It’s like the Sahara in here! --- July 28th, 2009

Usual morning of rolling out of bed, stumbling into the shower, and heading down for class. So much fun.

For Arts of Oxford we walked over to Harris Manchester college, which has a fully collection of Pre-Raphaelite stained glass windows that are absolutely beautiful. I suppose if you don’t know what Pre-Raphaelite is then that means nothing – but the artist William Morris designed them – he really cared a lot about making art functional…he didn’t paint on canvas or anything, he made things people needed anyway beautiful, like stained glass windows or chairs…stuff like that. Anyway, to have a chapel fully done by him is remarkable, I mean, Harris Manchester is the only place in the world. We also had the High Steward of Oxford give us a little tour and tell us the history of the chapel and everything – it was quite interesting.

Afterwards, Sarah and I were starving, but couldn’t figure out what we were craving. As we walked along, it hit us! Pizza! So Pizza Hut has a lunch buffet, even in England, so that’s where we headed. It was quite delicious, except they were a little slow putting pizza out on the buffet…and there were a lot of people trying to get it…so people would crowd around and like attack whenever food came out. It really was like some kind of animals in the Sahara show or something. Pretty amusing…but we were hungry. Sarah is so non-confrontational though, it definitely stressed her out. Haha. It hit the spot though. I have now eaten Pizza Hut on 3 continents. Woot.

After lunch we had grand plans to go out running errands and shopping and just walking around taking pictures and stuff…but of course it was pouring rain and freezing. Not exactly conducive to our plans. So we ran to the Varsity Shop which sells all the college stuff – like sweatshirts and hats and t-shirts and stuff with your college’s crest and everything – and I picked up the Worcester fleece I had decided I wanted, then we headed back to the college for homework, naps, and general walrus-ing all afternoon.

Since GA Tech had formal hall, our whole group ate dinner together in the hall. And we had the magical time of getting to wear our “Where in the World is Big Al?” t-shirts…these (awful) t-shirts given out by Capstone International, because afterward we had a group picture and our last group meeting. Oh, those t-shirts were beautiful.

Group meeting was super sad because it was all about how to leave. I don’t want to leave.

After the meeting we got ready then headed down to the college pub to hang out with everyone and play darts and whatnot – the usual. I wanted to go out to Kukui, but I was just too exhausted…so I made the responsible decision and went home at the decent hour of midnight, haha.

3 days left.