Week seven featured: the infamous Christ Church Regatta: boat-fulls of mediocre rowing, an English take on Thanksgiving, and the towering, epic tradition that is Teddy Hall’s Christmas Feast.

Christ Church Regatta is basically an opportunity for all of the novice boats to spread their blades and crash… or see who was able to make the most progress in 1.5 months of training. The races began on Wednesday and lasted through Saturday.  The whole thing is generally pretty entertaining, as long as your boat doesn’t sink, at which point things get frustrating, cold, and wet pretty quick. On Tuesday night the Ice Man boat shared a pasta feast and watched a little Top Gun for motivation. Our matching shirts helped a bit too. In the first round we beat Worcester C. Our second round race on Thursday was canceled half-way through because one of the boats in the race in front of us had cracked its bow and was sinking as it tried to dock. In the re-match, which took place Friday morning, St. Anne’s A ran aground on the start and we therefore beat them. Unfortunately, that was where out luck dried up. University College A beat us by about a length in the next round later that afternoon. We chalked it up to too much rain and not enough erging. But we did the best we could, and we looked worlds better than our showing at the Nepthys Regatta.  It felt good to get as far as we did. The Teddy Hall Men’s A boat crashed on their start during their race on the first day.

Thursday was of course thanksgiving. I hadn’t been expecting much, but in a college that apparently regularly hosts American students and also counts a number of Americans as tutors, I probably should not have been caught unawares when an invitation for Thanksgiving Dinner and Drinks appeared in my pidge (pidges are basically mailboxes… they work like email except not nearly as many people use them). So anyway, all of the visiting students came out for an evening of English interpretations of one of the greatest American traditions. I think the biggest difference was that this meal involved wine, champagne, and winter pimms (a fruit-laden, alcohol-based, English hot drink for cold weather). I wasn’t sure that the Puritans would have had too much of this at there dinner, but I’m not complaining. It was a phenomenal meal, and I got to sit next to the Principal, Michael Mingos. We talked about his childhood in Iraq and living in during his studies in Chicago. To my left was an engineering tutor, Amy Zavatsky, who had lived near Pittsburgh and studied at the University of Pennsylvania. I can’t think of any other times in my life when I’ve been able to talk to such intelligent people from such diverse backgrounds and specialties. Their insights into the differences between the cultures were priceless. After the meal and a Thanksgiving address courtesy of Woodrow Wilson, we gathered around the television (there’s an American tradition) to watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. It was absolutely marvelous.

Time flies here in Oxford as you probably can tell from its perpetual repetition in these blogs, and on Sunday the college hosted its annual Christmas dinner, complete with an advent chapel service and a number of rousing carols sung slightly off-key while standing on the chairs and tables of Wolfson Hall, where we had just finished eating. The food was a little reminiscent of Thanksgiving, but then it occurred to me that I guess the two meals are generally pretty similar, unless someone decides they want a Christmas ham. I suppose those are quite popular.

Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy this meal nearly as much as Thanksgiving because I had my final paper for 20th century british drama due on Monday. The paper was on Sarah Kane, a playwright who killed herself shortly after “finishing” her fifth (extremely violent and fairly depressing) play. The plays are full of shock-tactics, like cannibalism and limb-severing and flowers growing out of the stage. I felt sympathy for her because she killed herself, but I think they were just shock tactics and if they were, then she probably wasn’t a very good playwright. But it is hard to say that about someone who died so tragically and in such recent memory.

I’m really sad that this is all finally drawing to a close. I tried not to think about it during my tutorial this afternoon, because every time I did, I realized how much I really enjoyed my tutorials this semester and that I really don’t want them to end. I’m going to need to devise some scheme to keep in touch or figure out some way of coming back or something.

Back when I decided where I wanted to spend my semester abroad, I chose to come to Peru partially because of all the different climates (also because I had heard the accent was easier to understand than in, say, Argentina).  I started off my time here with a trip to Cuzco and the surrounding area, which is in the sierra (the Andes).  Then I came back and have spent most of my time in Lima, in the desert coastal region.  And to top it all off, last weekend I and four friends from the program traveled to Iquitos and the Amazon rainforest!

