Blenheim Palace

We had a picnic at Blenheim Palace one Sunday and walked the gardens. The palace is the birth place of Winston Churchill. We didn't go inside for the tour but just walking the grounds was pretty impressive.

The night before we saw Romeo and Juliet at the Said School of business (Oxford). It took place in an outdoor amphitheater. It was a great show really enjoyed it but unfortunately couldn't take any pics during the play.

All these churches are starting to look the same

We took a trip to London to do a tour of the Parliament (kinda like the Capital in the US - leg shop vs schedulers). We also ran into Westminster Abbey and some other cool things in London.

The statue is of Oliver Cromwell, led the glorious revolution, changed the dynamic between parliament and the monarch giving parliament the superior authority over the monarch. He was buried in Westminster Abbey but after the monarch took over again he was dug up,hanged and decapitated. Pretty crazy stuff. (may or may not be exactly historically accurate)

There is a bell inside the red lion pub because it is such a popular spot among the members of parliament (MEP) that whenever a bill needs to be voted on there is a bell that rings giving the MEPs enough time to return to the house of Parliament to vote (people in the UK drink just as much as americans - TRUE).

My best friends wedding

The only condition when I applied for this summer program at Oxford was that I would be able to carry out my bridesmaid's duty at Alex's wedding. A weekend flight from London to Seattle was a lengthy trip but WELL WORTH IT! All the pre-wedding activities like the night at her beach house (kayaking), the rehersal dinner, getting ready, pictures in seattle etc. were so great. Im glad I was able share this day with Alex and Doug. For the first draft of the slide show from the real photographer check out.... http://www.sarahrhoads.com/darkroom/share/?n=Alex_Doug_Wedding. Bridesmaid speech went pretty well...i think? right alex? But pretty glad that is not on video :) Ill update more about my last two weeks in Oxford/London soon!

Bath time

Last weekend we went to Bath to see the old Roman baths from 2000 years ago. Crazy. The place was pretty cool but they also made half of it into a museum so it felt a little fake. The lining in the baths is supposedly the original and still intact. The one picture inside is a wishing well or tourist made it into one. I made a wish but no way im going to tell you what it was....

After the baths we went to a pub to put a few back and do some people watching. Some amazing local hair-dos....

Sorry if this post doesnt make any sense. Its been a crazy weekend this weekend. Im at the airport in Chicago now. I left Seattle at 4am this morning after Alex's wedding (got back to the hotel this morning at 2am). Wedding was so great though and well worth the trip. Ill put up some pics of the wedding soon....

Punting Oxford

Ok, so i lied, this week we did take an hour long break from our studies to go punting in Oxford. I don't want to brag but I was one of the best punters around...

FYI: A punt is a flat-bottomed boat with a square-cut bow, designed for use in small rivers or other shallow water. The punter generally propels the punt by pushing against the river bed with a pole. A punt should not be confused with a gondola, which is propelled by an oar. Punts were originally built as cargo boats or platforms for fowling and angling, but in modern times their use is almost exclusively confined to pleasure trips. Yes, my research skills at work here....Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia,(July 22, 2010).

Londontown

Last Saturday we traveled into London! We met up with Marla's friend, Danny (not pictured), and he walked us around all the hot spots of London tourism. It was strange coming from the suburbs (Oxford) to the big city - haha everything felt so crowded! Our first stop was Regent Street where we did a little window shopping (definitely could not afford to buy anything with the pound equalling about 1.6 dollars). We stopped at a bar called the Living Room and they had the best bloody marys of our lives...made with basil and a bunch of other secret ingredients. AMAZING! Next we stopped at the famous Trafalgar Square. You can barely tell since most of the pillar is out of the picture but you get the idea.

I took a picture of the taxi only because it reminded me of being 17 in London with my field hockey team. On the last night of our Eurotour we snuck out to the clubs in a taxi just like this. Jess - wasn't that a blast! ....Oh and Mom - we took every safety precaution possible back then i promise :)

The last is our friend Mike mingling (showing off his muscles) to a local brit. She actually had all her teeth, imagine that! A great night in London for sure. We had our fun saturday and then it was back to the grind. This week has been loads of research, multiple papers, harry potter lunches, and formal high table dinners...Until the next weekend...

