weekend update

well kids, i've been here a few days now and have some more to say. the first is that i forgot how ridiculously stingy the british can be. they've never even heard of such a thing as a refill on drinks (which sucks when a glass of coke in a bar costs £2, or close to $4). also, the best way to sum things up in terms of food is that they like cold things warm, warm things hot, and hot things scalding. oh- and for some reason one ice cube is apparently the most you can get in a drink. for shame. other than that, though, it's been a fun start.

i spent a good deal of my time friday walking around the city, trying to familiarize myself with where i'd be for the next 7 weeks. we had our first "lunch" which is essentially like eating with a very large family. we eat in a large dining hall (built in 1517 or something like that, and which still has the original ceilings and beams (new side paneling though)) at long tables like you'd see in harry potter. our food is brought out to us though, it doesn't magically appear on the table. supposedly on wednesday nights we will be eating in the actual hall used in the filming of the harry potter scenes, but i wouldn't know about that. suffice it to say it's pretty cool. there's a bar in the dining hall where you can buy cheap beer (think a 6 pack of busch lite) or a bottle of wine, and then they'll serve it to you. my solution will be to bring ice cold beer with me :)

for those of you wondering about my actual academic portion of the trip (and i know that's all of you), well you're just going to have to wait until that gets started next week. it's a weird schedule seeing as how i don't have set classes like i would in the states (ie, econ on m/w/f from 10-12), but rather i just have to meet with the tutor (as they're called here) a total of 3 times during the 6 weeks for each of my 3 classes. which means i might have my private equity class next monday and then not again for 2 weeks. or i could have the next one two days later. hope that makes sense. in 6 weeks, with my 3 classes, i will only have 9 actual "class meeting." this of course leaves me plenty of time to study and work on the papers that we be assigned. and also plenty of time to travel about.

saturday was fun, since we decided to celebrate 4th of july by having a burger and a pub crawl. we went to a number of different pubs, one is the oldest in oxford and the ceiling is only about 6 feet high, so i spent an hour either doing my best to stay seated or stooped over. then we went to the eagle and child, which for you literary freaks, is where jrr tolkein and cs lewis used to meet for lunch every tuesday (they called themselves the inklings) and talk about all sorts of stuff, not the least of which being their famous tomes).

yesterday was pretty laid back. played some frisbee, watched wimbledon, played chinese poker late into the night, etc. fun times.

not sure what is going on with my camera, but i am unable to get the pictures off the camera and onto my laptop. this bugs me since the camera is fairly new and it worked once before. (but hasn't worked since march or so). crap. i have some good pictures of various places i've been to so far, but alas, they're stuck on my camera for the time being.

hope everyone had safe and fun weekends and that everyone's 4th celebrations were filled with fireworks, beer, brats and tots. (the tater variety, not little kiddies).