This trip started, as so many of them do, uncomfortably early in the morning.  It was the weekend of APEC, a global economic conference held in Lima.  We had Thursday and Friday off from school and were advised by Laura to get out of Lima, as it was sure to be a madhouse.  On Friday at 9am we landed in the jungle city of Iquitos, which is inaccessible by road.  Flying in, we could see the beginnings of the rainforest, scattered evidence of deforestation, and the picturesque switchback rivers.

We went on a walking tour of Iquitos, seeing, among other things, a house made of iron that was shipped in a long time ago, a LOT of mototaxis (it´s too hot to drive around in a car!), and the plaza de armas.  Also there was a cool walkway along the side of the city that bordered the river (above).

Then we walked through the street market in Belen, a poorer part of the city.  We tried a strange and sweet fruit that I think is called guava, and passed hundreds of stalls selling meat, vegetables, drinks, spices, and anything else you could imagine.

We spent a relaxing afternoon at the hotel, spent the night, and the next morning we set out in taxis for the 2 hour ride to Nauta, another riverside city.  In Nauta, we immediately boarded a boat and headed to the lodge.

We relaxed on our covered boat and watched the river banks get more and more jungle-y for about 2 hours, and then desembarked at our lodge, on a river that feeds into the Amazon:

We ate lunch, put on boots, and treked around the lodge in the rain for a while.  We met Octavio, our guide, who grew up in the Amazon and can tell you the name of anything in the rainforest in four different languages.  That night, Octavio took us on an amazing hike in the jungle near the lodge.  It was a little bit terrifying, a little bit tiring, and really really fun.  We dodged tree branches, climbed over logs, cowered from the giant moths and small bats that dove at our heads, and saw a lot of cool animals.  Octavio startled a wild chicken that made a noise that to me sounded like the growl of a jaguar, and our preocupation with that animal was a source of amusement to Octavio, who repeatedly told us that they were only found deeper in the jungle.  We did see a lot of really large insects and a bright green tree frog, who didn´t care at all that we came up really close and shined flashlights in his face.

The next morning we went out on the boat early to do some birdwatching (and, it turned out, bat-watching), ate breakfast, and then set out again to fish for pirañas.  Only Octavio caught any; the rest of us agitated the water to imitate a floundering animal, threw in out baited hooks, and jerked the rods like we were supposed to, but came up empty everytime, usually having lost out bait to boot.

After sampling the piraña Octavio caught, we climbed back into the boat and headed downriver to visit the Cocama tribe in their town of Libertad.  We wandered around a little bit, and then went into the small town store, where the women spread out their handicrafts for us to buy.  It was a jungle town like many others, apparently, and was somewhat modernized from all of the tourist business on that part of the river.

After a night boat ride to look for crocodiles (we found a small caiman!  and by we I of course mean Octavio)

and a good night´s sleep in our mosquito nets, we left the lodge for the ride back to Nauta and then Iquitos.  We then went to visit another tribe–the Yajua, who live only about 30 minutes by boat from Iquitos.  Despite the fact that we saw them running to put on traditional grass skirts over their athletic shorts, it was a cool experience to see their community and participate in a small dance ritual.  Also, we all got to try shooting a blow dart gun–it´s hard!  They were very excited to sell us their handicrafts, and to take the bread and candy we brought as gifts.  As we drove away in the boats and looked back to see the young boys pulling off their skirts and running around in basketball shorts we decided that even though our experience was clearly very scripted and touristy, we still learned something–about the Yajua´s old ways of life, and about this new one that we had been a part of.

We returned to Iquitos and said goodbye to Octavio and all the rest of the staff of the travel agency (talk about personal service: there were five people there to see us off for the airport!).

We got back late Monday night, and then jumped right back into regular life, as Tuesday began the last week of classes at the university.  We only have about two weeks left here now–I can´t believe how fast the time went by!

(Thanks to Miriam and Kelley for all the pictures!)

Stuffing doesn’t really make sense.  At the weekly family gathering this Sunday, my aunts asked me about Thanksgiving food.  Turkey: acceptable.  Mashed potatoes: they have them, too.  Cranberries:  heard of them.  But when I got to stuffing, the only explanation I could really come up with was that Americans cook turkey with bread inside of it.  Nobody seemed to think this was a good idea.

