October 8 , 2003 - page 2


The halls provide several activities for students to get to know each other the week before classes start. This was particularly good for us study-abroad students. Some of these activities included hall parties, karaoke, a formal dance and a trip to Oxford.

The trip to Oxford was great since we only had to pay £1 to go. We were allowed to wander the town for about five hours, and during that time my group visited the pub where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein used to meet every week to


 

discuss their respective literary works. We later climbed the tower of the oldest building in Oxford which happened to be a Saxon church. From the top, you could see almost the entirety of Oxford and its many ancient churches. From there we wandered through the botanical gardens of Christ Church, and I was amazed to see so many flowers still blooming in 50-degree October weather.

That night at dinner we ran into an ebullient elderly Scottish man named Peter. He proceeded to sing for us and proclaimed to everyone in the pub that he loved Americans. He kept insisting that Leslie was Polish and was seemingly fascinated with Adam’s pink hair. As if all this wasn’t odd enough, he then asked us to take care of his house while he was away on the weekends. We kept telling him that it really wasn’t possible since we were planning on travelling over the weekends as well, and finally his wife had to drag him home. All in all, it was something of an exhausting day.