Barbour Blenheims

Last exam= finished! So I calculated that I could study 3/9 essays and two of them would be on the test. Wrong. Everything worked out fine though! Scribbled out an essay on separation of powers in England from whatever I could remember and now I'm done with it! Even though I only took 1/2 of a 5 hour energy, those calculations also do not equal 2.5 hours of energy. Even after 2 hours I was still cracked out so I came back to the room after my test and packed up everything. I can't believe I brought so much stuff! And Ellie is going to be a VERY happy girl when I get home because she is getting lots and lots of goodies. Kathryn called me with an emergency today- she found quilted Barbour jackets for Elle and Mr. Darcy- they are going to look so cute and British! Off to donate my ridiculously expensive hair dryer and straightener from Boots to future SMU Oxford students and then Kathryn planned a large group dinner at- surprise, surprise- Jaime's! So excited!

90 High Street

This week has been all about exams. We had class Monday and a "review session" Tuesday. This "review session" consisted of 2 hours of going around the room debating whether law students should use laptops in class. Do you handwrite your notes? What about laptops for exams? Oh, actually, the first hour was spent going around the table and each telling the professor a question that we would put on the exam- while he took notes. Not that I'm calling the guy a liar, but I didn't really think he had the exam prepared. Needless to say, I left feeling completely unprepared. Even moreso than I was during- as evidenced by that fact that I got called on to answer the question "when is it wrong to breach?" and just simply refused to answer because I was too tired to think. (It was ok in the end because the exam question ended up being very similar to mine). Monday night was spent crunching out a paper on human rights for tutorial- I didn't think I had one more in me but actually managed to put out a decent work product. Our final tutorial Tuesday was such a relief!

We had our final formal high table dinner Tuesday night honoring all of the tutorial professors and the staff that has attended to us during our stay. Each tutorial group had to come up with a poem for their professor- which sounded pretty terrible to me- but our group actually came up with a funny anagram definitely had the best presentation. After dinner, we grabbed beers in the college pub with the whole group which was really fun. Of course, Professor Winship and Professor Lischer got penced, and Lischer even ended up getting Drew! I left a little early because I didn't want to be hungover for reading day but the rest of the group ended up at the King's Arms and had a pretty fun night.

I spent Wednesday compiling the most massive 70 page outline for contracts (a collective effort my the class, not just by myself!) and attempting to cram everything about English, French, and German contracts that my little brain could fit. Which actually ended up in watching Gossip Girl re-runs to try to calm myself down about the massive amount of material and hoping that the exam would consist of multiple choice questions related to ice-breaker answers.

Even though I was planning on getting up at 6AM this morning to study, I'm my own worst enemy and turned off my alarm clock but got up at 8 just in time to grab coffee and review before heading to the exam. The group is split into 2 classes: some taking income tax and some taking contracts. And considering that contracts was completely open note and I could take in my school project of an outline and that the income tax students could only have their code book and a calculator- I was surprisingly ok with the idea of a 3 hour hand-written essay exam. Anything to avoid codes and calculators. Especially with Bob next to me muttering "shit" every couple of minutes. I don't think I'm cut out for income tax. Also, I don't think I have ever written that fast before. Actually, I think it was to my own advantage that I thought the test was supposed to end 30 minutes before it actually did since I rushed to put everything in and had enough time to review and write a conclusion. Anyway, exam went well. Got to nap after and study for my tutorial exam tomorrow- 2 hours hand-written on the English legal system, closed book. Not really looking forward to it but VERY happy to have this one out of the way!

CHEERS! British Beerfest & Blenheim Palace

College Pub after High Table with some of the girls and our guest speaker Kevin

So, because tutorial were on Tuesday this week, I turned in my 10 page paper and then headed straight to High Table where apparently I celebrated a little too much! After the college pub and a Persian club in business attire, Kathryn had to pull me out of bed late for class on Wednesday. Wednesday night was chill- walked with the girls to the Bear pub for bbq and Wagamama for dinner Thursday.

After some hardcore resting for 2 days, I headed to London Friday to meet up with Cathy and Kara! I was planning to do a tour of the Cotswolds with the girls on Saturday, but unfortunately they could only book for Friday so I had to miss out :( But I hopped on the bus to London and walked straight to Harrod's from Victoria. I've been to Harrod's before but forgot how much I love it! Their Hermes tie selection is ridiculous. Why am I impressed by things like this? Anyway, got to eat sushi and grab a glass of wine at the bar and after wandering around shopping for awhile found out they had an entire "pet kingdom" floor dedicated to Ellie so I had a field day. I finally got in touch with Kara and grabbed a taxi to her flat so that we could walk over to Earl's Court for the Great British Beer Festival! The festival was so fun- even though Tony and I were mostly hanging out at the American table! Some guy asked me if I had ever had "Budvar" before. Apparently, this is a fancy name for Budweiser. So, after the festival, we hopped on the tube and ate at this awesome Mexican food restaurant with the group and grabbed beers at Brogan's, one of their fav hangouts (where we had lots of Coors Light- and caught Tony staring out the window where we guessed he was missing Mike). I had so much fun with them I didn't want to leave! So I shacked up with Cathy and we all headed to Victoria in the morning. Kara, Tony and Cathy headed to Dover to go to a bed & breakfast on the beach and I was headed back to Oxford.