In addition to the realization that stuffing is actually really weird, being abroad during Thanksgiving has given me an opportunity to think about my life and my blessings in way I haven’t before.  Although I personally live in a comfortable middle-class Mexican home with a family that vacations in Disney World, I’ve seen more poverty in the last three months than I ever have in the United States.  When I went to San Cristobal, I rode a bus for 13 hours that passed nothing but little pueblos of subsistence farmers.   I’ve always known I live in one of the richest nations in the world, but that idea never meant anything real to me in the same way the word “snow” doesn’t mean anything real to someone who has never felt it.  This Thanksgiving, I feel a deeper gratitude for the luck that has allowed my life to be comfortable and without want.

I also, for the first time, have had to live without any of the people who I love most.  Although this has made me stronger and more independent, it’s also made me realize how necessary and important these relationships are.  While making one friend at a time, it’s easy to ignore how complicated and long the process of creating a relationship is.  When trying to make all new friends at once, it becomes clear how valuable and rare a developed friendship is.  Not being able to attend my family’s Thanksgiving has a similar effect.  I’m surprised at how much I miss it and how much I want to be there. 

I’m also grateful for this opportunity.   I’ve now been here for a little more than three months, but I hardly recognize the photo on my student ID that was taken my first week.  I’m more independent, more resourceful, less ignorant and a (slightly) better dancer.  While I was fighting my way through the first difficult month, I couldn’t have imagined all of the positives I would take away from this experience.

Yesterday a friend invited me and a few others to eat at his family restaurant.  His whole family came out from the kitchen to kiss us, assure us that “my house is your house” and urge us to order anything we wanted (all of which, of course, was delicious).  We ended up spending about three hours eating lunch, at the end of which three old men with guitars serenaded us.  When my friend asked for a particular traditional Yucatacan song, his grandma, mom and aunt came running from the kitchen and started clapping and dancing.  I’ve never been so grateful to be in Mexico.

Tonight I’m having Thanksgiving dinner with other program students, many who have become my best friends.  True, we’ll probably end up eating tacos instead of turkey, but celebrating Thanksgiving feels more appropriate than ever.

Sixth Week Blues are actually supposed to happen during fifth week, but for me I think maybe they happened during sixth.

What are they? I think it has something to do with getting over the hump in the middle of the term. I have put an enormous amount of work and concentration into everything that has been going on here, and last week it got a little easy to think about the magnitude of the work and lose focus on the object of attention. Its kind of like swimming a length of the pool without taking a breath, only to come up on the other side and realize that now you have to swim back to where you started again without taking another breath. That and the weather has finally become fairly rotten, although not nearly as bad as what I hear from Ohio and France (where it is snowing, slushing, and sleeting with a vigor that England has yet to witness).

So anyway, last week was that week for me. I had two tutorials again. They were both fantastic as always, but there are some definite issues that I want to work on in my writing about Shakespeare. For example, I have a dreadful tendency to misquote or miss-spell things. In this week’s paper, I misquoted daws as doves. I think this had to do with a footnote that I read on a certain passage in Othello, but regardless of the reasoning, I haphazardly used the wrong word. You would think that something this little wouldn’t matter very much, and in a certain sense, it probably doesn’t. It didn’t really render my argument invalid, but it is a distraction, and a fairly significant one. I want to blame this on Word’s spell-checker or the internet, but that is woefully problematic.
On a similar note, I also realized that I miss-spelled Guy Fox day in my previous post. That should be Guy Fawkes Day.

On Friday, it hit me that a return to the United States of America is looming on my horizon, which is also a distraction of sorts. I dealt with this distraction by putting it off till later. I will now return to the states on December 23rd instead of the 10th. This will give me some time to work on my senior thesis after term ends. Basically I have access to the best libraries in the world here, and I would be foolish to try to write something about the books they have in them without the immediate access that I now have to them. The extra time in the country will also let me to do some traveling and sight-seeing that I have been unable to do thus far, most particularly to Stratford-upon-Avon, where I would love to watch a little Shakespeare and develop something of my own interpretation of a background on his life.

I think the fifth week blues also might be associated with the drying up of my adrenaline and the excitement of being in a new place. Life is not as easy as we always want or imagine it to be from a distance and this week the reality of the challenges I am dealing with became a little more vivid and a little less blurred by the speed of their occurence. But I think this is a good thing. Someone said something once about the importance of “knowing thyself” and I think that this week, I learned a few things about that self.

