Austin ~ Austen

I’m completely overwhelmed right now.  I just arrived at my room in Oxford.  I’m exhausted from carrying my bag all the way to the Graduate Centre.  I’m worried about getting Internet and finding out where things are, especially the laundry.  It’s also blazing hot here right now which is crazy.  I thought I left the sun and the humidity in Texas, but it turns out I brought it with me.

This weekend was crazy and relaxing.  It started with a stressful Tube ride from Virginia’s apartment to the Bayswater area.  I had to lug my suitcase up and down the stairs in three different stations and when I got to the right street, I made a couple wrong turns before finding the hotel.  And then of course they couldn’t find my name so it took me another hour to get my room.  Thankfully all that was well worth the effort once we set off for the Arcadia office.  I met the two other students going to Hertford College, Stephen and Daley, and they fed us pizza.  I appreciated Dominos at that moment more than I ever had before.  After just a short orientation, they sent us off for the night.  It was pretty lazy since all the other students were jet-lagged.  The next day’s orientation was about just as useful, except for when we went to meet with the representatives from our actual colleges at Oxford.  I loved finally getting to meet Josephine, the tutor for visiting students.  She welcomed us to the program.  After visiting Oxford on the tour on Tuesday and speaking with her about where we’d be living and what we’d be studying, I couldn’t wait to get to the college.

Unfortunately, Arcadia kept us in London for the rest of that weekend.  Plus they didn’t have any planned activities for us. They set us up in a London hotel, gave us some maps and tube tickets, and said, “Have fun!”  But it worked out better than I expected.  I got to go with a new friend, Emmamarie, to the National Portrait Gallery and finally explore the contemporary portraits on the ground floor.  I even got to attend Sunday morning Matins at Westminster Abbey.  The best part: I got to sit in the poet’s corner.  I also spent lots of time walking around Hype Park and Kensington Gardens in the lovely weather.  They had the best people watching there.  And we also got to watch lots of ducks and swans in one of the ponds.  And I finally got to go out to a couple of British pubs. 

But nothing compared with today, the day that we would finally arrive at Oxford.  My stomach was in knots when I woke up.  The journey here could have been uneventful, except Stephen and I missed the train when we tried to switch cars.  Everyone else zoomed on to Oxford while we pushed our luggage to the other end of Paddington Station and waited for the next train.  In the end it wasn’t a big deal and we only arrived thirty minutes after the rest of the group.  And then we were in Oxford.  I watched all the students walking on the streets or sitting around the buildings as we drove in to the center of the city to Hertford.  I couldn’t believe that I was finally here.  Not just as a tourist, but as an actual student.  It’s what I’ve been dreaming about since last winter.

Getting to my actual room in the Graduate Centre took more effort than I expected.  I had to drag my suitcase across half the city.  It’s ripping at the bottom and I’m worried that I might have to buy a new one for the ride back home.  Oh well, that’s a problem I don’t have to worry about for the next two months or so.  And then after lugging my bags up one more flight of a spiraling staircase, I finally arrived.  It’s actually bigger than my room at Martel.  And it’s a single with its own bathroom.  I’m so glad I don’t have to share bathrooms now after two years of a private bathroom at Martel (or I guess here they are water closets or the loo).  I have a really nice corner desk, a set of drawers, a wall shelving unit, and a wardrobe in the corner.  I have to admit I thought of Narnia when I saw the wardrobe.  C.S. Lewis’s office is only up the street in Christchurch College after all!

One of the best parts is the view from my window.  I can see boats and people running on the path that runs along it.  I can’t wait to go jogging on that path later.  In that respect, the warm weather is great.  It will make my initial exploring more fun.  I can’t believe it; I might have to go buy a pair of shorts.  This city is much smaller than London, but I feel like there is so much waiting for me on every street.  There are lots and lots of libraries and I saw at least three or four shops I want to visit as we walked down to our rooms.  Now all I have to do is unpack and then I can go explore!  Maybe then I’ll finally catch my breath and believe that this is real, that I’m finally here. 

Written 10/3/11

As I said in my first post, I haven’t been settling into London as well as I thought I would.  Going solo to Bath helped boost my confidence, but I still feel a little out of place and lonely.  But I haven’t let it slow me down.  I’ve been all over the city, going to the places I’ve always wanted to visit.

On Thursday morning I woke up a little later than I expected.  I had planned to get to The Globe Theatre for one of the morning tours, but when I got off the tube around 10:45, I realized that if I didn’t get to the Globe before 11:30, I might not get there in time.  Plus, I realized I had gotten off at the wrong stop, on the wrong side of the river.  I practically ran/fast-walked across the bridge by Enbankment station past Waterloo, past the Tate Modern, past the Millenium Bridge, and all the way down to the Globe Theatre.  It was twice the distance I had walked with Alena and Virginia on my first day in London, at least.  Miraculously, I made it there just before 11:30 and literally got the last ticket for that tour.  The tour itself gave me major Shakespeare in Film nostalgia.  I thought about all the plays we studied last semester being performed on that stage and all of my friends that also love Shakespeare.  The theatre is actually really new.  The original Globe burned down after a blank from the canon shot into the thatch roof during an over-zealous production of Henry VIII.  They rebuilt the theatre just a year later, but then the city elders came over a couple decades after that and tore down all the theatres.  To be fair, the theatres were surrounded by whores, gamblers, bear baiting, and drunks back in those days.  Anyways this Globe, the third Globe, was actually completed in the 90s.  They built it as close to the original specifications as possible and even built it the old-fashioned way: by hand, no power tools.  That was impressive.  It would have been so easy to cheat.  I’m hoping I can go back and see a play there at some point.  It’s only 5 pounds to be a groundling.  It would be hard to stand for a three hour Shakespeare production, but how cool and authentic of an experience would that be?  Too bad I won’t be here for next season.  In honor of the 2012 Olympics, they are doing all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays.  I’m so jealous of anyone who gets to attend those.

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Earlier tonight one of my friends said that “sorted” was one of her favorite British expressions.  And I immediately knew that it applied to my current situation. 

When I first arrived in London, I was very excited to be here.  I had made it through the flights—nice old ladies to talk to, but I found out that babies laughing on flights can be just as troublesome as babies crying on airplanes—but then customs cooled my excitement.  One hour wait just to get inside the border control room, two hour wait total.  On the upside, making it to Paddington station was not as difficult or stressful as I had planned.  And once I got there I met up with Virginia, one of my Rice friends studying in London.  I thought it would be smooth sailing from that point onward, but things just haven’t gelled like I thought they would.  I expected the tourist’s London that I had seen with my family, and as a student who is traveling alone, I see London from a different perspective.  It’s like I want to assimilate immediately into the British culture, but at the same time, I want to see everything, especially the tourist-y museums and sites.  Plus, I’m trying to set up a mini-life here so I’ve had to deal with things like getting a cellphone, towels, and travel adapters that work for the UK.  With all these things, I’m so mixed up with emotion that as much as I am still over-the-moon about finally being abroad, all I feel is overwhelmed.

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