Home Again

After seven fun hours flying in the air with games and movies, and two final GRUELING hours where all I wanted to do was get off the plane (yes, that’s nine hours in all to cross the ocean), I landed once again on American soil. Yesterday was my first day home and with that came many moments of distinguishing America from Europe.

1. I tried to turn the doorknobs around the house like they were English doorhandles. I also was surprised to find a handle on the toilet instead of the button on top.
2. "Right side of the road, Erin. We drive on the right side of the road.”
3. I can plug things straight into the wall; no adaptor or converter needed.

4. No more military time! Wahoo!
5. Every single time I buy something, I no longer have to do math, converting pounds/euro’s into dollars. What is 18 pounds times 1.48?
6. Our money is BORING! Where is the color? Although, I am happy to have dollar bills back instead of 1 or 2 pound/euro coins. Wallets were so heavy because so much currency is in coins instead of bills (or notes if you’re in England).
7. Driving everywhere instead of walking everywhere. Not sure if this is a pro or con.
8. The weather. Oh the weather. Oxford: 40 degrees with no snow, just occasional rain. Mishawaka: 20 degrees with freezing rain, slush in the streets, and half a foot of snow in the yards.
9. Fashion. In Europe, if you walk out the door in jeans and a hoodie everyone knows you’re an American because people always look nice when going out. No sweats for them. It’s much more fashion forward in Europe.
10. Americans are LOUD! Shhhhh. It’s okay to be quite, too. It’s no wonder British view Americans as loud and obnoxious. Compared with the British, we are.

Nevertheless, it didn’t feel like Christmas until I was home again. Turns out I really do need snow for Christmas. No better time to return home than during Christmas when the house is decorated and everything gives me warm fuzzies.

Leaving Oxford was really hard for me. I love living there and am even entertaining the idea of going back to the UK or Ireland for graduate school. I definitely am addicted to Europe and will return on holiday (vacation) soon. I am so grateful to God for this opportunity. He provided everything I needed, opening all the doors. I cannot emphasis enough His blessing these past three months. Thank-You, Father.

Seville

The second stop on the Spain excursion was Seville in southern Spain.

I went to Spain with Andrea, Mona, Kiran, and Katie. Three of my traveling buddies had friends from back home studying at the universities in Seville so we had tour guides the entire time. It was VERY nice to always have with us people who spoke Spanish. The first stop was Plaza de España, a beautiful half-circle of government buildings with a fountain in the center.

Across the street is Parque Maria Luisa where we rented 4 person tandem bikes and biked through the beautiful park.

There are palm trees everywhere in Seville!

Justine (a friend who is studying in Seville), me, Andrea, and Mona.

We went into one of the largest cathedrals in the world (just an FYI: I have seen the top three largest during my travels: St. Peters outside of Rome, St. Pauls in London, and the Cathedral of Seville: Cetedral de Santa Maria de la Sede).

The cathedral has a tower which people can climb up to see a view of the city.

A sky view of what I think is the most beautiful plaza in Spain.

We saw a flamenco show that night (our hostel had one for free!) The show started with a guitar player. Then the flamenco dancer and the singer joined in with clapping. The way they used their hands is really like instruments. After some singing, we saw some Spanish dancing!

Jilu (one of the friends who studied in Seville), Katie, Andrea, Kiran, me, and Mona

The city is beautiful at night!

The Spanish days are shifted from what were use to. Work starts at around 10 or 11 in the morning. Lunch at 2:30, siesta from 4-6, dinner around 8-9, first drinks starting at 11 or midnight. The discotecas (clubs) open at 1, but things don't get going until 2am and they don't close until 6am. Crazy!

On our second day we visited a royal palace called Alcázar. The buildings were beautiful but nothing compared to the grounds. How would you like this for your backyard!

These orange trees are EVERYWHERE. They look delicious and when you peel them, they smell delicious. All the locals tell tourists not to eat them and then they laugh at the stupid Americans who do it anyway. They taste bitter and you'll spit it out of your mouth in seconds.

Me, Mona, Katie, Kiran, Katrina (another friend/tour guide) and Andrea. As a special treat we went to a Japanese restaurant before heading home.

Barcelona

¡Hola mi amigos y familia!

Last week I spent an exhausting but thrilling 4 days in Spain! To give you a picture of the travel schedule, two mornings I had a 2:30am wake up call to catch flights and two nights where my head didn’t rest on the pillow until 4-5am. The two days home from the trip are just a burr of sleeping, eating, and trying to get the ash tray smell out of my clothes. (In Spain there is no restriction on smoking so people can light-up anywhere including in any building. While walking through a university, people were smoking in the hallways of the school.)

But I have survived with nearly a thousand pictures (no joke).

I was surprised by how mountainous Spain was - flying into Barcelona you can see all the little towns laying in the valleys of the mountains.

I went to Barcelona with three friends: Vanessa, Mona, and Andrea. The first thing we did was walk down La Rambla, a giant street with thousands of stores and street vendors. One end of La Rambla leads to the Mediterranean Sea.

The other end of La Rambla leads to a more posh part of town with fancy shopping and Plaza Catalunya.

The word gaudy comes from Antoni Gaudí, an architect whose creations are scattered all over Barcelona. Once you see the Gaudí architecture, you’ll understand why his name was used so often to describe this style that it became a word.

Park Güell is an amazing park designed by Gaudí.

My favorite part of Barcelona is the la Sagrada Familia inglesia - it is possibly the last cathedral to ever be built. The cathedral is in two different styles. Unfortunately, the Gaudí side is still under construction and the other side is being cleaned/restored so all the pictures have scaffolding.

Amazing, isn't it! The details are INCREDIBLE!

Thirty Reasons to Stay

15 Things I LOVE about England

1. The posh British accents
2. The grounds at Chatsworth House
3. One word: crepes!
4. The catch-all phrase to say hello, goodbye and thank-you all in one word: "Cheers!”
5. Salt & vinegar chips and crisps (aka fries and chips)
6. The one thing that the English can never screw up: fish & chips
7. British slang like uni, ace, dodgy, and posh
8. The countryside
9. Cobblestone roads
10. The connection you feel to British authors like Austen, Lewis, and Tolkien
11. People find me fascinating and want to talk to me simply because I’m American
12. The fashion
13. Primark – good clothes for cheap prices.
14. The 2,240 people in the UK with the surname Darcy
15. How easy it is to travel.

15 Thinks I LOVE about Oxford

1. The bops
2. One-on-one tutorials with a don.
3. A free schedule – no classes, tests or projects to stress someone out.
4. Being forced to think and create my own opinions.
5. Ordering library books from the underground stacks.
6. The incredible architecture; walking through ancient stone buildings built centuries ago. (The inside of the town hall is more beautiful than the inside of most American churches).
7. Formal dinners and wearing the Oxford robes.
8. Being asked difficult questions by my don.
9. Street names like Banbury Road and Beaumont Street.
10. Walking behind tourists into a building and seeing a porter stop them, denying access, but a simple flash of a card and I’m given the nod to stroll right in. Now that’s power.
11. The diversity (30% of the students are international)
12. City center (Broad, Cornmarket, High, and Queen Street)
13. Being able to walk everywhere – no car needed.
14. The weekly Market
15. The uniqueness of each college – Magdalen’s deer park, New’s garden & mound, and Christ Church’s dining hall (aka the Great Hall in Harry Potter).

Formal Dinner

Last night I went to formal dinner at New College.

Dinner is served to you (3 courses) and the food is a little better at dinner than it is for lunch. Our dessert was sticky pudding - can't get more British than that!

The college has two times to dine in hall for dinner: Early which is informal and Late which is formal. To formal dinner you wear your Oxford robes and the overhead lights are out so the lamps on the table are the only lighting.

The Oxford robes say a lot about your position. The length of the robe indicates if you are an undergraduate or graduate student. Undergraduate students have robes that come down to their hands while graduate student's robes are longer. The Oxford robe also comes with a cap which is used in formal ceremonies (people don't wear their caps to formal dinner). Wearing the cap or carrying it also is a symbol for what educational level a person is at. Say an undergraduate student who is still earning their degree wears their cap instead of carrying it: THEY GET FINED! No joke!

I never bought robes so I borrowed my housemates robes when I go to formal dinner. (Shh, don't tell! She's a graduate student and I could get fined for dressing above my status!)

This is me just wanting to show off my new red hair.

Impulsiveness

WARNING: Mom, please SIT DOWN!!! Stay calm and don't freak out. And if you do freak out, don't call me until your freakout is over.

A story in pictures...

Impulsiveness got the best of me.