The Epilogue (or The Aftermath, or "Dear God, nooo!!! I don't want it to end!! why meeeee?!!!!): Back in the U.S. of A.

It has been six months now since we have been back on American soil. So, that means for six months, I have been meaning to write my final post, reflecting on the year and concluding this blog. So far, I haven't been able to bring myself to do it -- I'm not sure if it's because I don't want to admit that the year is really over, or because I'm not quite sure how to sum up in one post how unbelievably surreal it was to spend the last year in Oxford. Well, in my sixth month of waking up to sunshine and heading off to work, with nary a British accent, "cheers, mate!", bop costume (although some of the SoBe fashion is a close match), or fifteenth-century pub in sight, it finally settled in: we are back in the USA. I tried to hold on to our status as Oxford residents, as honorary Brits, as long as I could -- I wore my Jack Wills clothes around whilst telling Will 'ello!' -- but, alas, I "'ello" no more. The last of my English toiletries are used up (that Boots deodorant couldn't last forever, and I finally replaced my Beatles toothbrush), the Vic is back from her UK tour (after Jeanne patiently allowed security at three different airports to inspect the bust innards as she imported the Vic safely into the US), and my Union Jack keyring symbolically broke and fell at the threshold of our Brickell condo. It's official; Oxford it over. Hence, it is time. I must write the final chapter. Despite my desire to never honor the bird who chased me down and pecked at me like I was made of bread crumbs, here is my swan song.

First, I want to make sure I take time to reflect on how I spent my year and on all the experiences I had. With time, my memory will fade, so really, this is to remind myself just how awesome it was (without reading the whole tome that this blog has become; lucky you, readers. i.e. mom). Luckily, the presentations I have been making to local Rotary clubs lately on my year can assist me with this. This is basically what I told them. After looking back at my pictures, I can lump my activities into five categories:

(1) earning a degree -- I got my Masters in Higher Education, with a focus on legal education. I got to experience the Oxford tutorial system and learn from the best, thanks to Hubert, David, and my lovely classmates.

(2) participating in all thing Rotary -- I attended meetings, gave presentations, volunteered, took trips like the ones to Windsor, Blenheim, London, Eastbourne, and Leicester, and made a new English family, thanks to Jola, Lars and all the many Rotarians I met over the year.

(3) participating in college life (see chart below for time allocation) -- I rowed, I bopped, I wore a gown to dinner like the kids in Harry Potter. I sculpted, made mosaics, watched rugby and cricket, played croquet, punted, drank Pimm's, swam in the fountain, pub-quizzed, and partied whilst wearing crazy costumes (50's, 70's, 80's, 90's themes for bops entitled glitter, carnival, kink, and jingle). Most importantly, I made life-long friends from all around the world.

(4) learning English culture -- It misted, drizzled, rained, and snowed. I learned all the different ways water could fall from the sky. I learned to love tea, bangers and mash, yorkshire pudding, and digestive biscuits (I still have some biscuit remnants on my thighs to prove it). I tried to learn the lingo (trainers, knickers, plaster, pudding, mate, quid, bloody hell!, wanker, fit, ace, brill, ginger, pull, tidy, on yer bike!, and, of course, the x) and the accent ('ello, gov'na!), and to decipher what my friends from Scotland and Liverpool were saying; the sarcastic sense of humo(u)r, however, will take years for me to grasp. I pubbed, I biked, I tried not to be the loud yank, and I embraced the sports (like croquet!), the games (like pooh sticks and dragon boat racing!), and the holidays (like Bonfire Night! although it couldn't compare to our Fourth of July, which, no, I did not celebrate there). Basically, I tried to be British. Just like Madonna.

(5) travelling in the UK and around the world -- We went to Salisbury, Stonehenge, Stratford upon Avon, Devon, London, Lisbon, Lagos, Morocco, Rome, Venice, Greece, Croatia, Turkey, Amsterdam, and Ireland. And it only made us itch for more.It was a busy year. I tried to soak up as much Oxford as I could. I tried to see as many different things and cities as I could. Travelling like we did and living in a different country really gave me a new perspective on the world, how small it is, how different our culture is, but how people are still the same at the core. I tried to cram a lifetime's worth of experiences into my short visit. Our time there made me realize how short a year really is -- it just flew by before we knew it. We moved back into the Miami condo the exact date we had left for the UK one year earlier, and it felt like the blink of an eye. Now all I have are my many memories, my broken keychain, some faded Jack Will's hoodies, and dreams of life and friends in Oxford (who, in my dreams, to my surprise, speak in yank accents - 'ello!)And now, to conclude.

