Westwood Country Hotel Ltd Oxford

Right...23 Days to go!! Not long now since i started counting at 385!!!
Only 10 actual days of my "real" work left to do then i'm out of here! I can't actually belive i'm going it somehow does not seem real!
I think the nerves are setting in and the waves of happiness and fear come and Go!!!!!
I never though for a minute i would leave the comfort of a perfectly good job, home and my family and friends to travel on my own ...

With time rapidly dwindling I went down to Banbury way this afternoon to visit my brother et famille before I leave, taking the opportunity to say goobye to two young nephews - one of whom was able to appreciate some of the implications of what I am doing, "But what if you get sick?" he asked. :-)

Back up to Stoke in the late evening. Last day of preparations tomorrow.

... hall of our hotel
- Room parties (very annoying and inconsiderate)
- A certain someone continuously groping certain females, even though his girlfriend was on tour (and most of the said females loving it)
- The same certain someone continuously taking photos of girls boobs and other private parts (and the girls loving it)

Interesting Moments
- Wife-swapping
- Interesting navigation on the bus (ie remember the journey from Rome after dinner ...

... end of the tour (anonymously). All the pieces of paper get collected by the Tour Manager and he read them out. It was pretty funny, for example, one of the secrets was that one of the guys was so randy in Pisa, he decided to go to the toilets and relieve himself instead of actually seeing the leaning tower. Not quite what I was expecting!

We made it back to London around 7pm, said our goodbyes ...

Saturday was fantastically uneventful. I slept in, and had lunch at about 2:30pm at the nearby covered market. I wandered from there and had a drink at the Eagle & Child. The Eagle & Child (colloquially known as "the bird and the babe") is a very famous pub at which C.S. Lewis, J.R.R Tolkien, and their friends used to meet to discuss their writings, in a group they called "The Inklings." I later returned there for dinner, and sat in the same place that ...

... a cuppa tea" just for fun! A rest in the room in which the dinner and the sherry and red wine put me to sleep for a bit. At 3:45 we met the chapel organist at Queens, Mr. Reese, who showed us the 1968 Frobenius organ and let me play a few hymns. The dean of the chapel had been Jim's host at High Table the previous week. From there we went back to the room, changed our clothes, and ...

... pound. We were all elated to finally visualize how our budget was going to survive during the semester. Shopping it seems will a bi-weekly activity in Europe, considering how foolish we all felt carrying our heavy orange grocery bags down the street like self-conscious, ducks in a row. The rule in Europe is minimize rather than prepare for later. We have all decided that either the people here walk all the time or don't eat, or some combination of both ...

... tradtions. But these traditions can't be circumvented by using glass plates. Tonight was Matriculation Dinner. The point, dress smart, show up, sit with fellows and try to act impressive. So there I was, sitting trying to act impressive when one of the servers comes to my section and asked in the same way one would ask for a doctor on an airplane "I need an archaeologist!!!" I never clout a chance to say that "indeed, I am an archaeologist," and ...

... Just too many things you need to print and especially useful for getting documents for bank accounts and our national numbers which required scans of our passports and visas. We only paid £30 and have got enough use out of it already to make it worthwhile. Also still got my webcam ready so once we have a steady internet and aren't stealing from the neighbours anymore we can start doing some webcam phone calls. I might need to pick up a headset but shouldn't be that much and ...

Amesbury B&B (near Larkhill) Ricki: I'll have to be totally honest with you here - it's now 3 days later and the memory of Thursday 23 September is a little hazy but I'll give it a go. We've had a rather busy weekend. Just a comment about our turning up at Jordan's - to expand a little on Alex's comments about half the population of Australia choosing to accommodate themselves in our hostel that night ...