Settled in at Oxford!

We did it!  We're finally here in Oxford, I'm all unpacked and we finally have a chance to breathe.  Well, breathe for the ten hours until my first class starts.  Eesh.

So where did I leave off?  Finals went swimmingly--I know that I got almost 100 on art, and I'm not that worried about music either.  It was VERY nice to get our classes done with, and we celebrated yesterday by renting bikes for our free afternoon and riding to the North Sea from Bruges.  It was about 20 miles (14 kilometers each way), but it was a really lovely ride through the Belgian countryside on the way.  We hung out at the beach, grabbed a really good Belgian beer, and then headed back to the city.  It was really cool--even our music professor came with us (he actually lead the way), and we got to talk to him in a slightly more relaxed setting than usual.  We also bought Belgian chocolates on the way home, which was quite excellent if I do say so myself :-)

We got really lucky with the weekend that we ended up being in Bruges; there was this festival going on called the "Feest in 't Park," which was basically an outdoor hippy festival to celebrate the end of school and the beginning of summer.  There was tons of cheap ethnic food and all of these stands selling funky jewelry and scarves and things.  It appeared that the entire city of Bruges had showed up for the event, and there was lots of music and dancing and people sitting out on the green talking.  It was lots of fun, and definitely a nice way to end our travel portion.

We left for the UK this morning from the hotel, and after a couple of hours of driving we made it to the end of the Chunnel in France.  The way we crossed was SO SWEET--they had all of these long, wearhouse-like train cars, and we just drove our coach bus onto one of them, crossed, and then drove off (on the other side of the road, of course).  We made it to Oxford by about three thirty.

First of all, the campus--it's BEAUTIFUL.  This is one of the loveliest places I've ever lived, and I can't believe I'm lucky enough to live here for six weeks!  A couple of the dorms are actually from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (the oldest is from the twelfth century), but I got placed in a dorm that's only a couple of years old.  At first I was kind of bummed, but then I realized that I have a single with its own private bathroom and shower when other halls are sharing a bathtub between seven or so people.  I unpacked within about fifteen minutes then spent the rest of the day wandering the grounds and catching up on the internet.  We also had our first dinner (very Harry Potter-esque, you line up to go into a big dining hall and then they serve you a three-course meal at long tables) and an orientation.

Anyway, early class tomorrow.  More soon!

Dara

PS: Link to Strasbourg/Brussels/Bruges pictures-- http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015798&id=1326450024&l=f6f9c5297a

PPS: My Belgian tribute to U of M...