A New Home

We’ve been in Oxford a month now and have accomplished a lot.  We found a home that we move into in November.  John has had a great start to his work at the Said Business School.  We’re starting to make friends and create a sense of community.  And we are figuring out, bit by bit, how things are done here.  We each bought a bike; we can go anywhere on the buses; and we’ve even successfully navigated the UK banking system.  It might not sound like much, but to us it is success!  

     Our New home: 12 The Paddock

A few things I’ve learned this past month:

-It doesn’t always rain in England.  We’ve had a month of glorious weather!

-People are genuinely kind here

-Everyone thanks the bus driver when they get off the bus (people here are polite)

-Brits think American accents are charming in the same way we think British accents are

-Some of the countryside is so picturesque that I keep thinking I’m on a BBC production set

-I love Oxford, but I’m not so crazy about the empty nest.  I miss my kids!

-Skype truly is miraculous

-It feels good to have a steep learning curve again.  Everything is new and needs figuring out. 

Not your ordinary college cafeteria

Students at the various colleges here at Oxford eat their meals in their college Great Hall.  The Great Hall at Christ Church College was used as inspiration for the Hogwarts dining hall in the Harry Potter films. The staircase leading up to the hall was actually used in several scenes in the films. 

You are being watched

As I walk around Oxford and the  the Colleges, I often get the feeling that I'm being watched.  When I look up, I indeed see faces "watching" me.  All over Oxford's buildings are gargoyles (technically 'grotesques' as these don't spout water) - some in the shape of faces, some animals, some entire people. Many of them are quite funny looking.  I hear there is one that is even picking his nose but I haven't been told where.  The challenge is to find it among the thousands of gargoyles that watch over this city.

High Street, Oxford

Punting on the Canal

What?

I thought I spoke English

4 days in Oxford and I realize I don't really speak English after all. So far I've learned that a dual carriageway is a divided highway; an articulated lorry is a tractor trailer; and a detour is a diversion. 

This week a letting agent asked me if my husband was a medical doctor.  I replied no.  She then ask if he was a D Phil.  Again I said no.  "Then what kind of doctor is he?"   I didn't know that in England a D Phil is a doctor of philosophy, or, in U.S. English, a PhD.  

I thought I spoke English.