The Last Hurrah in Oxford

It's taken me a while to post since we left Oxford! The most notable thing about moving out was the huge amount of waste. Our apartment trash building was literally overflowing - probably three or four dumpsters worth of perfectly good, usable household goods and clothes thrown out because people couldn't take them overseas or wherever they were going, and didn't know where to go to donate them. Luckily our friends Mikki and Brian were staying in England, and they were able to use a bunch of our household goods and appliances, so that worked out great. They were nice enough to host us for two days between when we got kicked out of student housing and when our cruise left. I'll put up a separate post about the cruise, so for this one, I'll focus on our last few days in Oxford.

We moved out on Monday 15 Sept, and I worked until Friday 12 Sept, when there was a big end-of-year formal dinner at the Oxford Spires Hotel just outside the city center.

From ClosingCeremony - Sept 2008

Here's Paul with 3/4 of his team from their summer project in Munich.

From ClosingCeremony - Sept 2008

And here's nearly all of my girl group - I miss them so much!

From ClosingCeremony - Sept 2008

And I love this couple picture! We've got Tetsuya and Kaori (from Japan), Adrian and Alina (from Romania), Brian and Mikki (USA) and us!

From ClosingCeremony - Sept 2008

The next day there was a closing ceremony for the students at Templeton College. Their actual graduation doesn't happen until a later date because there is limited space at each graduation ceremony and the whole class can't go at once. It's kind of a strange system, but it keeps with the tradition of having graduation in the Sheldonian Theater. Paul scheduled his for next August.

So, here we are on the way to the party, standing by the Said Business School's ox (get it? OX-ford). I saw this thing every day on my way back from work.

From ClosingCeremony - Sept 2008

And here's Paul with some classmates all dressed up in their subfusc (and perhaps a future Oxford student in the mix)

From ClosingCeremony - Sept 2008

During the ceremony, they had some speeches and then called each student's name and had some hand-shaking. The speech theme seemed to be poetry, and the "taking the road less traveled" one was emphasized in more than one, if I recall correctly. I suppose you can't argue with that since not all that many people go to Oxford. Overall, it was pretty much the same as any graduation ceremony I've been to, only this one was nice and short (any of my Wellesley classmates may remember that our ceremony went over schedule by 4 hours in a hot tent). Here's Paul's hand-shaking in action:

From ClosingCeremony - Sept 2008

And here's Paul afterwards with an objet d'art in the Templeton garden

From ClosingCeremony - Sept 2008

And here we both are outside - it was an unusually nice day!

From ClosingCeremony - Sept 2008

After the ceremony, we realized we'd have to start and finish packing and cleaning out our apartment in the next day and a half, but we made time for one last dinner out with some friends.

From ClosingCeremony - Sept 2008

The Enchanted Forest at St Cross College

This Thursday night we went to a ball at St Cross College. I don't know much about the college itself, but I do know that they throw a great party! Our friends Mikki and Brian went as well, and we all had a blast with dinner dancing and entertainment.

The thing with Oxford colleges is that they don't look like much from the outside, but on the inside they all (for the most part) have a gorgeous courtyard which is just perfect for parties, especially as the weather is getting warmer.

Here we are at the start of the party. They put these neat fairytale mushrooms all over the place. There's something I just love about little red mushrooms with white spots - in fact, I bought a little pottery one in a small village in France called Maury on our honeymoon.. you'll learn the connection later in this story...


After the cocktail reception in the courtyard, we went inside for dinner. The dining hall was actually pretty modern for Oxford, but nice and bright. Here's me and Mikki at the table:


Here's Paul with some of his Oxford school mates


The dinner consisted of a pureed vegetable soup for the starter, bacon-wrapped chicken with lentils and wild mushrooms for the main, and some kind of chocolate trifle for dessert. BUT - the highlight brings us back to France to that little village called Maury. Paul and I thought we'd never be able to find their sweet nectar outside of France, but much to our delight, it was served as a digestif after the meal! We had brought a bottle of it from our honeymoon to Mikki & Brian's murder mystery party last week, so it was really funny that they served it there! Anywhere, here's me with the wine after dinner (we may have had seconds and thirds of it!)


Us with some of the creatures roaming about...


And the night wouldn't be complete without another cute mushroom picture!


And for real bizarre-ness, a picture with the fantasy tree/vine/foliage people:

The last Templeton Ball - Bon Voyage

A couple weeks ago, we went to the last Templeton ball, not just our last, but the last ever. Templeton is merging with Green College, so Templeton Collegeas we know it will no longer exist after this year. The theme was 'bon voyage'

Here's me with Danalisa at the champagne reception, though she didn't have any champagne since she's expecting! I don't get to see my 'mommy' friends nearly enough since I'm on a work schedule and they're on kid schedule, but we're hoping to plan a girls night/afternoon before Danalisa and Jodi go back to the US in July!

Here's me and Paul at the dinner table. We got a table in the outside patio under the tent, which was really nice! We've had so little nice weather here it's great to take advantage whenever we can!And here's everyone at the table in the tent - from left to right, Kaori & Tetsuya, Vinita & Varun, Alina & Adrian, and I'm actually not sure who the other two are, but they're studying computer science and were very nice.




After the dinner they had dancing and cotton candy (here it's called candy floss). The cotton candy was really tempting, so Paul and I both had some, but it wasn't the best idea to eat that and then go dancing! But we had fun nonetheless!

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