I eat dinner in THE Great Hall……Oxford is like Harvard Square with the business of NYC….its incredible and sooooooo beautiful…..so many pubs and so many great restaurants. I’m in love with cider…..Also, my bedroom is HUGE (although I think I am one of very few with this luxury)..I’m supposedly in a “third year” room” with my own couch, armchair, coffee table, dresser and huge oak table in addition to the typical bed, desk, wardrobe, dresser. Some people are sleeping in closets with beds and dressers…..They are called “Staircases” rather than dorms. So I live in “Staircase 3”….which is a 4 floor sprial staircase with about 4 rooms per floor and I’m on the ground floor with my window looking out onto Broad St. of Oxford (rather than having my window face in towards the gardens. But people live in Staircases 1-20…so we’re all really dispersed but everything’s so close at the same time. And every room is sooo different. Meg has 2 rooms (in Staircase 3 with me)! 1 with her bed and dresser, and another down the hall with her desk and shelves. Mike Kelly is in a regular room in Staircase 15 where a lot of students reside.
There is one girl here, Caitlin, who is a year round student at Balliol but is also doing the BADA program, so she has been great in taking us around and showing us the area and places to eat and drink.
I had my placement audition yesterday where we all had to redo our Shakespearean monologues, and it went really well. I find out what group I’m in this afternoon. Classes start tomorrow and one of my masterclasses is going to be with Fiona Shaw!
And pounds are way more fun than dollars. I like having different sized, colorful bills and coins for 1 and 2 pounds.
My hostel on the first night was very funky - reminded me of the Hot L Baltimore with a misfit bunch of characters passing through life…but instead of prostitutes there were vegan hipsters with cut-off jean shorts and 7 year old flip flops.
The flight over was decent….tried desperately to sleep but got MAYBE 2 hours….I am all caught up now though.
No WiFi in my dorm, but there are internet cafes all over Oxford, you have to pay for most of them (1 pound an hour usually) but my friend Casey and I found that you can get a Starbucks giftcard for 5 pounds and sign up for unlimited Free WiFi in any Starbucks in the UK….and Starbucks is right down the street so that is very convenient.
I’ve spent a lot of money in these first three days, but I feel that it was all stuff that I NEEDED to buy in order to get settled in, and once they start providing meals for us tomorrow my finances will be much more balanced. I got a pay as you go phone for a grand total of 30 pounds, so hopefully that will last me the month and I won’t need to add more money to it.
It is also incredibly awkward introducing myself as “Mike Litchfield or just Litch”…but the nickname is catching on.
***Sorry these thoughts are so random, just writing them as I think of them…No order at all.