Honestly, in a lot of ways, the year we spent in Oxford seems like one really long, extremely detailed, amazing dream. The kind of dream that, when you start to wake up, you try to force yourself to fall back asleep, just to get to experience more of it. When we got back, the first few weeks felt a little strange -- like we were just on a little holiday in Florida before we were supposed to head back home to Oxford. After that initial strangeness wore off though, we slipped back into life here like the whole year in the UK had never happened. Nothing in Florida had changed. Despite a short stint living on our buddy Sam's futon, we moved back into the same condo. We were doing the same legal jobs. We were walking the same streets, with the same people, in the same flip flops. How is it possible [gasp] that life just went on as usual without us, without anything changing? and without the whole of Miami mourning our absence?! (Other than my mom, who I think did mourn for a while... until she discovered skype, that is.) It just seemed bizarre to me that I had experienced all that I did (traveling, learning new cultures, customs, meeting new people, eating different foods, hearing different perspectives, dealing with crazy weather... living a completely different life), so much crammed into twelve months, while everything here stayed exactly the same. (Well, almost everything: our house plants actually did better under the care of our tenant. They have been under my supervision now for six months, and I probably could have called the time of death weeks ago. I keep thinking that maybe the brown will turn green again given enough gallons of water. I guess even water has its limits.) And it suprised me that I myself could slip back into my pre-Oxford life so easily, without a trip in my flip-flops or a "quid" sneaking its way into conversation. The thing is, though, that I might have easily transitioned back into Miami lawyer life, but it just doesn't seem as exciting as it once did. Now that we've had a little taste of adventure and travel and change, we want more. It's like when I first got glasses -- they were a pain in the butt at first, but then it was fantastic as I could see details as I never had before (fantastic, aside from discovering that I had many more freckles than I was previously aware of), and there was no way I was going back to the blur. Well, this past year abroad was the glasses. Right now is the blur. So I'm just going to have to find a way to get the glasses, albeit a different pair, back.

More to come on that in the future.

It might be a good way to finish, or at least to end this particular chapter, by quoting something I saw sprayed on a sidewalk as grafitti during our year. (although less cool since, thanks to google, I have learned some random dude said it, but I'm still going to tell myself a random, insightful traveler thought it and wanted to share it with the sidewalkers)

If you want to live a magnificent life,
know that you are the author of your story,

and every day,

you have the opportunity

to write a new page.

I'm ready to write again . . .

The Last Hurrah in Ireland: Sisti's Go Bragh!

Before leaving the UK for good (at least for now), I had one last adventure planned: Mother-Daughter Trip 2010 to Ireland. That's right, A Broad's Mom flew across the pond for a 10 day trip. We spent a few days in Oxford sightseeing (and by sightseeing, I mean packing up all the mountains of bop costumes, rowing gear, and survivor frisbees that I had accumulated over the year and stuffing them into two extra suitcases until the suitcase zippers screamed for mercy). Even in those last few days in Oxford, I learned some new things, thanks to Mama Sisti. For example, she told me that the salmon we had been cooking all year was actually smoked salmon (and therefore need not be cooked). Oops. I knew the salmon seemed different. I just figured English salmon was smellier. Aside from packing, learning about seafood, and saying goodbyes, I also made some care-packages for the friends/family I was leaving behind: including paintings, notes, rotary banners, and, of course, red solo cups. I wanted to make sure that I wouldn't be forgotten too easily; if I left a bunch of random knickknackery behind, then people were bound to ask themselves 'where the heck did this junk come from' and thus be forced to remember A Broad's presence. Genius.

Then the day came. It was early in the morning on July 31 when I had to leave Oxford. Appropriately, it was raining. I left as I had arrived: soaked. We were late to catch our bus (of course; A Broad is not known for her punctuality) which actually worked out well, as I didn't have time to stare back at my dorm room, at Linacre, at Broad Street, at the scenes of so many memories -- all those early morning bike rides to the river, those late night walks to the kebab van. I would have soaked myself in tears. Instead, I was soaked with rain water and sweat, from running through the cobblestone streets, whilst wearing a sweater, and dragging my 92 pound suitcase behind me. It was a quick, somber goodbye, and a long, smelly bus ride to Gatwick.

Upon arriving at the airport to catch our plane to Shannon, you would think that the day's craziness was over, but you would be wrong. The three hours before we actually got on the Ryan Air plane (any of you who know Ryan Air, a/k/a 'Haha, Sucker! Air', will know where this is going) were the equivalent of having 9 successive rootcanals while being forced to watch Sports Center (for the dudes reading, replace Sports Center with Jersey Shore, and this will make more sense). Upon checking our bags, the lady said, "well, your bags are 22 kilos over the weight limit so that will be 250$ please," to which I replied, "%&@#@!" Then, mom and I spent the next hour at the giant scales weighing everything from our sneakers to our lipstick to find a way to distribute the weight amongst our suitcases to avoid the fine. In the end, we shifted stuff, we ate stuff, we trashed stuff, and I put on wellies, 3 pairs of pants and 7 sweaters. Victory was ours. Take that, Ryan Air! You underestimated the Sisti's perseverance, ingenuity, and willingness to sweat whilst wearing half our wardrobe for that two-hour flight to Ireland. Ryan Air wasn't going to just roll over though -- they proceeded to print us bad tickets and change our gate three times. After walking from one end of the concourse to the other, for thethird time in 20 minutes, I was most definitely sweating in my seven sweaters. I felt so bad for anyone near me on that plane; I did not smell like roses. unless there is a new species that smells like sweaty wool.

Once we finally arrived in Shannon, and took off the extra 8 layers of clothes and emptied our pockets of our heavy electronics, our wonderful week in Ireland began. We took a bus tour with a bunch of other travelers (some wonderful, some weird) all around the southern coast of Ireland. What a beautiful place. Here is what we did, in pictures...

Our first night, we had a medieval banquet at Bunratty Castle. This is where I had my first of approximately 24 bowls of puréed vegetable soup on the trip.

We saw the breathtaking Cliffs of Moher.

More Moher.

And visited the Foynes Flying Boat Museum, where we read about the history of Pan Am, including this Dissertation on the use of alcohol.

We went to Killarney and the Ring of Kerry.


We watched in amazement as a sheepherder ordered his dogs to round up some sheep from 100 feet away. The sheep were not amused.


I kissed the Blarney Stone.
And then I found out that locals pee on it for fun.


Between Cobh, Kilkenny, and Kildare, we went to some old, cool pubs. Future travelers: learn from my mistakes. Apparently, they do not call Guinness with Baileys an 'Irish car bomb' there.


And we went to Waterford and the Waterford factory and saw how they make the beautiful crystal glasses.


We even visited the jail (Kilmainham Gaol).

And the Irish National Stud Farm.

Here is me with some studs.


We toured all around Dublin, its castles, pubs, and pretty streets.

Including the Guinness Factory, of course.

The Guiness pourer liked me.

And so did the Pitt basketball team.

Here is me with more studs.

I especially liked seeing Trinity College, since I almost went there instead of Oxford!

It looked like a fun place.

On our last night, we went to the Merry Ploughboy Pub for some dinner and traditional Irish dancing (like Riverdance, where their legs flail about as if independent from their body).

We made some great friends along the way, and just had a wonderful time.

Ireland, despite being perpetually chilly, is a very beautiful place with very lovely people. With my red hair, freckles, and non-tan (I prefer that to "pale") exterior, I fit right in. I definitely want to go back. Next time, I won't take Ryan Air, I will pack light, I'll check out Northern Ireland, and I'll take mom with me, again. No one else would have changed clothes in the middle of Gatwick with me and not felt embarrassed to be seen with a girl wearing jeans, slacks, and sweatpants. No one else would have stalled the bus driver by telling him I had a pee (i.e. shopping) emergency so that he wouldn't give me the stank eye when I got on with my shopping bags. No one else would have risked getting mono by kissing the pee-stained Blarney Stone with me. No one else would have laughed with me upon realizing that the concierge was not talking about problems with Electric City, but rather, electricity. Oh mom. What fun we had. Looking forward to the next M-D trip!

It’s the final countdown…

With only two weeks left in England, I finally started to freak the heck out. There was still so much I wanted to do (more punting, bopping, pubbing, quizzing, and fountain swimming), so many things I wanted to see (more colleges, libraries, museums, and cute British cities), and, out of necessity, so much dissertation I had to write.

My final two weeks were spent trying to balance relishing my final British moments in Oxford with writing 20,000 words, plus appendices and bibliography. I worked every day, and even pulled an all-nighter trying to get that 20,000-word monster done. It nearly killed me, literally. During that two weeks of dissertation-writing-purgatory, I managed to: electrocute myself (by pulling on my laptop plug just a tad too energetically), punch myself in the face (by pulling my laptop out of my bag just a tad too energetically), bruise my butt (by sitting on my desk chair just a tad too energetically causing its screws to explode out of their sockets and the chair to burst into 9 pieces), and sting myself (by trying to chase bees out of my dorm room with a tennis racket instead of just typing in the library). At one point, since I hadn’t left the one-block radius of the dorm or changed out of my pj’s in days, I started to go a bit mad trying to get it done; this seemed normal at the time. At about 15,000 words, I was deep in the ‘monkey cage’, so I didn’t notice the oddity or unhygienicness of it all. (You know what I mean… the first hour in the monkey cage, it smells like poo, but after a few hours in there, you’re like ‘what poo?’) I finally got the paper to the point that my supervisor gave me the green light to submit (thanks Hubert!), but I couldn’t manage to get it bound and submitted just yet. My last few days, I decided to stop editing, start showering, and enjoy all that is Oxford. I’ll eventually send my completed dissertation to Oxford from sunny Miami via the trusty US Mail.

So, in addition to trying to excrete 20,000 distinction-worthy words into my word doc, those last few weeks were spent seeing the city that I fell in love with (finally checking out Balliol, St. Johns, and Trinity - see pic below),

and visiting with the people that made this experience what it was. When I think back on the year, my greatest memory is the friendships that I made. I’m taking them home with me, and know that I will see these friends, from all around the world, again. Those last few days, with my friends, I went to pubs like the Vic (where Mark, Anna, Fin and I did some celebrating for our friend Ben’s birthday) and the Duke (where we did a little wine tasting),

I played some doubles tennis with Erica, I did some lunching at Linacre with Roh, I had some tea with Jennifer and Andrew (where I handed off The Vic to lucky Andrew, who, along with Jeanne, will act as babysitter whilst I’m away, as The Vic was about 14 pounds too heavy to even consider packing. Consider yourself lucky, guys, as tons of offers came in from peeps wanting the pleasure of Vic’s company. I mean, their lips may have said ‘you can’t leave that freaky head in my house’ but their hearts said ‘I can’t wait to put Vic on my mantle!’ Lucky, lucky you.), I went to my final bop at Green Templeton and final Purple Turtle and Bridge nights with Sam, Eric, Vits and other lovely Linacre peeps, I dined with Kine, I hung out with Stav, Morgan, and Yasmine in the dorm, I made a final presentation to my new family in the Rotary Club at Bicester,

I visited with my classmates over a home-cooked Pakistani meal, I dined with my new British parents Jola and Lars, and, very painfully, I said goodbye to Henry and watched him pedal off into the sunset with his new owner, Anne (after thoroughly freaking her out by asking her to take good care of him; I’ve never seen someone take off on a bike so quickly.)

Yup, I took one last pic of my Henry so I could remember him as he was that day. Oh Henry.

It was the best of times (as I loved every second with these people), it was the worst of times (as I cried each day saying goodbye to them). Corny or not, this year truly was the time of my life.

What a difference a week makes...

After returning from the land of the Dutch (and thoroughly washing our clothes, to remove any lingering stank of whatever likely-illegal-in-the-uk-substance fannypack-adam breathed all over us), we realized Will only had 7 DAYS left in Oxford. So, we jam-packed every day full of fun (and definitely not full of school work -- however, if you are either of our supervisors and are reading this, that's just a silly American joke; please skip to the next entry about how all I do all day is write my dissertation) and of things that were on Will's 'to do before leaving Ox' list. And thus, the countdown began...

The countdown board outside our dorm door...

Me and The Vic were not pleased.

So, Day 1: After a lovely Italian meal with two of my closest girlfriends (see hot girlfriends below)...

...the boys met us at Grand Cafe for some margaritas! Then, to keep the party rolling, we had a big beer pong/flip cup tournament in the Linacre CR (see partay below)...

Phase 3 of this madness involved swimming in the Linacre fountain - a not-to-miss tradition for any Linacre student. There are no pics of this (at least not ones I'm going to post), but I have seen the CCTV video of our antics (those video monitors must love their job), and I can assure you, it was quite the scene. We are now legendary at Linacre.

And on to Day 2: After a brilliant day at the park, in the sun, with a bunch of our closest friends, and a few matches of survival-quadruple-frisbee (that's right - for Will's last week, we busted out the big guns: the fourth frisbee... It made survivor-triple-frisbee look like child's play. We don't mess around), we had a farewell BBQ/beer pong/flip cup/party at the place of so many fun times in Oxford -- Kev, Anna, and Mark's pad, the infamous 108.

The crew, and Rob's bizarre bruise.

The tourney, where the guest of honor rained the pain.

Day 3: Of course, this was filled with World Cup! After watching basically every game in the tourney (again, attn supervisors, disregard this 'wild' exaggeration), Will had to see the final. We had a great time yelling at the telly with our buds.

Day 4: We went to the Lamb and Flag, a famous 17th century pub where The Inklings (a literary group including C.S. Lewis) used to meet, to play some card games and laugh with Will's closest friends.

Day 5: Will went into London for the final time (for now) and then we had our last date night (for now) in Ox.

Day 6: Me and my girlfriends on the rowing team (again, see hot girlfriends Jeanne, Kine, and Erica below), took Will out to row for the first time!

What a blast. He was a natural, as I knew he would be, and we had a fantastic outing in a IV, which is very easy to tip. Will's natural athleticism, enthusiasm, and desire not to fall into the dirty Isis water and catch a strange rash, allowed us to row ourselves steadily down the river (with guidance from Andrew, of course, our designated coach, and picture-taker, for the day, who hollered every time another boat was about to ram us. What a multi-tasker.)


Then we spent the night at the Royal Oak drinking Sangria, eating ourselves stupid (the food was so mmmm), and playing Things. Perfect day.

The dreaded Day 7: After tearfully saying goodbye to my best girlfriend, Jeanne, who happened to leave for the States that day (talk about your double-whammy) and running after her bus yelling 'don't leave me!', I spent the rest of the day hugging Will, tearing up, and then wiping mascara off of his shirt(s). We did our last tours of Oxfordy things, seeing the Duke Humfrey's Library was a highlight -- it was built in 1488 and is the most beautiful library I've ever seen... painted, wood-carved ceilings, walls covered floor to ceiling in shelves of ancient manuscripts... it's no wonder Harry Potter was filmed there. Unreal. Then, we had the final dinner at Aziz, a cool Indian restaurant, with Will's buddies.

The Last Supper.

After dinner, we headed to the location of so many hits to our bank account: The Oxford Blue for Thursday poker night.

Will has played tons and tons of Thursday night poker with these British guys, and made some lifelong friends. From what I saw at that pub that night, it looks like they're really going to miss their yank mate. As he walked out of the pub for the final time, they showed their love.

To them, and to me, he's a legend.

Will is on a plane right now headed home for South Florida. Aside from not having to worry about falling into the toilet (again) during my 3am bathroom break since Will won't be here to leave the seat up, the next 3 weeks are going to be very tough without him. Oxford won't be the same. To our Florida friends: please take care of him (and as I stressed to our guy friends already, that doesn't mean to take him to a casino or a strip club) until I get home. To Will: I love you, sweetheart, and I miss you terribly already. Call me. PS) The Vic says Hello.

Hit (on) by bikes and prostitutes: the Amsterdam Adventure

After a very uneventful July 4^th (as, shockingly, the Brits don’t celebrate that great American holiday commemorating our freedom from England), we headed off for a holiday in Amsterdam! I had heard so much about Amsterdam’s beauty and ‘interesting’ culture, that I thought we had to check it out. So, we hopped on a 45-minute plane ride to arrive in Holland/Netherlands to get in touch with our inner Dutch.

