Day 2: 31 Aug 2007

31/8/07

Turns out I slept. I finally got into my room around 3 and fell asleep until midnight, but then I knew I’d be screwed if I didn’t sleep on through so I took three Benadryl and slept until 8:00am (2am). I got up, ate a large breakfast at the hostel, grabbed my luggage and made my way 100 feet to the train station. That’s right, the train station was right behind my Hostel, so you can imagine what it was like with trains coming through every half hour, all through the night. Also, we had someone in our room that snored with amazing clarity and strength. He really annoyed the 5 of us that were also in the room. Myself and another American, One Chinaman, One German, and One Brit. A fun time. We never got the nationality of our snorer.

Anyway, after the walk to the train station, I hopped in a cab which drove me out of the city to my home for the next three months, The Vines on Pullens Lane. It’s a beautiful house, with an amazing property. It is really glorious to be a part of. My room is in the farthest corner of the house and is a little niche, appropriately called, “The closet.” Its about 10 feet by 10 feet with an 8 foot ceiling for half of it while the other half begin the slope of the roof. It’s perfect! There is also a single window that might be about 1ft wide and 2ft long. I’ll show pictures later. One fear is that it may get quite cold in the winter. The nice thing is, my room attaches to another room which is quite a bit larger and has three people living in it. I have the ability to open it up and connect with people or close the door and have a room to myself. The house is very much a dorm style, but it could be described as a frat house with big kitchens and living areas, but also dorm style rooms. It should be a lot of fun.

Everyone has been showing up throughout the day and I’ve been having fun meeting people. They are all extremely intelligent, and quick witted. However, some are trying to prove themselves so much that I’ve found a nice place for myself just being laidback without much to prove. It turns out that around 40 of us are living here and then others are in another residence on the other side of town. There are some really great people, that I’m sure I’ll enjoy, and then there are a few that I might be thankful that I have a room to myself in order to escape to. Since I’ve begun settling in I haven’t had much time to think about being lonely, which is nice. I’m sure it will hit later, and the annoying thing is certainly the time difference. Oh well. It’s only about 2:00pm (8am) and there is a lot more to the day to be had, so I’ll have more later.

Around 4:30pm (10am) the whole group of us, 41 in all) met for our first meal together. We have all been working hard to learn names and faces, schools and majors. Its been a daunting task and is far from over. I’m living in the closet attached to the room of three guys on the top floor. Bryce, Jeff, and Andrew, all seem to be fairly cool guys in their own ways, however I feel bad that I’ll consistently be going through their room for anything and everything. All these people are incredible and so intelligent however what I lack in brains I think I make up for in age and maturity. Its been nice just sitting and listening to people talk about theology and feel comfortable in my position but not have to prove anything.

We sat and ate and talked until about 5 when we got our first instance of orientation mostly to just living together in the house. Afterwards a large group of us decided to take our first walk into the city. Downtown in Oxford about a 30 minute walk is a small pub down an alley where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien used to sit and talk with fellow writers. The were originally 14 or 15 of us that set out and while we all eventually arrived at the Eagle and Child, at the end there were only seven of us remaining. We seven discussed all sorts of topics like early church history, scripture, and the emergent church movement as well as the issue of being a Christian that drinks. There is one gal from a very conservative position, Ashley. I personally avoided the topic like I personally avoid drinking but can’t defend my position from a scriptural perspective. None-the-less it was amusing watching the issue debated while one side sipped on Guinness. In the end, I thought that both sides were poorly argued, although in the end they at least agreed that drunkenness was too far. Interesting.

About two hours later after much laughing and discussion we left the pub and tried to take a new path home experiencing more of the thousand year old city as we went. Although we got lost a few times we did eventually make it home. A wonderful time, a superb memory and great new friends, Joe, Michael, Ashley, Sarah, Kait, and Elaine.

Everyone here is pretty jet lagged save me and another guy who has been in country for a week. So as I’m writing this it is only 11:00pm (5pm). And we have nothing until 2:00pm tomorrow, but everyone in the house is getting ready if not already in bed. It should be a good first night in my upstairs apartment.

cheers.

Day 1: 30 Aug 2007

I’ve finally arrived in Oxford. I flew out of Wichita yesterday at 2:20pm Central time. Amazingly, the flight to Chicago goes North and turns North East right over Hillsboro, so it was a very poetic moment for me since we dipped the wing just in time to look down and see Tabor from God’s Eye View. Really sweet. Landed in Chicago around 4:05pm, and then sat uncomfortably in O’Hare while everyone boarded United Flight 928 to London, Heathrow. Finally they started calling those people who were flying standby such as myself. I was really nervous as they called several names, not hearing my own. I thought I might not make the flight, but finally they got around to the “Vs”. I flew business class for 6:56:09 to finally land in London this morning at 7:45am Greenwich time… which translates to 1:45am back home. Then I took an hour to get through customs and grab my luggage which actually made it to London, I was a little worried about the whole thing. Then I walked around for quite awhile but actually found the bus station with ease and just as I walked out the airport the Oxford bus pulled into the station. So I didn’t have to wait at all. An hour and ten minutes later I was in downtown Oxford. All I had to do from there was find St George street and follow that to Hythe Bridge Street, under the railway and then find the next youth hostel on my right to be at my home for the night. However, this is the point where my seamless perfect luck in travel fell through. I found a map of the area, but instead of being based on north being towards the top of the map it was based on orientation, so I walked south instead of north. I walked about a mile looking for the streets I needed only to find another map that told me the true layout of Oxford. So by the time I got to my Hostel at 11:45am (5:45am central) I was pretty exhausted having covered about 3 miles. Oh and once I got into the hostel I realized that my suitcase had been dragging for quite awhile, rubbing one wheel to the rim. I wonder how long it had been doing that. Then I was not allowed in my room until 2:30pm and to make things worse finally once I could lay down, the hostel had a fire-drill. So I had to get up and leave again. However, all that aside, it will be easy to sleep tonight, and tomorrow I move into my new home for the next 4 months. I’ve also made a new friend here at the hostel, a young German named Nickolaus who runs the 200 and 400, we’ve spent part of the day watching track on BBC 2. We’ll see what else happens today, as of yet I haven’t eaten or slept, but I’m not too hungry.

I’m not too lonely yet. But I miss mom, dad, Shelby, Tabor, the guys, ect. I imagine this will get worse before it gets better. But it has defiantly gotten easier since I’m finally here and can sit down. I’m also nervous about the program. We’ll see.