Once There Was a Wizard...Who Went to Oxford.

On Friday I ventured out to Oxford with my creative writing class for a literary conference held at the university. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Perfect for traipsing around Oxford University's campus. The speakers that we saw were great. One was a debate on disability in the novel. It mostly focused on characters in novels with disabilities and how they are portrayed. The other event was with the author William Fiennes who just came out with a new book about his brother who died a few years ago. Both talks were great and it was just cool to be at the college with all that knowledge floating around.

After spending a bit of time having a mini class on the lawn, we were set free and allowed to explore a bit of Oxford before we left that evening. We found a pub called The Red Lion and decided to make that our home for the next few hours. We had a few pints and enjoyed their outdoor seating. As one can imagine, a beautiful Friday evening attracts many pub-goers so we had to wait our turn for some seating. When on table finally cleared up, we swooped in and nabbed it before anyone else. The people before us, however, left the table a bit messy with piles of newspapers all over the place. Well, instead of taking them all and throwing them away, I decided to make some newspaper hats with them. I made one for each person at our table and we wore them quite proudly as we sipped our drinks. Apparently a paper hat is all you need to make friends because the table next to us asked if they could have hats too. Before I could even make the first one, a girl from that same table came over and asked if I would just show her how to do it. I taught her how and then handed her a fistful of newspapers to take back to her friends. So now just imagine 5 American girls with newspaper hats on sitting next to a table full of English people with their paper hats on. It was spreading like wildfire! That's not all though. Several people walked by and complimented us on our hats. Then a girl came up to us out of nowhere and handed us fliers to a party which she said would be 'rude'. I don't think she meant it would be impolite so much as she meant it would be awesome. Apparently, because of the hats we were cool enough to get invited to her party. Somehow I don't think that math quite adds up but I'll take it.

So to recap, I made some newspaper hats, made a whole table of new friends, and got invited to a 'rude' party which in turn actually taught me some new British slang. An excellent evening if I do say so myself.

Three of the girls I was with were staying behind in Oxford for the night so myself and another girl decided to head back after our fun-filled evening. Once we got back into London we were both craving some good ice cream so we went to a cute gelato place to get our fix.

Once I got back to my flat, there were more adventures to be had. Now, don't forget, it was a Friday night so some of my flat-mates had been at the pub a bit longer than I had been. Also, I'm sure they didn't spend their time making paper hats. I won't go into detail but here are some of the highlights. Someone got locked in our kitchen and since I was the one with my wits about me, I had to go downstairs to get it sorted out. Just as I was explaining the situation, the guy who had gotten stuck came running down the stairs to tell me he had been freed. I think the guy at the desk was thoroughly amused. Later, there came a knock at our window. We are on the 4th floor so this was a bit of a surprise. A guy from the 5th floor had somehow hopped down to the ledge of our window and lived to tell the tale. We got him inside and then he used those odd contraptions like stairs and doors to get back to his room.

An odd day to say the least but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Oh and speaking of Oxford, I got to see the Oxford/Cambridge boat race a couple of weekends ago. There were so many people out on the river watching the 155th annual race. The favorite to win this year was Oxford and they didn't disappoint. It was pretty exciting for a while but they pulled ahead with a considerable lead and won the race with a pretty good gap between them and Cambridge. However, Cambridge still has more wins over all. I believe the number is 79-75 or something like that.

Until next time,

Kelsey