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
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Hilary 8th Week: Blackpool
Cutting straight to the chase, I shall begin today's post by thoroughly rehashing the sequence of events comprising our trip to the national dance championships in Blackpool. At 2:00 last Friday, the OUDC (Oxford University Dancesport Club) boarded two coaches destined for the distant city of Blackpool. I should note, however, that Blackpool is distant only by British standards, requiring a mere 4.5 hour bus journey. While I spent most of the trip sleeping/chatting/singing songs with my partner and some other beginners, I did gaze out the window for a while to admire the lush, green rolling hills and the many peaceful flocks of sheep. Needless to say, the scenery was exceedingly picturesque.
Finally, we rolled into Blackpool after a beautiful English sunset (I reckon it would be strange if we had seen a French or American sunset, no?), winding our way through town towards an illuminated beacon known as Blackpool Tower. In spite of the Eiffel-shaped Blackpool Tower, the city reminded me of a deserted Myrtle Beach. Not only is Blackpool situated on the water, but the downtown area recollects a cheesy 1950s-1960s carnival atmosphere. Full of old arcades, flashy colored lights, and plenty of run-down chip shops, it seemed as if the city had been left somewhere in the past. All the same, our coaches dumped us on a street with literally dozens of narrow hotels which resembled a bookcase of tightly packed novels. Nick, Latt, and I procured our key at the Fern Villa hotel, swiftly dumped our bags, and rejoined the other similarly-minded hungry beginners.
A short walk brought us to La Piazza, a family-owned Italian restaurant, shockingly located on a beautiful stone plaza. As we walked up to the plaza, my dance partner - cutely arm-in-arm - gave a large "oooooh" as she saw a gorgeous stone church lit with assorted colored lights. Looking up to also admire the church, I failed to continue navigating, catching a bollard square between my legs. I'm fairly certain it was the funniest moment of the weekend, although such realization came only after I assessed that I can still have kids some day!
The restaurant itself was quaint. The interior was (also shockingly) decorated like an Italian plaza. Our food - I had soup and a calzone - was really good, but the owner seemed to have a chip off his shoulder, continually trying to convince us to buy more food or drinks. Thus, as we finished eating, we trickled out of the restaurant to return to the hotel via Marks & Spencers, a grocery store. Nick, Latt, and I talked briefly but swiftly went to bed in hopes of resting up for the competition.
I didn't sleep well that night. The bed was hard, the air was too warm, and I had too much anticipation for dancing. Restless, I bounded out of bed at 6:30, ready for a nice hot shower. I turned on the water and ... UGH! Freezing cold! It turns out the hotel's boiler cannot make hot water very fast, so the girls upstairs - who had been bounding around their room since 5:00 - evidently took it all. Thus, I decided that washing my hair and face would be sufficient; never have I been so glad to have a shower wand instead of an American-style fixture!
After an excellent, albeit late, full English breakfast in the hotel, we walked over to the Empress Ballroom, located across the plaza from the pain-inducing church. It was so nice to not have an x-hour bus ride the morning of a competition. We were relaxed, calm, and excited for a fun day of dancing. As we walked into the main ballroom, I was blown away by the size of the space! The floor was easily over 200 feet long and probably a bit less than 100 feet wide. The ceiling was an elegant Victorian (I think?) vaulted arch roof, rising two balconies over the dance floor.
At last, at 9:30 am, the competition began. As couple number 545 out of 550 (about 180 of which were beginners), Jenna and I realized that we would be in the last heat for every dance. This gave us a little extra time to plot strategy before walking out on the shiny, flexible, brown floor for our first waltz. Unfortunately, our strategies were unsuccessful as we were repeatedly run over by Goliath and his partner. Mercifully, the first round is usually pretty easy to get through, so we were not particularly worried... just jostled.
After that dance, all the beginners were shunned off to the so-called Spanish Room to continue their competition. The Spanish Room was also a work of beauty, featuring a rounded sky-blue roof (unfortunately covered by dark-blue construction tarpaulin), overlooking a model Spanish town around the room's walls. Unfortunately, the small floor required the first round of quickstep to take 16 heats, whereas the first round of waltz on the main floor required only 10. Thus the morning progressed: in each dance, Jenna and I made it through the round of 16 heats, the round of 13 heats, the rounds of 10, eight, and five. At last we returned to the main floor for the quarterfinals and semifinals. Jenna and I were once again barred from the finals (sigh), but since we were having such an incredibly marvelous time simply dancing with each other, our only disappointment was that we were done with ballroom for the day. In fact, we were thoroughly excited to cheer on our teammates Aarne & Polina, Felix & Naomi, and Vincent & Rachel for their waltz final along with Louis & Bizzy in their quickstep final! It concluded an exciting morning of ballroom.
