Winter Light: White Night Oxford

Last night I went out with a group of friends to check out the Winter Light: White Night event in Oxford. It's an annual event where some stores stay open late (7pm!) and museums and art galleries open their doors for free.

I met up with Janick, Karen and Kaori at Gloucester Green, where some artists were setting up for an art sale. We went to the Ashmolean Museum first to check out some harpsichord music. Here we are in front of the museum.


Later we met up with Nina and Vinita for dinner by Oxford Castle. There were some neat ice carvings out, and we even saw one ice carver in action!


Here are some of the finished ice sculptures:


Then we went and checked out the Broad Street area where they had some kind of giant light-up inflatable cones on display. There was weird music/sounds playing from underneath each of the cones, and they changed color from red to green, yellow and blue. We weren't really sure what to think of them, but I suppose it was something to see!

We ended our night at the Museum of Natural History, with a glass of "hot squash", which we found out is half juice and half hot water. It's not bad, especially if you've been walking around the the cold for a while! The museum had some really great stuff on display, so I'd like to go back when it's not so crowded!

This is going to be a tough week for everyone, as it is exam time! All of the students are pretty stressed out, especially since most of them have been away from school for a while and aren't used to taking exams. Everyone I have talked to has said their husband or boyfriend has started growing a beard because they are spending so much time studying!

Templeton Opera Night

This quarter's formal event for Templeton College was called Opera Night. It was held at Paul's college about 2 miles away from where we live. I don't think we've explained the college system on the blog yet, but basically students at Oxford go to classes at Oxford, but all must also be a member of a college, which operates kind of like a fraternity. The college provides housing and hosts events throughout the year, in exchange for several thousand dollars membership fee.

At Opera night, a real opera singer entertained us during the cocktail hour and during dinner. After dinner, there was an after party with a DJ and dancing. The food was really tasty and it was so nice to get dressed up all fancy for a night!

Here we are at cocktail hour with our friends Sun and TJ. Their little girl is about 8 months old, and she is so cute!

And here's what the table looked like:

Templeton is so cool they even have their own bottled water!


Us at the table

Two Polish guys named Pawel

Thanksgiving in England

No, the English do not celebrate Thanksgiving. And you can't buy canned (or as they call it "tinned") pumpkin here to make pumpkin pies. But, despite these setbacks, we celebrated a legitimate Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings. A big thanks goes to our friends Brady & Amanda for hosting the event at their fancypants non-student apartment (no Brillo pad rugs there!).


While our husbands were in school, Amanda, Danalisa and I prepared the turkey. Somehow I got the job of cleaning out the turkey, which was an adventure! Jodi had some friends visiting, so she missed out on the turkey experience.


We managed to have a great spread; Danalisa & Steve did mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes, Jodi made green beans & stuffing, I made cranberry sauce and corn bread pudding, and Amanda managed to acquire some canned pumpkin from her mother-in-law when she visited, so she made homemade pumpkin pie for us all! Yum!

I think the two most remarkable things that happened that night were 1) Brady solved a Rubik's cube in 2.5 minutes, and 2) Millie (who's 2 years old) liked the olives I brought so much that she stuck one on each finger and showed them off to everyone!

Paul and I have a lot to be thankful for this year, for our marriage, our families, and our old friends and our new friends here in Oxford!