Cheers, mates!

This blog chronicles the bloody brilliant, pond-hopping adventures of Kristin Taylor, an English Literature major in the Honors Program at Columbus State University who spent the Fall semester of 2008 studying abroad at the University of Oxford.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

I'm Dreaming of a White . . . October!?

Today has been a very busy day, the greater part of which I spent reading Chaucer in preparation to write my essay, which I plan to do tomorrow. Pretty typical scholastic preparations. And tonight I rode into town to eat dinner at the school, as I do every night. But upon leaving Regent's Park, I noticed that something was very different. It was snowing outside! The white flakes were visible as they fell from the sky. Yes, snowing! In England! In October! Oxford rarely sees snow, so the fact that it would be snowing this early in the year doesn't seem to be such a good sign for cold-natured people like me, who are already fearing the bitter cold that looms ahead. It was so beautiful though, and I have to say that the freezing weather here doesn't feel as cold as freezing weather at home. I'm not sure why that is exactly; maybe it has something to do with the humidity in Georgia (and thus, a higher level of moisture in the air). And that's not to say it's not cold here -- because it is -- it just doesn't feel as cold at this temperature here as it would at home. But I rode home on my bike with huge snowflakes pelting me in the face, smearing water and ice all over my glasses, and every minute of it was exhilirating. I just couldn't stop smiling, and I walked in the front door of the Spencer House, completely soaked, and all I could say was, "It's snowing!" And the large group of people in the dining room (Phil had a bunch of his friends over tonight for dinner) just laughed. Brandon said, "Looks like you had a nice bike ride." And it's kind of funny because a few days before I left, I got the idea to check out the Wikipedia article on Oxford, just to see what it said. And the only picture was of a collection of bike racks covered in several inches of snow. One of my friends laughed at me and told me that I was going to freeze. So later I asked Sally if that was typical Oxonian weather, and she said no, that it had never snowed the entire time she was there, and the only reason there were so many pictures of Oxonian bikes covered in snow is because it is such a rare occurrence in Oxford. Funny, then, that I would get to experience the exception to the average Oxonian October. "Typical," the British would say (according to Kate Fox at least), "How typical!"

No comments: