On a walking tour of the City of Dreaming Spires, I was asked by an English native “What’s it like living in the United States?” I think at the time, with my slightly blistered feet and icy hands jammed in my coat pockets, I snorted and told him, “Nothing compared to this.”
And I truly believed I meant it. Oxford, a city composed of cobblestone walkways, gardens that are rumored to have inspired C.S. Lewis to write the Chronicles of Narnia, a hall that Albert Einstein debated in, it’s magical. It truly is. Something about Oxford can even make the toxic exhaust from cars and tour busses smell somewhat sweet.
Looking back now, my seventh night on 19 Nelson Street, I’m beginning to feel the first wave of homesickness. I have two 2,500-3,000 word essays looming over my head. I attended my first black tie dinner and had never felt more small town Texas in my entire life. I wore heels I paid only 5 pounds for, because I’m a broke college student even in Europe, and I stared blankly at an arrangement of silverware that seemed even more foreign than the Great Britain Pound.
Looking back now, on my first walking tour of the City of Dreaming Spires, I would have told that English native that for me, living the southern part of the United States is walking out your front door in the morning and smelling mud and pine. It’s bits of crunched leaves in your car floorboards that’ll never come up, even if you take a vacuum over it again and again. It’s weekend drives up Ozark hills and pastures you can see for miles. It’s going to a local donut shop, sitting at a table made up of local ads and drinking a cup of cowboy coffee while reading a thrifty nickel.
So regardless of the fact that I live two blocks from the tavern where Radiohead got their start, or the pub where J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis bounced ideas off of each other, I’m just so grateful I have the opportunity to be acquainted with both places. Because, no matter how cheesy and Disney this sounds, there is wonder in both.
Last night I was told “nothing will compare to your first love affair with Oxford,” and that I would leave this place a changed and enhanced individual. I’m eager to take on this experience and whatever quirks come with it, but I still plan on making quick changes in coat rooms at black tie dinners, and will definitely end up breaking the heels off of several more shoes caught in cobblestones.
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Also, if you can get your hands on some Jaffa cakes, do it. This is the only real British tip I can give you this early in the game.
