Hilary 8th Week: Oxford Island Hopping

 Dear readers: please take note that this is the second post today, so you have lots of reading ahead! :-)

When we last left our intrepid hero, he was exhausted from an epic weekend in Blackpool. While Jenna was planning to head out for three days in Zurich the next day, I (totally jealous), planned to save money and rest up. Well, I actually ended up getting less sleep than Jenna... but no matter.

This week has been the last week of term. Undoubtedly, undergrads across Oxford are currently packing up their paraphernalia and beginning the mass exodus out of town for the next six weeks. In the lab, I was met with three days of sheer boredom before spending large portions of Thursday and Friday gleaning data from the Nuffield Orthopedic Centre's database. Now I just have to figure out how to manipulate the data, pulling it from columns B, C, F, G, M, N, Q, and R of 44 Excel spreadsheets. Technically they're Comma Separated Variable (CSV) files... but you get the point. I think I'll be writing a MATLAB program to manipulate the data for me, but if anyone has any better ideas, I'm all ears.

Anyway, it ended up being a culturally fantastic week for me! On Monday, I went to Keble chapel on a whim to hear the choir sing John Stainer's "The Crucifixion." This oratorio was written for choir, tenor, baritone, and pipe organ back in the late 1800s, and its setting in the Keble chapel was simply marvelous. Following the oratorio, I grabbed a quick dinner in Acland before heading to our weekly pub quiz at the Royal Oak, where I contributed answers such as "Wilmington" (the largest port city in North Carolina), "Drum" (what type of instrument a Goombay is), and "Vivaldi" (a person born in 1687, died in the mid 1700s, composed a piece of 'four,' produced hundreds of works, etc.). Nonetheless, we seemed to have a poor showing in the quiz, so I left before the answers were given out to go swing dancing St. Anne's College. In the end, we placed third out of 15 in the quiz, and the dancing was with an amazing live band. Successful Monday, for the win!

The highlight of Tuesday was joining my lab partners at formal hall at Balliol College. Balliol is one of the oldest in Oxford, founded in the 1200s. The hall was simply gorgeous, consisting of half wood-paneled, half grey stone walls. The rafters were constructed from beautiful dark-stained wood beams with black iron connections. As is typical, the portraits of prolific college presidents adorned all the walls, silently looking down on the naive graduates and undergraduates. The highlight of the hall, however, was a magnificent wood and aluminum pipe organ in the balcony opposite high table. Filling two-thirds the height of the wall and its full width, the organ's presence dwarfed the noble portraits. The food for the evening was also splendid: delicious (California) Cobb salad for starters, followed by tender lamb chops (which I mistakenly analyzed as pork) with au gratin potatoes and a vegetable which I have since forgotten. The night's pudding was a delicious apple tart that even our French lab partner said was amazing. To top off the evening, we celebrated Clarissa's (the Balliol student/our lab partner) birthday by having cake in their MCR bar.

I followed up Balliol formal by going to Worcester formal hall with two lab partners on Wednesday. Worcester has a reputation for being among the best college food in Oxford, largely because it is sponsored by the late Lord Sainsbury, politician and former owner of Sainsburys grocery store chain. The menu was - as Brits like to put it - sumptuous. The starter was a delicious clam soup, followed by a juicy, flavorful steak with miscellaneous mysterious vegetable salad (including beets... quite popular here) in a cream-based dressing. For pudding, we had decadent chocolate-caramel brownie fool. Yes, it was called chocolate fool. If you have heard of said dessert, please let me know... and definitely recommend a recipe! This fool was served in a small glass: the bottom layer was whipped cream, followed by a layer of chocolate, another layer of whipped cream, a pureed strawberry-raspberry sauce, and finally the chocolatey, caramel brownie. Words cannot express the deliciousness of this refreshing dessert! Ah yes, the hall. Worcester's hall was, in my opinion, less exciting than I have seen elsewhere around Oxford. With colonial-style architecture, the room had two ceiling-height (non-structural?) columns under a baby blue ceiling. The ceiling had the obligatory offset white crown molding. The walls were of a yellow hue, also supporting the oil paintings of long deceased academics. After yet another trip to a college bar to protract our conversation, I headed back to Keble, content with my island hopping.

