Day 1 - April 25th

The plane trip was uneventful, especially since I slept for about 4-1/2 hours of the time. I used “Will and Grace” as my sleeping pill....I tried to watch it 3 times and fell asleep every time. Never did see the end of the episode.


Day 2 - April 26th

My plane arrived about 15 minutes early and I made it through Customs without any problems....guess I don’t look like a smuggler. As I walked out, Michael waved and pointed urgently for me to hurry. The reason was that a bus for Oxford was due to leave THEN. Unfortunately, we were 3 minutes too late and had to wait for the next bus (about an hour later).

The bus trip took about 2 hours (1 of which we slept). As we were coming into Oxford we saw the “Shark in the House”. I looked it up on the internet and found out that it was a protest art that was put up in August, 1986. The man who commissioned it was an American who was studying law at Balliol College. It was erected on the 41st anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, and was supposed to symbolize “impotence, anger and desolation”. Apparently the Oxford City Council tried for years to get rid of it, but they cant find any regulations that would make it illegal.

We walked to our house which was not easy since we had HEAVY rolling suitcases and they don’t pull well on cobblestone roads. The house we are living in is called “Postmaster’s Hall” and apparently was the place where the Merton College scholars (called Postmasters) lived up until 1575. We are going to try to find out how old the original structure is. We have laughed at the house since there doesn’t appear to be a single 90 degree angle in the entire place. Sometimes it makes you a bit dizzy!! The top floor (where the bedrooms are) have low ceilings and exposed beams so we both have to be careful not to hit our heads.

We walked to the local mall and did some grocery shopping and came home and fixed a most welcomed meal. After a short nap I walked back to another store (Marks & Spencer) and bought a few other items that we had forgotten, including some fresh baked Devon Scones to have for breakfast.

By 7pm I was falling asleep as I was typing, so we went to bed and slept until 7am.