While the offbeat competition ensued (think: cabaret style dance routines), I walked back to the hotel to grab my lunch. Having returned and consumed said lunch, the afternoon portion was just about to begin. Once again, Jenna and I waited through the first nine heats before heading taking our place on the floor for the cha cha. Here, it might be good to mention that we learned an entirely new cha and jive routine only eight days prior to the competition and - for various reasons - Jenna and I did not really practice at all leading up to the competition. Thus, it was no surprise when half way through, we ended up social dancing! It was a mess, but we totally laughed it off. Once again, the merits of messing up the first round spared us an early exit. Once again, we proceeded back to the Spanish Room for the same long afternoon of heats: 16, 13, 10, eight, five. As a beginners team, we were again much less successful in Latin than Ballroom, but we were dancing better than at SUDC two weeks prior. Thus, returning to the main floor, Jenna and I were excited to have some company for the late rounds. As is our fate, we only made the semis in cha cha (though congrats to Latt & Emma for their final!) but we did crack the finals in jive! Together with Vincent & Rachel, who were apparently on fire for Blackpool, we took the floor by storm. In the end, they won second overall, while Jenna and I placed fifth.
Having not had enough dancing (warning: theme emerging), Jenna and I chose to compete in the open Rock n' Roll competition. Unlike at Sheffield where the competition went directly to finals, there were many more competitors this time around. We did make it past the first round - pretty good for unchoreographed goofing off - but our run ended there. We had a total blast.
And thus the competition proceeded into the team match. Essentially, each university submits up to six teams (labelled A-F), where each team consists of a waltz couple, a quickstep couple, a cha cha couple, and a jive couple. Thus, the most advanced dancers comprise A Team, the next, B Team, and so on. Jenna and I have danced in the team match on several occasions this year, but due to the quantity of beginners talent this time around, the jive spot went to Vincent & Rachel. I was quite excited to see how they performed along with Felix & Naomi (waltz), Aarne & Polina (quickstep), and Latt & Emma (cha cha) as "Oxford F Team." While they - unsurprisingly - could not crack the quarterfinals, they did beat some schools' A teams!! They were amazing!
By the time team match and presentations were finished, it was going on 12:30 am. Having not danced enough, they put on some disco music for everyone to just crash the floor. By 1:00, they kicked us all out and we headed back to the hotel...
...temporarily...
Having still not danced enough, the Oxford team decided to head out to a club, because that's apparently what you do after 15 hours of ballroom and Latin. So we meandered around Blackpool, carefully avoiding the drunken locals who were heading home for the night with their trays of chips n cheese, excited to squeeze every last ounce of fun from the day. At last, we found our destination by 2:00 and went in for a couple more hours of grooving to the music. Departing at 4:00 totally sober (although the same could not be said for others on the team, lol), we walked back to the hotel through the lightly drizzling rain. Sadly the main team took all the hot water in the hotel, so yet again a shower was not in the offing. Thus, by 4:30 I crawled into bed: with 18 hours of dance behind me, I knew sleep would not be an issue.
When the alarm went off at 8:25 for breakfast, I jumped out of bed - though stiff - with an energy that surprised even me. I ran (all 15 feet) for the shower, jumped in, and could finally enjoy some glorious hot water. Nick and Latt were a little bit less keen to get up, so they merely stumbled out of bed and the three of us headed downstairs for breakfast. At that point, I remembered "Twas the Night Before Christmas;" not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. Nor the kitchen staff. Perplexed, the three of us stood around for a few minutes to ponder our course of action. When we realized that even a 9:00 breakfast was unlikely, Latt found a Fern Villa business card and called the hotel to inquire. The voice in the phone indicated that indeed, breakfast was at 9. Not three minutes later, the hotel front door opened, and in came one of the kitchen staff (/owner?), apologizing for her tardiness and telling us that breakfast would be moved back to 9:30. So we went back to bed. Well, Nick and Latt went back to bed while I packed. At long last, we had our amazing English breakfast, finished packing up, and boarded the coaches to return to Oxford. Indeed, the stories from the previous night were rather humorous, but hardly had 30 minutes passed before the coach was silent with sleeping students.
