A Trout's Tale...

Oxford is truly a beautiful city. Every day as a I walk through it my eyes are drawn to the tall towers, spires, and church steeples which reach toward the sky.

The things you only do in another country...walk at least three hours every day, drink tea at the end and possibly the beginning of every social gathering, event, and conversation, trudge through muddy fields for hours for a meal...

This morning began with an orientation session for an hour followed by none other than a 30 minute tea break, at which point orientation continued for another hour and a half. From there it was lunch(tea), the completion of the orientation, and once again, afternoon tea. The British sure do like tea breaks! I don't know if it is the American mindset or not, but I do believe I could get a lot done with all of the tea break times that are taken in a day. However, the slower pace of business is quite a relaxing break. After tea in the afternoon, our group decided to go to a pub at the recommendation of our junior dean. We set out from Crick Road, about a 45 minute walk from our dormitory, The Vines. Little did we know the adventure we were in for. It gets dark in Oxford around 4:30, so at 5:00 we started off for the pub, The Trout, at dark. We walked through the edge of town for quite a distance and found ourselves at the edge of a cattle field. The junior dean continued on through the field to a river, the Thames. Trudging along in the dark for the next hour and 10 minutes we wandered our way through the fields and extremely muddy paths (for it drizzles nearly every day) that bordered the river to somewhere that we had no idea was located. To keep from becoming extremely frustrated, the only practical thing to do was laugh and enjoy the journey! In the middle of abosolutely nowhere and now at least 2 hours walk from our dorm I was beginning to wonder where this pub was... just maybe up the muddy trail a bit more--
The Trout was a very authentic and rustic English pub. It is set right on the Thames River which would make for some smashing outdoor dining when the weather warms. It really is set back in the country a bit, so I'm not sure if I will get there again. After dinner as our table was deciding on dinner and discussing important matters like the three universal things that women desire the most in the world as reflected in the lives of the Disney Princesses, all of the lights of the Trout went out and we were left in darkness. As we saw waiters running around with cell phones it was determined that the whole area lost power. From there we headed to the bus station (thank God for the bus!) and made our way back to city center, where it was only a 45 minute walk (on streets) to our dorm. What a trip!