Day 1: And the hits just keep on comin’

The first thing we noticed about this city the second we hopped off the train was the zillions of bikes chained to anything that looked immobile around town. I mean, there were even bikes chained to railings dangling over canals. Unreal. I thought Oxford had a lot of bikes until I saw Amsterdam. Total number of bikes in this city: 750,000. Total number of times a bike grazed/hit us during our 4 day stay: approximately 324… give or take a few dozen, depending on whether you count the times, during our bike ride on Day 3, that we actually hit each other.

The second thing we noticed was the beautiful canals. Each street was incredibly picturesque, with boats meandering up and down the waterways, cute iron-clad bridges crossing the canals, and thousands of narrow 3-story houses built in the 1500’s side-by-side with colorful shutters and blooming flowers on the balconies.

And, finally, the third thing we noticed was, yes, you guessed it, the Red Light District. The only time I’ve seen anywhere near that many tanned, made-up, bikini-clad women in high heels (with curiously, unnaturally large boobage) was during Spring Break in Miami. Each street contained a different type of woman (young/old, thin/curvy, blonde/brunette, varying skin tones, ethnicities, and attractiveness), or I guess I should say, different type of woman or man, as Will informed me that the ladies that I saw in what I termed the ‘tall, muscular woman’ section, were actually men.

In addition to the ladies, we noticed a ton of porn shows, sex shops, and interesting looking ‘coffee’ houses. I can’t describe the things the owners of these various establishments said in order to entice us to enter, as their sales pitches are wholly inappropriate for blogging (and, not to mention, my naïve ears), so I’ll just have to leave that to your imagination. I’ll just say that they were graphically descriptive of the services that they were peddling, so much so that I was freaked out and scurried quickly by any such shops whilst pretending not to understand English.

Also, it was quite bizarre to wander the pretty canals of the city and smell someone smoking marijuana at literally all hours. Breakfast, lunch, dinner time – it didn’t matter; we couldn’t walk five feet without a whiff of the gange. In fact, one strange tourist named Adam, who we had unluckily asked to take our picture on a pretty canal, and who we were fairly certain had recently eaten at one of those special coffeehouses, even begged us to take some of whatever substance he was smoking because, to quote Adam, he wanted ‘to share the love with you good people.’ It’s nice to get a compliment like that, even from a high tourist wearing a fanny-pack that had trouble remembering his last name. Even in his Amsterdamy haze, he was able to recognize greatness. That’s right Adam, we are good people. You can keep your bizarre pocket full of unidentifiable and clearly too-strong intoxicants though. We’re good.

After checking into our amazing hotel (The Pulitzer, which was actually 25 canal homes combined to form one massive, and beautiful, hotel right on a main canal), eating a fab Thai lunch, and experiencing Dutch culture via seeing bikes, canals, prostitutes, porn shops, and what we’re hoping was just pot, we headed to some of Amsterdam’s historical landmarks. For our first day, we chose to go to the Anne Frank House, where the Frank family hid during World War II. Walking in the small area that all eight people lived in, hearing the voices of Anne’s father and her friend describing seeing her in a concentration camp after the family’s hiding space was found, and seeing Anne’s actual diaries was incredibly moving. She became a real person to me, instead of just a character in a story that I read in grade school. It was haunting and terrifying to think of what happened to her. We are blessed to have her diary as a constant reminder of that past.

Day 2: Hup Holland Hup!

On our second day, besides enjoying some killer room service and a stellar meal in Amsterdam’s shopping district at Café PC, we went to what is now one of my favorite museums: the Van Gogh Museum. He is probably my favorite painter, and this museum had some of my favorite, and quite famous, pieces, like Sunflowers, Irises, Almond Blossom, and Pink Peach Trees. I spent hours staring at these beautiful paintings, imagining him painting them, and hearing the stories of his tortured and interesting life. Lovely afternoon.