This Saturday, Teddy Hall B Crew, aka Ice Man, had its first race. This is my boat for rowing, which is made up of a tremendous group of guys, but we didn’t do too well. Actually, we got slaughtered. It was good though because we can only get better now, and we need to, because the Christ Church Regatta will be later this week.

To end on a positive note however, the Oxford-Wells lectures commenced last week. These are lectures that are being given by David Scott Kastan, a general editor of the current series of the Arden Shakespeare. His first lecture was absolutely phenomenal. He drew attention to an emerging issue in Shakespearean criticism: that criticism is more interested in postulating agendas into Shakespeare’s life and plays than at examining the text of the plays themselves. Kind of a bizarre issue, but he made it interesting by satirically rebutting the work of James Shapiro (who I believe was present in the first row) as remarkably “entrepreneurial.” I think I got those names and facts right, but if not, I will correct them soon. Details and Distractions…

In my last entry I mentioned a possible trip to Ica, which did indeed end up happening, and which was fantastic.  In probably the best single day since I´ve been here, we went to a wildlife reserve, a secluded beach, and a desert oasis.  I started the day at 3am, rolling out of bed and out the door to catch a 4:00am bus, which dropped us off in Paracas about 3 hours later.  We boarded a small motor boat and sped out to the Islas Ballestas, rocky islands that are home to tons of birds and thousands of sea lions.  We tooled around the islands for an hour, getting amazingly close to the big cuddly-looking lobos del mar (sea lions) and uncomfortably close to the guano-covered rocks.  Guano was once an incredible important export for Peru, and I´m pretty sure there was a war over it once.  What is it?  Well…it´s bird poop.  It´s good for fertilizer, apparently, and they scrape it off the cliffs of the Islas Ballestas every few years or so.  Despite the smell, we had a lot of fun watching the sea lions fighting and playing and sunning themselves, and covering our heads every time a bird swooped overhead.  (See the gallery for pictures of sea lions, peguins and other birds, a mysterious symbol carved into the reserve by an ancient civilization, and some dophins we saw following a fishing boat on our way back from the islands)

We returned to land, and a friendly taxi driver/guide took us through part of the nature reserve and to a beautiful deserted beach.  We swam around in the freezing cold Pacific and sunbathed on the beach.  Some of us now have peeling burns to prove it (not me…I managed to survive the beach with no problem, only to burn the next day while napping on the lawn at the university.  Well done, self.)  After the beach our guide drove us to a beach front restaurant, one of the only ones not totally detroyed by a tsunami caused by the big earthquake in August 2007.  The sea food there apparently was delicious.  My chicken was, well, chicken.

We parted ways with the friendly taxi guide after he drove us to the Panamerican highway and helped us flag down a giant bus to Ica.  In Ica we rushed off to Huacachina, the only oasis in the Americas.  There some of the group relaxed in hammocks and three of us were strapped into a dilapidated dune buggy and set off to do some sandboarding.  Sandboarding is apparently like snow boarding, if you have the skills to do it like that.  We didn´t have time to learn how to stand up on our boards, so what we did was more like sandsledding.  Although it sounds tame, heading face first down a giant sand dune is pretty exciting!

After a terrifying ride back to the oasis, all of us headed to the bus station and then back to Lima; exhausted, sandy, and excited about our fun, touristy day.

It is about time, now that I’m 5 weeks into the term here, but I think I’m finally settling in and figuring out how to get work done and learn here in Oxford.

Last weekend there was a fireworks presentation in South Parks to celebrate Guy Fox Day. The funny thing about Guy Fox Day is that he is something of an anti-hero, and its not really clear why the Brits celebrate him. Guy Fox apparently tried to blow up Parliament sometime around the reformation or the British civil war. However his plot was uncovered and parliament was preserved (only to be destroyed within a few years and replaced with Big Ben and the Westminster Abbey that are now so iconic). Anyway, it is hard to tell whether the Brits are celebrating that he got caught or the spirit of his plot. And apparently, this doesn’t matter too much. The more important thing is that there are lots of fireworks and a huge bonfire. This huge bonfire is really what separates it from other national holidays that include fireworks, and it is pretty cool. The fire at last weekend’s celebration was created by stacking shipping pallets about 30 feet into the air in a giant horseshoe around a huge wooden Roman soldier, which was lit first with blow torches on the end of 8-foot poles. I could feel the heat of the flames from more than 150 feet away. The weather was a little crummy and the ground exceptionally muddy. I realized when I got back to my room that I could have watched the whole thing for free from the comfort of my apartment. Oh yea. It cost 6 pounds too. Its good to get out for a bit though.

