bobbies without guns

British word of the day: tea towels - a towel used for drying off dishes, not decorative but not to be soiled with wiping up messes (America's dish towel)

Today was a good day. I have a feeling there will be a good amount of these sorts of days. It was still a bit cold, but I woke up at 7:30, and upon noticing my roommates still fast asleep, decided to sleep in until a very luxurious and unusual 8:00. I began a few postcards, and drank some more tea.

I ate my first digestive biscuits today--they are cookies that aid in digestion that have one side dipped in chocolate (which, in turn, makes them slightly more appealing than just calling them "digestives") Unfortunately, I find myself eating nearly anything that is dipped in chocolate. This isn't the worst thing I've eaten after getting here. Much better than mince pie:

We went for a jaunt about Oxford this afternoon, and it was fun to see things, and actually recognize them from my trip to Oxford during the Beatles interim in England. Surprisingly, I arrived exactly one year later in the UK than I did last year--the immigrations officer was extremely confused as to why I had a stamp from Heathrow with exactly the same date. She excused her mistake with her forgetfulness of the new year--I told her that I still had trouble that I was remembering it was 2009 instead of 2008. I do like writing 8's so much better than 9's. An unfortunate year change (as far as writing numbers goes.)

Today I saw the covered market, which is one of my favourite places here--there's a coffee shop that I was told about that has a really cutesy, girly name, with pink and purple things everywhere. (I may be in line for the next Queen of Ambiguousness--splendid.) And now I've forgotten who told me the place--I'll have to ask around because my memory seems to fail me so often. I'll find it sometime.

I also saw St. Mary Magdalene's church; it's beautiful and apparently they have a modern praise and worship. Not exactly what I'm looking for. And tomorrow, I believe I'm going to the 8 AM service at St. Andrew's. I've heard it's fairly popular with the students at SCIO, but I'm going to try to find a smaller church later on and get to know the people there really well, and let them get to know me, and recognize my face when I come in. But the preaching must be interesting, good, and quite anecdotal. It will be a "Rog" stand-in, I guess.

Saw a Starbucks today. Disappointed. Although, the Brits do have both Costa Coffee and Caffe Nero, both chains, and not much different. No strange creature for the logo, though.

We start our term the week after next; until then, it's orientation, orientation, orientation.

Until tomorrow (I hope), cheers!