Lifestyles of the Euro and Famous

Y’all already know that I am neither European nor famous, but this week I certainly felt like I was! So much has happened since the last time I wrote that I should warn you that this will be a longer than normal entry… and we all know that brevity never was my strong suit.

So let’s see; back to last Wednesday. In the morning, I had my first Mandarin class of the term. Due to a strange (and in my opinion, pretty silly) bylaw in my program, we don't have any access to language instruction. I therefore had to go through the Oxford Language Center to set up classes, and had the choice between what's called an OPAL course, which is super intense and includes tests and attendance requirements, and a LASR (pronounced laser) course, which meets once a week for two hours and is much more focused on maintaining proficiency. Since I'm still trying to find my way here and the LASR course was literally 1/5 the price of OPAL, it was pretty much a no-brainer, but I made sure I signed up for the highest level to challenge myself. However, I was still second-guessing my choice of the "Advanced" level when I was biking to class that day. 

Luckily, not only was the class not far over my head, but I towered over it the same way I normally do when I wear heels at cocktail parties. Everyone in my class (about 15 students total) thought that the "advanced" needed to advance a bit, so I'm confident that our teacher will allow us to move ahead a little farther, but it was a nice ego boost at the same time to already recognize all of the characters in the text, when I'm used to floundering around and having to study literally every day to stay ahead of those blasted pictographs. And I was surprised at how nice it was to actually be able to speak Mandarin again, beyond the usual pleasantries and restaurant lingo that I can use when interacting with Chinese people I meet in the course of normal business and can badger into allowing me to practice a bit. 

After class, I headed to Rhodes House to study for a few hours and print off my tickets for my big Belgian weekend. Not only is the House gorgeous and historic; it also has a basement full of free tea and coffee, comfy chairs, and the rare commodity of free printing. However, I only got a few articles read before I had to jump back on my bike to head across the city to the New Oxford Theatre. 

Oxford attract some of the best traveling shows and performers in the UK, and the understanding that it's a university town means that it's possible to get dirt cheap tickets to some awesome shows. There were about 8 Rhodies who'd purchased 12 quid tickets to see the Off Broadway version of "Westside Story", a play I hadn't seen since I was a child and my theater professor aunt directed a production in Georgia. We had seats in literally the back row of the entire theater and joked about the huge number of steps we had to scale to get up there, but the view of the stage wasn't actually too shabby when we finally found our places:

And the show was amazing. The singing was good, and the choreography had a lot of ballet influence, so it was beautiful. It was almost three hours, but the time seemed to fly by…which then meant I had to do a double-take at my watch when I realized that I needed to run back to my dorm and change before my next event.

Brasenose does something called a "Blurb" for its graduates once a month. I have no idea why that name was chosen (and a cursory Google search suggests it was random and not Latin like "subfusc"), but basically what happens is wine and appetizers as a guest speaker talks about his or her research, and then a formal dinner where the chef gets to cook whatever the heck they want (and there's more wine). The speaker was a noted environmental activist in the UK who argued the merits of "re-wilding"; that is, allowing large tracts of land like national parks to be turned back over to the way they would be without human intervention and reintroducing "megatrophs" like wolves and whales back into the environments. Although I found his argument a tad circular --why should we meddle with the environment in order to stop meddling with the environment?-- he was a good speaker, and did tell some interesting tales about the days when elephants, lions, and hippopotami used to roam the woods of England. Even if he had been a boring old windbag, however, it would've been worth it for the food. There was an appetizer of grilled sea bass risotto, a main course of eggplant casserole and potatoes (and duck for non-pescatarians), and chocolate pie with pistachios for dessert. By the time my flatmates and I left, I was worried I'd have to roll myself home!

The next two days were unremarkable except for the massive amount of reading I did to prepare to leave Oxford and its restrictive libraries for an entire weekend. But on Friday, we had our Rhodes "Coming Up Dinner", aka an excuse to get dressed to the nines and once again go eat delicious food and try expensive wine for free. Although there was somewhat of a flutter among the Rhodes ladies about whether short or long dresses were appropriate, I'd already made up my mind to wear a long dress, because I a) so seldom get the opportunity to do so and b)get super excited whenever I find a dress that's actually floor length on me. Plus, there's something about dressing up that triggers a sort of regression to princess fantasies from being a little girl that I firmly believe most women experience. So I spent time doing my hair and makeup and picking out jewelry and shoes to match my dress and still be comfortable, which is no easy feat. Luckily for me, I wasn't holding Joe up; one thing I have learned while dating an Army guy is that putting on a dress uniform is a long and complex process, so I was ready only a few minutes after him and early enough to force him to (reluctantly) take a junior high prom style picture before we walked across the city to Rhodes House.