Then, the main event: after the museum, we stumbled upon a huge field where they were going to play the Netherlands v. Uruguay game on an enormous screen. So, we got some huge, inflatable orange hats, some Heineken, and some orange shirts and plopped ourselves down in the middle of the field to prepare for the big game. We had no idea what we were in for. It turned out that the field, Museumplein, was the place to watch the game. 80,000 Dutch streamed on to the field, and it was happy mayhem hours before the game even started. CNN was there to capture the madness, and Will and I were even filmed by a Dutch TV crew who, I think, due to our bright orange accouterments, assumed we were Dutch. On the stage under the screen was a famous Dutch singer belting out traditional Dutch tunes and people (including these two Americans) were all jumping around, dancing, kicking soccer balls (I mean, footballs) in the air, running with Holland flags, and blowing on vuvuzelas ‘til their faces turned blue. The girls next to us painted my face with red, white, and blue stripes – like the Dutch (and American, ha!) flag, and I was cheering like I was a die-hard Dutchman, only I had no clue what anyone was saying. That didn’t matter though, because football, like love, is the universal language. When the Netherlands scored that first goal, everyone started screaming like they had won the lotto, no matter what language they spoke. It was unreal. And, ‘we’ won the game. Day 2 Amsterdam : total success.

I'm so Dutch. Look at me blend.

Day 3: suicidal bicycling

After a quick jog through the canals and an amazing breakfast at a canal café, we took our lives into our own hands (and into the hands of 750,000 other Dutch bicyclers) and rented bikes to cruise around town. The amount of cars, motorcycles, and other bicycles that came within centimeters of launching me into a canal, made me want to simultaneously vomit and pee myself. Bicyclers are much more aggressive than they are in Oxford, and the rental bike was way heavier than my Henry, so I was slightly terrified and just tried to keep my eyes on the road, the cars, and the direction Will was taking so that I wouldn’t lose him – but the canals, clouds of pot smoke, and flashes of boob were totally distracting. After I hopped off that bike, I needed some ice cream and shopping to recover (or so I convinced Will – creative avoidance of diet and shopping ban eh? I know. To quote fanny-pack Adam, I’m good.) Despite the near injuries and near soiling myself, however, I still managed to have a fantastically fun time touring the city on my Dutch Henry. We cycled in the beautiful park, Vondelpark, like NYC’s Central Park, and checked out the Flower Market and some street performances, including a great violinist. It really was an amazing way to see the city. And then we capped off the day watching the Spain v. Germany game in a cool neighborhood restaurant with some locals. What a blast.

Day 4: Dutch apple pie and Dutch ovens

After apple pancakes and an English breakfast (we must have been homesick, eh?), we took a leisurely canal cruise to see the city from another angle. It was very nice and peaceful to tour the city by boat after the stressful attempt at extreme city biking, Dutch style. We relaxed, ate a ton of ice cream and Dutch apple pie, and pondered things like whether they called a Dutch Oven a ‘Dutch Oven,’ or just an ‘Oven.’ Solving world dilemmas we were. It was a lovely end to a lovely trip. We had such a great time in that beautiful city, enjoying its history and culture. Aside from nearly being launched into a canal and accidentally entering a sex shop while looking for underwear (I had run out, so Will sent me into a shop to get more, but when the cheapest pair of underwear was 91 euros, I realized it wasn’t normal underwear or your average lingerie shop), it was the perfect travel experience.

Dear Time: Will you please stop already?!

So, 9th and 10th week are here. To quote our friend Mark, OMAG. Where, oh where, has the time gone? We're just having too much fun. I know, now you feel really sorry for us, right? So let's see, what have we been up to... besides working on my dissertation (yes, both of us are actually doing schoolwork whilst here), I went to an end of the year dinner for those of us who are 'going down' (i.e. leaving Linacre this year. funny phraseology, eh?) and then had to entertain myself for the weekend since Will went on a 'boys trip' (which I was assured involved no bachelor-party-esque hired entertainment) to Devon. Here is a picture of him with his boys below. My mind was at ease when I saw this one:

Yes, they are playing poker, in a hot-tub, on a homemade inflatable poker table. Boys, I think you may have discovered a void in the market for floating poker tables. So, whilst Will played golf and hot-tub poker with the dudes, I kept myself busy by rowing, punting, watching World Cup, clubbing with the crew at Kukui, managing to roll in nettles whilst in the lawn, covering myself with hydrocortisone to dull the pain, and having brunch with my girl Jeanne, not necessarily in that order. It was quite the weekend.

