Five weeks!

Well, I've been in the UK for five whole weeks.  It's kind of crazy, really.  I can't decide if it's gone by super fast or if it's taken it's time... mostly because every day is AWESOME and seems full of fun, and yet they also seem to fly by!  It's baffling.

Took out two novice boats today on the river... lots of novice coxswains out so that basically means stopping every fifteen strokes or so because they don't know how to steer and cause a traffic jam on the tiny Isis.  Literally, I've never rowed on a smaller river before.  It's baffling that Oxford is so good at rowing and yet they have this tiny expanse of river to practice on.  Most USA teams never knew they had it so good!

It's Halloween weekend here, which is funny because most Oxford students don't party on Saturday nights... so it'll be interesting to see what happens when the students invade Oxford amongst the townies (who usually party Saturday nights).  England is all about making costumes 'scary' with fake blood & things.. it's hilarious compared to Halloween in the states where the only qualification for a costume is to show as much skin as possible (well, in college, anyway).  At least England somewhat remembers the real theme of Halloween!  I can't say I'm excited to apply fake blood, though...

Looks like I'll be receiving my debit card Monday since post doesn't arrive here on Sundays and it didn't come today.  Too bad.  Ah well, with all being said and done, it could've been a lot worse if I didn't have friends who were so willing to loan me money.  It hasn't been so bad... but it will certainly be nice to actually have a card & cash in my pocket, mostly just for reassurance.

My visiting student friend and I have been planning our winter vacation over here in Europe.  We're thinking of flying to Greece --> Rome --> Barcelona --> Paris --> London --> Edinburgh.  We'd love to be in Edinburgh for New Years since apparently it's nuts!  I originally wanted to do a global train pass but flying is SO cheap here that it turns out about the same money to fly and it's much faster/efficient so we can see more places.  I hopefully also have a job lined up at St. Anne's so I'll be making a small income to refinance my bank account after this trip (a much needed endeavor...)

England time zones fall back an hour tonight, so I guess that makes me only four hours ahead of the states now!  I'll have to remember that!

Cheerio!

Lovely changing of colors outside my window!