Adventures of a giant in a tiny car factory

Last week we went to go visit the Mini Cooper plant in Oxford. Its the only one that exists in the world. They can produce 950 cars per day, finishing one about every 66 seconds. It is an extremely customized system which makes it even more impressive. No car is made until a specific order has been placed and they all are produced on the same line. A convertible could be produced right in front of an extended cab model with steering wheels on different sides depending what country the car is going to. They run at about 85% efficiency on all their machines, which if you were in business school you would know was pretty good. There were crazy robots everywhere, the company went from around 26,000 employees to about 3,000 after the investment in 650 robots. The robots were shooting sparks everywhere but Terry, our tour guide, told us they wouldnt hurt anyone. Scary that they can replace humans on a scale that large!

The plant was super top secret so these are the only pictures i could obtain.....

All in a day's work...

This week Ive spent most of my time in the first picture. The work load is pretty intense with four classes each requiring a ton of reading and 3000 word papers weekly...but I'm enjoying the material so its not bad.

Every Wednesday night we have a formal high table dinner at Trinity College with the Georgetown undergrads who are also here for the summer. The gardens, lawns, and buildings at Trinity are gorgeous and its where the undergrads get to stay. So not fair. Apparently we all used to stay there but something happened (that they wouldnt share with us) and now we stay in separate locations...I can only imagine what it was.

After dinner we went to the Trinity College pub in the cellar and then hit the town pubs where our friends got down to business so to speak on the dance floor. (Jess - the last pic is for you since you said my blog was too PG...enjoy)

A walk to the Trout...

Sunday it was absolutely gorgeous here! We took a 5 mile walk to the Trout Inn for lunch and some liquid refreshments. The walk took us through town, through the meadows, and along the Thames river. The Trout is a 17th century freehouse, where C.S. Lewis and Lewis Carroll did a lot of their early writing. Everything here has some history.

After the Trout we wondered around the countryside and found a local pub to watch the world cup. This place was real local (thick accents, teeth missing) but the owners were great and begged us to come back soon. What can I say, Americans win games. Luckily, we managed to stay out of trouble (somewhat) on this Sunday Funday...

COLLEEGEE

There are 38 colleges within Oxford. We are a part of Corpus Christi college, where students mainly focus on the Classics. Every college has a cathedral and operates under their own internal structure. Below is the Pelican sundial in our college's courtyard. Something like 30 different sundials on it that can tell you time, date, holidays etc...no idea how to read it. Our dinning hall is next, where we eat lunch everyday. A three course served meal, we are very spoiled. We had an etiquette lunch the other day and learned how to not embarrass ourselves at fancy meals. They served a full trout, head and tail. I was a little shocked when that was put in front of me but I ate it with nothing but class.

The last two pictures are of christ church college which is right by us. The big meadow is where I run daily (or try to). It goes further back and there are paths along the the Thames river....really pretty.

In the shire...

Finally...a blog, as i promised. The title of the blog is in reference to Alice in Wonderland (blog "Laura in wonderland" was already taken). It is said that in the 1860's Reverend Lutwidge Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) was looking out the window of Christ Church College when he saw Alice Liddell, a girl always looking for adventure, jump out of a tree to chase a rabbit through the garden...and so alice in wonderland was born. The tree still remains in the Christ Church Garden.

Anyway, I arrived in Oxford a week ago today and I'm just now adjusting to the time change and getting regular nights sleep in my twin sized dorm bed. We are staying at Liddell, a graduate housing facility just outside the city center of Oxford. The first few nights we were here we checked out the local pubs and practiced our british accent (which we were told it sounds like its from east britian i.e. working class...were still working on perfecting it).

The first picture below is champagne hour (12 noon) at the president's home before lunch. They even had pet turtles/terapins in the garden...go terps! For the 4th of July we celebrated as any good american would by attending the Cowley Street fair, playing croquet, bbq'ing, and watching the movie Team America. Oddly enough they dont sell fireworks for the 4th here. And they have phoenix ale so I had to cheers a phoenix to my nefew phoenix!

Course work started Monday. I really enjoy the tutorial style of teaching - so much more engaging. The next 3 weeks will be tough with multiple papers due each week and hundred of pages of reading but looking forward to working with my professors. My classes are - Multi-channel marketing, social finance, business-state relations and international political risk, and negotiations.

Its been a busy week so far but ill try to get some better pics to give you the full sense of my experience here....its somewhat harry potter-ish if you can imagine.