Last weekend I also got a huge head start on my reading for this week. I read 3 Harold Pinter plays and watched Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet, which is quickly becoming my favorite movie. This week I realized again that I really am enjoying what I am doing here and that it really is amazing. I discovered “The Arden Shakespeare CD-ROM,” which allows you to examine the full text of all of Shakespeare’s plays while simultaneously looking at the commentary and editorial variations as well as facsimiles of all of the oldest copies that we have of the Shakespeare texts. It is also portable, unlike most Shakespeare resources. Please forgive my nerdiness here, but being able to look at Shakespeare like this basically allows me to appreciate what Shakespeare not only meant for people in his own time, but what has meant for the last 400 years, and subsequently what he means today, which is the most persistent question in my tutorials.

Wednesdays are quickly becoming my favorite days. They generally mean a lot of work through the morning finishing my essay, but then there is this incredible endorphin rush after I turn the essay in at three pm. And then in the evenings, I treat myself to Teddy Hall’s formal hall, which means getting dressed up with my academic gown and heading over to hall for a four course meal that includes a little wine. This week’s formal included salmon, and that made it extra special for me, because I love salmon so much.

This weekend will be filled to the brim with preparing for next week, another even week. There is also a college talent show called Teddy Hall’s Got Talent, that I am trying to go to (if I can get my work done). It should be amazing. I believe my secondary tutor, Alastair, is going to be doing a poetry reading. That’s the rumor anyway. We’ll find out tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

Chinese buffets in Mexico: Mexican Chinese food has potatoes.  And comes with arroz con leche?

The almuerzo/siesta combo:  On days when I get out of school early, I come home to a lunch that is too delicious not to enjoy to the point where all I can do afterward is sleep.  Viva Mexico.

Cafes that aren’t Starbucks:  Nobody is in a hurry here.  Ever.  My favorite example of this fact in action is when I order a Nutella Frapachino  at the mall coffee stand.  I’m used to ordering coffee from an American Starbucks, which has an assembly line/ military system of delivering my drink in less than 3.45 seconds.  According to the Starbucks’ online calorie counter, my skim sugar-free vanilla latte typically contains about 130 calories. 

Here, my server lovingly scoops an entire cup and a half of Nutella into iced whole milk. Excitement builds as I watch her add…Real whip cream via pastry bag! Artistically placed sprinkles! Cinnamon! A cookie!  And, after a last critical look-over, possibly a few more sprinkles.

There is no online calorie counter.

Bus shrines:  Any bus driver that’s worth his little paper tickets has taken the time to pimp out his bus with the latest in religious trinket fashion.  My favorite is definitely the portrait of our lady the Virgin Mary closely bordered by two giant playboy bunny stickers.  Our virgin in flashing colored lights makes a close second.

Chiapas hot chocolate (and the rest of Chiapas, too): I’ve already gushed enough about dessert beverages, but the hot chocolate in Chiapas is on par with the Nutella Frapachino.  It doesn’t taste like hot chocolate, it tastes like heaven.   Not to mention you drink it in San Cristobal, a tiny colonial city nestled into a mountain forest.  We drove 14 hours to get there and didn’t bring enough warm clothes for the weather change, but the trip, one of the excursion choices for the program, couldn’t have been sweeter had I drank more than the 12 cups of hot chocolate that I did.

Beautiful ocean beaches:  

“What do you want to this weekend?”

“ Well, I guess we could go to Tulum again…if I don’t have too much homework.” 

The salsa ladies:  I’ve come a long way in my salsa classes, but my agility still hasn’t reached even a comparable level to that of my classmates—most of whom have literally been dancing about three times as long as I have lived.  Sometimes the teacher halts the basic salsa step and encourages everyone to shake “sexy, sexy.”  I am humbled every time by the grey-haired, big-hipped  (and know how to use’m), spandex-wearing divas.

Mexican time:  Once again, nobody is in a hurry.  8:25 is the new 8:00.  Sleeping in is a valid excuse to be late to class.

I have survived another even week and found myself halfway through one of the most challenging 8 weeks of my life.

