Loaded chamber

My preliminary travel schedule:

7/14-7/17: London
7/21-7/23: Dublin
7/28-7/30: Amsterdam
8/4-8/6: London, Edinburgh
8/11-8/14: Paris

If all goes according to these very tenuous and unratified plans, that's the order in which I'll be seeing those cities.

I am finding it increasingly difficult to obtain a well-rested night. For example, yesterday I woke up at 7:00, more than an hour before I need arise, but only 5 hours since I went to bed. I have two theories as to the cause of this problem: my bed is very hard, and makes returning to sleep once you've woken up somewhat of a chore; and it's very bright here early in the morning.

Yesterday was also the first "real" day of classes since Monday's were more of the "here's your syllabus, now state your name" type. I was readily absorbed in both classes, and both seem like they will be fantastic learning experiences, if not barriers to my total freedom. There was a moment during Anne's class in which I had a mini-realization. Listening to the conversation over Bleak House, and copying down my notes, I suddenly felt calm. Settled. I had a routine now, to counterbalance the mad rush of new euphoric pleasures and resettlement that bombards and disorients you when you arrive in a totally foreign environment. It was as if my whole world were placed in a cannon and shot into the air, and all the pieces were finally falling into a proper place.

After class, some of us (Erin, Adam, Josh, Colin, and Spencer) tried out the Indian food restaurant across the street from Brasenose. We discovered we're all burgeoning cineastes, and at least one of us was a scotch connoisseur, so naturally we decided to watch a Hong Kong New Wave film whilst gasolining our throats. It took us almost an hour to find glasses, but at the very least, I obtained a decent walking knowledge of Oxford, and where two malls are. The malls of Oxford were built in 1329, and ransacked by the Moors soon thereafter, during which pillaging, Ye Olde Navy was sadly burned to the ground, but not before playing host to the brutal massacre of over one million football moms. The English won back the malls of Oxford in 1512, during the Great Red Apple Sale; however, it appears as though all silverware had been removed, to be replaced by something called 'cutlery,' which does not include Scotch glasses.

We watched In the Mood for Love, a Wong Kar-wai film I'd been wanting to see for a few months. It was fantastic, but I don't like scotch.

I got another tour of Oxford when I went out a little after 9 to find batteries for my camera. Everything here closes very early, so I had to walk a ways to find a Sainsbury (grocery store) where I could buy my batteries. On the way there, I found a Borders that was still open, and so I popped in there, and discovered that many books published here have completely different covers than their counterparts back home. I had never really thought of this, being mentally underwhelming, so it was a neat reminder of the subtle differences that often are lost amidst the enormous ones.

Today we are going to London to see some of the locales important to Bleak House, the Sir John Soane Museum, the Dickens House Museum, Harrod's, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. I'm either going to be late to class, or very pungently punctual, if I don't end this here.

I leave you with an image from Stourhead: