Poetry, Cricket, and Pubbing

Friday -- Let's see. Heard a wonderful lecture on Anglo-Saxon poetry. Now, I'm not a poetry buff, but the man read to us in Old English. The entire group was mesmerized. He read it like he was born speaking it, a passage out of Beowulf (one of my favorite epic tales). It was awesome. Then, learned how to look at art when walking through museums. Sound boring? Not at all. We learned how to analyze lighting, placement, subject matter, title, and to compare different pieces against each other and, again, it was completely intriguing. Apparently, I miss out on quite a lot when looking at some art pieces, and I was practically an Art minor in college! There's always so much more to learn......

Then, after lunch, we wandered on down to a cricket match in the University Parks, the annual 4-day event between Oxford and Cambridge (insert doomsday music here). It's a classic rivalry -- Oxonians refer to Cambridge as "the other school." They prefer not to actually mention the name -- it's funny and quaint and age-old. Unfortunately, every year, Cambridge completely destroys Oxford in the match, but at the end of the day, Oxford was giving them a run for their money. I learned a lot about the game from a much older fellow, a nice Welshman named Neville who was sitting there watching the game. I can't reexplain it, though. There's a ball and a bat and some wickets and runs and outs. Sounds like baseball, but not really. I DID learn never to be loud during a cricket match -- it's a reverential game, so when I laughed out loud (REALLY loud) at something someone said, I got some really dirty looks from some of the Brits. Yikes. Sorry!

Other than that, I wandered around town and spent time relaxing on campus. I have also gone to a couple of pubs a couple of times, which I really enjoy. Don't worry, everyone -- I'm still the innocent teetotaler I've always been :0) The atmosphere is completely cozy and rugged and enjoyable -- the equivalent of us going to a coffee shop at home (well, minus the rugged part :0). I have learned that when I order lemonade, they give me a Sprite with a lemon in it. Our lemonade is actually called a "lemon squash" here. And it's just nice to get away sometimes for a few minutes, just us as "grown-ups." This night, we went to the Royal Oak down the street. Loved it.