Last weekend was the London weekend organized by IFSA-Butler, which didn’t help me study for my tutorials any. I hopped on a bus in Oxford on Friday afternoon, and 2 hours later found myself in London. Actually, It was closer to losing myself in London. The Oxford Tube was not stopping where Will and I had anticipated because of construction. Fortunately, we figured out that we had walked in the opposite direction before it was too late. We found our way to the Mexican restaurant on the north side of London where all of the other IFSA-Butler students were catching up on life and school in the United Kingdom. The Mexican food was some of the best that I’ve had on this side of the Atlantic, but I think they could still learn something from Chipotle.

IFSA-Butler helped out with travel expenses as well as a hotel for the weekend, and this made the trip quite affordable, which feels really good when the news can’t seem to stop talking about how the crashing markets.

Saturday we were free to do whatever we wanted. I spent the day looking around museums. I hit the South Bank and the Globe theater, the National Theater, and the Tate Modern. I am kind of a sucker for modern art, and getting to see some really outrageous and thought-provoking pieces like Thirty Pieces of Silver (Cornelia Parker)  and Lilith (Anselm Kiefer) was fantastic. These pieces force the observer to think about their content and the incongruity in what they are attempting to depict in their mixed mediums, and I love this about them. I also love that the Tate is free and open to the public. It makes the Art much more accessible, which is extremely important. After this, I headed back across the Millennium Bridge towards St. Paul’s Cathedral and grabbed bus towards Trafalgar Square because (surprise surprise) it was pouring down rain. There I went in the National Gallery and the Portrait Gallery. This was exciting primarily because of a fantastic image of Shakespeare. In it he appears slightly disheveled and unkempt, and almost irritated that he was taken away from his writing for an afternoon to have his portrait taken. He is alive and wild in the portrait just as he is in writing in the plays. I kind of wish I had a poster of the image because he looks so outrageous in it.

Saturday evening, I found that I could get tickets to a play by Harold Pinter, who I am coincidentally reading in my modern British drama tutorial, for 10 quid (pounds). I decided that it would be foolish to pass on this opportunity, and was quite glad I took advantage of the situation. The play was phenomenally performed by a cast that included two Harry Potter characters: Dumbledore (the newer one, MIchael Gambon) and Filch (David Bradley). I think you can summarize most of this  type of theater as people sitting in a room being witty. No Man’s Land is a very dark comedy that frequently seems to stray into satire. The play makes quite a few references to Oxford, and seems to center on the contrast between the two types of people who come out of the school: those who are successful and those who aren’t.

Also of interest this week was Election night, which was watched by a significant minority of the junior common room in Teddy Hall. Lots of Americans, but even more Brits, which was really surprising. It is amazing to see how much people from outside the states care about America, its politics, and how they are affected by who I vote for. This also served as a major distraction to getting my Shakespeare paper done, and I want to blame the election for the divisive and distracted nature of my essay this week. That said, I should return to preparing for next weeks essay on Hamlet. Thanks for reading.

Halloween was fun here.  There is not as much emphasis on celebration, but there are plenty of house parties to go to.

We are now in our first week of final exams.  The semester has gone so quickly, but there is still much to be done.  Because of the unpredictable nature of exam material here, we must be ready for anything and everything.  We have plenty of time to study now; most don’t use it.  But it is a much more relaxed approach to studying, and maybe more effective than what I am used to.  As I plan to go to New Zealand for Christmas and live as a normal Aussie would for the summer, things are on the rise, and its been fun planning what I will do.  For most study abroad students, this is a sad time: exams aren’t quite over, there is pressure to travel, tight budget, and thoughts of leaving new found friends linger.  The truth is it will have been a fairly short stay (July 10 to Nov 15) for the single semester study abroad students.   It was recommended to me to stay here for a year; I would also recommend this to anyone who truly wants to experience the fullness of their study abroad country.  So far, I have mostly experienced life as a student and as a tourist, and I can’t wait to enjoy the freedom of summer.  I feel like I have just gotten used to the Aussie ways of life (still learning new words all the time), and I’m glad I am staying.  However, I will being seeing my family for Christmas in NZ, so that makes things much easier for me.  All this to say - consider staying for more than a semester if you choose to study abroad.  So many unknowable opportunities arise when people find out your staying for a year.   I wanted to end my semester of blogging with some useful information.  What are the best and worst things about life at the University of Queensland Australia?!

