As I type these words, I am listening to "Hey, Jude." England, folks, has sunk its hooks into me. I'm getting to love it a little more each day, but that might be because the weather is improving somewhat.
As promised, I will go into a bit more detail about the ball last Friday. After rushing back from my fencing class, I took the world's fastest shower and struggled to make myself presentable after an hour and a half of sweating in very old fencing equipment. Some of the other Americans arrived at the house where we chatted, took pictures (sadly the camera was lost at the dance, so they may never make an appearance on Facebook) and ate a quick snack. We all trooped over to the Union and queued to get inside. The library had made a transformation from a serious and austere building, into a darkly inviting retreat. Once inside, we explored a little, visiting a room upstairs where people played blackjack, roulette and poker. My friend and I quickly lost our gratis bag of plastic chips at the blackjack table. Apparently, dressing like characters from a James Bond film does not give you Casino Royale skills. A restaurant called The Mission (Chipotle, by another name) catered with made to order burritos. In a large tent, lit with chandeliers of black stones, a guitarist played Jason Mraz and Jimmy Buffet, later followed by an acapella group called The Oxford Gargoyles. In a large chamber leading from the tent, usually reserved for the famous Oxford Union debates, a large jazz band blared its music to swaying dancers. Later, towards the end of the night, this room held a ballroom exhibition (very awesome!!!!) and a silent disco. What is a silent disco? That's what I wanted to know, upon first hearing that phrase. This sort of thing involves a pair of headphones for each of the dancers, with two or three music channels to choose between. Everyone wears these headphones and dances around for a while, which looks really insane if you can't hear the music. One of the only downsides to the ball was that there weren't enough headphones for all of the participants. As we left, the clouds opened fire and sent us back in a torrent of rain. Usually, I would have found this extremely irksome, but somehow it was a perfectly whimsical end to the ball. I may or may not have been singing "If you like Pina Coladas" in my head all the way back to Faulkner Street.
Other than a spectacular night last Friday, things haven't been too crazy. Sunday night, I stayed up a little too late planning a takeover of a small island country called Sealand with the folks on Trinity Street. Apparently, this place makes money by selling titles to people who have always wanted to add "Duke," "Count" or "Lord" (or all of the female equivalents) to their names. Not an impressively beautiful country, just an oil rig in the Atlantic. But if it is what you call home, by all means, what is a more creative way to make money than selling titles? Oh, wait, I'm pretty sure Louis XIV did that, too (History nerd joke, KingSu'd be proud). Speaking of History, on Wednesday, I had a French tutorial that started on how much one French newspaper hates David Cameron's policy on tree preservation, then somehow got onto the Hapsburgs and their jaws, hemophilia, and Queen Victoria's intense procreation. All in French. Then a tutorial today about Tom Stoppard's plays, after which I wandered in and out of book shops and enjoyed the precious sunshine.
Tomorrow, fencing as usual, although afterwards, I will once again frantically get ready for an exciting evening. I've been invited to one of the Oxford college's formal dinners. This should be a very cool event, but I have no idea what to expect. At one of the local department stores (think an English Dillard's), I managed to find a really fantastic emerald green dress that will hopefully fit the occasion. Wish me luck!
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