All in all, it was a thoroughly epic weekend. I am so excited to be part of OUDC and thrilled at our performance in Blackpool. More to the point, I am incredibly grateful to have Jenna as my dance partner. We had an amazing weekend and I loved every moment of dancing together. Thank you so much Jenna!
Next comp: Varsity Match, May 12. Oxford v. Cambridge. Iffley Sports Complex, Oxford.
YOU'RE GOING DOWN, CAMBRIDGE!!!
Finally, we rolled into Blackpool after a beautiful English sunset (I reckon it would be strange if we had seen a French or American sunset, no?), winding our way through town towards an illuminated beacon known as Blackpool Tower. In spite of the Eiffel-shaped Blackpool Tower, the city reminded me of a deserted Myrtle Beach. Not only is Blackpool situated on the water, but the downtown area recollects a cheesy 1950s-1960s carnival atmosphere. Full of old arcades, flashy colored lights, and plenty of run-down chip shops, it seemed as if the city had been left somewhere in the past. All the same, our coaches dumped us on a street with literally dozens of narrow hotels which resembled a bookcase of tightly packed novels. Nick, Latt, and I procured our key at the Fern Villa hotel, swiftly dumped our bags, and rejoined the other similarly-minded hungry beginners.
A short walk brought us to La Piazza, a family-owned Italian restaurant, shockingly located on a beautiful stone plaza. As we walked up to the plaza, my dance partner - cutely arm-in-arm - gave a large "oooooh" as she saw a gorgeous stone church lit with assorted colored lights. Looking up to also admire the church, I failed to continue navigating, catching a bollard square between my legs. I'm fairly certain it was the funniest moment of the weekend, although such realization came only after I assessed that I can still have kids some day!
The restaurant itself was quaint. The interior was (also shockingly) decorated like an Italian plaza. Our food - I had soup and a calzone - was really good, but the owner seemed to have a chip off his shoulder, continually trying to convince us to buy more food or drinks. Thus, as we finished eating, we trickled out of the restaurant to return to the hotel via Marks & Spencers, a grocery store. Nick, Latt, and I talked briefly but swiftly went to bed in hopes of resting up for the competition.
I didn't sleep well that night. The bed was hard, the air was too warm, and I had too much anticipation for dancing. Restless, I bounded out of bed at 6:30, ready for a nice hot shower. I turned on the water and ... UGH! Freezing cold! It turns out the hotel's boiler cannot make hot water very fast, so the girls upstairs - who had been bounding around their room since 5:00 - evidently took it all. Thus, I decided that washing my hair and face would be sufficient; never have I been so glad to have a shower wand instead of an American-style fixture!
After an excellent, albeit late, full English breakfast in the hotel, we walked over to the Empress Ballroom, located across the plaza from the pain-inducing church. It was so nice to not have an x-hour bus ride the morning of a competition. We were relaxed, calm, and excited for a fun day of dancing. As we walked into the main ballroom, I was blown away by the size of the space! The floor was easily over 200 feet long and probably a bit less than 100 feet wide. The ceiling was an elegant Victorian (I think?) vaulted arch roof, rising two balconies over the dance floor.
At last, at 9:30 am, the competition began. As couple number 545 out of 550 (about 180 of which were beginners), Jenna and I realized that we would be in the last heat for every dance. This gave us a little extra time to plot strategy before walking out on the shiny, flexible, brown floor for our first waltz. Unfortunately, our strategies were unsuccessful as we were repeatedly run over by Goliath and his partner. Mercifully, the first round is usually pretty easy to get through, so we were not particularly worried... just jostled.
After that dance, all the beginners were shunned off to the so-called Spanish Room to continue their competition. The Spanish Room was also a work of beauty, featuring a rounded sky-blue roof (unfortunately covered by dark-blue construction tarpaulin), overlooking a model Spanish town around the room's walls. Unfortunately, the small floor required the first round of quickstep to take 16 heats, whereas the first round of waltz on the main floor required only 10. Thus the morning progressed: in each dance, Jenna and I made it through the round of 16 heats, the round of 13 heats, the rounds of 10, eight, and five. At last we returned to the main floor for the quarterfinals and semifinals. Jenna and I were once again barred from the finals (sigh), but since we were having such an incredibly marvelous time simply dancing with each other, our only disappointment was that we were done with ballroom for the day. In fact, we were thoroughly excited to cheer on our teammates Aarne & Polina, Felix & Naomi, and Vincent & Rachel for their waltz final along with Louis & Bizzy in their quickstep final! It concluded an exciting morning of ballroom.