Once Will was back, we spent each night doing fun Britishy activities. On Monday, we went to dinner and a movie with our friend Anna -- everytime Russell Brand spoke, I laughed til I peed.

On Tuesday, we went to a Rotary BBQ outside of Bicester with the whole Rotary Club of Bicester. Aside from embarrasing myself by eating my weight in cheese, biscuits, and pudding (a British, and less-fatty-sounding, way of saying 'dessert' ... actually, little sidenote on that terminology and how it thwarted my attempt to eat myself stupid: when I went up to the dessert table, and was trying to figure out which nine desserts I'd sample and strategically cram into my dessert bowl, I had a very 'who's on first?' moment with the host. 'Oh, is this pudding?' I said to my host, pointing to a liquid-looking substance. 'Yes, it's pudding', was the response, so I promptly decided that it would be choice #1 of 9 and scooped it into my bowl as the base layer. Then, however, after I had strategically piled 5 other desserts on top of it that I thought might compliment each other, and was eyeing something chocolately, I was like 'Wait, is this pudding?' and he was like, 'Yes, that's pudding.' And I was like, 'You mean, this is pudding.' And he was like 'Um, yes, that is pudding.' SO, long story short, they were all 'pudding.' They were British 'pudding' (i.e. dessert), but they were most definitely not American pudding (i.e. liquidy vanilla/chocolate goodness). Result: a base layer of key lime pie filling, and 8 desserts piled on top of it that were not meant to be served a la lime. Big limey eww.)

On Wednesday, we went into London. I conducted interviews with trainee solicitors at the London office of Freshfields' (a huge international law firm, 24,000 lawyers, 28 offices around the world) for my dissertation on legal education. It was incredibly interesting to see the enormous office in the middle of London's legal district. They set me up in a conference room with white glove catering service. (Literally, a cart pushed by someone wearing a tux-like uniform rolled by every 10 minutes with fresh coffee and cookies.) It was first-class all the way. All the people I interviewed (which I met through my lawyer friends in Miami, shockingly -- it's such a small world) were incredibly nice and made me feel so welcome. Don't get scared mom, but I could actually see myself working there. In addition to conducting interviews that day, we wandered around the city, checking out what it would be like to live there. It is just so huge, and there is just so much going on -- you could never be bored. We had a lovely Pho lunch with a couple that we know from Linacre, Sean and Anne, and had a fantastic homecooked Italian meal by another couple that we know from UCL, Mary and Fin. They made London feel like home. What a fantastic day.

On Thursday, we headed to the countryside for yet another fantastic dinner party and homecooked meal by my friend Jennifer who is on my course at Oxford. She lives in a 500 year-old house with an 81 year-old adorable landlady named Sally who had so much spunk and personality, and so many stories to share, that we spent the entire night gabbing and laughing with her. She didn't act a day older than me and fit right in with all of us 'kids.' I hope I'm just like Sally in my 80's! In addition to hearing Sally's stories about her time with Orlando Bloom (she basically knows everyone in the UK) and the ghosts that haunt the house, stuffing our faces with Jennifer's delicious mexican food and Guinness chocolate cake, line dancing, playing Sally's antique piano, and wandering around the beautiful gardens and house with endless staircases and hidden hallways, we just talked and laughed the night away. It was one of the most memorable nights we've had in Oxford. Thanks to Jennifer and Sally!

Dinner Party outside the house.

It literally looks like you walked into a Jane Austen novel.

Thought I was joking about line-dancing? Nope.

Jennifer made me wear my boots!

The field right outside her home.

I've never stood in grass that high - it literally reached my waist.

On Friday, in addition to watching World Cup and hitting the Bridge, we punted! Will, one of my best girlfriends, Jeanne, and our friend Andrew all headed to the New College punts to punt ourselves down the River Cherwell whilst sipping Pimm's that was clearly not mixed with the proper proportion of Sprite. It was quite an adventure. We had an absolute blast.

Will, the master puntsman.

Showing off my punt skillz.

Me and the J.

Snyders do punt.

We thought it made perfect sense to have a race after disembarking the punt. This could have had something to do with the strength of the Pimm's and dearth of Sprite.

And, that, in a tad more than a few words, was our week.

It was packed, it was awesome, it was Oxford.

Dear Time,

Slow the hell down.

Sincerely,

The Snyders