distressed by her singleness to actually make a decision as to what to stuff her face with. And when we went to G&D's I was looking for chocolate-peanut butter ice cream. No go. In case you were wondering, there is not Peanut Butter Captain Crunch equivalent here either. It was clearly a hopeless situation. But my strike has been happily prevented by the loving actions of my beloved Trinity friends, and for that I am (as you also should be) extremely grateful.
  
  This is now really long but I have to tell about my day TODAY! Today was very exciting for a number of reasons: 1) I went to a palace and 2) I had my first English tea time! Oh yeah. With scones and jam and clotted cream and everything. Even tea. Yes, everyone, I, Lisa Speckhard, hater of tea, drank my first full cup. Now that I'm 20, I seem to be much more mature. In reality, it probably had a higher percentage of milk and sugar than actual tea, but I'm taking baby steps. The whole thing was pretty great, as we all had the “cream tea” and got real teapots and sugar cubes and acted very dignified. I felt so classy. Probably no one could even tell we were American. 
  
  
  Tell me that's not classy.

 Please note that the tea cup is almost empty. 

Look at me, all refined and English and 20 years old:

Also the whole "palace" thing was great and beautiful:

Gate that must remain closed as part of the intense security system that forgot the actual fence.

Winston Churchill's grave:

Also the signs: 

This seems like a violent way to put it...

England + Big Brother = BFFs

Please don't "cause nuisance."

As a final note, I really have to find a way to appease the Clumsy gods. I tripped over the sidewalk today and took a flying leap that looked extremely dramatic and was dangerously close to me falling on my face. And now I'm not only tripping over myself, but my clumsiness has extended to me dropping food on the floor pretty much everyday. This is sad because A) that whole butter-side-down thing is true, and B) I have to pay for my own food. This has got to stop. I'm open to take any suggestions.