Time Flies

Just realized that I hadn't posted anything on here in over two weeks now. My apologies to anyone who has been eagerly awaiting my next update, though I'm guessing that list of people consists of about 2 or 3 people, especially now that I've posted all about reading and studying and how little free time I have to do anything exciting. Anyways, now that I've made sure that nobody actually wants to read this, I suppose I'll continue with an actual update of life in Oxford.
The work hasn't gotten any easier, but I've become a little more used to it, so it doesn't seem too bad anymore. In addition to my tutorials, I'm about to begin work on my long essay, which will be on the Iconoclasm around the 8th century, so I'm looking forward to that; especially because it means getting to read St. John of Damascus' On the Divine Images. But I think that's enough of academics for now.
I've discovered that Oxford is bigger than my initial experience and a majority of maps had led me to believe. There's the central part of town where most of the colleges and stores and such are, and that is what most of the maps I've seen include. But, there are also sections of Oxford surrounding that central area in all directions, some parts of which I had the chance to explore this weekend. I apologize for not taking my camera on any of these excursions, but for anybody interested, you should be able to find pictures of the exciting things online.
Friday afternoon I took a walk over to Christ Church College, which is historically one of the richest and oldest colleges of Oxford. Had I gone inside, I could have seen the great hall from the Harry Potter movies, but I'll have to do that some other time hopefully. Nonetheless, the college buildings were stunning from the outside, and they even have a large piece of land with cows and, I think, horses as well. So that was adventure number one on Friday afternoon. And friday night wasn't too adventurous, but did include "Yes, Prime Minister," a rather funny British comedy from the 80s.
Saturday's adventure included the Mitre Beefeater, a pub, with Phil and Sherrod. In that cozy establishment we learned that cider is probably tastier than beer, the wait staff in England is often not too English, and bottomless fries means waiting 20 minutes and asking multiple waiters. Also, we introduced Sherrod to the delights of Kebab stands, which do not involve sticks, but do involve deliciousness.
And that brings us to Sunday, which started off nicely when I saw Jason, who I had met in lecture on Wednesday, at church in the morning and talked to him and his wife afterwards. And then later Sunday night, once I was all covered up in bed and just starting to continue where I had left off in Pulp Fiction, Phil came into my room and convinced me to go adventuring with him. So, he, Jess, Katherine, and I went out in search of an alleged meadow with alleged horses that Jess knew of but we never ended up finding. Then we came across Pepper's Burgers, where they seemed taken aback at Phil's order of just fries, before serving him a huge portion of fries and then serving him a second large portion because they were convinced that the first heap wasn't enough. I also enjoyed a delicious 1/2 lb (two 1/4 pound patties stacked) burger as my final meat before Pascha and my return home.
So there's a glimpse into what sort of gems Oxford has to offer on spontaneous evening outings. I know it's not the most exciting thing to read about, but it really is an enjoyable place, especially when surrounded by enjoyable people. Also, all of these adventures were taken on foot, which is one of the most enjoyable parts of the city, the closeness and convenience of it all.