Hot 'n Tasty!

July 21^st – 27^th: Our last weekend!

What an incredible week! Aside from tons of school work (for some reason all the teachers decided to pile on the papers…I have three!) we did some awesome things. The highlight of the week was probably our trip to London to see Wicked at the Apollo Theatre in West End. There was a pretty large group of us that went, and it was an absolutely fabulous show! We took the good ole Oxford Tube into the city, and arrived with just enough time to run into the train station to grab a bite for dinner. We all had different seats in the theatre, and Gwen and my seat ended up being 7 rows back from the stage! Having seen Wicked before, it was incredible to be able to see the whole things from so close. The expression of every actor was great, and even the costuming was beautiful! We also had a chance to sneak a peak at the pit while they were playing the encore, and it was amazing! The actors and actresses were all great. Elphaba had an incredible voice…even better than the one in New York I think. Glinda had an English accent, which was awesome! Everyone absolutely loved the play…definitely a highlight of the whole trip.

Wednesday was formal hall, which meant we had to get all dressed up for dinner. The whole ordeal had a lot of traditions we had to follow, so many that Carolyn, our program director, felt that it was necessary to send out an instruction manual beforehand. The dinner itself was neat, but I’m glad we don’t do that every night. We did toast to the Queen (check that off my lifelong to do list) and also to a lot of the Worcester College professional staff. We ended the night by singing Ramblin’ Wreck, which I’m not sure honored the formality of the evening. Something about yelling I was a “helluva engineer” right before they recited the Latin benediction prayer just didn’t seem quite right. It was still a lot of fun though!

This weekend we decided not to travel, which ended up being a great decision. The weather was perfect all weekend long which gave us the perfect opportunity to see a lot of Oxford. On Friday we went punting, which was quite the experience. Punting means you get in a long wooden boat with 3 or 4 people and use a long metal pole to push yourself down the canal. It sounds easy…but don’t be fooled. We ended traveling down a majority of the canal perpendicular to the shore…when we weren’t grasping desperately for it to propel ourselves, that is. There we a lot of other tourist of different nationalities (ask Gwen for more politically incorrect details) that made it difficult to navigate. Needless to say, I am sore all over still from the experience. It was a lot of fun though, definitely a must-do in Oxford. Be prepared to work, though!

On Saturday we spent a majority of the day just walking around the city. We toured the meadows of Christ Church College, and tried to get into the grounds. It was close to closing, so they didn’t let us, but we plan to go back because it’s were they filmed some of Harry Potter…and you can’t miss that! We also stumbled across an old bookshop that had thousands of really old, beautiful books. I bought a Greek and English New Testament Bible that was published in 1899!

Sunday was a pretty chill day. We went back to St. Aldates for our last church service, and it made me miss Midtown Church a lot! I wasn’t aware of the news at the time, but apparently there is a lot of publicity around the Anglican Church and their once every ten year meeting, so a large portion of the service was dedicated to praying for their leaders. It was a really cool thing to see! After church we went to a burrito place and brought our food back to campus for a picnic by the lake. Our two white duck friends came to join us! They are known for waddling right up to anyone who sits around the lake and expect food from everyone. They have quite the personality!

By dinner Sunday night most people were home from their weekend travels, and it was fun to hear all their stories. Nothing beats a peaceful weekend in Oxford, though!