So Thursday, Keble hosted guest night. While I was excited to wear my suit coat for a third consecutive day, I was reminded of how substandard Keble's formal atmosphere is. Where as a guest at Balliol and Worcester, I needed to wear a full suit for their standard weekly formal, Keble's special once-per-term guest night allowed students to wear their normal street clothes under their gowns. Hence, I donned my suit coat as a sports coat with khaki trousers and I was among the better dressed students at dinner. This special dinner also reminded me of how sub-par our food is. Admittedly, in the panoply of international college food, Keble does do pretty well, but among Oxford colleges, the Keble dining experience seems to be on the lower end. Nonetheless, dinner consisted of stuffed bacon-wrapped chicken with our standard bland "new potatoes" and haricot vert (green beans). This followed our standard pear salad but preceded an admittedly tasty creme brulee.

And thus I now establish the Dan-Zagat ranking of Oxford dining (best to worst in each category):

-Hall design/functionality/architecture: Keble, Balliol, Magdalen, Worcester
-Formal Dinner Menu: Worcester, Balliol, Magdalen, Keble
-Wait staff: Balliol, Magdalen, Worcester, Keble
-Cost (low-high): Keble (5), Worcester (8), Magdalen (10), Balliol (12)
-Overall Experience: Balliol, Magdalen, Keble, Worcester

Moving right along, I come to yesterday! Jenna, having returned on Wednesday night from Zurich, welcomed her mother to Oxford from Los Angeles on Thursday. Thus, when Jenna invited me to join them for Jenna's weekly Missing Bean lunch ritual, I was excited to jump on the opportunity! The Missing Bean is, in Jenna's well-researched opinion, the best cafe in Oxford. Located on Turl Street, they serve delicious (and artistic!) coffees, cocoas, teas, and sandwiches. Jenna's ritual Friday lunch at the Missing Bean is the salmon & cream cheese bagel, so in homage said ritual, I also partook in the tasty lox (not to be confused with Goldilox?). Anyway, we had a fantastic lunch together, mainly discussing US politics (what!? A conservative and two liberals can have a civilized conversation and actually agree on things? I know that's shocking to some of you...), but also school systems, dancing, etc. etc. It was a really nice time.

To conclude my cultural week, last night was going to be rather busy. I was planning to go to a talk in Keble entitled "Why the Internet Won't Make You Any More Friends" but upon the discovery that Jenna and I won't be able to practice together for the next two weeks due to traveling, I booked it across town so we could get an hour of rehearsal in. Returning to Acland, I made a not-so-formal dinner of pasta, eggs, and sauteed courgettes (remember: zucchini) and sat around talking to some others in the kitchen. We grabbed a quick ice cream at G&D's by Keble (ironically, Jenna also invited me to the other G&D's with her mother back across town, wishing I had multiple bodies) before I joined yet another group of Keble-ites at The Cellar. This club in downtown Oxford happened to be hosting a funk/latin/"afro-beats" night, so we decided it would be fun to check out. Turns out, it was amazing! The band was sort of like the band Chicago-meets-Philip Glass-meets-the island Jamaica. The band, known as the Fontanelles, consisted of drums, lead guitar, backup guitar, bass, synthesizer, misc wood percussion, trumpet, trombone, tenor sax, and baritone sax. Yes, that's a lot of instruments. Yes, that's a lot of sound. Yes, it was still amplified. Yes, my ears were still ringing when I woke up this morning.


Nonetheless, it was an amazing night, an amazing week, and an amazing term. Coming up on the schedule: tomorrow to Stonehenge, Salisbury, and Avebury with the Clarendon Scholars; Wednesday welcoming Katlin (from the Belize trip) and her friend Jordan into Oxford; then on Thursday, off to Ireland!




CULTURE CORNER
Having spent the last four+ hours writing these two blogs, I'm going to keep this pretty short. Over the past week, I've come to realize something interesting. In the next year, I'm going to have friends in Regensburg, Munich, Constanze, and Geneva. Sensing a possible opportunity for travel, I think I'm going to up the ante on my German studies. Thankfully, I have three friends (Madeleine, Frank, and Clarissa) who are German. Hopefully, I'll be able to start practicing with them in hopes of regaining my long lost quasi-proficiency :-)


Word of the Day
Entree. n. The first course in a dinner, served before the main dish. This usually consists of a light salad, soup, or other small/light food. syn. Appetizer