Last Week in Oxford

Two days left! I'm halfway done with finals, (kind of) halfway packed, and very ready to head back to New England :-) Even so, it's been a very interesting last week here. Here are some of the highlights:

My classes on Monday were arguably my most interesting thus far--in International Business we had a speaker who is the head of McDonald's operations in the Netherlands, and in Ethics we had a lecture about photo manipulation and the ethical implications of photoshop (all the way from Lenin and Trotsky to modern-day airbrushing). Both were actually really great! The McDonalds guy had some very interesting things to say--apparently McDonalds views the European market as a completely different entity than the American market, and they're trying to bill themselves here as a "low cost eatery" rather than as a fast food chain like in the US. Hmm.

On Tuesday, Uncle Bob was in the UK on business, so he came to Oxford with one of his business associates and his associate's son (who attends University College here). After wandering around Oxford for a bit, the four of us went to dinner at this amazing restaurant in Oxford that I didn't even know existed! I had lamb with potatoes and mint, and it was absolutely delicious (definitely one of my best meals in Europe). Everyone was very nice and friendly, but Bob was flying out early to Tel Aviv on Wednesday so the evening ended fairly early. I--very sadly--missed the Georgia Tech-UGA Oxford Study Abroad yearly soccer game, but quite frankly I wasn't that crushed. I have my own rivalries to worry about :-)

On Wednesday the Provost of Worcester College held a champagne reception for all of the GT students and faculty in his garden. It was lovely--everyone got all dressed up (see photo of my travel group below) and there was free champagne and everyone took a million pictures. All of my professors were really nice; they told me that they loved having me in class and that I should definitely keep in touch even after I get back to Ann Arbor.

Yesterday was our last day of class, then last night I babysat for one of the professors who's teaching here. The kids were really great and it definitely made me miss camp just a little bit. I got lots of studying for my exam this morning done, and the professor is in aerospace and he had a lot of very interesting things to say about various departments at different universities.

This morning I took my first final, and I have another one tomorrow morning (which means, sadly, that I can't do anything fun like go to London tomorrow). Tonight Kathryn and I are going to our last weekly movie--"The Ugly Truth"--then tomorrow a bunch of us are going out for our farewell dinner. Sunday we fly home! Hooray!

Looking forward to seeing everyone,

Dara

PS: I've also added some more photos of Oxford goodness since I last shared this link, so if you're interested in more pictures, here's the link again: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016776&id=1326450024&l=9f8d8220f0 (Includes lots of pretty pictures from the Oxford Botanical Gardens)