Saturday night, the girls and I grabbed dinner, and lots of red wine, at this cute little French Brasserie. We had lots of fun talking over a long dinner and made plans for a day trip for Sunday. In the afternoon, we headed out to Blenheim Palace- the birthplace of the cavalier! Kathryn, who also has a cavalier king charles spaniel, and I were really looking forward to all things CKCS. The breed originates from Blenheim- most specifically the orange and white color- the quintessential British lapdog, from whom Ellie could use some manners lessons. Kathryn said they must have seen a dozen on their Cotswolds trip. The Palace was amazing! Winston Churchill's birthplace and the home of the Duke of Malborough- and a recent film location for the Young Victoria with Emily Blunt- the rooms were amazingly ornate with gorgeous grounds. Very disappointed that we couldn't take pics inside. But even MORE disappointed that there wasn't any cavalier stuff! We kept a count and did see 6 in the oil paintings but the place seemed to be more dedicated to boring things like Winston Churchill and history. So after walking around the gardens, we headed home and got ready for dinner at this amazing restaurant on the river, The Trout. Kathryn, Jane, and Audrey walked the 4 miles to get there, but Alison and I weren't feeling up to it so we decided to grab a cab and meet them there. Even though I had a whole fish to de-bone, the food was awesome and we had a blast! After dinner, we ordered a bottle of champagne and sat out by the river to celebrate our last week in Oxford. It has really flown by! Everyone is ready to go home and this week is definitely crunch time for final exams but its all very bittersweet. It was definitely a gorgeous night in the English countryside with good friends.

Alex in Wonderland

Yes, I couldn't resist the cheesy title!

After a long week 4, I decided to stay in Oxford for the weekend because I still felt like I really hadn't seen everything I wanted to yet! Audrey's boyfriend Howard came in town Wednesday and we got a group together to go to All Bar One for happy hour wine and apps. The whole group had gone punting down the River Thames- kind of like canoeing meets gondolas! We all went to an amazing dinner at Jaime's Italian (Jaime Oliver's restaurant- time #3 and still yummy!) and then grabbed pints at the White Horse pub. After pencing wars commenced and many pints had to be chugged (if someone drops a pence in your beer, you are required to chug it in order to "save the queen" from drowning), being loud Americans, volume levels escalated- not mine of course because I am a lady- but needless to say, it was clear that we were unwanted in the cute little English pub and needed to find a more suitable venue. So we trekked down to the Turl and sat outside for another round of drinks and after my first Guinness- of which I had to ignore the pence at the bottom- yours truly had to walk home early (or be escorted by Drew) due to one too many pints. Class Thursday morning was not fun, but I got to curl up in bed all afternoon.

Saturday, I spent the day doing touristy things. I visited the Covered Market and bought little gifts for my fam and then walked down the streets to the Museum of Oxford. Snooze. I'm totally a sucker for everything Alice in Wonderland and as it was written here, and based on Christ Church, everything is Alice. LOVE. But the Museum was totally boring so I decided to walk through Christ Church Meadows and see the Alice and Wonderland gardens. In front of the Botanical Gardens is Rose Lane where they have a maze full of all different types of roses. Its absolutely gorgeous and looks like it jumped off the page of a children's book. I toured the Botanical Gardens, which have been there for forever, many scientists and scholars used to go and study and sketch all of the different species, but lets be honest- what girl doesn't love flowers so I took about a million pictures trying to get new backgrounds for my MacBook and my iPhone. There's thousands and thousands of exotic flowers all with small plaques denoting their species, along with ponds and benches and greenhouses and its set up against the river. It was sooo pretty and def one of my new favorite places in the world!

George, Alison and I met up to get dinner at Fire & Stone- delish pizza- and see Inception at the local movie theater. Loved Inception but all of the thinking to try to follow along totally fried my brain! I took Sunday to finally catch up with all of the reading I have been supposed to be doing while I've been here so it was so nice to stay in Oxford and not spend the weekend frantically traveling! And with exams rapidly closing in and papers due every week, honestly I'd like to leave with some decent grades as a souvenir.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2739026&id=4901156&l=902714bc55