First Weekend/St. Giles Fair

These first few days have been a blast!  We have be able to explore the city.

This weekend was a lot of fun!  It was a great start for my time in the UK.  I've spent the last couple of days getting to know people and getting more adjusted to living in this city.  We've gone out to the city centre a lot and and have found some new favourite shops, Primart and PoundLand.  They're pretty fantastic!  Primart has a lot of cheap clothing and there is a lot of cute clothing.  And PoundLand is pretty much self-explanatory.  Everything cost £1! It's not all junk either there is food and other neat things.  We love both of those stores! 

Sunday afternoon we went into town and went to the covered market.  I hadn't been yet but it's really cool! After we kinda started walking the wrong direction to go to PoundLand so we turned around and some of the people we were with wanted to go to a game shop so we went in just to look.  After a few minutes looking around the guy working the shop started talking to us.  It was pretty interesting but after the first 30 minutes we were kinda ready to go but he just kept talking.  He would say "I should probably let you go...Ya know I would really like to go to Texas."  We talked with him about quite a lot.  America, Texas, Doctor Who, Torchwood, England, train travel, etc.  It was all very interesting but we needed to get on so we left and headed to PoundLand.  Since I had been there the day before I went to an Orange Shop instead so I could get my mobile phone.  I got a cheap phone with a cheap plan that I can call internationally with.  After PoundLand we went to Primart and then headed back to go to a sandwich shop near out house.  We watched them set up the St. Giles Carnival yesterday and it should open today.  We went to On the Hoof for a late lunch, it's a sandwich shop that everyone at ACU study abroad goes to and loves.  And it was really good!

That night we went to evensong at Christ Church Cathedral.  Christ Church is probably the most famous of the Oxford colleges, and they filmed some scenes of Harry Potter there.  We were just in the cathedral, it's open free to the public for church services but if you want to see other parts of the college you have to pay to get in.  I couldn't take any pictures inside the cathedral but it was beautiful!  It was also really interesting to go to an Anglican service and see how they conduct a service like that and see a little bit of how Christianity is viewed in England.  Christ Church does get a lot of tourist so I hope to go to evensongs at other churches and go to a variety of churches during my time in Oxford.  

Tonight we went to the St. Giles Fair! There were a ton of people there.  Sunday when we went into town we saw them setting it up, which really makes you not want to ride the rides (besides some were £3 or £4). We just walked around and explored a bit.  It was super loud and to be honest we were just there for the donuts, which were really good.  We went all the way down and back.  I might stop by tomorrow and get some fish and chips or something. 

Today was actually my first day of classes. We watched Star Trek in Core. Classes should be really neat this semester and connect with being in England well so I think the classes I'm taking are going to be a really neat experience. 

It is tourist season so there are a lot of visitors around Oxford and the students aren't all here since class isn't in session.  Many of us feel like we've been here longer than just a few days.  We already feel like we live here and we don't feel like tourist.  We have a house, and a place to call home in Oxford, and we go to PoundLand and Primart and places that I wouldn't go to if I were a tourist.  We buy groceries and cook our own meals.  (Oddly enough I eat healthier when I'm buying and cooking my own food.) Every once in a while we will just stop and look at each other and say, "We live here!" In disbelief.  I'm sure we will do that for the whole semester.  

So far this experience has been incredible and I just started classes today.  I can't wait to see what all happens the rest of the semester and there is a lot to look forward to.