MrsHughey.com

The news from Oxford

Andrew is working on his thesis, so I have a bit of time to recap the events of my journey here.

I flew Virgin-Atlantic out of Orlando as usual. They're really an excellent airline. When I checked in, the woman at the desk told me the plane would be very empty. I wound up having a whole row to myself. I was ready to sleep when I boarded, and closed my eyes. I was practically snoozing at takeoff, but very shorly thereafter they served drinks and then dinner. So I went ahead and ate, but then wasn't sleepy any more. I watched the first half of Far from Heaven before feeling so anxious I couldn't concentrate on it any more. Then I tried to sleep for a while, unsuccessfully. Finally, I spent an hour or two working on the novel, then lay down across the seats and tried in vain to sleep until the end of the flight.

The flight landed a few minutes early, so I was pleasantly surprised to be one of the first in line for passport inspection. That went well, so then I proceeded to luggage retreival and through the "Nothing to Declare" line in customs. No problems there. I got out into Gatwick airport and looked for Andrew. I figured I'd have to wait at least 30 minutes for him as that's when the bus was supposed to arrive. After a minute or so, he appeared about 20 feet away. YAY! After a *ahem* greeting, we got on the bus to go back to Oxford, talking the entire way.

We dragged my luggage through the streets of Oxford to Andrew's new room. It's much, much smaller than our previous flat, but nicer and better equipped. We watched the finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer together which was really nice. Actually, we were both quite disappointed at some of what happened/didn't happen on the finale, but that's for another entry - if ever (actually, debating that sort of thing isn't my favorite thing to do). So for today we'll just leave it at "we watched the finale". I cried, of course, and will miss my wonderful show tons.

We went to evening prayers on Wednesday where I was pleased to get to talk with Simon. He's still one of my favorite people in Oxford and I hadn't even realized how much I missed him until I saw him. After evening prayers, Andrew and I went to the tea room to watch the end of The Simpsons. We ran into Rich, Jon Baines, and a whole bunch of other friends. It was rainy, and that's when I wrote the previous entry. Then we walked to Moonlight Tandoori for a lovely dinner. It was quiet there and the food was excellent as usual.

Yesterday we slept until like noon because I was totally jet-lagged. We went to lunch in hall, but were late so most of our friends were leaving. Sally, my lovely friend from New Zealand (who looks fantastic!), greeted us, as did Rich and Mindy, both of whom we'd already seen. Jon Baines wound up sitting and eating with us. It's been so nice to see my friends. I've enjoyed lots of hugs and enthusiastic greetings. Several people have suggested I just "miss" the flight back. If I only could. ::sigh::

Yesterday evening we went for dinner at Pizza Express because the dining hall had run out of vegetarian food by the time we got there. We were going to eat at Queen's Lane Coffee House, but it turns out they don't take credit cards and neither of us brought cash. So pizza it was. Afterwards, we had some ice cream, then showed PJ and Rich the Buffy finale. We also brought our wedding pictures, so we got to share those. Fun.

Today we overslept again, but woke up in time to meet Simon for lunch at Queen's Lane. I thoroughly enjoyed my veggie nachos, which I've missed, and talking to Simon, which I've missed more. For dinner we accompanied Rich to Warnock House, a residence owned by Hertford College which has its own dining room. We got the last two servings of the veggie option - mac and cheese - and watched The Simpsons while we ate. PJ and Shin (whom I didn't previously know) joined us at our table. It was a fun time.

We were hoping to go to York this weekend and enjoy Betty's Tea Room, one of my favorite places in the UK. Unfortunately, we can't find train tickets for less than £60 per person, and it's like a 3-4 hour trip each way. So it's quite expensive and time consuming for one day, but would cost more to stay overnight, plus every hotel/B&B in York appears to be booked this weekend. Hrmph. So I'm still trying to work out something where we can go, but it looks unlikely.

So that's what's up from Oxford. I don't really know what the plans are for the weekend, but I imagine I'll be busy schmoopie-ing until I leave Tuesday morning.

Posted by Erin at May 23, 2003 02:11 PM