We walked into a cocktail hour in full swing, and had plenty of time before we were seated to enjoy champagne and conversation and marvel over how nice everyone looked all spiffied up. With the exception of our sendoff weekend in DC, all of us have only seen each other in normal graduate student attire, usually layered under plenty of heavy clothes to ward off the British chill. So there were a few of my friends (mostly the guys) who I almost didn't recognize in their finery. It was an awesome photo opportunity though! There are many more pictures on Facebook, but I did want to include one of my favorites from the night, with some of my closest girlfriends here: 

From left to right is Rachel (who is also teaching me American Sign Language!), Kiley (my fellow District 12 nominee), and Jenny (probably the person who reminds me most of Reagan, my best friend from home). 

We weren't seated to dinner until after 8, and between the three courses, the speaker who addressed us, and the port and cheese that followed dessert, it was almost midnight by the time we ventured back out into the cool air. Although I was already doing mental math and realizing that getting out of bed at 5 am was going to be more than unpleasant, I agreed to go dancing in full black tie with some friends, because honestly, how often am I going to have that opportunity again? 

Somehow, however, the "carpe diem" argument didn't carry as much weight when I was jolted out of bed after three hours of sleep to walk through the rain to the bus station. Although Brussels isn't actually that far from Oxford in an objective sense, getting there in reality actually requires a bus, a subway, and two train rides. Luckily, I was tired enough to sleep the entire 90 minutes to London, wake up to navigate to the train station and eat breakfast, and then pass back out for the entire two hour trip through the Chunnel to Brussels. 

Everything had been going smoothly to that point, and I was on track to meet my dad at his hotel in Ghent by 1 pm as planned. Unfortunately, there was some sort of track outage between Brussels and Ghent (I think there was some type of fire, but my French isn't good enough to tell exactly and my Dutch is nonexistent), and my train was delayed a full hour. As Murphy's Law would have it, my UK phone wouldn't send emails, texts, or call, and there was absolutely no free wifi in the vicinity of the train station, so I couldn't get in touch with my dad to say I'd be over an hour late. I spent a large part of the train ride --when I finally got on it-- just praying that he wouldn't have had called the police when I finally showed up to the lobby. 

But finally show up I did, and send out a search party he had not, so I dropped my things off in the gorgeous hotel where his company gets a corporate rate, and we headed to lunch at around 2:30. We walked down to the main historic harbor area of Ghent, which has now been mostly converted into nice cafes, restaurants, and hotels. Most people don't realize that Ghent (or Gent in Dutch or Gand in French) was once the second largest city in Northern Europe after Paris, and the center of a huge textile and manufacturing empire stretching across most of what is now Belgium and part of the Netherlands and Germany. So the waterfront area is full of history and is well restored, except for the plethora of European hipsters that sit around and do silly modern things like play guitar:

After a delicious meal of pasta and coffee (always an appropriate combination in my opinion), my dad and I decided to take a boat tour around the canals of the city. I was amazed by our tour guide's ability to switch easily among Dutch, German, French, and English accounts of the various buildings and general history of the city, and a stolen glance at some of the signs suggested he could've done Spanish and Portuguese as well. I took some amazing pictures (again, see Facebook, because I can't load them all on here), but my favorite part of the tour was the explanation of the many churches in Ghent, which used to be sponsored by each of the craftsman's guild. In true Belgian form, one of the largest and most central had been built by the Brewmaster's Guild, and I dragged my dad to see it afterward. Although he swears up and down that every European cathedral is the same, I absolutely love going into old churches. I think that each one is unique, and there's both so much history and such serenity that it always makes me happy to walk around and explore. This particular church had some of the best stained glass I'd seen in some time, and the late afternoon light made it perfect for pictures:

Once I'd had my fill and my father had enjoyed his rest on a back pew, we headed back to the hotel to meet one of his colleagues, an ex-pat American who'd been living in Ghent for almost a year. He obviously loves Belgium and yet still has strong connections back to the Carolinas, so it was great to meet him and hear about his experiences. After sampling a few Belgian beers - including one that was the strangest and most delicious complex flavor combination I've had in quite some time - we let him get back to his family and dogs and struck out to try a restaurant he'd recommended that was a short walk from the hotel. Along the way, we walked past the canal at night, and I got what may be my favorite picture of all from Ghent:

At dinner, my aversion to Dutch got the best of me. Don't get me wrong; I love languages, and can normally get around fairly proficiently in countries where German or a Romance language is prevalent. But something about guttural, consonant-ridden, and complex Dutch never ceases to baffle me, and so I just blindly ordered a salad that said "Casar" on the completely Dutch menu, without realizing that it had chicken on top. Now, I've been in the process of going pescatarian for about a year now, and although I used to still eat the occasional piece of poultry, I haven't had chicken since probably August, so I knew that eating that volume of chicken would give me a terrible stomachache. Although my dad ate part of it and I sampled a few bits, I still felt bad when the woman came back to find the majority of the little cubes stacked neatly in the middle of my empty bowl. I couldn't even explain to her that it truly was delicious, and I just couldn't eat it! Anyway, we eventually headed back to the hotel to FaceTime my mom, and then I was more than happy to collapse into bed. 

The time changed overnight, and my dad would tease me if I didn't admit on here that I thought I'd set my alarm for the correct time and yet still overslept. When he did come knock on my door, I threw on some real clothes as quickly as possible, and made my way downstairs for the delicious breakfast buffet. Nice hotels in Europe tend to have an amazing selection of everything you could possibly want for breakfast, from fruit and pastries to bread and cheese and eggs and pancakes, so we tucked in and enjoyed some coffee before checking me out of the hotel and hopping on a train to Bruges.

Bruges, or Brugge in Dutch, is like the bigger and more famous brother of Ghent. Made famous partially by a movie with Colin Farrell about an assassin hiding out after botching a job, there are a huge number of tourists who visit its slightly grander central square and equally gorgeous churches. It was looking like rain when we arrived, so we walked a cursory lap around the beautiful "centrum", which features all of the flags of the city:

before taking refuge (and another cup of coffee) in a cafe on the canals that also criss-cross that city. After our great experience with the boat tour the day before, we decided that another canal visit was in order, and hopped in line for another trip around the old parts of Bruges. Unfortunately, the skies opened back up halfway through our 40 minute tour, and people in our boat were forced to resort to huddling under umbrellas, maps, and in one notable case, more nontraditional means of staying dry:

There were even earholes! I didn't get as many pictures of Bruges as I did of Ghent, since I was worried about the safety of my camera in the wet weather, but the churches and historic facades of the buildings were just as beautiful as we'd seen the day before: 

When we'd finally made it back on dry land and under the cover of awnings, I was on the lookout for art. I'm not much of a collector, but one thing I always buy when I travel is some sort of local art to remember the journey by. I don't really have a theme; I just try to find something I like and that isn't something I could buy a print of at a Hobby Lobby back in the States. Luckily, I found a street vendor with beautiful pencil sketches of Bruges's skyline and a jaunty handlebar mustache to boot! The whole cold rain bit was starting to grind on our nerves after that, so my dad and I sought refuge once again in a small place that smelled wonderfully of waffles. Although not all Belgian waffles come with the strawberries and whipped cream like Americans always assume, they are made of thicker dough and coated in sugar that caramelizes in the waffle iron, so it's nothing short of delicious. We also used the opportunity to browse for the famous Belgian chocolate, and stroll through a few free museums. Oh, and take some adorable daddy-daughter pictures:

After all of that, it was time to head back to the train station to start the long journey home. I stopped and had a snack with my dad before tracing my steps back to Brussels, switching to Eurostar in London, taking the Tube to the bus station (which is surprisingly difficult to find when it's dark and rainy and your brain was sleep-addled the only other time you've been there) and then walking back to my room in Oxford.

After all was said and done, I'd only been out of town for about 40 hours, but I felt like I'd stuffed an entire week of activities into that time. Although I've only been away from home for about a month, it's always nice to see family, and catching up with my dad while simultaneously traveling around two gorgeous cities was a winning combination.

Now, I've got to buckle back down and write the paper I'm actually supposed to be composing instead of this blog. Somehow, writing about China's ideological reasons for entering the Korean War aren't nearly exciting as reliving waffles, chocolate, and beer, but then again, I'm a student-traveler, not a traveler-student. As they say in Dutch, "welterusten"! At least, that's what Google says "good night" is. God knows I still can't begin to comprehend Dutch.