Well she was an American girl raised on promises
Friday: Jay, a friend from IU who is spending the summer about an hour outside the city, hit up foggy Londontown with us. We showed him a good time at the flat party some of the guys held a few floors down. At some point we ended up in the flat across the hall. Basically all our neighbors are students from the states and these kids are from Delaware. There are millions of people in this city, and there are 40,000 students at IU. I meet a kid from Delaware who only knows one IU student…and I happen to know that student. Small world.
Saturday: Took the train to Oxford and attempted to recover from the night before. The way Oxford works, it’s a bunch of colleges within the University. So you can go to Christ Church College but still be at Oxford University. Leave it up to smart people to make something confusing.
We saw the Great Hall from Harry Potter and the staircase the students walked up when they first arrived at Hogwarts in the first movie. I considered stealing a fork, but backed out.
They have a lot of rules at Oxford like you can’t take books out of this specific library, you can only look at them in the library. And the libraries stay open “late” for students so they can read these books…they stay open until 10 p.m. IU’s main library stays open 24 hours. I assumed Oxford would rent out rooms in the library for students to stay due to their nonstop studying, but apparently not.
Sunday: Worked on a group project that was due Monday and headed to Regent’s Park for a few hours. There are so many flowers and waterfalls. Most of London is filled with places like Kensington Gardens where the name garden is a joke because there are no flowers at all – last time I checked grass was not a flower. But Regent’s Park is filled with flowers. It strongly resembled the garden and patio show they have at the state fairgrounds every year.
Monday: Reported at the House of Commons. The story is pretty lame, but just getting in there was pretty cool. However, the lack of security is unsettling. I just told them I needed the Jubilee Room, they took my photo when I wasn’t looking, made me walk through a metal detector and that’s it. They didn’t ask me who I was, they didn’t ask me what my purpose was. ANYBODY could get in there. And then after I reported I walked around the main entrance hall for awhile. I went as far as I could before someone asked me for a ticket and then I skedaddled, but still, I got pretty far.
Today: Work and then the ballet. Fell in love.
Paris in four days!
Sorry there are no Oxford photos, but I can’t get them to upload to my computer.
