Sunday afternoon Alex collected me from my video chatting with Bruno to go take advantage of Oxford Open days that should be noted as a special attraction to all Elmhurst College students looking into a Fall semester at CMRS. They only do it once a year, but it opens a great many areas that are not normally accessible to the public, reduces the cost (sometimes to being free) for those areas that are, and is generally a wonderful way to see what is great right here in Oxford during your very first month in country. (Footage to come in a later installment) In brief: we climbed a church tower, walked through several college campuses and chapels, and enjoyed the gardens and grounds of an impressive University estate – with deer park included no less!
Sunday evening the Alex and Claire finally prevailed upon me to go out for Indian Food. I was very brave, I think. We went to a place really just not quite a block away from the CMRS hall, Chutney's I had the Jingha Puree: king prawns in sweet/sour sauce (nothing like what comes in a packet or bottle, this was more of a thick with chopped vegetables and spices envelopment – not wet enough to be a soup, not dry enough to be a paste) with fried flat bread and a mint salad plate garnish. It was actually a “starter” so it was only £6.50 but for me it was as much food as I would have wanted. I did like it, though the mint salad was … well it was minty and I don’t care to chew fresh mint personally. I am glad the bread came with it because even though this was a ‘sweet/sour’ it was pretty zippy. Claire and Alex both cheered my willingness to give it a try while they noshed on their more exotic selections.
After dinner we came back briefly to CMRS to rally a few members for the Pub Quiz that Alex has been intent on going since our walking tour on Thursday, and I set the unpleasant business of popping some blisters. The pub we went to was more up Bruno’s alley than mine, Gloucester Arms, with lots of Heavy Metal music and a decor to match, but once we were there with two other girls for our team we decided to stick it out. It was fun – loud but fun – and we kept our drinking to a reasonable 2 pints over the course of the game (partly because this was more of a local pub than a student pub or a tourist pub and yes, there are differences – important ones, do your homework). We lost, needless to say, given that most of those types of games are based in pop culture and the only questions we really had a decent shot at were once in which American and English pop culture overlapped – some movies, songs, TV series (Cheers was the answer to one question for instance, which was: what show was Frasier a spin-off of?) still it was fun and we had many laughs at ourselves.
After that we picked up some chips and onion rings out of the Posh Nosh truck – I do recommend them, they are open late, very near CMRS (on the same block around the corner), friendly, clean, and reasonably priced – and headed back home to our rooms for the evening’s end, which, for me, was a bit of study and some late night laundry after my goodnight phone call to my sweetie.
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