Best: Climate, Ocean, days at the Beach, Cleanliness, general appreciation for Nature, Friendly People, Relaxed and Calm Atmosphere, Numerous Activities and Entertainment, Personal Growth, Amazing Sites and ease in travel, Cool animals… everywhere, Fewer Restrictions (drinking age, swimming without a lifeguard, campus security is friendly), Public Transportation (River Boats, Buses, Trains), Great Location at UQ near Brisbane city, emphasis on fitness and health, Campus Life (each residential college is tight, almost like a fraternity, and has its own sports teams), Culture and Way of Life, Good Churches, UQ is the perfect place to study abroad!

Worst: $Prices (thankfully the exchange rate is great right now), being away from home-cooked meals and home life, difficulty in finding a decent job, lack of resources (most people bring more than two bags and a guitar when moving into college) –> dependency on money, style of teaching (homework and repetition is rare, exams are 40-60% of course grade, grading can be tough, learning a subject on your own isn’t as fun nor is it easy), some prejudice against Americans, being far from close friends or family (I will be missing my sisters graduation, Brothers birthday, trips and events with friends, etc.), American food (quality, variety, prices).

If your reading this blog because you are thinking or planning on coming to Australia in the near future and you have any specific questions, feel free to write me on the Butler site, find me on Facebook (David Counsell) or on AIM (WayneCounsell).  I will be in and around Brisbane until July ‘09, so maybe I’ll even meet you!  Good luck to all and thanks for the read!

It has finally gotten cold in Oxford. It has also begun raining in the afternoons. But that is no reason to let spirits be dampened. In fact, I would say that I am starting to get into the swing of things. I am really enjoying being here.

Last weekend was the IFSA-Butler home stay. I didn’t know what to expect out of this, but I think I actually quite enjoyed it. I stayed with a family in Worcestershire. It was neat to see a part of England that I have never seen before. In a lot of ways, Worcester reminded me of the mid-west, and it was nice to be in an environment like this again. Phil and Karen, a retired designer and school worker fed me and Duncan (another Teddy-Hall IFSA-Butler student) and showed us some of the more interesting things around the city. We left Oxford right before dinner and didn’t arrive till about 9, so Phil was gracious enough to take Duncan and I to a fish and chips place. It was delicious and cheap: 4 pounds, 50 pence, for both of us. In Oxford, you can expect to pay this for an 8 inch baguette sandwich.

On saturday, Phil took us to Witley church, which was formerly part of the Witley estate. In its hay-day, the Witley estate would have been on a par with Versailles. Before the steal industry faded in England, the family that owned the estate had owned most of the steel industry north of Worcester. Prior to this the family owners had been involved with selling arms to both sides of the English civil war in the 17th century. These were very wealthy families. However, that wealth dried up around the beginning of the 20th century and the estate was purchased by a demolition group has sold the most valuable parts of the estate, leaving behind a hulking shell of a building. It is a bit strange to see it today. I will upload a photo. Anyway, part of the estate was a baroque church that has been preserved quite well. Apparently Handel used to play the organ there.

Saturday afternoon, we went on a walking tour of the city Worcester, which actually played a pivotal role in Oliver Cromwell’s overthrow of Charles I. We also saw the place where Edward Elgar, who composed pomp and circumstance and had an amazing mustache, kept shop for his piano tuning business. It has now been turned into an H & M. We also saw the cathedral were Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway went to get a marriage license (because she was underage).

That evening we watched some television. There was a show on the BBC called Little Britain USA. I think this was the first time I watched T.V. in over a month. It felt a little weird. The show was full of sharp, humorous, British spins on American culture. While highly satirical, it was also extremely insightful. I learned a lot about how America is perceived by the nation that claims the lion’s share of responsibility for colonizing it.

On Sunday we went to Malvern Hills which form something of a border between Worcestershire to the east and Herefordshire to the west. The views were incredible in spite of the cold, damp, English wind. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many border collies in my entire life. Seeing all of these dogs reminded me of my border collie at home and made me a little homesick.

This weekend IFSA-Butler has arranged some activities in London, and so I will be spending friday night and saturday there. Hopefully I will get to see another show and experience a few more of the seemingly endless museums. And hopefully not spend too much money.