While the offbeat competition ensued (think: cabaret style dance routines), I walked back to the hotel to grab my lunch. Having returned and consumed said lunch, the afternoon portion was just about to begin. Once again, Jenna and I waited through the first nine heats before heading taking our place on the floor for the cha cha. Here, it might be good to mention that we learned an entirely new cha and jive routine only eight days prior to the competition and - for various reasons - Jenna and I did not really practice at all leading up to the competition. Thus, it was no surprise when half way through, we ended up social dancing! It was a mess, but we totally laughed it off. Once again, the merits of messing up the first round spared us an early exit. Once again, we proceeded back to the Spanish Room for the same long afternoon of heats: 16, 13, 10, eight, five. As a beginners team, we were again much less successful in Latin than Ballroom, but we were dancing better than at SUDC two weeks prior. Thus, returning to the main floor, Jenna and I were excited to have some company for the late rounds. As is our fate, we only made the semis in cha cha (though congrats to Latt & Emma for their final!) but we did crack the finals in jive! Together with Vincent & Rachel, who were apparently on fire for Blackpool, we took the floor by storm. In the end, they won second overall, while Jenna and I placed fifth.
Having not had enough dancing (warning: theme emerging), Jenna and I chose to compete in the open Rock n' Roll competition. Unlike at Sheffield where the competition went directly to finals, there were many more competitors this time around. We did make it past the first round - pretty good for unchoreographed goofing off - but our run ended there. We had a total blast.
And thus the competition proceeded into the team match. Essentially, each university submits up to six teams (labelled A-F), where each team consists of a waltz couple, a quickstep couple, a cha cha couple, and a jive couple. Thus, the most advanced dancers comprise A Team, the next, B Team, and so on. Jenna and I have danced in the team match on several occasions this year, but due to the quantity of beginners talent this time around, the jive spot went to Vincent & Rachel. I was quite excited to see how they performed along with Felix & Naomi (waltz), Aarne & Polina (quickstep), and Latt & Emma (cha cha) as "Oxford F Team." While they - unsurprisingly - could not crack the quarterfinals, they did beat some schools' A teams!! They were amazing!
By the time team match and presentations were finished, it was going on 12:30 am. Having not danced enough, they put on some disco music for everyone to just crash the floor. By 1:00, they kicked us all out and we headed back to the hotel...
...temporarily...
Having still not danced enough, the Oxford team decided to head out to a club, because that's apparently what you do after 15 hours of ballroom and Latin. So we meandered around Blackpool, carefully avoiding the drunken locals who were heading home for the night with their trays of chips n cheese, excited to squeeze every last ounce of fun from the day. At last, we found our destination by 2:00 and went in for a couple more hours of grooving to the music. Departing at 4:00 totally sober (although the same could not be said for others on the team, lol), we walked back to the hotel through the lightly drizzling rain. Sadly the main team took all the hot water in the hotel, so yet again a shower was not in the offing. Thus, by 4:30 I crawled into bed: with 18 hours of dance behind me, I knew sleep would not be an issue.
When the alarm went off at 8:25 for breakfast, I jumped out of bed - though stiff - with an energy that surprised even me. I ran (all 15 feet) for the shower, jumped in, and could finally enjoy some glorious hot water. Nick and Latt were a little bit less keen to get up, so they merely stumbled out of bed and the three of us headed downstairs for breakfast. At that point, I remembered "Twas the Night Before Christmas;" not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. Nor the kitchen staff. Perplexed, the three of us stood around for a few minutes to ponder our course of action. When we realized that even a 9:00 breakfast was unlikely, Latt found a Fern Villa business card and called the hotel to inquire. The voice in the phone indicated that indeed, breakfast was at 9. Not three minutes later, the hotel front door opened, and in came one of the kitchen staff (/owner?), apologizing for her tardiness and telling us that breakfast would be moved back to 9:30. So we went back to bed. Well, Nick and Latt went back to bed while I packed. At long last, we had our amazing English breakfast, finished packing up, and boarded the coaches to return to Oxford. Indeed, the stories from the previous night were rather humorous, but hardly had 30 minutes passed before the coach was silent with sleeping students.
All in all, it was a thoroughly epic weekend. I am so excited to be part of OUDC and thrilled at our performance in Blackpool. More to the point, I am incredibly grateful to have Jenna as my dance partner. We had an amazing weekend and I loved every moment of dancing together. Thank you so much Jenna!
Next comp: Varsity Match, May 12. Oxford v. Cambridge. Iffley Sports Complex, Oxford.
YOU'RE GOING DOWN, CAMBRIDGE!!!
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