PicoElise: Week 1.5

First snow: the view from our kitchen.

Hi all.

So, a few facts are going to strike you as extremely obvious. 1) This first post from Oxford is unbelievably, unacceptably belated. 2) I have not taken nearly enough pictures here (read: almost zero).

It's snowed twice. The first time it snowed, it started late at night and I was so excited that I got out of bed to rush to the hallway window to witness it. Today, it snowed quietly but constantly for the majority of the day, and enough so that there was a good lasting blanket of it everywhere. It was so beautiful. I wish I had my camera with me, but of course I didn't.

Corpus had a snowball fight out on the meadow at 3, and then we had tea in the JCR (Junior Common Room) at 4 as always. All in all a great afternoon full of caffeinated library-ing and trying to remember names recited to me in thick accents.

Corpus is the college I'm affiliated with. It's one of the smallest of Oxford's 38 colleges at about 200 people. That's great, because almost everyone knows everyone and I'm already starting to see plenty of familiar faces when I go to the library or dining hall. Everyone is also very nice and welcoming. We're all assigned "college parents" to serve as hosts/guides/mentors for our time here. I met my two dads for coffee yesterday, and they were both unbelievably nice.

Sorry, I feel like this post is crazily disorganized, because so much has been experienced already. Maybe I need to make it neater, like into topics or something. Oh well.

The food is so far pretty good, not too many potatoes yet. Unfortunately only fish and chips once, but they were the best I've had, and in an authentic location to boot: a super narrow little pub a few steps below ground level. A delicious sandwich shop is a short way away right across the street. My favorite so far is the smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwich with tomatoes, salad, and tapenade on a brown baguette. The man who works there is so French it makes me smile. He says "Voila mademoiselle" in a thick accent each time. A coffee shop a few doors down is the oldest still operating in England -- established in 1650. Some nights we've cooked, with varying degrees of success, but it's always fun.

Here are a few pictures. I really will try to take more, and maybe even some of people too! There's a lot left to talk about, and I hope I'll get to doing more posts really soon. Finally starting to settle in, and it's a good feeling. Cheers :)