Welcome back to Oxford Hursty

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I left Cardiff today to make my second trip to Oxford to visit Dave. I had been here this past April for a couple days and did the bulk of my touring then so this was all about the company.

When I arrived, we headed down to the Pie Minster in the central market to dine on their delicious meat pies. We got so deep into conversation (mostly reminiscing and bickering over business and finance) that we didn’t realize until halfway through that we had inadvertently swapped pies.

After lunch, we went to the Said business school’s library so he could do his work and I could schedule the next stops in my journey. Along the way, we realized it was tea time so we stopped in the lobby to grab tea. Dave insisted I do it properly and also have a scone with clotted cream and jam. I picked out my scone while he proceeded to dump a half a plate full of cream and a heaping pile of jam on my plate. I told him to get my physician on standby.

The scone was delicious and the cream and jam definitely added to it. As nasty as it sounds, you could probably just skip the scone and dive right into the cream and jam. I decided against that.

We went up to the library where I spent a few hours revising my itinerary, finding a hostel in Paris, searching for a bed and breakfast in Bayeux (where the Normandy tours start) and attempting to find a good one-day guided tour of Normandy. If anyone has any recommendations on the B&B or the tour, I’d appreciate it.

While I was there, upon Dave’s recommendation, I downloaded Spotify, essentially a free, online, searchable, playlist-makeable music player which has almost any song imaginable. But it’s not available yet in the United States. As I write this, I am listening to Pearl Jam covers done on piano. I think Kemmerer needs piano Pearl Jam songs during dinner at his wedding next year.

When we went out to a couple pubs after leaving the library, we discussed Spotify and Dave mentioned how the creators are working on an iPhone app that would essentially eliminate the need to pay for individual iTunes songs. This naturally spurred discussions, enhanced by a few pints, of course, on the business behind it and other potential uses of technology to create simpler, more fulfilling lives rather than the complexity it has brought about today.

The next stop was the Middle Common Room (MCR) at Pembroke College, Dave’s college. As a short aside, something I found interesting about “college” over here is that a college is a student’s center of life outside the educational school in which s/he attends. Co-educational, the college determines where a student eats, sleeps and takes exams, as well as where s/he socializes outside the educational school. Colleges are completely unrelated to the area of study.

Universities are the overall governing body, consisting of the colleges and schools of education. That’s why foreigners always refer to going to “Uni” as opposed to Americans, who say they go to “college”.

The MCR is the social center for those in postgraduate programs at the university. There is also a Junior Common Room (JCR) for undergraduates and a Senior Common Room (SCR) for academics. Those more senior in the hierarchy have access to the common rooms of those junior to them but not vice versa.

The Pembroke MCR contains a couple social areas and a bar, fully stocked with all types of alcohol, which is available to the students at cost. The bar is normally locked, except during social functions, but it just so happens that I know the new social chair, who has a key to the stash.

We sampled Longrow Single Malt Scotch Whisky from the Campbeltown region, which Dave had picked up for the bar when we were in Edinburgh, Scotland this past April. While good, it probably wasn’t the best decision we ever made to start mixing beer and whisky.

It was also there that Ellie, Dave’s girlfriend, met up with us for the night. I also met two other girls, Tay and Anna, while we were there. All of them are also part of Pembroke.

From there we went out to a birthday party for one of Dave’s friends in the MBA program. For my current tastes, way too much MBA financial babble took place. Ellie and I were probably the only two at the party not completely enthralled by the financial intellect which pervaded the air. For some reason I still enjoy the visionary business talking and sparring with Dave but with few others. It surely must be that he doesn’t come off as a tool like many other students do.

Around 11:00 we left the party to get Spanish tapas at the only place that we thought would still be serving food at that hour. They had stopped so Dave, Ellie and I ordered Dominos and went back to the MCR.

Back there we met up with Tay and Anna again as we all feasted on pizza and crisps. After raiding the bar once more, we proceeded to the JCR to shoot pool for a couple hours. I think the table was actually a snooker table and we played the game with red and yellow snooker balls. One game lasted the entire time. As the Brits put it, we were pissed (drunk, well mildly anyway) - it was time to get out of there.

Tomorrow I leave Oxford for Paris. I am the prototypical American and don’t speak a lick of French. I hear the French dislike Americans. This should be interesting.

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Photos

Me and Dave
A photo of us in the MCR.

Longrow Scotch Whisky
Dave bought this bottle for the MCR when we were in Scotland last April. A copy of the drink menu sits behind it.

Dos Coronas
Ben May emailed Dave at our second pub stop and requested that I drink two Coronas at once for him tonight. I carried out his wish. It's been a long time since I last did that.

Dave playing pool
Dave is lining up a shot while Ellie looks on in the background. The balls were only red and yellow (no cue or black) so we had to improvise.