Arrival

Multi-hour flights that start on one day and end on the next day are not my idea of entertainment. William Gibson suggests in Pattern Recognition that jet-lag is caused because your body travels too fast for your mortal soul to keep up, so you have to wait for it like lost luggage. I'm inclined to agree with his description. On the other hand, the bus ride from Heathrow to Oxford was certainly exciting; the driver felt it necessary to point out with flashing lights, bleating horn and finger gestures exactly which cars were going too slow on the M40.

The Oxbridge Program was kind enough to put us in dorms on the Mansfield college campus, which gives us a sense of history and a nice view.



It's also convenient, if a little quirky. Here's a picture of my door.



Seriously. I am staying in the Coco Lounge. I feel like I'm in a Barry Manilow song.

The weather greeted me with pleasantly cool and breezy temperatures, but topped everything with rain--welcome to England. I won't complain since I'm not sweating. The first item on our agenda was a garden party, but the rain forced everyone indoors. I managed to get a tour of the garden before the rain got too bad.



I was told there was supposed to have been a bouncy castle in the middle of that garden, but it was shut down by the local authorities due to safety issues with the rain. I'm not sure if I believe that or not. In any case, our garden party took place in what looked like a medieval mead hall, complete with timber beamed ceilings. I half expected knights in armor to come in singing about Camelot.



Tomorrow our study group begins.