British Hospitality

Punting was fun. No champagne or strawberries, but there was Foster's (ugh) and wine. Fortunately it's not only Americans who are bad at steering a boat with an eight foot pole. Everyone seemed to find it difficult. We met a couple of local students, John and Laura, out in the garden yesterday evening. They're residents of Somerville and are giving tours during Open Day (Oxford's equivalent of an Open House). We spent a long time discussing the differences and similarities between English and American culture, most of which have to do with words. I was happy to learn that they do know what band-aids are. I'd read that they're also called "plasters" but I didn't want to go around saying "do you sell sticky plasters?" and look like an idiot who just read a travel guide by some freelance writer who got all his information from Wikipedia. Hopefully we'll be able to hang out later this week before they leave. Oxford is quite different from what we're used to in the States. The whole of the university is about the same size as NC State's campus, but it includes something like thirty-eight different colleges, each of which has every subject available. They don't have "majors" or "minors." If you're here for music, you study music. If you're here for law, you study law. No college trumps any others for specialization. They all offer everything, and application and admission to each college is the same (there's no such thing as one college being harder to get into than others, it doesn't work that way). Classes have been interesting and entertaining. I'm particularly fond of Martin Holmes's history class. He has such a good grasp of history that he spells it out like a narrator on the History channel. Very exciting and very enjoyable. Still working on getting pictures up. Unfortanetly I can't get a hold of a cable that will work with my camera. I'll see what I can find at the local electronic shops. More to come...