Happy Valentine's Day

Eynshem and Oxford, England

Well, I'm here. Happy Valentine's Day to one and all. Oxford is a beautiful city. Oxford university is not like UNC though. There are lots, maybe 15 different colleges and they are all separate. However, there is one building for awarding degrees. I was disappointed to find out there isn't really a college called Jordan college, but the His Dark Materials books are featured prominently in all the bookstores. The first one is called the Northern Lights though. Speaking of books they have the most amazing book store. It's called Blackwell's and it is four floors. They have academic books, used books, fiction, kids books, everything you could possibly think of. There are also 2 other book stores on the street. These people are serious about their books.

I was definitely sure I was in a different country when I went with Margaret (my mom's friend that I'm staying with) and her mother to a pub for lunch. We had the wedding breakfast, or two eggs and chips, which is two fried eggs served over french fries. In addition there was a half a Guinness (my first legal alcohol) and tomato juice with wostesher sauce...the bitter and the salty. They put this brown sauce on their chips, it reminds me of barbecue sauce only not quite. I've also had some of the most amazing Indian food ever. Of course it wasn't better than Vimala's, but outside of that it was the best.

I'm staying in what used to be an old church. But they ran out of congregation and now it's a house. They say there's a picture of how it used to look somewhere, but I haven't seen it yet. It's in Eynshem which is a small village outside Oxford. There's a bus that goes into Oxford. My first night here I had a funny conversation with two drunk brittish guys on the bus. They weren't impressed with football (of the american variety). They insisted that rugby was a real man's game. They were also shocked that I didn't watch wrestling, as I was from america and all.