I had a lovely weekend in Oxford. Of course, I always have lovely weekends to tell you about, don't I? Victoria had her friend Laura and I over to stay in her flat for the weekend. She works at a girls boarding school and lives in a building with about 30 of the older girls who board there. It's a pretty unique living situation, not unlike living in Ashton, except that Victoria has her own kitchen and everything so that's pretty great.
I arrived late Friday afternoon and Victoria and I drank tea and talked about the differences between British and American weddings while waiting for Laura to show up. It turns out that British weddings are MANY hours long and incorporate multiple meals and lots of tea. We walked to a pub in Headington for dinner and spent the rest of the evening at the flat drinking more tea and watching Shakespeare in Love.
Being around other girls my age and just spending time in "hang-out" mode was SO what I was needing this weekend. We talked and we laughed and exchanged stories and it was fantastic! Saturday morning, Victoria had to work but Laura and I sort of slept in and layzed around a bit. We finally got out the door around 10am and went to the outlet mall in Bicester. What an outlet mall!! They had EVERYTHING there and all of the wonderful stores that are still far too expensive even at the outlet mall. Jimmy Choo, Brooks Brothers, Versace, Ralph Lauren, Dolce & Gabbana, Armani, Burberry, Gucci, Diesel, DKNY... basically, it was amazing. I wish I had a real job and I could've spent some real money there. I was so good though. All I bought was a really cute track jacket type top from Puma and it was way on sale and I was needing a zip up type sweatshirt thing anyway so it was totally justified. Now I just need a hat (to keep my little head warm) and I'll be good to go. Those have been the two things I've really been needing.****
We finished up our shopping and then Laura bought us both tall skim milk caramel macchiatos from Starbucks and we sat outside and talked about teachery things. It was lovely. Laura is just 6 weeks into her first teaching experience and it was so interesting what she has to say about it considering that we're exactly the same age and have both just finished our education training.
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On our way out of Bicester, we stopped at Tescos and bought stuff to make pizza for dinner.
I wish I could say that we spent the rest of our afternoon in thoughtful conversation but when we got back to the flat we made toast with chocolate spread and tea and we sat and watched The Hills until Victoria was done working. Oh my goodness. Have you ever watched the hills? Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous!! I can't believe that we watched 3 episodes. We kept just looking at each other like "seriously? how is this even a tv series?" It's so not good at all. I mean, does someone actually get paid to write it? There isn't even a script! It's just a bunch of rich girls living the high life in California and being dumb. It was funny though and it kept giving us really random topics of conversation so I suppose it was worth a little something.****
Okay, I have to start telling you about all of these pictures!! All of the ones you've seen so far are of Christchurch in Oxford. A lot of Harry Potter filming was done there. It's really pretty. Actually, Oxford is just a pretty place in general. There are lots of interesting buildings and tons of students everywhere. We took the bus into Oxford for a quick little tour after our mindless Hills watching.
This is from a little shop that is entirely devoted to selling anything and everything to do with Alice in Wonderland. It's pretty cute and has some really interesting stuff. Very touristy of course but I liked it. Alice Liddle, who the stories were written about, used to come to this shop to buy sweets and the shop has since then been converted into a tourist trap. I felt bad because the lady working the shop was obviously trying to close up but since there were already 6 people in there, we went in anyway. We had a good time in there.
These two photos, above and below, are from Radcliffe Square. Honestly, I don't remember the significance, but I took the photos anyway. If I find out anything interesting about them, I'll let you know.
And back to the flat... (we didn't stay in Oxford long because Laura and I had eaten anything all day except croissants, toast and chocolate spread, caramel macchiatos and a dozen cups of tea so we were feeling rather famished)... We made pizza for dinner (BBQ chicken with red and yellow peppers) and Victoria baked this funny cheese that was sort of like brie. It's called... (those dot-dot-dots are because I'm looking it up online right now) camembert cheese! That's what it's called. And it comes in this round little flat thing and it has a rind on it so you slice off the top and then bake it and it gets all melty and you dip bread in it and it's lovely. (Except Laura doesn't like cheese so she didn't have any.) So we had that and tea, of course, and Victoria made apple crisp for dessert which was delightful but we were all way too stuffed.
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Pretty much the TV stayed on all evening and there were lots of really random shows on. I'm still not used to British TV. There were actually a lot of comedy type shows on and we pretty much just laughed at (and with) the people on TV until around 11pm when we were too tired to carry on. Or at least I thought I was too tired. After 15 cups of tea I actually had a really difficult time falling asleep and tossed and turned for quite a while.
And here I am with a Sunday roast at Brown's restaurant in Oxford. Sunday morning, we took it slow again and barely made it down to the dining hall in time for breakfast. We caught the bus back into town and did a little shopping before going to Brown's for lunch. The food was really good. I've never made a roast before but I suppose that would be a good thing to learn. I like all of the roast vegetables and everything that go with it. By the way, in case you didn't know, Yorkshire pudding isn't actually pudding at all, it's that puffy pastry type thing that you can see in the right corner of my plate (near to my left hand). You eat it with the gravy. Why do they call it pudding?? More shopping to follow, back to the flat for tea (where we watched some gymnast thing on TV) and then off to the train station.****
I could've stayed all week. I like being with other people and I liked all of the shopping and talking and laughing and making food together and drinking tea together. I like how drinking tea is so social here. We should drink more tea. Well, I do. I drink loads of tea, but I mean that we should drink tea together. Let's work on that.
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Looking forward to spending this next weekend with Victoria as well!! She's taking such good care of me : )
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